Handbook of Parenting

HANDBOOK OF PARENTING
This highly anticipated third edition of the Handbook of Parenting brings together an array of field-leading
experts who have worked in different ways toward understanding the many diverse aspects of parenting.
Contributors to the Handbook look to the most recent research and thinking to shed light on topics every
parent, professional, and policymaker wonders about. Parenting is a perennially “hot” topic. After all, everyone
who has ever lived has been parented, and the vast majority of people become parents themselves. No wonder
bookstores house shelves of “how-to” parenting books, and magazine racks in pharmacies and airports
overflow with periodicals that feature parenting advice. However, almost none of these is evidence-based.The
Handbook of Parenting is. Period. Each chapter has been written to be read and absorbed in a single sitting, and
includes historical considerations of the topic, a discussion of central issues and theory, a review of classical
and modern research, and forecasts of future directions of theory and research. Together, the five volumes in
the Handbook cover Children and Parenting, the Biology and Ecology of Parenting, Being and Becoming a
Parent, Social Conditions and Applied Parenting, and the Practice of Parenting.
Volume 1, Children and Parenting, considers parenthood as a functional status in the life cycle: Parents
protect, nurture, and teach their progeny, even if human development is more dynamic than can be determined
by parental caregiving alone.Volume 1 of the Handbook of Parenting begins with chapters concerned with how
children influence parenting. Notable are their more obvious characteristics, like child age or developmental
stage; but subtler ones, like child gender, physical state, temperament, mental ability, and other individual
differences factors, are also instrumental. The chapters in Part I, on Parenting Across the Lifespan, discuss
the unique rewards and special demands of parenting children of different ages and stages—infants, toddlers,
youngsters in middle childhood, and adolescents—as well as the modern notion of parent–child relationships
in emerging adulthood, adulthood, and old age. The chapters in Part II, on Parenting Children of Varying
Status, discuss common issues associated with parenting children of different genders and temperaments as
well as unique situations of parenting adopted and foster children and children with a variety of special needs,
such as those with extreme talent, born preterm, who are socially withdrawn or aggressive, or who fall on the
autistic spectrum, manifest intellectual disabilities, or suffer a chronic health condition.
Marc H. Bornstein holds a BA from Columbia College, MS and PhD degrees from Yale University, and
honorary doctorates from the University of Padua and University of Trento. Bornstein is President of the
Society for Research in Child Development and has held faculty positions at Princeton University and New
York University as well as academic appointments in Munich, London, Paris, New York, Tokyo, Bamenda,
Seoul,Trento, Santiago, Bristol, and Oxford. Bornstein is author of several children’s books, videos, and puzzles
in The Child’s World and Baby Explorer series, Editor Emeritus of Child Development and founding Editor of
Parenting: Science and Practice, and consultant for governments, foundations, universities, publishers, scientific
journals, the media, and UNICEF. He has published widely in experimental, methodological, comparative,
developmental, and cultural science as well as neuroscience, pediatrics, and aesthetics.
HANDBOOK OF PARENTING
Volume 1: Children and Parenting
Third Edition
Edited by Marc H. Bornstein

Third edition published 2019
by Routledge
52 Vanderbilt Avenue, New York, NY 10017
and by Routledge
2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon, OX14 4RN
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business

© 2019 Taylor & Francis
The right of Marc H. Bornstein to be identified as the author of the
editorial material, and of the authors for their individual chapters, has been
asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs
and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or
utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now
known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in
any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing
from the publishers.
Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or
registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation
without intent to infringe.
First edition published by Laurence Erlbaum Associates 1995
Second edition published by Taylor and Francis 2002
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
A catalog record has been requested for this book
ISBN: 978-1-138-22865-8 (hbk)
ISBN: 978-1-138-22866-5 (pbk)
ISBN: 978-0-429-44084-7 (ebk)
Typeset in Bembo
by Apex CoVantage, LLC
For Marian and Harold Sackrowitz
CONTENTS
Preface to the Third Edition ix

About the Editor xiv
About the Contributors xvi
PART I
Parenting Across the Lifespan 1
1 Parenting Infants 3
Marc H. Bornstein
2 Parenting Toddlers 56
Marjolein Verhoeven, Anneloes L. van Baar, and Maja Deković
3 Parenting During Middle Childhood 81

W. Andrew Collins and Stephanie D. Madsen
4 Parenting Adolescents 111

Bart Soenens, Maarten Vansteenkiste, and Wim Beyers
5 Parenting Emerging Adults 168

Laura M. Padilla-Walker and Larry J. Nelson
6 Parent–Child Relationships in Adulthood and Old Age 191

Karen L. Fingerman, Steven H. Zarit, and Kira S. Birditt
vii
Contents
PART II
Parenting Children of Varying Status 217
7 Parenting Siblings 219

Mark E. Feinberg, Susan M. McHale, and Shawn D.Whiteman
8 Parenting Girls and Boys 258

Christia Spears Brown and Michelle Tam
9 Parenting and Temperament 288

John E. Bates, Maureen E. McQuillan, and Caroline P. Hoyniak
10 Parenting in Adoptive Families 322

Ellen E. Pinderhughes and David M. Brodzinsky
11 Foster Parenting 368

Kristin Bernard, Allison Frost, Sierra Kuzava, and Laura Perrone
12 Parenting Talented Children 398

David Henry Feldman and Mel Andrews
13 Parenting Children Born Preterm 424

Merideth Gattis
14 Parenting Behaviorally Inhibited and Socially Withdrawn Children 467

Paul D. Hastings, Kenneth H. Rubin, Kelly A. Smith, and Nicholas J.Wagner
15 Parenting Aggressive Children 496

Tina Malti, Ju-Hyun Song,Tyler Colasante, and Sebastian P. Dys
16 Parenting and Autism Spectrum Disorder 523

James B. McCauley, Peter Mundy, and Marjorie Solomon
17 Parenting Children With Intellectual Disabilities 565

Robert M. Hodapp, Ellen G. Casale, and Kelli A. Sanderson
18 Parenting Children With a Chronic Health Condition 597

Thomas G. Power, Lynnda M. Dahlquist, and Wendy Pinder
Index625
viii
PREFACE TO THE THIRD EDITION
Previous editions of the Handbook of Parenting have been called the “who’s who of the what’s what.”
This third edition of the Handbook appears at a time that is momentous in the history of parent-
ing. The family generally, and parenting specifically, are today in a greater state of flux, question, and
redefinition than perhaps ever before. We are witnessing the emergence of striking permutations on
the theme of parenting: blended families, lesbian and gay parents, teen versus fifties first-time moms
and dads, genetic versus social parents. One cannot but be awed on the biological front by technol-
ogy that now renders postmenopausal women capable of childbearing and with the possibility of
parents designing their babies. Similarly, on the sociological front, single parenthood is a modern-day
fact of life, adult child dependency is on the rise, and even in the face of rising institutional demands
to take increasing responsibility for their offspring, parents are ever less certain of their roles and
responsibilities.The Handbook of Parenting is concerned with all these facets of parenting . . . and more.
Most people become parents, and everyone who ever lived has had parents, still parenting remains
a mystifying subject. Who is ultimately responsible for parenting? Does parenting come naturally,
or must parenting be learned? How do parents conceive of parenting? of childhood? What does it
mean to parent a preterm baby, twins, or a child on the autistic spectrum? to be an older parent, or
one who is divorced, disabled, or drug abusing? What do theories (psychoanalysis, personality theory,
attachment, and behavior genetics, for example) contribute to our understanding of parenting? What
are the goals parents have for themselves? for their children? What functions do parents’ cognitions
serve? What are the aims of parents’ practices? What accounts for parents believing or behaving in
similar ways? Why do so many attitudes and actions of parents differ so? How do children influence
their parents? How do personality, knowledge, and worldview affect parenting? How do social class,
culture, environment, and history shape parenthood? How can parents effectively relate to childcare,
schools, and their children’s pediatricians?
These are many of the questions addressed in this third edition of the Handbook of Parenting . . .
for this is an evidenced-based volume set on how to parent as much as it is one on what being a parent
is all about.
Put succinctly, parents create people. They are entrusted with preparing their offspring for the
physical, psychosocial, and economic conditions in which their children eventually will fare and
hopefully will flourish. Amidst the many influences on each next generation, parents are the “final
common pathway” to children’s development and stature, adjustment and success. Human social
inquiry—antedating even Athenian interest in Spartan childrearing practices—has always, as a matter
of course, included reports of parenting. Freud opined that childrearing is one of three “impossible
ix
Preface to the Third Edition
professions”—the other two being governing nations and psychoanalysis. One encounters as many
views as the number of people one asks about the relative merits of being an at-home or a working
mother, about what mix of daycare, family care, or parent care is best for a child, about whether good
parenting reflects intuition or experience.
The Handbook of Parenting concerns itself with different types of parents—mothers and fathers,
single, adolescent, and adoptive parents; with basic characteristics of parenting knowledge, beliefs,
and expectations about parenting—as well as the practice of parenting; with forces that shape
parenting—employment, social class, culture, environment, and history; with problems faced by
parents—handicap, marital difficulties, drug addiction; and with practical concerns of parenting—
how to promote children’s health, foster social adjustment and cognitive competence, and interact
with educational, legal, and religious institutions. Contributors to the Handbook of Parenting have
worked in different ways toward understanding all these diverse aspects of parenting, and all look
to the most recent research and thinking in the field to shed light on many topics every parent,
professional, and policymaker wonders about.
Parenthood is a job whose primary object of attention and action is the child. But parenting
also has consequences for parents. Parenthood is giving and responsibility, and parenting has its own
intrinsic pleasures, privileges, and profits as well as frustrations, fears, and failures. Parenthood can
enhance psychological development, self-confidence, and sense of well-being, and parenthood also
affords opportunities to confront new challenges and to test and display diverse competencies. Par-
ents can derive considerable and continuing pleasure in their relationships and activities with their
children. But parenting is also fraught with small and large stresses and disappointments. The transi-
tion to parenthood is daunting, and the onrush of new stages of parenthood is relentless. In the final
analysis, however, parents receive a great deal “in kind” for the hard work of parenting—they can be
recipients of unconditional love, they can gain skills, and they can even pretend to immortality. This
third edition of the Handbook of Parenting reveals the many positives that accompany parenting and
offers resolutions for its many challenges.
The Handbook of Parenting encompasses the broad themes of who are parents, whom parents
parent, the scope of parenting and its many effects, the determinants of parenting, and the nature,
structure, and meaning of parenthood for parents. The third edition of the Handbook of Parenting is
divided into five volumes, each with two parts:
CHILDREN AND PARENTING is Volume 1 of the Handbook. Parenthood is, perhaps first
and foremost, a functional status in the life cycle: Parents issue as well as protect, nurture, and
teach their progeny even if human development is too subtle and dynamic to admit that
parental caregiving alone determines the developmental course and outcome of ontogeny. Vol-
ume 1 of the Handbook of Parenting begins with chapters concerned with how children influ-
ence parenting. Notable are their more obvious characteristics, like child age or developmental
stage; but more subtle ones, like child gender, physical state, temperament, mental ability, and
other individual differences factors, are also instrumental. The chapters in Part I, on Parenting
Across the Lifespan, discuss the unique rewards and special demands of parenting children of
different ages and stages—infants, toddlers, youngsters in middle childhood, and adolescents—
as well as the modern notion of parent–child relationships in emerging adulthood and adult-
hood and old age. The chapters in Part II, on Parenting Children of Varying Status, discuss
common issues associated with parenting children of different genders and temperaments as
well as unique situations of parenting adopted and foster children and children with a variety
of special needs, such as those with extreme talent, born preterm, who are socially withdrawn
or aggressive, or who fall on the autistic spectrum, manifest intellectual disabilities, or suffer a
chronic health condition.
x
BIOLOGY AND ECOLOGY OF PARENTING is Volume 2 of the Handbook. For parent-

