Correspondence between mothers' reports, regarding their parenting attitudes, measured by the Block Childrearing Practices Report (Q- Sort) and their actual rearing practices was examined in 68 mothers of young children. The child-Block Q-Sort factors were selected and combined to represent authoritarian/restrictive and authoritative/democratic patterns of parenting attitudes in broader sense. Actual maternal childrearing practices were observed during 90 minutes of naturalistic interactions between the mothers and their children. Maternal verbal and physical control techniques and the children's responses to control (cooperation or resistance) were coded. The authoritarian pattern of attitudes was positively associated with the use of direct commands, physical enforcements, reprimands, and prohibitive interventions, and negatively associated with the use of indirect suggestions. The authoritative pattern was positively related to the use of indirect suggestions and positive incentives, and negativeLy related to the use of physical enforcements, prohibitive interventions and direct commands. The two affective attitudes, measured by the Block Q- Sort: enjoyment of parental role and negative affect towards child, seemed to be more a result of child's cooperation/resistance during the interaction than predictors of mothers' control strategies.
