Parenting among Hispanic and non-Hispanic families with young children

Parenting practices and developmental expectations were examined and compared in a sample of 48 Hispanic and 48 non-Hispanic Anglo intact families with very young children in the United States. The two groups were also subdivided by socioeconomic (SES) status resulting in 24 lower SES parents and 24 higher SES parents in each ethnic group. An additional selection criteria of the Hispanic group was acculturation. Only those families who were considered to be culturally and linguistically Hispanic, as measured by a acculturation scale, were included in the sample. The Parent Behavior Checklist (PBC), a 100 item rating scale that measures parents\u27 developmental expectations and their discipline and nurturing practices, was used. Hispanic families completed a Spanish version of the PBC. The reliability of the PBC for the present sample was consistent with that reported for the norms on which the PBC was based. In the present sample, Hispanic families had similar developmental expectations as non-Hispanic Anglo families. Hispanic families used more frequent discipline and less nurturing with their young children than non-Hispanic Anglo families. These findings are consistent with previous research that found Hispanics to have a tendency toward authoritarian/physical child rearing practices. The lower nurturing scores may reflect limitations of the PBC\u27s nurturing subscale with the Hispanic populations. That is, items measuring the nurturing subscale may not reflect the type of nurturing activities commonly expressed by Hispanic parents