ing to be understood as a whole, biological and ecological determinants of parenting need to
be brought into the picture.Volume 2 of the Handbook relates parenting to its biological roots
and sets parenting in its ecological framework. Some aspects of parenting are influenced by
the organic make-up of human beings, and the chapters in Part I, on the Biology of Parent-
ing, examine the evolution of parenting, the psychobiological determinants of parenting in
nonhumans, and primate parenting and then the genetic, prenatal, neuroendocrinological, and
neurobiological bases of human parenting. A deep understanding of what it means to par-
ent also depends on the ecologies in which parenting takes place. Beyond the nuclear family,
parents are embedded in, influence, and are themselves affected by larger social systems. The
chapters in Part II, on the Ecology of Parenting, examine the ancient and modern histories
of parenting as well as epidemiology, neighborhoods, educational attainment, socioeconomic
status, culture, and environment to provide an overarching relational developmental contextual
systems perspective on parenting.
BEING AND BECOMING A PARENT is Volume 3 of the Handbook. A large cast of charac-
ters is responsible for parenting, each has her or his own customs and agenda, and the psycho-
logical characteristics and social interests of those individuals are revealing of what parenting
is. Chapters in Part I, on The Parent, show just how rich and multifaceted is the constellation
of children’s caregivers. Considered first are family systems and then successively mothers
and fathers, coparenting and gatekeeping between parents, adolescent parenting, grandparent-
ing, and single parenthood, divorced and remarried parenting, lesbian and gay parents, and
finally sibling caregivers and nonparental caregiving. Parenting also draws on transient and
enduring physical, personality, and intellectual characteristics of the individual.The chapters in
Part II, on Becoming and Being a Parent, consider the intergenerational transmission of par-
enting, parenting and contemporary reproductive technologies, the transition to parenthood,
and stages of parental development, and then chapters turn to parents’ well-being, emotions,
self-efficacy, cognitions, attributions, as well as socialization, personality in parenting, and psy-
choanalytic theory. These features of parents serve many functions: They generate and shape
parental practices, mediate the effectiveness of parenting, and help to organize parenting.
SOCIAL CONDITIONS AND APPLIED PARENTING is Volume 4 of the Handbook.
Parenting is not uniform across communities, groups, or cultures; rather parenting is subject
to wide variation.Volume 4 of the Handbook describes socially defined groups of parents and
social conditions that promote variation in parenting. The chapters in Part I, on Social and
Cultural Conditions of Parenting, start with a relational developmental systems perspective
on parenting and move to considerations of ethnic and minority parenting among Latino
and Latin Americans, African Americans, Asians and Asian Americans, Indigenous parents, and
immigrant parents. The section concludes with the roles of employment and of poverty on
parenting. Parents are ordinarily the most consistent and caring people in children’s lives.
However, parenting does not always go right or well. Information, education, and support
programs can remedy potential ills. The chapters in Part II, on Applied Issues in Parenting,
begin with how parenting is measured and follow with examinations of maternal deprivation,
attachment, and acceptance/rejection in parenting. Serious challenges to parenting—some
common, such as stress, depression, and disability, and some less common, such as substance
abuse, psychopathology, maltreatment, and incarceration—are addressed, as are parenting inter-
ventions intended to redress these trials.
THE PRACTICE OF PARENTING is Volume 5 of the Handbook. Parents meet the bio-
logical, physical, and health requirements of children. Parents interact with children socially.
Parents stimulate children to engage and understand the environment and to enter the world
xi
of learning. Parents provision, organize, and arrange their children’s home and local environ-
ments and the media to which children are exposed. Parents also manage child development
vis-à-vis childcare, school, the circles of medicine and law, as well as other social institutions
through their active citizenship. Volume 5 of the Handbook addresses the nuts-and-bolts of
parenting as well as the promotion of positive parenting practices. The chapters in Part I, on
Practical Parenting, review the ethics of parenting, parenting and the development of children’s
self-regulation, discipline, prosocial and moral development, and resilience as well as children’s
language, play, cognitive, and academic achievement and children’s peer relationships. Many
caregiving principles and practices have direct effects on children. Parents indirectly influence
children as well, for example, through relations they have with their local or larger commu-
nities. The chapters in Part II, on Parents and Social Institutions, explore parents and their
children’s childcare, activities, media, schools, and health care and examine relations between
parenthood and the law, public policy, and religion and spirituality.
Each chapter in the third edition of the Handbook of Parenting addresses a different but central
topic in parenting; each is rooted in current thinking and theory as well as classical and modern
research on a topic; each is written to be read and absorbed in a single sitting. Each chapter in this
new Handbook adheres to a standard organization, including an introduction to the chapter as a
whole, followed by historical considerations of the topic, a discussion of central issues and theory, a
review of classical and modern research, forecasts of future directions of theory and research, and a
set of evidence-based conclusions. Of course, each chapter considers contributors’ own convictions
and findings, but contributions to this third edition of the Handbook of Parenting attempt to present all
major points of view and central lines of inquiry and interpret them broadly.The Handbook of Parent-
ing is intended to be both comprehensive and state-of-the-art. To assert that parenting is complex is
to understate the obvious. As the expanded scope of this third edition of the Handbook of Parenting
also amply attests, parenting is naturally and intensely interdisciplinary.
The Handbook of Parenting is concerned principally with the nature and scope of parenting per
se and secondarily with child outcomes of parenting. Beyond an impressive range of information,
readers will find passim typologies of parenting (e.g., authoritarian-autocratic, indulgent-permissive,
indifferent-uninvolved, authoritative-reciprocal), theories of parenting (e.g., ecological, psychoana-
lytic, behavior genetic, ethological, behavioral, sociobiological), conditions of parenting (e.g., gender,
culture, content), recurrent themes in parenting studies (e.g., attachment, transaction, systems), and
even aphorisms (e.g., “A child should have strict discipline in order to develop a fine, strong charac-
ter,” “The child is father to the man”).
Each chapter in the Handbook of Parenting lays out the meanings and implications of a contribu-
tion and a perspective on parenting. Once upon a time, parenting was a seemingly simple thing:
Mothers mothered. Fathers fathered. Today, parenting has many motives, many meanings, and many
manifestations. Contemporary parenting is viewed as immensely time consuming and effortful. The
perfect mother or father or family is a figment of false cultural memory. Modern society recognizes
“subdivisions” of the call: genetic mother, gestational mother, biological mother, birth mother, social
mother. For some, the individual sacrifices that mark parenting arise for the sole and selfish purpose
of passing one’s genes on to succeeding generations. For others, a second child may be conceived to
save the life of a first child. A multitude of factors influences the unrelenting advance of events and
decisions that surround parenting—biopsychosocial, dyadic, contextual, historical. Recognizing this
complexity is important to informing people’s thinking about parenting, especially information-
hungry parents themselves. This third edition of the Handbook of Parenting explores all these motives,
meanings, and manifestations of parenting.
xii
Each day, more than three-quarters of a million adults around the world experience the rewards
and challenges, as well as the joys and heartaches, of becoming parents. The human race succeeds
because of parenting. From the start, parenting is a “24/7” job. Parenting formally begins before
pregnancy and can continue throughout the life-span: Practically speaking for most, once a parent,
always a parent. Parenting is a subject about which people hold strong opinions and about which too
little solid information or considered reflection exists. Parenting has never come with a Handbook . . .
until now.
—Marc H. Bornstein
xiii
ABOUT THE EDITOR
Marc H. Bornstein holds a BA from Columbia College, MS and PhD degrees from Yale Uni-
versity, and honorary doctorates from the University of Padua and University of Trento. Bornstein
was a J. S. Guggenheim Foundation Fellow, and he received a Research Career Development Award
from the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development. He also received the C. S.
Ford Cross-Cultural Research Award from the Human Relations Area Files, the B. R. McCandless
Young Scientist Award and the G. Stanley Hall Award from the American Psychological Association,
a United States PHS Superior Service Award and an Award of Merit from the National Institutes
of Health, two Japan Society for the Promotion of Science Fellowships, four Awards for Excellence
from the American Mensa Education & Research Foundation, the Arnold Gesell Prize from the
Theodor Hellbrügge Foundation, the Distinguished Scientist Award from the International Society
for the Study of Behavioral Development, and both the Distinguished International Contributions
to Child Development Award and the Distinguished Scientific Contributions to Child Development
Award from the Society for Research in Child Development. Bornstein is President of the Society
for Research in Child Development and a past member of the SRCD Governing Council and
Executive Committee of the International Congress of Infancy Studies.
Bornstein has held faculty positions at Princeton University and New York University as well as
academic appointments as Visiting Scientist at the Max-Planck-Institut für Psychiatrie in Munich;
Visiting Fellow at University College London; Professeur Invité at the Laboratoire de Psychologie
Expérimentale in the Université René Descartes in Paris; Child Clinical Fellow at the Institute for
Behavior Therapy in New York; Visiting Professor at the University of Tokyo; Professeur Invité at
the Laboratoire de Psychologie du Développement et de l’Éducation de l’Enfant in the Sorbonne
in Paris;Visiting Fellow of the British Psychological Society;Visiting Scientist at the Human Devel-
opment Resource Centre in Bamenda, Cameroon; Visiting Scholar at the Institute of Psychology
in Seoul National University in Seoul, South Korea; Visiting Professor at the Faculty of Cognitive
Science in the University of Trento, Italy; Profesor Visitante at the Pontificia Universidad Católica de
Chile in Santiago, Chile; Institute for Advanced Studies Benjamin Meaker Visiting Professor, Uni-
versity of Bristol; Jacobs Foundation Scholar-in-Residence, Marbach, Germany; Honorary Fellow,
Department of Psychiatry, Oxford University; Adjunct Academic Member of the Council of the
Department of Cognitive Sciences, University of Trento, Italy; and International Research Fellow at
the Institute for Fiscal Studies, London.
xiv
About the Editor
Bornstein is coauthor of The Architecture of the Child Mind: g, Fs, and the Hierarchical Model of Intel-
ligence, Gender in Low- and Middle-Income Countries, Development in Infancy (5 editions), Development:
Infancy through Adolescence, Lifespan Development, Genitorialità: Fattori Biologici E Culturali Dell’essere
Genitori, and Perceiving Similarity and Comprehending Metaphor. He is General Editor of The Crosscur-
rents in Contemporary Psychology Series, including Psychological Development from Infancy, Comparative
Methods in Psychology, Psychology and Its Allied Disciplines (Vols. I–III), Sensitive Periods in Development,
Interaction in Human Development, Cultural Approaches to Parenting, Child Development and Behavioral
Pediatrics, and Well-Being: Positive Development Across the Life Course, and general editor of the Mono-
graphs in Parenting series, including his own Socioeconomic Status, Parenting, and Child Development and
Acculturation and Parent–Child Relationships. He edited Maternal Responsiveness: Characteristics and Con-
sequences, the Handbook of Parenting (Vols. I–V, 3 editions), and the Handbook of Cultural Developmental
Science (Parts 1 and 2), and is Editor-in-Chief of the SAGE Encyclopedia of Lifespan Human Develop-
ment. He also coedited Developmental Science: An Advanced Textbook (7 editions), Stability and Continuity
in Mental Development, Contemporary Constructions of the Child, Early Child Development in the French
Tradition, The Role of Play in the Development of Thought, Acculturation and Parent–Child Relationships,
Immigrant Families in Contemporary Society, The Developing Infant Mind: Origins of the Social Brain, and
Ecological Settings and Processes in Developmental Systems (Volume 4 of the Handbook of Child Psychology
and Developmental Science). He is author of several children’s books, videos, and puzzles in The Child’s
World and Baby Explorer series. Bornstein is Editor Emeritus of Child Development and founding Edi-
tor of Parenting: Science and Practice. He has administered both federal and foundation grants, sits on
the editorial boards of several professional journals, is a member of scholarly societies in a variety
of disciplines, and consults for governments, foundations, universities, publishers, scientific journals,
the media, and UNICEF. He has published widely in experimental, methodological, comparative,
developmental, and cultural science as well as neuroscience, pediatrics, and aesthetics. Bornstein was
named to the Top 20 Authors for Productivity in Developmental Science by the American Educa-
tional Research Association.
xv
ABOUT THE CONTRIBUTORS
Mel Andrews is at Tufts University studying theories of cognition, evolution, and development.
Andrews hopes to contribute to a scholarly understanding of human mentality, agency, conscious-
ness, and cultural reality in relation to our status as evolved organisms. She has presented her work at
conferences organized by the Society for the Study of Human Development and The Generalized
Theory of Evolution. As a visiting fellow at Binghamton University, Andrews taught evolutionary
biology with a focus on implications for the philosophy of science. Andrews has a background in
both qualitative and experimental approaches to the ontogeny of the human mind, having served as
a cognitive developmental researcher at both Tufts University and Harvard University.
John E. Bates is Professor in the Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences at Indiana Uni-
versity, Bloomington. He received his BS in Psychology from the University of Washington, where
he first became interested in the question of how individual differences develop. He received his PhD
from UCLA in Clinical Psychology with minors in Developmental Psychology and Social Psychol-
ogy. His research has emphasized the longitudinal study of additive and interactive roles of biological
and social processes in development of behavioral adjustment. In the Indiana University Psychologi-
cal Clinic, he has led a clinic for families of children with oppositional problems.
Kristin Bernard is Assistant Professor of Psychology at Stony Brook University. Bernard received
her PhD from the Department of Psychology at the University of Delaware and completed her
clinical internship at the University of Illinois at Chicago. Bernard was named a Rising Star by the
Association for Psychological Science. Bernard takes a translational approach to research about child-
hood maltreatment by integrating methods across fields of developmental science, neuroscience, and
prevention science.
Wim Beyers is Professor at the Department of Developmental, Personality and Social Psychology at
Ghent University, Belgium. He received his PhD from the Catholic University of Leuven. His major
research interests include the development of autonomy, identity, and sexuality in adolescence. He is
assistant editor of the Journal of Adolescence.
Kira S. Birditt is Associate Research Professor in the Life Course Development Program at the
Institute for Social Research, University of Michigan. She received her PhD in Human Develop-
ment and Family Studies from the Pennsylvania State University. She is Principal Investigator on
xvi
About the Contributors
a study of racial health disparities in hypertension, which incorporates short-term stress reactivity
studies into a larger longitudinal study of social relationships and health. She is also a co-investigator
on the Family Exchanges Study, a longitudinal study of three-generation families; the Daily Experi-
ence in Late Life Study, an in-depth study of social engagement among older adults; and the Social
Relations and Health study, a longitudinal study of social relationships. She has published widely on
the topic of negative aspects of relationships and their implications for biological systems and health.
Marc H. Bornstein is President of the Society for Research in Child Development. He holds a BA
from Columbia College, MS and PhD degrees from Yale University, and honorary doctorates from
the University of Padua and University of Trento. He has held faculty positions at Princeton Univer-
sity and New York University as well as visiting academic appointments in Munich, London, Paris,
New York, Tokyo, Bamenda (Cameroon), Seoul, Trento, Santiago (Chile), Bristol, Oxford, and the
Institute for Fiscal Studies (London). He is Editor Emeritus of Child Development and founding Editor
of Parenting: Science and Practice. He has administered both Federal and Foundation grants, sits on the
editorial boards of several professional journals, is a member of scholarly societies in a variety of dis-
ciplines, and consults for governments, foundations, universities, publishers, the media, and UNICEF.
Bornstein has published widely in experimental, methodological, comparative, developmental, and
cultural science as well as neuroscience, pediatrics, and aesthetics.
David M. Brodzinsky is Professor Emeritus of Clinical and Developmental Psychology at Rutgers

