Concerted Cultivation and Adolescent Psychopathology over Time-Mediation of Parent-Child Conflict

Abstract

Background: Concerted cultivation is a parenting strategy that parents nurture their children intensively by involving heavily in their children’s academic sphere as well as offering them different structured “enrichment” activities so that their children can succeed in the future competitive “rug rat race”. While this parenting strategy has been regarded as an effective strategy to promote child and adolescent development, it is deemed to create stress and anxiety for their children. The present study examined the relationship between concerted cultivation and adolescent psychopathology (indexed by depression and anxiety) via parent–child conflict among Chinese adolescents in Hong Kong over time. Method: A sample of 1570 young adolescents (48.5% girls, mean age at time 1 = 12.6, SD = 0.76) were recruited from 19 secondary schools in Hong Kong. Adolescents were invited to fill out a questionnaire that contained measures of concerted cultivation, parent–child conflict, anxiety and depression in two consecutive years. Results: Results from structural equation modeling showed that higher levels of paternal concerted cultivation were associated with higher levels of adolescent psychopathology via increased father–child conflict over time. However, maternal concerted cultivation was linked to greater mother–child conflict but reduced father-child conflict, which was associated with adolescent psychopathology. Discussion: Rather than regarding concerted cultivation as an effective parenting strategy that promotes adolescent development, the findings indicated that concerted cultivation increased adolescent psychopathology via increased parent–child conflict. The study sheds new light for family practitioners and educators in their awareness of the adverse effects of concerted cultivation and designing appropriate parent education programs for parents.