Parents' future-oriented practices and adolescents' social adjustment in Chinese urban and rural families.

Decades of research, particularly in Western countries, have demonstrated how general parenting practices, such as autonomy support and control, may shape adolescent development. However, equally important is examining culturally specific parenting practices in non-Western contexts. Parental socialization of adolescents' future orientation (i.e., anticipating and planning for long-term goals) represents a culturally embedded practice through which parents convey socially valued life-span expectations. In societies such as China, where long-term planning and perseverance are strongly emphasized, parents' future-oriented practices may play an important role in adolescents' social adjustment. Using a three-wave longitudinal design, this study investigated whether the initial level and changes of Chinese adolescents' perceived parents' future-oriented practices over time predicted their social adjustment, with attention to similarities and differences in urban and rural families. The sample included 722 Chinese adolescents (55% girls; Mage = 12.87 years; 49% rural residents). Data were obtained from adolescents' self-reports and teacher rating. Results showed that urban adolescents reported a greater initial level of parents' future-oriented practices compared to their rural counterparts. In both regions, higher baseline adolescent-perceived parents' future-oriented practices predicted greater adolescents' prosocial leadership and resistance to peer influence over time, even after accounting for parents' autonomy support and psychological control. Moreover, greater increases in adolescent-perceived parents' future-oriented practices predicted greater prosocial leadership over time among urban but not rural adolescents. The findings highlight the unique role of culturally salient parenting practices in shaping adolescents' social adjustment beyond general parenting dimensions, and underscore the importance of considering urban-rural differences when developing the related interventions. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2026 APA, all rights reserved).