University and Research Director at the National Center on Adoption and Permanency. Brodzin-
sky was educated at the State University of New York at Buffalo and was previously affiliated with
the Donaldson Adoption Institute. His research has focused primarily on developmental and family
issues in the adjustment of adopted children and their families, including families headed by sexual
minority parents. He received the Adoption Excellence Award from the U.S. Department of Health
and Human Services, Children’s Bureau, for his contributions to the field. Brodzinsky is co-author
of Children’s Adjustment to Adoption: Developmental and Clinical Issues and co-editor of Adoption by
Lesbians and Gay Men: A New Dimension in Family Diversity.
Christia Spears Brown is Professor of Developmental Psychology at the University of Kentucky.

She earned her PhD in Psychology at the University of Texas at Austin. She was previously at the Uni-
versity of California, Los Angeles. Her research focuses on children’s perceptions of gender and ethnic
discrimination, the development of stereotypes and group identity, and the impact of discrimination
and stereotypes on academic, psychological, and social outcomes funded by the Foundation for Child
Development. She has written two books, one for an academic audience, Discrimination in Childhood
and Adolescence, and one for parents, Parenting Beyond Pink and Blue, and co-edited the Wiley Handbook
of Group Processes in Children and Adolescents. She is Associate Editor of the Journal of Adolescent Research.
Ellen G. Casale is a doctoral student in the Special Education-Low Incidence Disabilities program
at Vanderbilt University. She received her Education Specialist degree in autism spectrum disorders
from the University of Alabama at Birmingham and her master’s degree in Special Education from
Vanderbilt University. Casale has worked as a special education teacher, in-home interventionist,
autism specialist and diagnostician, and district special educational specialist. She co-authored a chap-
ter for the Oxford Handbook of Down Syndrome. Casale’s research interests include improving educa-
tional, behavioral, and functional outcomes for individuals with severe disabilities.
Tyler Colasante is a postdoctoral fellow from the Laboratory for Social-Emotional Development
and Intervention in the Department of Psychology at the University of Toronto. He completed his
PhD at the University of Toronto where he focused on the psychophysiological correlates of guilt
xvii
and aggressive behavior in childhood and adolescence. Ultimately, he aims to understand how chil-
dren with different regulatory and socioemotional capacities navigate social conflicts across devel-
opment and to generate practical implications to reduce aggression and related problem behaviors.
Colasante is co-author of a chapter on aggression, and morality in the Handbook of Child and Adoles-
cent Aggression.
W. Andrew Collins is Morse-Alumni Distinguished Teaching Professor Emeritus at the Institute

of Child Development, University of Minnesota. He received his PhD from Stanford Univer-
sity. Collins served as Director of the Institute of Child Development, Secretary of the Society
for Research in Child Development, and President of the Society for Research on Adolescence.
Collins specialized in the study of social processes and relationships in middle childhood and ado-
lescence and has investigated developmental aspects of children’s and adolescents’ responses to tel-
evision and parent–child relationships during the transitions to adolescence and young adulthood.
He served as Chair of the National Research Council’s Panel on the Status of Basic Research on
Middle Childhood (age 6–12 years) and is co-author of The Development of the Person:The Minnesota
Study of Risk and Adaptation from Birth to Adulthood. Collins edited or coedited multiple volumes,
including Relationships as Developmental Contexts and Relationships Pathways: From Adolescence to
Young Adulthood.
Lynnda M. Dahlquist is Professor of Psychology at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County.

Dahlquist completed her graduate training in clinical psychology at Purdue University, where she
specialized in child health psychology, and her internship training in Pediatric Psychology at the
Oklahoma Health Sciences Center. Formerly a member of the Baylor College of Medicine fac-
ulty at Texas Children’s Hospital, she has extensive clinical experience consulting with pediatricians
and working with children with acute and chronic health conditions and their families. Dahlquist’s
research focuses primarily on child and family adjustment to chronic pediatric health conditions,
such as food allergy, arthritis, and cancer, and on nonpharmacological pain management strategies for
children experiencing acute pain. She is the author of Pediatric Pain Management.
Maja Deković is Professor of Clinical Child and Family Studies and leader of the Utrecht Centre for
Child and Adolescent Studies, an interdisciplinary research program that aims to explain how indi-
vidual characteristics, proximal social relationships, and the wider social and cultural context shape
developmental trajectories, with the ultimate aim to improve preventive and/or interventions to help
children and families optimally develop. She received her PhD at Radboud University, Nijmegen,
and previously was affiliated with the University of Amsterdam. Her research interests include chil-
dren and adolescent normative and deviant development, parent–child relationships, family interac-
tion, and effects of family-based interventions. She was project leader of several effectiveness studies
(Home-Start, Multisystemic Therapy, Intensive Home Visiting Program, Family Conferencing, Rock
and Water). In addition, she is a member of several (inter)national research committees and editorial
boards on (inter)national journals.
Sebastian P. Dys is a PhD candidate in the Developmental Sciences Program at the University
of Toronto. His research focuses on the cognitive and affective mechanisms that promote children’s
and adolescents’ moral, emotional, and social development. This research employs a multimethod
approach using eye tracking, facial expression analyses, behavioral observations, and interviews. His
overarching goal is to provide direction to parents, educators, and program developers interested in
specific strategies and practices for promoting socioemotional development and behavioral health.
Dys is a coauthor of a chapter on emotions and morality in New Perspectives in Moral Development.
xviii
Mark E. Feinberg is Research Professor at the Pennsylvania State University. Feinberg was edu-
cated at Harvard College and George Washington University. He has developed and tested several
prevention programs, including Family Foundations, a transition-to-parenthood program designed
to enhance coparenting among first-time parents. Feinberg has also co-developed prevention pro-
grams addressing sibling relationship conflict, adverse birth outcomes, and childhood obesity and has
been involved in the long-term evaluation of large-scale community prevention systems, including
Communities That Care, PROSPER, and Evidence2Success. He has written about and examined
the community epidemiology of adolescent problem behaviors, and the ways in which risk factors
are linked to behavior problems within and between communities.
David Henry Feldman is Professor at the Eliot-Pearson Department of Child Development,

Tufts University, and President of the Society for the Study of Human Development. Prior faculty
appointments include the University of Minnesota and Yale University and visiting appointments at
Harvard University, Tel Aviv University, and the University of California, San Diego. Feldman holds
degrees from the University of Rochester, Harvard University, and Stanford University. His research
interests involve developmental theory, transitions between levels of expertise in cognitive develop-
ment, extremes in intellectual development, creativity, and the development of cultural knowledge
domains. Feldman is the recipient of a Fulbright Fellowship to Israel and the Distinguished Scholar
of the Year Award of the National (U.S.) Association for Gifted Children. His books include Beyond
Universals in Cognitive Development, Nature’s Gambit: Child Prodigies and the Development of Human
Potential, and Changing the World: A Framework for the Study of Creativity.
Karen L. Fingerman is Professor of Human Development and Family Sciences at the University
of Texas at Austin. She received her PhD in Psychology from the University of Michigan and has
served on the faculty at the University of San Francisco, Pennsylvania State University, and Purdue
University. She is currently Principal Investigator on the Family Exchanges Study, a longitudinal
study of three-generation families. She also directs the Daily Experience in Late Life Study, an in-
depth study tracking social engagement, daily activities, and well-being among over 300 older adults.
She is the author or coeditor of Aging Mothers and Their Adult Daughters: A Study in Mixed Emotions,
Growing Together: Personal Relationships across the Life Span, and Handbook of Lifespan Development. She
was an associate editor on the Encyclopedia of Mental Health and the SAGE Encyclopedia of Lifespan
Human Development.
Allison Frost is a graduate student in the Clinical Psychology program at Stony Brook University.
Frost obtained her BS in Education from Northwestern University. She is the recipient of a National
Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship. Frost is interested in how early adversity can
impact children’s neurobiological and socioemotional functioning, and how these effects may confer
risk for later psychopathology.
Merideth Gattis is Professor of Psychology at Cardiff University and a Fellow of the Learned Soci-
ety of Wales. Gattis was educated at Gordon College, Massachusetts, and the University of California,
Los Angeles, and previously was affiliated with the Max Planck Institute and the University of Shef-
field. She is on the editorial boards of Parenting: Science and Practice and Psychological Science. Gattis is
editor of Spatial Schemas and Abstract Thought.
Paul D. Hastings is Professor of Psychology at the University of California Davis, where he directs
the Healthy Emotions, Relationships and Development Lab at the Center for Mind and Brain. Hast-
ings was educated at McGill University and the University of Toronto before completing postdoctoral
xix
training at the University of Waterloo, Ontario, and the National Institute of Mental Health. Hastings
was Chair of Psychology and Interim Dean of the School of Education at the University of Califor-
nia Davis and at Concordia University in Montreal. His research is focused on social relationships,
neurobiological regulation, and social-emotional development of children and youth.
Robert M. Hodapp is Professor of Special Education at Peabody College of Vanderbilt University.

