Parenting practices in guyana and trinidad and tobago: Connections to preschoolers' social and cognitive skills

This report presents the findings of two studies that examined the degrees of parental warmth and control and their associations with children's social and intellectual skills in two groups of Caribbean families. In Study 1, 139 Indo Guyanese mothers reported on their use of maternal warmth and control, and in Study 2, 180 mothers and 180 fathers from diverse ethnic groups in Trinidad reported on their use of warmth and control in parenting their preschool-aged children. In both studies, preschool teachers provided assessments of children's prosocial behaviors, anger, and cognitive skills. Analyses revealed two clusters of Guyanese mothers: one group was high in warmth and low in control and the other was high in warmth and moderately high in control. Identical clusters were found for Trinidadian mothers and fathers as in the Guyanese sample. Trinidadian mothers and fathers were then cross-classified within couples by cluster pattern. Seventy-one percent of couples were similar in their parenting patterns. Only among Guyanese families did children fare differently on social and intellectual skills based on cluster pattern. Data are interpreted in terms of the use of both warmth and behavioral control as prevailing practices in Caribbean cultural communities and their implications for childhood developmental outcomes.