Differences between mothers' and fathers' advice-giving style and content: Relations with social competence and psychological functioning in middle childhood

The current study examines the relation between mothers' and fathers' advice-giving style. and content and children's social competence and psychosocial functioning at a single time point and across a 1-year period. Fifty eight 3rd-grade children (50% Euro American, 40% Latina, and 10% African American, Asian American, or other) participated at Time 1, in this, short-term longitudinal study. At Time 2, 46 of these children participated. Parental advice-giving style predicted social competence concurrently and one year later above and beyond content. In addition, results also indicate that fathers' advice giving predicted peer and teacher ratings of social competence over and above mothers' advice giving both concurrently and one year later. Parental advice-giving style was also related to children's psychosocial functioning as measured by self-reports of loneliness and depression.