He is also the Director of Research for Vanderbilt Kennedy Center’s University Center for Excel-
lence in Developmental Disabilities. Hodapp received his PhD from Boston University, was a post-
doctoral fellow with Edward Zigler at the Yale Child Study Center, and was a professor at UCLA’s
Graduate School of Education and Information Studies. The author of Development and Disabilities
and co-author of Genetics and Mental Retardation Syndromes, Hodapp is also the series co-editor of the
International Review of Research in Developmental Disabilities.
Caroline P. Hoyniak is a PhD candidate in the Clinical Science program in the Department of
Psychological and Brain Sciences at Indiana University, Bloomington. She received her BA in Psy-
chology from the Saint Louis University. Her research focuses on the development of self-regulation
during early childhood, with a particular emphasis on examining its neural correlates.
Sierra Kuzava is a graduate student in the Clinical Psychology program at Stony Brook University.
Kuzava obtained her BA in Psychology from Columbia. She is the recipient of a National Sci-
ence Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship. Kuzava is interested in the mechanisms through
which early life stress may impact children’s development as well as the psychobiology of responsive
parenting.
Stephanie D. Madsen is Associate Dean for Sophomore Students and Professor of Psychology at
McDaniel College,Westminster, Maryland. She received her PhD in Child Psychology with a minor
in Interpersonal Relationships Research from the Institute of Child Development, University of
Minnesota. She has focused her research on the role of relationships in development. She currently
serves on the Teaching Committee for the Society of Research on Child Development and is a
recipient of the Ira G. Zepp Distinguished Teaching Award.
Tina Malti is Professor of Psychology and the Director of the Laboratory for Social-Emotional
Development and Intervention at the University of Toronto. Malti was educated at the Max Planck
Institute for Human Development, Harvard Medical School, and the Jacobs Center for Productive
Youth Development. She is a fellow of the Association for Psychological Science and the American
Psychological Association (Division 7, Developmental Psychology). Her research focuses on why
certain children become aggressive, whereas others show high levels of concern from a very young
age. She is Associate Editor of Child Development and a co-editor of the Handbook of Child and Ado-
lescent Aggression. Malti also serves as the Membership Secretary of the International Society for the
Study of Behavioural Development.
James B. McCauley is currently a PhD candidate in the Department of Human Development and
a graduate student researcher at the MIND Institute and the Department of Psychiatry at the Uni-
versity of California, Davis. He has previously researched processes such as self-esteem, memory, and
academic achievement in youth with autism spectrum disorders and has extensive experience work-
ing with families of children with ASD. His dissertation is exploring the role of parent–adolescent
and parent–adult interactions in families of children with ASD and their effects on social and adap-
tive behaviors.
xx
Susan M. McHale is Distinguished Professor of Human Development and Professor of Demog-

raphy at Pennsylvania State University. Her research examines children’s and adolescents’ family
roles, daily activities, and relationships, particularly sibling relationships, and their links with indi-
vidual development and adjustment as well as the development of sibling differences. Highlighted
are family gender dynamics, including connections between the work and family roles of mothers
and fathers and girls’ and boys’ development. She also has investigated family sociocultural contexts
and dynamics, including the implications of parents’ and youth cultural values and practices for
family life and youth development and adjustment in African American and Mexican American
families.
Maureen E. McQuillan is a PhD candidate in the Clinical Science program in the Department
of Psychological and Brain Sciences at Indiana University, Bloomington. She received her BA in
Psychology from the University of Notre Dame. She studies parental stress, sleep deficits, and
parent–child interactions to advance understanding of the development and treatment of opposi-
tional problems in young children.
Peter Mundy is the Lisa Capps Professor of Neurodevelopmental Disorders and Education in the
Department of Psychiatry and the MIND Institute and Distinguished Professor in the School of
Education at the University of California at Davis. Mundy is also Associate Editor for Autism Research
and the Associate Dean for Academic Personnel and Research in the University of California Davis
School of Education. A developmental and clinical psychologist, Mundy works on identifying the
role that joint-attention plays in the problems with learning, language, and social-cognition that
affect individuals with autism spectrum disorders. Mundy authored Autism and Joint Attention: Devel-
opmental, Neuroscience and Clinic Foundations.
Larry J. Nelson is a Professor in the School of Family Life at Brigham Young University. Nelson
earned his PhD from the University of Maryland, College Park. He examines factors that contribute
to flourishing or floundering during emerging adulthood. He has served on the Founding Board and
Governing Council of the Society for the Study of Emerging Adulthood. He is the editor of a book
series on emerging adulthood and co-editor of Flourishing in Emerging Adulthood: Positive Development
during the Third Decade of Life.
Laura M. Padilla-Walker is a Professor in the School of Family life at Brigham Young University.
Padilla-Walker received her PhD at the University of Nebraska, Lincoln. Her research focuses pri-
marily on parenting, media, and adolescents’ and emerging adults’ moral and prosocial development.
Padilla-Walker is former Associate Editor of the journal Emerging Adulthood and has co-edited Proso-
cial Development: A Multidimensional Approach, Flourishing in Emerging Adulthood: Positive Development
During the Third Decade of Life, and The Oxford Handbook of Parenting and Moral Development.
Laura Perrone is a graduate student in the Clinical Psychology program at Stony Brook University.
Perrone obtained her BA in Psychology from Pomona College. She is the recipient of a National
Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship. Perrone is interested in the effects of early
adversity on children’s development and psychobiology as well as the role of parenting as a protec-
tive factor.
Wendy Pinder, MA, is a clinical psychology doctoral student at the University of Maryland, Bal-
timore County. Her research interests include pediatric pain management as well as interventions
that promote adherence to medical regimens for children with chronic illnesses and their families.
xxi
Ellen E. Pinderhughes is Professor in the Eliot-Pearson Department of Child Study and Human
Development, Tufts University, and Senior Fellow with the National Center for Adoption and Per-
manency. Pinderhughes was educated at Yale University and previously was affiliated with Vanderbilt
University and Cleveland State University. A developmental and clinical psychologist, she studies
contextual influences on and cultural processes in parenting among families facing different chal-
lenges, including adoption, living in high-risk, low-resource communities, and rearing children as a
sexual minority parent. Her research addresses adoption professionals’ practices and adoptive parents’
experiences concerning intercountry adoption and adoption socialization, cultural socialization, and
preparation-for-bias among adoptive parents. She has received funding from the William T. Grant
Foundation.
Thomas G. Power is Emeritus Professor of Human Development at Washington State University.

He received his PhD in Developmental Psychology at the University of Illinois. He was a member of
the psychology faculty at the University of Houston and the Human Development faculty at Wash-
ington State University. Power led the development of the nation’s first PhD program in Prevention
Science and served as its first director. He conducts research on parent–child relationships, with a
particular emphasis on stress, coping, and health behaviors. He is author of Play and Exploration in
Children and Animals.
Kenneth H. Rubin is Professor of Human Development and Quantitative Methodology and

Founding Director of the Center for Children, Relationships, and Culture at the University of
Maryland, College Park. Previously, he was Professor at the University of Waterloo and held visit-
ing appointments at Stanford, Washington, Melbourne, and Munich. He holds a BA from McGill
and a PhD from Pennsylvania State University. His research interests include the study of child and
adolescent social development, especially peer and parent–child relationships; social and emotional
adjustment and maladjustment in childhood and adolescence; and the origins and developmental
course of social competence, social withdrawal, and aggression.
Kelli A. Sanderson earned her PhD in Special Education from Peabody College at Vanderbilt
University. She is Assistant Professor of Special Education at California State University at Long
Beach. Sanderson worked as a special education teacher in Los Angeles. Sanderson’s research inter-
ests include family-practitioner collaboration, transition services for students with severe disabilities,
postsecondary education, and disability advocacy.
Kelly A. Smith is a doctoral student at the University of Maryland, College Park, in the Department
of Human Development and Quantitative Methodology. She received her BA in psychology from
Georgetown University before beginning graduate training at the Center for Children, Relation-
ships, and Culture at the University of Maryland.
Bart Soenens is Professor at the Department of Developmental, Personality, and Social Psychology
at Ghent University, Belgium. He received his PhD in Developmental Psychology from the Catholic
University of Leuven, Belgium. His research interests include self-determination, autonomy, parent–
adolescent relationships, parental psychological control, and identity development. He is co-author of
Vitamins for Psychological Growth and co-editor of Autonomy in Adolescent Development.
Marjorie Solomon is the Oates Family Endowed Chair in Lifespan Development in Autism at
University of California, Davis, School of Medicine, where she is also Professor in the Department
of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, the Interim Director of the Imaging Research Center, and
xxii
a faculty member of the MIND Institute. Solomon received her BA from Harvard College and her
PhD from the University of California, Berkeley. Her laboratory examines cognitive development in
individuals with autism spectrum disorder through the lifespan using cognitive neuroscience meth-
ods, including functional magnetic resonance imaging. She is Director of the MIND Institute Social
Skills Training Group Program.
Ju-Hyun Song is an assistant professor in the Department of Child Development at California State
University Dominguez Hills. Song completed her PhD at the University of Michigan and her postdoc-
toral training at the University of Toronto. Her research focuses on the joint contributions of affective
and social-cognitive processes and parental socialization to aggressive and prosocial behaviors in children
and adolescents. She is co-author of a chapter on social-emotional development and aggression in the
Handbook of Child and Adolescent Aggression.
Michelle Tam is a PhD graduate student in Developmental Psychology at the University of Kentucky.
She earned her MA in Developmental Psychology at the University of Kentucky. Her research focuses
on children’s gender identity and the development and maintenance of gender and ethnic stereotypes.
Anneloes L. van Baar is Professor in Diagnostics and Treatment at the Department of Develop-
ment and Treatment of Psychosocial Problems, part of the research group on Child and Adolescent
Studies at the faculty of Social and Behavioural Sciences of Utrecht University,The Netherlands.Van
Baar was educated at the University of Amsterdam and the Emma Children’s Hospital of the Aca-
demic Medical Center in Amsterdam. She worked as a health psychologist at the St. Joseph Hospital
in Veldhoven, worked in the Adhesie mental health institution in Deventer as a research manager,
and previously was Professor in Pediatric Psychology at Tilburg University in The Netherlands. Her
research focuses on development of children with perinatal risk factors, such as prematurity, and
diagnostic assessment instruments.
Maarten Vansteenkiste is Professor at the Department of Developmental, Personality and Social

Psychology at Ghent University, Belgium. He received his PhD from the Catholic University of
Leuven. His major research interests include the study of motivation and autonomy in diverse life
domains, including parenting, and in different developmental periods, including adolescence. He is
co-author of Vitamins for Psychological Growth and co-editor of Autonomy in Adolescent Development.
Marjolein Verhoeven is Assistant Professor of Clinical Child and Family Studies, part of the Utrecht
Centre for Child and Adolescent Studies, at Utrecht University in The Netherlands. She received
her PhD at the University of Amsterdam and worked at the Research and Evaluation Unit of the
Women’s and Children’s Hospital in Adelaide, Australia. Her research concerns parenting and child
development, with a specific focus on early childhood.
Nicholas J. Wagner is Assistant Research Professor at the University of Maryland in the Human
Development and Quantitative Methodologies Department.Wagner received his PhD in the Depart-
ment of Psychology and Neuroscience at the University of North Carolina, where he was supported
by a National Institute of Child Health and Development pre-doctoral fellowship at the Center
for Developmental Science, before completing his postdoctoral training at the Center for Children,
Relationships, and Culture at the University of Maryland.
Shawn D. Whiteman is Associate Professor of Family, Consumer, and Human Development at

