The interactional teaching patterns of 36 fathers and mothers with their 6-year-old sons and daughters were studied. Parents were asked to play (in parent-child dyads) with their child on a jigsaw puzzle and to teach the child to remember 25 picture cards that could be divided into conceptual categories. It was found that parents' instructional behaviors did not differ as a function of their own sex but rather on the basis of their child's gender. Parents attempted to teach their sons more general problem-solving strategies, and were both more directive and more approving or disapproving of sons than of daughters. Female children, by contrast, were interacted with in a more cooperative, concrete, and specific fashion than were male children and were given more feedback about their performance. In addition, the teaching interaction was found to be effective in terms of helping the child remember more items than were recalled without training. Several explanations for these sex of child effects are proposed. (Autnor/RH)