Caribbean and Filipino adolescents' and parents' perceptions of parental authority, physical punishment, and cultural values and their relation to migratory characteristics.

This article describes the perceptions of parents and adolescents of physical punishment in relation to family and migratory characteristics. Adolescents and their parents of Caribbean (n=118) and of Filipino (n=136) heritage responded to questions on their attitude toward physical discipline, their family relations, and their socio-demographic and migratory characteristics. Data analyses show that many Caribbean (78%) and Filipino (41.9%) parents perceive that they should have the right to physically punish their children, while youth disagree with this. The dissonance between parents' and their children's attitudes is related to acculturation factors due to the earlier and more intense exposure of youth to their host society. Further studies should be conducted on the impact of the divergence between parents and their youth's opinions on the actual shifts in power in the parent-child relationship, as well as on immigrant parents' discipline strategies and on the family's adaptation to the challenges of migration.