Utah State University. Whiteman received his PhD in Human Development and Family Studies
xxiii
from the Pennsylvania State University and was previously affiliated with Purdue University. His
research focuses on the connections between family socialization processes and youth adjustment.
Whiteman serves on editorial boards for Adolescent Research Review, Family Relations, Journal of Mar-
riage and Family, Journal of Research on Adolescence, and Journal of Youth and Adolescence.
Steven H. Zarit is Distinguished Professor Emeritus in Human Development and Family Stud-
ies at the Pennsylvania State University and Adjunct Professor at the Institute for Gerontology,
Jönköping University, Jönköping, Sweden. He received his PhD from the Committee on Human
Development at the University of Chicago. He has studied family caregiving and conducted research
on intergenerational relationships and on health and functioning in very late life. Along with his
co-authors, he was an investigator on the Family Exchanges Study. He is the co-author of Mental
Disorders in Later Life.
xxiv
PART I
Parenting Across the Lifespan

1
PARENTING INFANTS
Marc H. Bornstein
Introduction
When infants first begin to speak, their articulations are limited to a set of sounds that follow a
universal pattern of development based on the anatomical structure of the oral cavity and vocal tract
and on ease of motor control (Jakobson, 1969; Kent, 1984). Thus, certain sound combinations—
consonants articulated at the front of the oral cavity at the lips (/m/ and /p/) or teeth (/d/), and
vowels articulated at the back of the oral cavity (/a/)—have primacy because their voicing maximizes
contrasts. In consequence, infants’ earliest sound combinations consist of front consonants with back
vowels. Significantly, of four logically possible combinations, the front-consonant—back-vowel pairs
of /pa/, /da/, and /ma/ are used as parental kin terms in nearly 60% of more than 1,000 of the
world’s languages, many more than would be expected by chance (Murdock, 1959). It seems that
parents of infants have adopted as generic labels for themselves their infants’ earliest vocal productions.
Nothing stirs the emotions or rivets the attention of adults more than the birth of a child. By their
very coming into existence, infants forever alter the sleeping, eating, and working habits of their
parents; they change who parents are and how parents define themselves. Infants keep parents up late
into the night or cause them to abandon late nights to accommodate dawn wakings; they require
parents to give up a rewarding career to care for them or to take a second job to support them; they
lead parents to make new friends with others in similar situations and sometimes cause parents to
lose old friends who are not parents.Yes, parents may even take for themselves the names that infants
uncannily bestow.
Parenting an infant is a “24/7” job, whether by a parent or by a surrogate caregiver who is on
call. That is because the altricial human infant is totally dependent on parents for survival. Unlike
the newborn foal that will stand in the hour after delivery and soon canter, or the newborn chick
that pipes on its shell to hatch, feeds itself on the internal yolk sac, and forages on its own soon after
hatching, the newborn human cannot walk, talk, thermoregulate, or even nourish without the aid
of a competent caregiver. Terrestrial infant mammals are either cached (left in secluded locales with
only intermittent mother–infant contact) or carried (in regular and extensive maternal contact);
human infants are the carrying kind (Lozoff and Brittenham, 1979). As the analyst Winnicott (1965,
p. 39) enigmatically mused, “There is no such thing as an infant.” Infants only exist in a system with
a caregiver.
3
Marc H. Bornstein
Most adults become parents (86% of U.S. American adult women and 84% of men ages 45 and
older; Child Trends, 2002). Worldwide each day approximately three-quarters of a million people
experience the joys and heartaches as well as the challenges and rewards, of becoming new parents
(Worldometers.info). In a given year, approximately 4 million new babies are born in the United
States.The wonder is that for the 11,000 babies born every day (National Center for Health Statistics,
2017), a number equivalent to the population of a small town, each one is unique and special.
Infancy defines the period of life between birth and the emergence of language approximately
1½ to 2 years into childhood. Our generic terms “infant” and “baby” both have origins in language-
related concepts.The word infant derives from the Latin in + fans, translated literally as “nonspeaker,”
and the word baby shares a Middle English root with “babble” (another front-consonant–back-vowel
combination). Our newborn and infant are for the Chagga of Tanganyika mnangu (the “incomplete
one”) and mkoku (“one who fills lap”). For Westerners, children are infants until they talk, and
become toddlers when they walk; but for the Alor of the Lesser Sundra Islands, the first stage of
infancy lasts from birth to an initial smile, and the second stage from the smile to the time when the
child can sit alone or begins to crawl (Mead and Newton, 1967, in Fogel, 1984).
Infancy encompasses only a small fraction of the average person’s life expectancy, but it is a
period highly attended to and invested in by parents all over the world. According to a nationwide
survey conducted by the National Center for Children, Toddlers, and Families, more than 90% of
U.S. parents said that, when they had their first child, they not only felt “in love” with their baby but
were personally happier than ever before in their lives (Civitas Initiative, Zero to Three, and Brio
Corporation, 2000). Parenting responsibilities are also greatest during infancy, when the child is most
dependent on caregiving and the child’s ability to cope alone is almost nonexistent. Not by chance,
infants’ physiognomy is especially attractive to adults (Kringelbach, Stark, Alexander, Bornstein, and
Stein, 2016); infants engender feelings of responsibility and solicitude. Infants are fun to observe, to
talk to, and to play with; they smell good; and infants do not know how to be agonistic, deceiving, or
malicious. But infants make undeniable demands. Furthermore, infancy is a period of rapid develop-
ment in practically all spheres of expression and function, and people are perennially fascinated by
Figure 1.1
4
Parenting Infants
the dramatic ways in which the helpless and disorganized human newborn transforms into the com-
petent and curious, frustrating and frustrated, child. Even though the absolute frequency of “daily
hassles” reported by parents of infants is approximately the same as for children of other ages, parents
of infants do not rate their intensity or salience as high. Infancy seems to represent a “honeymoon
period” in which parents acknowledge the difficultness of parenting chores but choose not to make
stressful attributions about them. Parents also perceive greater willfulness in children’s behavior once
their offspring transition out of infancy.
Infancy is the phase of the life cycle when adult caregiving is not only at its most intense but is
thought to exert its most significant influences. Infants may profit most from parental care in that
infants are believed to be particularly susceptible and responsive to their experiences. From a very
early age, infants recognize and prefer the sights, sounds, and smells of their caregivers (Bornstein,
Arterberry, and Mash, 2015) and over the course of the first year develop deep and lifelong attach-
ments to them (Cummings and Warmuth, 2019; Sroufe, Egeland, Carlson, and Collins, 2009). Adults
in the United States (Aguiar and Hurst, 2007; Sayer, Bianchi, and Robinson, 2004), as elsewhere in
the world (Sayer, Gauthier, and Furstenberg Jr., 2004), spend more time with their children today
than in the past. However, the sheer amount of interaction between parent and child is greatest in
infancy; parents of younger children (0–6 years) spend twice as much time in childcare activities than
do parents of older children (6–17 years; United States Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2013), and chil-
dren’s exposure to their parents’ cognitions and practices diminishes markedly after infancy (Bradley,
Corwyn, McAdoo, and García Coll, 2001). In effect, parents and caregivers are responsible for deter-
mining most, if not all, of infants’ earliest experiences. It is the evolutionary destiny and continuing
task of parents to prepare their children for the physical, economic, and psychosocial situations in
which their children are to develop (Bornstein, 2015). Parents everywhere appear highly motivated
to carry out this task (Nelson-Coffey and Stewart, 2019).
At their best, parent and infant activities are characterized by intricate patterns of attuned and
synchronous interactions and sensitive mutual understandings (Bornstein, 2013a). One study submit-
ted 2- to 4-month-old infants’ sensitivities when interacting to test (Murray and Trevarthen, 1985).
Infants first viewed real-time images of their mothers interacting with them by means of closed-
circuit television, and during this period infants were seen to engage and react with normal interest
and pleasure. Immediately afterward, the same infants watched a recording of the same interaction;
this time the infants exhibited signs of distress. Infants’ negative reactions were considered to arise out
of the lack of synchrony with their mothers that the babies suddenly experienced. Only months-old
infants are sensitive to the presence or the absence of appropriate parenting.
This chapter overviews the salient features of parenting infants. First, a brief history of interest
in parenting infants is provided, followed by a discussion of the theoretical significance attached to
parenting infants. Next, the cast of characters who parent infants—mothers, fathers, and nonparental
(sibling, familial, and nonfamilial) infant caregivers—is introduced. The chapter then turns to review
principles of parenting infants, including the instantiation of parenting infants in cognitions and
practices, followed by successive examinations of psychometrics, direct and indirect effects, models
of parenting effects, and mechanisms of action of parenting effects. Afterward, forces that shape par-
enting during infancy are outlined, including biological and psychological characteristics of parents,
characteristics of infants and infant development, and various contextual social, socioeconomic, and
cultural determinants.
A Brief History of Parenting Infants

Infancy is an easily definable stage of life, based on biological and mental data as well as on social
convention. Infants do not speak, whereas youngsters and adults do; infants creep and crawl, whereas
youngsters and adults walk and run. Harkness and Super (1983, p. 223) suggested that “a primary
5
Marc H. Bornstein
function of culture in shaping human experience is the division of the continuum of human devel-
opment into meaningful segments, or ‘stages. . .’ All cultures . . . recognize infancy as a stage of human
development.” Infancy already achieved recognition in Classical times; when the Romans depicted
periods in the life cycle of a typical man on “biographical” sarcophagi, they included infancy. Indeed,
artists everywhere and throughout the ages have represented infancy as typically a first age or early
stage in the lifespan. Iconographically, infants symbolize origins and beginnings.
Informal interest and concerns for parenting infants are motivated in large measure by perennial
questions about the roles of heredity and experience in human development. Speculation on the
subject dates to ancient Egypt, the Code of Hammurabi, and the pre-Socratic philosophers. Plato
(ca. 355 BC) theorized about the significance of infancy; Henri IV of France had the physician Jean
Héroard carefully document experiences of the Dauphin Louis from the time of his birth in 1601;
and Charles Darwin (1877) and Sigmund Freud (1949) initiated scientific observations of infants and
theoretical speculations about the role of infancy in development and in culture.
The formal study of parenting infants had its beginnings in attempts by philosopher, educator, or
scientist parents to do systematically what parents around the world do naturally everyday—observe
their babies in wonder. The first-ever written accounts of children were diary descriptions of infants
in their natural settings set down by parents—“baby biographies” (Darwin, 1877; Hall, 1891; Jaeger,
1985; Lamott, 2013; Mendelson, 1993; Preyer, 1882; Prochner and Doyon, 1997; Rousseau, 1762;
Stern, 1990;Taine, 1877;Tiedemann, 1787;Wallace, Franklin, and Keegan, 1994). Darwin, who intro-
duced evolutionary theory in 1859 with the Origin of Species, published observations he had made in
the early 1840s on the first months of life of his firstborn son,William Erasmus, nicknamed “Doddy.”
Darwin’s (1877) “Biographical Sketch of an Infant” gave great impetus to infancy studies (Lerner,
Hershberg, Hilliard, and Johnson, 2015). In succeeding years, baby biographies grew in popularity
around the world—whether they were scientific documents, parents’ personal records, or illustrations
of educational practices—and they still appear today. Perhaps the most influential of the modern baby
biographers was Piaget (1952), whose writings and theorizing refer chiefly to observations of his
own three very young children (Jacqueline, Laurent, and Lucienne).
These systematic historical observations of infancy had many salutary effects, heightening aware-
ness in parents and provoking formal studies of how to guide infant development. Historians and
sociologists of family life documented evolving patterns of primary infant care (Colón with Colón,
1999). Because of high rates of infant mortality historically, parents in early times may have cared
for but resisted emotional investment in the very young (Dye and Smith, 1986; Slater, 1977–1978),
a point of view that sometimes persists where especially dire circumstances reign (Scheper-Hughes,
1989). One historian theorized that parents have generally improved in their orientation to and
treatment of infants because parents have, through successive generations, improved in their abil-
ity to identify and empathize with the special qualities of early childhood (deMause, 1975). Today,
advice on parenting infants begins well before the birth of a child in so-called “preconception care”
whose goal is to reduce the risk of adverse effects for women, fetuses, and neonates by optimizing
women’s health and knowledge in planning and conceiving a pregnancy (American College of
Obstetricians and Gynecologists, 2005; Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 2017). Such
advice can be found in professional compendia that provide comprehensive medical treatises of
prenatal, perinatal, and postnatal development, such as the Guide to Effective Care in Pregnancy and
Childbirth (Enkin et al., 2013) and The A to Z of Children’s Health: A Parent’s Guide From Birth to
10 Years (Friedman, Saunders, and Saunders, 2013); in now-classic how-to books, such as Dr. Spock’s
Baby and Child Care (Spock and Needlman, 2011), Your Baby and Child: From Birth to Age Five
(Leach, 2010), and What to Expect When You’re Expecting (Murkoff and Mazel, 2016); in practical
guides, such as Baby Care Basics (Friedman and Saunders, 2015) and Teach Your Children Well (Levine,
2016); as well as in innumerable popular periodicals that overflow magazine racks in supermarkets,
airports, and bookstores.
6
Parenting Infants
The Theoretical Significance Attached to Parenting During Infancy

