Psychology

Parental provision of structure: Implementation and correlates in three domains

Document Type

Article

Abstract

This study examined parents’ provision of structure, defined as the organization of the environment to facilitate competence, and the degree to which it supports versus controls children’s autonomy, in the domains of homework and studying, unsupervised time, and responsibilities in a diverse sample of sixth-grade children and their parents. Four components of structure and four components of autonomy support were combined into composites that were independent. Parents provided the most structure and least autonomy support in the unsuper-vised domain. Structure was associated with several competence outcomes in the unsupervised domain, whereas relations between autonomy support and outcomes were more prevalent in the other domains. Results suggest the importance of differentiating structure and the way it is implemented and considering the meaning of structure within different domains.

Publication Title

Merrill-Palmer Quarterly

Publication Date

2014

Volume

60

Issue

3

First Page

355

Last Page

384

ISSN

0272-930X

DOI

10.13110/merrpalmquar1982.60.3.0355

Keywords

parental provision, sixth-grade children, autonomy support, unsupervised time

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