6. Sex Differences in Parent-Child Interaction

My memories of childhood are still repressed (I'm working on it...) and I don't have children, so this article was a bit difficult to relate to. However, I started to think about my best friend and how she and her husband interact with their children. My friend, Cindy, and her daughter, Carmen (age 11), have a very open and honest relationship. There are no secrets and Carmen feels she can tell her mother anything. The same can be said for Cindy and her son, Gabriel (age 7), but I don't know exactly what he feels he has to share with his mother other than that he has a lot of girlfriends (Insomuch that he had to change schools because his girlfriend at the time wouldn't let him break up with her and had another boy threaten Gabriel. He asked to change schools). Their father, Tony, is a quiet man in general and he is not the one either of his children come to with a problem. He is involved in their lives, but communication comes mostly from Cindy. Like in the article, the fathers take a more submissive role when it comes to personal communication and seem to be in control of the structure of punishment and rules. The mothers seem to be the primary form of communication for all members of the family.