Objective   To know about the situation of parent-child communication in nuclear families in Shanghai, and to explore its influential factors so as to provide scientific supports for the future education and intervention.

  Methods   Stratified sampling was used to choose 644 core families in 57 communities that belonged to 2 streets of Xuhui district, Shang hai.The core family was defined as a family consisted of a couple and at least one children aged 10 years or above, unmarried, and living with their parents.Structured questionnaire was used in the sur vey, and SAS8.2 was used in the data analysis.

  Results   As to the time for parent-child communication, 4 to 7 hours per week came to be first.Almost half of the parents "speak as they like" while talking with the children.Parents mostly communicated with children during mealtime at the table accounted for nearly three-fourth.The majority of parents felt relaxed when communicate with their children.Mothers communicated better with children than fathers did.Influential factors of communication between mother and children included mother's education level, monthly income, child age, communication time and communication occasions.While factors influenced father's communication with children were communication time and communication occasions.

  Conclusion   It was not be too optimistic about the current situation of parent-child communication, especially about the communication between father and children, which was not enough.The enthusiasm and the scientificalness of communication were scarce, and the way to communicate was rather simple.Advocacy and education to parents, particularly to fathers, should be implemented to change their perception on the way of children education, and to prompt effective parent-child communication.Attention should be paid to parental training on communication skill and to various kinds of education that were suitable for families of different character istics, so that communication between parents and children could be effectively improved and family education could be carried out appropriately.