Perceptions of family functioning among Chinese parents and their adolescent children

Over two consecutive years, parents and their adolescent children from 378 families in Hong Kong responded to the Chinese version of the Self-Report Family Inventory. Results showed that adolescent boys and girls perceived lower levels of family functioning than did their parents, and family functioning at Time 2 was perceived to be lower than that of Time 1. While adolescents' perceptions of family functioning were associated equally strong with the perceptions of either parent, correlations between fathers' and mothers' perceptions of family functioning were generally higher than the correlations between adolescents' perceptions with either parent, particularly for adolescent boys.