From the perspective of formal studies of parenting, infancy attracts attention in part because a
provocative debate yet rages around the significance of events occurring in infancy for later devel-
opment (Bornstein, 2014). Proponents from one viewpoint contend that the infancy period is not
particularly influential because the experiences and the habits of infants have little (if any) long-term
significance on the balance of the life course. Others argue contrariwise that experiences and habits
developed in infancy are of crucial, and perhaps lifelong, significance; that is, the social orientations,
personality styles, and intellectual predilections established at the start fix or, at least, contribute to
enduring patterns. Either the invisible first foundation and frame of the edifice are always and forever
critical to the structure, or, once erected, what really matters to a building is continuing upkeep and
renovation. Theoreticians and researchers alike have been surprisingly hard-pressed to confirm or to
refute the significance of the child’s earliest experiences to the course and the eventual outcome of
development. The answer (if there is one) certainly depends on what is investigated in whom and
when, as well as the judgment of long-term longitudinal data (Bornstein, 2015).
Prominently, psychoanalysis propounded the significance of early experience. Freud (1949) theo-
rized that child development is characterized by critical phases during which certain experiences
assume unusual significance. Infancy defines the “oral phase,” when experiences and activities cen-
tered on the mouth, notably feeding, are imbued with salience for personality in terms of oral
fixations. According to Freud, if the baby’s needs for oral gratification are overindulged or underin-
dulged, the baby will grow into an adult who continually seeks oral gratification. Overlapping the
end of infancy, according to Freud, the oral phase is succeeded by an “anal phase.” During this period,
parent–infant interactions center on toilet training, with long-term personality consequences likely
involving stubbornness and obsessiveness. Erikson (1950) portrayed infant experiences as provided
by parents somewhat differently, but also asserted that experiences in infancy can exert telling long-
term influences. From oral sensory experiences, Erikson suggested, infants develop basic trust or
mistrust in others, and whether infants develop trust has implications for the way they negotiate the
next muscular anal stage, in which the key issue is establishing autonomy or shame. More modern
proponents of psychodynamic and similar schools of thinking continue to see infancy as critical to
the basic differentiation of self (Ainsworth, Blehar, Waters, and Wall, 1978; Bowlby, 1969; Greenspan
and Greenspan, 1985; Mahler, Pine, and Bergman, 1975; Stern, 1985). For example, the notion of
sensitivity to infants’ needs was seized on by Bowlby (1969), who contended that their state of
immaturity renders infants dependent on the care and protection of parents and that infancy is an
evolutionarily conditioned period for the development of long-lasting attachments to primary car-
egivers. Indeed, the internal working models of caregiver-infant relationships, established in infancy,
generalize to other later social relationships (Cummings and Warmuth, 2019).
Like psychoanalysts, behaviorists and learning theorists also stressed the significance of infant
experiences for the rest of the life course (Dollard and Miller, 1950; Watson, 1924/1970). Behavior-
ists eschew the idea that infancy per se should be set apart; but for them as well, an organism’s earliest
experiences are crucial because they are first, have no competing propensities to replace, and thus
yield easy and rapid learning. Moreover, early behavior patterns lay the foundation for later ones. Stu-
dents of the constructivist school of developments, beginning with Piaget (1952), likewise theorized
that capacities of later life build on development early in life and that infants actively participate in
their own development.
Pride of place for infancy has also been emphasized by embryologists and ethologists (Lorenz,
1935/1970; Spemann, 1938;Tinbergen, 1951). In the view of those who study developmental physi-
ology and animal behavior, the immature nervous system is in an especially plastic state, and during
“sensitive periods” structural developments and behavioral tendencies are maximally susceptible to
influences by specific types of experience (Bornstein, 1989b). The sensitive period concept typically
7
Marc H. Bornstein
assigns great weight to infant experiences because it holds that experiences that occur within its
boundaries are likely to have enduring influences and that, once that period had passed, even the
same experiences no longer exert the same formative influences. Demonstrations of sensitive periods
in lower animals (imprinting, as in the “ugly duckling”) award biological and scientific credibility to
the potency of experiences in infancy in general, and this feature has been painted into many por-
traits of human infant growth and development. Thus, neoteny (the prolongation of infancy), which
is especially characteristic of human beings, is thought to have special adaptive significance (Gould,
1985) insofar as it allows for enhanced parental influence and prolonged learning (Bjorklund and
Myers, 2019).
Not all developmental theoreticians espouse the view that infancy or experiences in infancy are
formative, however. Some have, in equally compelling arguments, maintained that experiences in
infancy are peripheral or ephemeral, in the sense that they exert little or no enduring effect on
development afterward. These individuals attribute the engine and controls of development instead
to emerging biology and unfolding maturation and to influential later experiences.The embryologist
Waddington (1962) theorized that, based on principles of growth such as “canalization,” early experi-
ences, if influential, are not determinative (McCall, 1981). Infancy may be a period of plasticity and
adaptability to transient conditions, but those effects may not persist, or they may be altered or sup-
planted by subsequent conditions that are more consequential (Kagan, 2000; Lewis, 1997).
Infancy is the first phase of extrauterine life, and the characteristics we develop and acquire then
may be formative and fundamental in the sense that they endure or (at least) constitute building
blocks that later developments or experiences use or modify. Infancy is only one phase in the lifespan,
however, and so development is also shaped by biological emergence and acquired experiences after
infancy. Parenting the infant does not fix the route or the terminus of development, but it makes
sense that effects have causes and that the start exerts an impact on the end. Parenting is therefore
central to infancy and to the long-term development of children. In consequence, we are motivated
to know the meaning and the importance of parenting infants for later life out of the desire to
improve the lives of infants and for what infancy tells us about parents. Indeed, cultural inquiry has
almost always included reports of infant life and adults’ first efforts at parenting (Bornstein, 1991).
Parents are fundamentally invested in infants: their survival, their socialization, and their education.
Parents in the United States spend an average of $12,680 a year on their infant (and $233,610 from
birth through age 17; Lino, Kuczynski, Rodriguez, and Schap, 2017).
Who Parents Infants?

