This research attempted to predict emotional and behavioral problems based on children's assessments of mothers' parental behaviors. The 308 seventh-grade elementary school students from Osijek-Baranja and Varaždin district participated in this research. The data used were obtained in the second wave of the Croatian Science Foundation's project called Child Well-being in the Family Context (CHILD-WELL). The SDQ questionnaire was used to collect data on children's difficulties and the URP29 questionnaire for children's assessment of the mother's parental behaviors. The results of the research show that girls and boys differ regarding the assessment of emotional difficulties, in such a way that boys have fewer emotional difficulties compared to girls. Children's assessments showed that mothers who apply more restrictive control have children who show more emotional and behavioral problems. Also, mothers who express more parental support have children with fewer emotional problems. Maternal permissiveness was not significantly related to any type of child difficulty. Furthermore, children's ratings of mothers' parental support, restrictive control and permissiveness together were shown to statistically significantly predict ratings of emotional and behavioral problems. The mother's restrictive control stood out as a significant predictor of both types of problems. Finally, the existence of a moderating effect of gender in relation to mothers' parenting behavior and children's difficulties was verified. Such a gender effect was significant for the association between children's ratings of mothers' restrictive control and ratings of children's emotional problems, suggesting that the child's female gender enhances the association between those two constructs.