So you think your parents are on your case all the time?
Too strict about things like getting out of bed in the morning, missing your curfew, walking the dog like you promised?
Count yourself lucky you don’t live in France — or heaven forbid, Italy.
Their study, “Adolescents’ perceptions of parental practices: A cross-national comparison of Canada, France, and Italy,” published today in the Journal of Adolescence, looked at the ways parents exert behavioural control and build bonds with their kids in three cities — Montreal, Rennes and Milan.
The cities were chosen because they share common traits, such as a Catholic tradition and advanced industrialization. (And of course, because there were researchers who wanted to look into the topic).
Researchers polled native-born teens who were asked to talk about their relationship with their parents when it came to communication, emotional bonding, discipline, how much they argued and how tolerant they were of their friends and their activities.
According to U de M psychology professor Michel Claes, “parents are perceived as emotionally bonded by teens from all three countries, yet perception of parental control contrasted between Italy and Canada.
“Of all three countries, Italian mothers and fathers are perceived as using the most constraining practices.
“Italian parents are seen as more demanding in rules and authorizations. They take more punitive actions when rules are broken and are less tolerant of peer socialization. They uphold family regulations and require their adolescents to ask for authorizations until a much later age.”
By comparison, Claes said, Canadian parents appear to be most tolerant, had fewer rules and were less likely to take disciplinary action.
“Canadian mothers and fathers were seen as less punitive, less coercive and more tolerant than French and Italian mothers.”
The French style fell somewhere between the two extremes. French fathers were seen as emotionally distant and rigid, but French mothers appeared to get closer to their kids as they matured.
“Our study found parental control is dictated by social codes and culture-specific values, which promote certain parental practices and proscribe others,” said Claes.
He said Canadian parents appear to place a higher value on education which promotes independence and negotiation, while Europeans, and particularly Italian parents, were strong believers in respect for parental authority.