Mothers normally play the principal part in infant childrearing, even if historically fathers’ social
and legal claims and responsibilities on children were pre-eminent (French, 2019). Cross-cultural
surveys attest to the primacy of biological mothers’ caregiving (Leiderman, Tulkin, and Rosenfeld,
1977; Lozoff and Brittenham, 1979), and theorists, researchers, and clinicians all have largely focused
on mothering in recognition of this fact. Mothers are primarily responsible for home and family,
and they are believed to bear the heaviest psychic burden in parenting (Calzada, Eyberg, Rich, and
Querido, 2004; Metsäpelto and Pulkkinen, 2003; Verhoeven, Junger, Van Aken, Deković, and Van
Aken, 2007). According to regular reports from the American Time Youth Survey, conducted by
the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, mothers (even those who work full-time) spend about twice as
much time as do fathers in child caregiving of all sorts (Guryan, Hurst, and Kearney, 2008). Fathers
may withdraw from their infants when they are unhappily married; mothers almost never do (Kerig,
Cowan, and Cowan, 1993). Despite lower quantities of interaction and divergent styles, however,
infants can become attached to their fathers as they do to their mothers.
Western industrialized nations have witnessed increases in the amounts of time fathers spend with
their children; however, fathers still assume little responsibility for infant care and rearing (Lareau
8
Parenting Infants
and Weininger, 2008; Pleck, 2012), and fathers are primarily helpers who defer to mothers (Cabrera,
Tamis-LeMonda, Bradley, Hofferth, and Lamb, 2000; Pleck, 2012). Of course, fathers are neither inept
nor uninterested in infant caregiving. When feeding infants, for example, fathers and mothers alike
respond to infants’ cues by adjusting the pace of their feeding (Parke and Cookston, 2019). Both
mothers and fathers touch and look more closely at an infant after the infant has vocalized, and both
equally increase their rates of speech to baby following baby vocalization (Parke and Cookston, 2019).
Mothers and fathers hold some similar and some different ideas about parenting and appear to
interact with and care for children in some convergent and some complementary ways; that is, they
tend to divide some of the labor of caregiving and engage children by modeling different orienta-
tions and emphasizing different types of interactions. Boivin and colleagues (2005) analyzed the
factor structure of a self-administered questionnaire designed to assess 2,122 mothers’ and 1,829
fathers’ self-efficacy, perceived impact, hostile-reactive behaviors, and overprotection of their young
infants. The two parents did not differ with respect to perceived parental impact, but gender dif-
ferences emerged in other parenting self-perceptions. Mothers worried more about the health and
safety of their infants than fathers, and fathers were more prone to hostile-reactive behaviors than
mothers. When in face-to-face play with their ½- to 6-month-olds, mothers tend to be rhythmic
and containing, whereas fathers tend toward staccato bursts of physical and social stimulation (Yog-
man, 1982). Mothers are more likely to hold their infants while caregiving, whereas fathers are more
likely to do so when playing or in response to infants’ bids to be held. Fathers spend proportionally
more time in teaching and play than mothers (Craig, 2006; Guryan et al., 2008; Ho, Chen, Tran, and
Ko, 2010; Pleck, 2012). Mothers and fathers are both sensitive to infant language status, but here too
they appear to complement one another regarding the quality and the quantity of speech they direct
to infants (Rondal, 1980). On the one hand, maternal and paternal infant-directed speech displays
the same well-known simplifications. On the other, mothers are more “in tune” with their infants’
linguistic abilities: Maternal utterance length relates to child utterance length; paternal utterance
length does not. Fathers’ speech to infants is lexically more diverse than mothers’ speech, and it is also
shorter, corrects children’s speech less often, and places more verbal demands on the child; it thereby
“pulls” for higher levels of performance.
When mother–infant and father-infant play were contrasted, both mothers and fathers followed
interactional rules of sharing attentional focus on a toy with baby; however, mothers tended to follow
the baby’s focus of interest, whereas fathers tended to establish attentional focus themselves (Power,
1985). In research involving both traditional U.S. American families (Belsky, Gilstrap, and Rovine,
1984) and traditional and nontraditional (father as primary caregiver) Swedish families (Lamb, Frodi,
Frodi, and Hwang, 1982), parental gender was determined to exert a greater influence in caregiv-
ing than, say, parental role or employment status: Mothers are more likely to kiss, hug, talk to, smile
at, tend, and hold infants than fathers are, regardless of relative professed degree of involvement in
caregiving. Indeed, mothers and fathers make some independent contributions to children’s develop-
ment (Martin, Ryan, and Brooks-Gunn, 2007; Ryan, Martin, and Brooks-Gunn, 2006).
Infant care by biological parents is often supplemented. Siblings or other youngsters care for
infants, and in different cultures now and historically infants have been tended by nonparental care
providers—aunts and grandmothers, nurses and slaves, daycare workers and metaplot1—whether
in family daycare at home, daycare facilities, village centers, or fields. In short, many individuals
“socially” parent infants (Leon, 2002). Indeed, human cultures distribute the tasks of childcare in dif-
ferent ways (Leinaweaver, 2014). In some places, infants are reared in extended families in which care
is provided by many adults; in others, mothers and babies are isolated from almost all social contexts.
In some groups, fathers are treated as irrelevant social objects; in others, fathers assume complex
responsibilities for infants.
In many non-Western non-industrialized cultures, infants can be found in the care of an older
(more usually) sister or (less usually) brother (Weisner, 1987). In such situations, siblings typically spend
9
Marc H. Bornstein
most of their infant-tending time involved in unskilled nurturant caregiving, thereby freeing adults for
more remunerative economic activities. In Western and industrialized societies, by contrast, siblings
are seldom entrusted with much responsibility for “parenting” infants. That said, mothers in single-
parent households are known to recruit older siblings to care for younger ones (Roy and Smith, 2013).
Sibling care toward infants tends to display features of both adult-infant and peer-infant systems. On
the one hand, older siblings and infants (especially ones close in age) share common interests and
have more similar behavioral repertoires. On the other, sibling pairs resemble adult-infant pairs to the
extent that siblings differ in experience and levels of both cognitive and social ability. Older siblings
tend to “lead” interactions and engage in more dominant, assertive, and directing behaviors, and they
create more “social” (game) and “intellectual” (language) experiences for their infant siblings (Vol-
ling, 2017) and so may influence social and cognitive skills of infants through teaching and modeling
(Zajonc, 1983). Reciprocally, infants often take special note of what their older siblings do; they follow,
imitate, and explore toys recently abandoned by older children. This strategy maximizes infant learn-
ing from older children. Older siblings spend at least some time teaching object-related and social
skills to their younger siblings (including infants), and the amount of teaching increases with the age
of the older child (Minnett,Vandell, and Santrock, 1983; Stewart, 1983).
Peer interaction and play in infancy are not solely “parallel” in nature. Toward the end of the first
year, children watch and imitate peers’ actions with toys (Singer, 1995). One study revealed that 17-
to 20-month-olds engage in more creative or unusual uses of objects during play with peers than
during play with mothers (Rubenstein and Howes, 1976). Still, older siblings or peers are less likely
to respond contingently to 6- and 9-month infants than are mothers (Vandell and Wilson, 1987).
Infants also commonly encounter a social world that extends beyond the immediate family. In
some societies, multiple-infant caregiving is natural. Today, most infants in the United States are
cared for on a regular basis by someone in addition to a parent (Bornstein, Putnick, and Suwalsky,
2016). One common form of nonparental familial care involves relatives such as grandparents (Smith
and Wild, 2019). Grandparental care of infants may be indirect or direct. Increased life expectancy,
decreased family size, more maternal employment, and the rise of single-parent families have con-
spired to increase the potential for grandparents to play greater parts in the lives of their grandchil-
dren (Arber and Timonen, 2012; Dunifon, 2012; Kornhaber, 2002; Tanskanen and Rotkirch, 2014;
Witkin, 2012). Approximately 43% of grandparents provide some childcare on a regular basis (Lou
and Chi, 2012; Stelle, Fruhauf, Orel, and Landry-Meyer, 2010), and in custodial grandparent fami-
lies children are reared solely by grandparents (as the result, e.g., of maternal incarceration or other
parental problems; Dallaire, 2019; Poehlmann et al., 2008).
Nonfamilial daycare providers constitute the other common infant caregiver lot (Raikes et al.,
2019). Most provide infants with care in daycare centers; the next most provide infants with care in
their own homes; and the fewest care for infants in the baby’s home. In their first year, 46% of infants
in the United States experience at least one weekly nonparental childcare arrangement (Institute for
Educational Sciences, National Center for Educational Statistics, 2018. https://nces.ed.gov).
It was once believed that only full-time mothers could provide infants with the care they needed
to thrive: These beliefs were fostered by literature on the adverse effects of maternal deprivation
(Bowlby, 1951; Rutter and Woodhouse, 2019). Attachment theory maintained that infants become
attached to those persons who are associated over time with consistent, predictable, and appropriate
responses to infants’ signals as well as to their needs, and that attachment was critical to the develop-
ment of a healthy and normal personality (Cummings and Warmuth, 2019). However, some social
critics argue that high-quality nonparental infant childcare is possible and that the normalcy of
infants’ emotional attachments depends not on the quantity of time that carers spend with infants,
but on the quality of carers’ interactions with them (Howes and Oldman, 2001; Howes and Spieker,
2008). So, social relationship theory posits that multiple associations are important to children because
each meets a different developmental need (Vandell, 2000).
10
Parenting Infants
Coparenting is often thought to apply to mother and father; marital relationships and father
involvement affect the quality of mother–child and father-child relationships and child outcomes.
Coparenting comprises multiple interrelated components: agreement or disagreement on childrear-
ing issues, support or undermining of the parental role, and joint management of family interactions
(Feinberg, 2003; Feinberg, McHale, and Sirotkin, 2019). However, coparenting in principle applies
to any constellation of infant carers, and how “parents” work together as a coparenting team may
have far-reaching consequences for infants. A coparent who has a positive and supportive relationship
with a child tends to diminish the likelihood that the second parent will behave in a hostile manner
toward the child (Conger, Schofield, and Neppl, 2012). Mothers in supportive coparenting rela-
tionships are less harried and less overwhelmed, have fewer competing demands on their time, and
consequently are more available to their children and are more competent and sensitively responsive
to their young children than are mothers lacking such relationships (Crnic and Greenberg, 1990;
Grych, 2002). In the Civitas Initiative et al. (2000) national survey, 70% of mothers of children under
3 reported that they relied on their spouse and 66% on their mothers, for support, information, and
advice; 54% reported that they relied on their child’s doctor/pediatrician, 25% on nurses, and 20%
on childcare providers.
Parenting Infants
Human infants do not and cannot grow up as solitary individuals; parenting constitutes the initial
and all-encompassing ecology of infant development. Parenting is instantiated in parents’ cognitions
and practices, and mothers, fathers, and others guide the development of infants according to sev-
eral principles of direct and indirect effects that follow different possible models utilizing different
mechanisms.
Parenting Cognitions
When their infants are only 1 month of age, 99% of mothers believe that babies can express interest,
95% joy, 84% anger, 75% surprise, 58% fear, and 34% sadness (Johnson, Emde, Pennbrook, Stenberg,
and Davis, 1982). These judgments may reflect infants’ expressive capacities or contextual cues or
mothers’ subjective inferences. In response to specific questions, mothers describe their infants’ vocal
and facial expressions, along with their gestures and movements, as the bases of these judgments.
Because mothers commonly respond differently to different emotional messages they perceive in
their infants, they have frequent opportunities to have their inferences fine-tuned or corrected,
depending on how their babies respond in turn. There is therefore good reason to invest confidence
and meaningfulness in many parental cognitions about infants.
Parents’ cognitions—their ideas, knowledge, values, goals, expectations, and attitudes—have held
a consistently popular place in the study of parent–infant relationships (Holden and Smith, 2019).
Parental beliefs are conceived to serve many functions; in the so-called “standard model” of parent-
ing (Bornstein, Putnick, and Suwalsky, 2018b), cognitions are thought to generate and shape parental
behaviors, and they may mediate the effectiveness of parenting or help to organize parenting. Thus,
how parents see themselves vis-à-vis infants generally can lead to their expressing one or another
kind of affect, thinking, or behavior in childrearing: Mothers who feel efficacious and competent in
their role as parents are more responsive (Schuengel and Oosterman, 2019) and more empathic, less
punitive, and more appropriate in their developmental expectations (East and Felice, 1996). How
parents construe infancy in general functions in the same way: Mothers who believe that they can or
cannot affect infant personality or intelligence appear to modify their parenting accordingly. Moth-
ers who feel effective vis-à-vis infants are motivated to engage in further interactions that in turn
provide infants with additional opportunities to understand and interact positively and appropriately
11
Marc H. Bornstein
with their infants (Teti, O’Connell, and Reiner, 1996). How parents see their own infants has its spe-
cific consequences too: Mothers who regard their infants as being difficult are less likely to pay atten-
tion or respond to their infants’ overtures, and their inattentiveness and nonresponsiveness can then
foster temperamental difficulties and cognitive shortcomings (Bates, McQuillan, and Hoyniak, 2019).
Are parents’ beliefs about their own behaviors with infants accurate, consistent, and valid? Some
maternal behaviors correspond to maternal beliefs: for example, mothers’ behaviors toward their
infants and their beliefs about childrearing practices (Wachs and Camli, 1991) and mothers’ infant
caregiving competence and beliefs about their parenting effectiveness (Teti and Gelfand, 1991). Euro-
pean American mothers underscore the importance of certain values, such as independence, assertive-
ness, and creativity, when asked to describe an ideal child, whereas Puerto Rican mothers underscore
the importance of obedience and respect for others. In line with these values, U.S. mothers have been
observed to foster independence in infants; for example, in naturalistic mother–infant interactions
during feeding, U.S. mothers encourage their infants to feed themselves at 8 months of age. In con-
trast, Puerto Rican mothers hold their infants closely on their laps during mealtimes and take control
of feeding them meals from start to finish (Harwood, Miller, and Irizarry, 1995). However, coordinate
relations between parents’ beliefs and behaviors have often proven elusive, with many researchers
finding only irregular relations between mothers’ professed parenting attitudes and their activities
with their infants (Cote and Bornstein, 2000). Likely, the conceptual match between cognition and
practice is all-important (Bornstein, Putnick, and Suwalsky, 2018b). Siddiqui and Hägglöf (2000)
found that mothers’ antenatal attachment expectancy toward their unborn child predicted mothers’
sensitivity at 3 months postpartum. Dayton, Levendosky, Davidson, and Bogat (2010) learned that
mothers who professed affectively disengaged prenatal representations of their children were at 1 year
more behaviorally controlling; mothers whose representations were affectively distorted were hostile;
and mothers with balanced representations demonstrated positive parenting. Using an equivalent
longitudinal design, Haltigan and colleagues (2014) determined that mothers’ attachment representa-
tions assessed prenatally predicted observed maternal sensitivity at 6 months postnatally.
In probing infantrearing cognitions, we may come to better understand how and why parents
behave in the ways they do. For example, parents might believe a child is misbehaving purposefully,
when the child’s behavior may in fact be developmentally typical. Higher levels of internal attribu-
tions of child misbehaviors are more prevalent among neglectful, abusive, and authoritarian mothers
(Wang, Deater-Deckard, and Bell, 2013). Ethnographic interviews of mothers with infants between
the ages of 2 and 18 months revealed that some avoid using physical punishment with infants because
they believe that infants are not able to clearly understand right and wrong, whereas others believe
that infants can misbehave intentionally and need to be punished to stop their bad behavior and learn
to respect mothers’ authority. Subsequent quantitative analyses revealed that mothers who expressed
concerns about bad behavior and spoiling interacted less positively with their infants (Burchinal,
Skinner, and Reznick, 2010).
Parenting knowledge of childrearing and child development draws on the science base as well as
social construction and is thought to be valid and reliable by clinical and research communities alike
(Bornstein, Cote, Haynes, Hahn, and Park, 2010). Parenting knowledge encompasses many domains,
including fulfilling the biological and physical as well as socioemotional and cognitive needs of
children as they develop, understanding normative child development, and awareness of practices
and strategies for maintaining and promoting children’s health and coping effectively with children’s
illness. Parenting knowledge is associated with enhanced parental self-perceptions of competence,
satisfaction, and investment in parenting (Bornstein, Hendricks, Hahn, Haynes, Painter, and Tamis-
LeMonda, 2003), and mothers’ knowledge explains variations in their emotional relationships with
children (Bornstein, Putnick, and Suwalsky, 2012).
Are parents’ beliefs about infants accurate? From their long-term, intimate experience with their
infants, parents surely know their own infants better than anyone else does. For that reason, parents (or
12
Parenting Infants
other close caregivers) have long been thought to provide valid reports about their infants (Thomas,
Chess, Birch, Hertzig, and Korn, 1963). However, parental report also invites bias owing, for example,
to parents’ subjective viewpoint, personality disposition, unique experiences, social desirability, and
other factors (Bornstein, Putnick, Lansford, Pastorelli, et al., 2015). One study compared maternal
and observer ratings of manifest infant activity (reaching, kicking, and other explicit motor behav-
iors) when infants were by themselves, when with mother, and when with an observer (Bornstein,
Gaughran, and Seguí, 1991). Mother–observer assessments agreed, but only moderately. Different
observers have different amounts of information about a baby, and they also carry with them unique
perspectives that have been shaped by their idiosyncratic personology and different prior experi-
ences; both information level and perspective influence cognitions about infants.
Significantly, parents in different cultures harbor different beliefs about their own parenting as
well as about their infants (Bornstein and Lansford, 2010). Parents may then act on culturally defined
beliefs as much or more than on what their senses tell them about their babies. Parents in Samoa
think of young children as having an angry and willful character, and, independent of what chil-
dren might actually say, parents consensually report that their children’s first word is tae—Samoan
for “shit” (Ochs, 1988). Parents in Mexico promote play in infants as a forum for the expression of
interpersonal sensitivity, whereas parents in the United States are prone to attach greater cognitive
value to play (Bornstein, 2007).The ways in which parents (choose to) interact with their infants may
relate to parents’ general or specific belief systems.
Parenting Practices
More salient in the phenomenology of the infant are actual experiences that parents provide; behav-
iors are direct expressions of parenting. Before children are old enough to enter formal or even
informal social situations, like play groups and pre-school, most of their worldly experience stems
directly from interactions they have within the family. In that context (at least in Western cultures),
two adult caregiving figures are (usually) responsible for determining those experiences. A small
number of domains of parenting interactions have been identified as common “cores” of parental
care (Bornstein, 1989a, 2015), and they have been studied for their variation, stability, continuity, and
covariation, as well as for their correspondences with and prediction of infant development.
In infrahuman primates, maternal behaviors consist largely of biologically requisite feeding,
grooming, protection, and the like (Bard, 2019).The contents of parent–infant interactions are much
more dynamic, varied, and discretionary in human beings. Moreover, there is initially asymmetry
in parent and child contributions to interactions and control: Post-infancy, children play increas-
ingly active and anticipatory roles in interactions, whereas initial responsibility for wholesome infant
development lies unambiguously with the parent (Kochanska and Aksan, 2004; Maccoby, 1992).
Four superordinate categories of human parental caregiving (and reciprocally for the infant, expe-
riences) have been identified: They are nurturant, social, didactic, and material (Bornstein, Putnick,
Park, Suwalsky, and Haynes, 2017). These categories apply to the infancy period and to normal car-
egiving. Not all forms of parenting, or parenting domains appropriate for older children (for example,
discipline), are accounted for in this taxonomy. Although these modes of caregiving are conceptually
and operationally distinct, in practice caregiver-infant interaction is intricate and multidimensional,
and infant caregivers regularly engage in combinations of them. Together, however, these modes are
perhaps universal, even if their instantiations (forms) or emphases (frequency or duration) vary across
social groups. For their part, human infants are reared in, influenced by, and adapt to a social and
physical ecology commonly characterized by this taxonomy and its elements (Bornstein, Putnick,
Lansford, Deater-Deckard, and Bradley, 2015; Bornstein, Putnick, Park, et al., 2017).
Nurturant caregiving meets the physical requirements of the infant. Infant mortality is a peren-
nial parenting concern, and parents centrally are responsible for promoting infants’ wellness and
13
Marc H. Bornstein
preventing their illness from the moment of conception—or even earlier. Parents in virtually all
higher species nurture their very young, providing sustenance, protection, supervision, grooming, and
the like. Parents shield infants from risks and stressors. Nurturance is prerequisite to infants’ survival
and well-being; reciprocally, seeing a child to reproductive age enhances parents’ fitness, the prob-
ability of passing on their genetic characteristics.
Social caregiving includes the variety of visual, verbal, affective, and physical behaviors parents
use in engaging infants in interpersonal exchanges (kissing, tactile comforting, smiling, vocalizing,
and playful contact). Parental displays of warmth and physical expressions of affection toward their
offspring peak in infancy. Social caregiving includes the regulation of infant affect as well as the man-
agement and monitoring of infant social and emotional relationships with others, including relatives,
nonfamilial caregivers, and peers.
Didactic caregiving consists of the variety of strategies parents use in stimulating infants to engage
and understand the environment outside the dyad. Didactics include focusing the infant’s attention
on properties, objects, or events in the surround; introducing, mediating, and interpreting the exter-
nal world; describing and demonstrating; as well as provoking or providing opportunities to observe,
to imitate, and to learn. Normally, didactics increase over the course of infancy.
Material caregiving includes those ways in which parents provision and organize the infant’s
physical world. Adults are responsible for the number and variety of inanimate objects (toys, books)
available to the infant, level of ambient stimulation, limits on physical freedom, safety, and overall
physical dimensions of babies’ experiences.
Principles of Parenting Infants

