The purpose of this study is to explore various environmental factors that explain parenting practices. Those factors considered are stress and characteristics of single-mother/child together with psychological distress experienced by the single mother. A total of 285 poor single mothers with a child attending elementary school or junior high school completed a structured questionaire. The relationships among the variables were analyzed by the path analysis. The results showed that poor single mothers rely on affectiv $e^portive involvement more frequently then punitive/inconsistent discipline. It is also confirmed that the enviromental factors such as financial stress living environmental stress and job status play important roles in determining the quality of parenting practices with the mediating role of psychological distress.ss.