The Role of Children's Perception of Parental Behavior in Explaining Internalizing and Externalizing Problems

The purpose of this study was to investigate the role of children's perceptions of mother's and father's parental behavior in explaining specific psychopathological problems among children in early adolescence. Children reported mother's and father's parental behavior by filling the Children's Reports of Parental Behavior Inventory (CRPBI-57, Kerestes, 1999). Their psychopathological problems were assessed by Youth Self-Report (YSR, Achenbach and Rescorla, 2001). This research shows that children's perception of parental behavior, to a large extent, is tied to children's externalized problems, rather than internalized ones. Meanwhile, a mother's psychological control has been shown to be the most significant dimension of parental behavior in predicting both types of children's problems. A child's development is adversely affected by subjective experience of control, that is, a mother's psychological control, which is ossociated with the internalization and externalization of problems in children. Also, children's perception of mother's low emotionality predicts children's externalizing problems. These results shows that children's perception of mother's psychological control turned out to be the most significant dimension of parental behavior in prediction of both types of children's problems, and these figures show that the perception of personal autonomy among children, especially by the mother, in the early adolescence period, is extremely important in the regulation of emotions and behaviour.