This longitudinal study examines the relationships between perceived parenting characteristics and parent-adolescent conflict in a sample of Chinese adolescents (N = 378). Results showed that global parenting styles (concern and harshness) and specific parenting behavior (responsiveness and demandingness) were concurrently related to parent-adolescent conflict at Time 1 and Time 2. Longitudinal analyses showed that the relations between parenting characteristics and parent-adolescent conflict across time are bidirectional in nature. For the linkage between parenting quality at Time 1 and changes in parent-adolescent conflict at Time 2, early parenting quality predicted parent-adolescent conflict in adolescent girls but not in adolescent boys. Although parent-adolescent conflict at Time 1 generally predicted changes in parenting quality at Time 2, some parental differences in the strength of association between the two domains were found.
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