ABSTRACT
OBJECTIVES: The purpose of this study is to evaluate the problem behaviors of adolescents and to discriminate between parenting behaviors of problem behavior groups and those of non-problem behavior group. METHODS: The subjects of this study were 792 high school students in Seoul. We administered 'Parenting Behavior Inventory' and Korean version of Youth Self-Report(K-YSR) to the subjects in order to evaluate the parenting behaviors perceived by adolescents and the problem behaviors of adolescents. We analyzed the relationship between parenting behaviors and problem behaviors. We classified the subjects into problem behavior groups(internalizing group, externalizing group, internalizing-externalizing group) and a non-problem behavior(normal) group. We studied the differences of parenting behaviors among the groups. RESULTS: The results are as follows. 1) There were significant negative correlations between the positive parenting behaviors such as affection, reasoning, and monitoring and the problem behaviors of adolescents. By contrast, there were significant positive correlations between the negative parenting behaviors such as physical abuse, intrusiveness, over-expectation, neglect, and inconsistency and the problem behaviors of adolescents. 2) Adolescents of the internalizing group perceived significantly more parental abuse, intrusiveness, over-expectation, neglect, and inconsistency than those of normal group. Meanwhile, they perceived significantly less affection than normal adolescents. Adolescents of the externalizing group also perceived significantly more parental abuse, intrusiveness, over-expectation, neglect, and inconsistency than those of normal group. Also, they perceived significantly less monitoring than normal adolescents. 3) Adolescents of the internalizing-externalizing group perceived significantly more intrusiveness from both parents than those of either the internalizing or the externalizing groups. Adolescents of the internalizing-externalizing group perceived significantly less affection and more neglect from their mothers than those of the internalizing or the externalizing groups. In addition, adolescents of the internalizing-externalizing group perceived significantly more physical abuse from their fathers than those of the internalizing or the externalizing groups. CONCLUSION: Parenting behaviors such as abuse, intrusiveness, over-expectation, neglect, and inconsistency are associated with both internalizing and externalizing problems. In contrast, our results suggest that parenting behaviors such as affection, monitoring, and reasoning might decrease the various problem behaviors of adolescents.