Spare the rod and save the child: Assessing the impact of parenting on child behaviour and mental health
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.17159/2413-3108/2015/i51a768Keywords:
parenting, children, mental health, parenting practices, intimate partner violence, South Africa, corporal punishmentAbstract
Parenting has a considerable impact on children’s behaviour and mental health. Improving child health and behaviour requires an understanding of the relationship between parenting practices; contexual factors such as
parental mental health, intimate partner violence, substance abuse and poverty; and children’s behaviour. In this article the authors report the findings of a survey of parenting and child behaviour in a small rural South African
community. The findings show that corporal punishment, the stress of parenting and parental mental health are significantly associated with both children’s internalising (depression and anxiety) and externalising (rulebreaking
and aggression) symptoms. Intimate partner violence in the home was also associated with children’s externalising symptoms. These findings imply that parent support and training, and an increase in services to address intimate partner violence and mental health problems, should be prioritised as part of a national
violence reduction strategy.
Downloads
Downloads
Published
Issue
Section
License
Copyright (c) 2015 Author and Institute for Security Studies
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
SACQ is licenced under a creative commons licence (CC BY) that allows others to distribute, remix, tweak, and build upon your work, even commercially, as long a they give appropriate credit, provide a link to the license, and indicate if changes were made. They may do so in any reasonable manner, but not in any way that suggests the licensor endorses you or your use.
Copyright for articles published is vested equally between the author/s, the Institute for Security Studies and the Centre of Criminology (UCT).
.png){kind=spacer}