Parental influences on toddlers' injury-risk behaviors: Are sons and daughters socialized differently?

Unintentional injuries are the leading cause of childhood mortality beyond 1 year of age. Although buys engage in more risk taking and experience more injuries than girls, there is relatively little known about whether parent s socialize boys and girls differently with respect to risk taking. The aim in the present study was to examine mothers' and fathers communications to sons and daughters during both a free-play episode and their teaching the child a playground behavior (going down a firehouse-type: pole) that posed some threat to safety because of the child's developmental status. The resu lts revealed that mothers and fathers responded similarly to each other, bu t differently to sons and daughters. Coding of verbalizations revealed that sons received more directives, fewer explanations, and more questions comm unicating information about how to perform the pole task than daughters, Co ding of physical contact revealed that parents applied more pressure to son s than daughters to attempt the pole task without physical assistance and p rovided more spontaneous physical assistance to daughters than sons, althou gh there were no sex differences in children's playground skills or their a bilities to complete the task independently. Coding of the free-play episod e yielded results consistent with those from the teaching session. The resu lts suggest that in the course of routine parent-child interactions, parent s communicate to young children in ways that may promote greater risk fakin g by boys than girls and greaser perceived injury vulnerability among girls than boys.