Advances on Parental Educational Styles Predictors of Internalizing and Externalizing Behaviors in Children

Abstract

The purposes of this study were to perform a psychometric analysis of the Parental Educational Styles Questionnaire and to evaluate its predictive validity on externalizing and internalizing problems in Colombian children. Participants were 680 parents (M= 37.34; SD= 9.2) of children aged between 8 and 12 years enrolled in public schools in Bogota, Colombia. The parental educational styles questionnaire and the child behavior checklist -parents format- were applied to the participants. The resulting model presents the best indicators of favorable fit according to confirmatory factorial analyses. These values show an internal consistence of the instrument. The results indicate that dysfunctional reaction to disobedience, communication difficulties and conflicts predicted internalizing and externalizing problems.