Peer contact patterns, parenting practices, and preschoolers' social competence in China, Russia, and the United States

Research over the past decade has focused on ways that parents enhance or constrain the quantity and quality of their children’s interactions with peers outside of the immediate family context (e.g., Ladd and Hart 1992; Mize et al. 1995; Profilet and Ladd 1994; Russell and Finnie 1990). Much of this work indicates that parenting works in concert with a host of personality, familial, and extrafamilial variables in ways that facilitate or diminish children’s socially competent behaviour with peers (Hart et al. 1997). This line of research is important given evidence suggesting that the quality of peer relations stemming from familial and extrafamilial interpersonal relationships is linked to children’s social/psychological adjustment throughout their lives (e.g., Ladd and Kochenderfer 1996; Rubin et al. 1998).