Influencing factors on mothers' parenting style of young children at risk for developmental delay in South Korea: The mediating effects of parenting stress

• We examine the characteristics of children to predict parenting style in South Korea.
• We focus on young children with or at-risk for developmental delay in South Korea.
• Children's levels of development do not explain the variance of parenting style.
• Parenting stress mediates between the child's temperament and parenting style.
• Social support directly influences mothers' parenting style in South Korea.

Parenting style is regarded as one of the most significant factors for children's development, especially for children with or at risk of developmental delay. Due to the importance of parenting style, this study explored factors that affect the parenting style in families with children at risk for or with developmental delay in South Korea. Guided by the Transactional Model of Development and the Belsky's Model of Parenting, this study specifically addressed the influence that parent, child, and social context characteristics have on parenting style. This study is a secondary data analysis of 470 mothers who participated in the second wave of the Panel Study on Korean Children conducted in 2009. The results showed that mother's employment, mother's age, parenting stress, and social support were significantly related to mother's parenting style. There were two major implications. First, early intervention programs need to provide services to both parents and children in order to improve children's outcomes. Second, mothers of children at risk of developmental delay need to be encouraged to participate as active agents in their children's development.