A Longitudinal Study of Power-Assertive Discipline, Inductive Discipline and Preschoolers’ Anxiety: Preschoolers’ Forgiveness as a Moderator

Existing studies on parental discipline have largely focused on its effects on child’s compliance and internalization, with few studies on its emotional outcomes in children. Using data collected over a 1-year period on a stratified random sample of 368 parents with children studying in nurseries (mean age = 3.97 years), this study assessed the predictive effects of parent reports of power-assertive discipline, inductive discipline, and preschoolers’ forgiveness on preschoolers’ anxiety symptoms in Hong Kong, China. Results of hierarchical regression analyses showed that parent reports of preschoolers’ anxiety symptoms at Time 2 were positively predicted by both strong power-assertive discipline and mild power-assertive discipline at Time 1. Moreover, the prospective relation between mild power-assertive discipline and preschoolers’ anxiety symptoms was moderated by preschoolers’ forgiveness. This study extended previous research on power-assertive discipline by showing that strong power-assertive discipline and mild power-assertive discipline are two distinct forms of discipline, which independently exert adverse impacts on preschoolers’ mental well-being. Further, this study demonstrated that the preschoolers’ trait forgiveness can protect them against anxiety in the face of mild power-assertive discipline.