Parenting and Parenting Behavior

Parenting Styles and Dimensions

As these new parents quickly discovered, becoming a parent is a major life transition that introduces new challenges. Research suggests that having children adds to daily stressors and can have negative impacts on partner and other relationships. At least 20% of new mothers experience postpartum depression, and distress seems to increase for both mothers and fathers across the perinatal period ( ). However, there is wide individual variation, and despite the stress, parents report feeling positive and happy about their new role ( ). Regardless of how they weather the transition to parenthood, parents quickly develop a parenting style that impacts everything from feeding to later school involvement.

Classical models of parenting styles, based on the extensive research of , focused on levels of responsivity and demandingness. These models originally included authoritative, authoritarian, and permissive styles and were later expanded to include a rejecting/neglecting style ( Table 13.1 ). Overall, research has linked authoritative parenting, characterized by high warmth and expectations, with positive child outcomes, but the applicability of these broad parenting styles across cultures and environments is questionable ( ). Some research has indicated that authoritarian parenting styles lead to better child outcomes when families live in high-risk environments and among some ethnic minority immigrant groups. Recent studies of Asian and Middle Eastern parents have indicated that differences occur at the individual rather than the group or societal level, and that, contrary to stereotypes, styles similar to authoritative parenting are predominant across these cultures. Given this variability, recent research has focused on specific domains of parenting, including warmth and demandingness, but also autonomy granting, structure, and others, and how styles and behaviors may change in specific situations. When examined this way, it is clear that parenting styles vary depending on a child’s needs or a parent’s goals and that children’s outcomes show similar variation ( ). Further, focusing on specific domains may provide a better fit across cultures; one study examining parenting domains in Latinx families found that the majority could be classified as protective, similar to the authoritative style in increased sensitivity and expectations, but providing for little autonomy ( ).

Relational Health

Parents and their practices play a critical role in supporting their child’s physical, cognitive, and socioemotional health. Family systems theory recognizes the interconnected, bidirectional relationships between family members and is the basis for the concept of relational health—one’s sense of emotional connectedness to important others (see Chapter 12 ). Early relational health begins in infancy in the parent-child bond and is closely associated with attachment (see Chapter 6 ). It is associated with a number of developmental outcomes across domains, including mental health through adulthood, and is a key predictor of resilience among children who have experienced adversity ( ). Because early relational health is so important for healthy child development, it has become a key focus for both preventive and targeted interventions aimed at improving children’s outcomes. Pediatric primary care has been increasingly utilized as a platform for low-cost, population-level implementation ( Table 13.2 ).

The Role of Fathers

The parenting literature, until recently, has focused primarily on mothers, with the role of fathers left largely unexplored ( ). However, recent research has indicated that father-child relational health is equally important as that of mother-child. Early father involvement is related to a more regulated physiologic stress response (i.e., cortisol reactivity) and executive function in middle childhood ( ), and a recent systematic review found overall positive child outcomes linked to high father involvement. Further, when fathers are disengaged during interactions, children are more likely to develop early externalizing behaviors ( ). These findings highlight the important role fathers play in child health and development, and suggest that consideration should be given to all parents and other caregivers in understanding influences on children’s development within the family system.

Parenting in Infancy

Parents of newborns or neonates, those in the first 28 days following birth, face unique challenges that accompany this developmental time period because human infants are not self-sufficient in any capacity and require care in all areas for survival. In fact, parenting responsibilities are arguably the greatest during infancy, from birth into the second year of life, because they involve round-the-clock care, including feeding, diapering, cleaning, and comforting infants who have not yet learned how to self-soothe.

Infants are particularly susceptible to the experiences present in their home and other environments due to rapid changes in early brain development. The large degree of brain plasticity during the 0- to 12-month period means that parents have the capacity to exert a great deal of influence on children’s development. These issues are of particular interest because parents spend markedly more time in interactions with their infants than with their children during other developmental periods.

In the following sections we address three key parenting issues during infancy, including breastfeeding, infant sleep, and establishing routines around reading, talking, and play.