Parenting Styles and Athletic Success in Chinese Families: A Longitudinal Study

Abstract

Parenting styles comprise a range of methods that parents use to raise their children, including authoritative, authoritarian and permissive ways. The various parenting methods have a substantial effect on an individual's overall development, reshaping their behavior and social aptitude. Within the domain of athletic accomplishment, the interaction between parental approaches and a child's sports performance is a complicated area of research. Parenting encouragement improves a child's athletic experience by developing their desire. This study investigates the relationship between parenting methods and athletic success as well as how parenting influences the athletic development of children in Chinese families. The data-gathering process used a multi-stage methodology in prominent major cities in China. Parenting methods and athletic accomplishments were evaluated through the administration of self-reported questionnaires. We gathered a primary dataset consisting of 201 individuals, including 73 males and 128 females. The Perceptions of Sport Specialization Scale (PSSS), a 21-item scale with a range of scores of 1 to 4, was used to evaluate parental perspectives on the athletic involvement of children. Multivariate analysis of variance (MANOVA) methods were used to contrast the clusters based on their perspectives of athletic practice. Through the use of cluster analysis, it has been demonstrated that there are four distinct parent groups exhibiting different parenting styles. The results of the MANOVA analysis indicated that those belonging to the highly permissive and highly authoritarian cluster exhibited more encouragement of athletic specialization than those in the highly authoritative cluster.