Certain principles pervade parenting; some are general, others come into play specifically with
infants. Three significant psychometric characteristics of variation, consistency, and independence
distinguish parenting cognitions and practices. In addition, effects of parenting may be direct or
indirect; follow diverse models of early, contemporaneous, or cumulative experience; and operate
according to specificity, transaction, and coregulation mechanisms of action.
Psychometrics
Variation in parenting cognitions and practices. Adults can, and often do, differ considerably in their car-
egiving beliefs and behaviors, even when they come from otherwise homogeneous social groups.
For example, the amount of language that parents use to address their infants varies enormously.
One study reported that, even when from a relatively homogeneous group in terms of education
and socioeconomic status (SES), some mothers talked to their 4-month-old infants during as little
as 3%, and some during as much as 97%, of an hour-long home observation (Bornstein and Ruddy,
1984). Thus, the range in amount of language that washes over babies is virtually as large as it can be.
This is not to say that there are not also systematic differences by social group; there are (see below).
Consistency in parenting cognitions and practices. There are two forms of consistency: Stability con-
notes consistency in the relative ranks of individuals in a group, and continuity consistency in the
mean level of a group, over time; the two are independent, and both are meaningful (Bornstein,
Putnick, and Esposito, 2017). Short-term reliabilities of cognitions and practices in parents tend to
be high as documented in meta-analysis (Holden and Miller, 1999), although rank and level both are
moderated by parenting construct, interassessment duration, context, child age, and methodologi-
cal approach (Bornstein, Putnick, Suwalsky, and Gini, 2006; Dallaire and Weinraub, 2005; Haltigan,
Roisman, and Fraley, 2013; Maas,Vreeswijk, and van Bakel, 2013; Porter and Hsu, 2003). The extant
literature also supports stability of relationship measures in parent–infant dyads (Bornstein, Gini,
Putnick, et al., 2006; Bornstein, Gini, Suwalsky, Putnick, and Haynes, 2006). Individual parents do
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Parenting Infants
not vary much in their activities from day to day, but parenting activities change over longer periods
and in response to children’s development. Unsurprisingly, the time devoted to caregiving activities
decreases (Fleming, Ruble, Flett, and Van Wagner, 1990). Sensitive parents also tailor their behaviors
to match their infants’ developmental progress (Bornstein, 2013a), for example by speaking more
and providing more didactic experiences as infants age (Bornstein, Tal, et al., 1992; Bornstein and
Tamis-LeMonda, 1990; Klein, 1988). Indeed, parents are sensitive to infant age and to increasing
infant capacity or performance (Bellinger, 1980): The mean length of mothers’ utterances tends to
match the mean length of utterances of their 1½- to 3½-year-olds (McLaughlin, White, McDevitt,
and Raskin, 1983).
One study examined activities of mothers toward their firstborn infants between the time
babies were 2 and 5 months of age (Bornstein and Tamis-LeMonda, 1990). Two kinds of mothers’
encouraging attention, two kinds of speech, and maternal bids to social play in relation to infants’
exploration and vocalization were recorded. Table 1.1 provides a conceptual summary of some
pertinent findings, distinguishing activities that are stable and unstable as well as those that are
continuous and discontinuous over time. Notable is the fact that every cell in the table is repre-
sented with a significant parenting activity. Some activities are stable and continuous as infants
age (e.g., total maternal speech to baby). Others are stable and discontinuous, showing either a
general developmental increase (e.g., didactic stimulation) or a decrease (e.g., infant-directed
speech). Some are unstable and continuous (e.g., social play), whereas others are unstable and
discontinuous, showing either a general developmental increase (e.g., adult-directed speech) or a
decrease (e.g., social stimulation).
Independence of parenting cognitions and practices. Classical authorities, including notably psychoana-
lysts and ethologists, once conceptualized maternal beliefs and behaviors as a more or less unitary—
variously denoted as “good,” “sensitive,” “warm,” or “adequate” (Ainsworth et al., 1978; Mahler et al.,
1975; Rohner, 1985; Winnicott, 1957)—despite the wide range of attitudes and activities mothers
naturally hold and engage in with infants. The thinking was that parents behave in consistent ways or
adhere to a single “style” across domains of interaction, time, and context (Baumrind, 1967). Alter-
natively, domains of parenting infants might constitute internally coherent, but relatively distinctive,
constructs (Bornstein, 1989a, 2015; Bornstein, Putnick, Park, et al., 2017).That is, mothers who engage
in more face-to-face play with their infants are not necessarily or automatically those who read to
their infants more. Independence turns out to be a general characteristic of mothers in a wide variety
of different countries (Bornstein, Putnick, Park, et al., 2017; Bornstein, Azuma, Tamis-LeMonda, and
Ogino, 1990; Bornstein and Tamis-LeMonda, 1990; Bornstein, Tamis-LeMonda, Pêcheux, and Rahn,
1991; Bornstein,Toda, Azuma,Tamis-LeMonda, and Ogino, 1990). In other words, individual mothers
tend to emphasize particular attitudes and activities with their infants.
Table 1.1 Developmental stability and continuity in maternal activities in infancy
Developmental Continuity
Continuous Discontinuous
Developmental Stability Increase Decrease
Stable Speecha Didactic stimulation Infant-directed speech

Unstable Social play Adult-directed speech Social stimulation
a For example, across early infancy, mothers speak to their infants approximately the same amount in total (con-
tinuity), and those mothers who speak more when their infants are younger speak more when their infants
are older, just as those mothers who speak less when their infants are younger speak less when their infants
are older (stability).
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Marc H. Bornstein
Direct and Indirect Effects

Mothers and fathers contribute directly to the nature and the development of their infants by passing
on their biological characteristics. Modern behavior genetics argues that a host of different charac-
teristics of offspring—height and weight, intelligence and personality—reflects genetic inheritance
in some degree (Kong et al., 2018; Knopik, Neiderhiser, DeFries, and Plomin, 2017).
At the same time, all prominent theories of development put experience in the world as either
the principal source of individual growth or as a major contributing component (Lerner et al., 2015;
Wachs, 2000). Studies of children with genetic backgrounds that differ from those of their nurturing
families provide one means of evaluating the impacts of heredity and experience on infant develop-
ment. In (ideal) natural experiments of adoption, the child shares genes but not environment with
biological parents, and the child shares environment but not genes with adoptive parents. Studies
of l-year-old infants, their biological parents, and their adoptive parents in this design reveal that
development of communicative competence and cognitive abilities relates to the general intelligence
(IQ) of biological mothers and to the behaviors of adoptive mothers (imitating and responding
contingently to infant vocalization). These results point to direct roles for both genetics and experi-
ence in parenting infants (Hardy-Brown, 1983; Hardy-Brown and Plomin, 1985).Thus, evidence for
heritability effects neither negates nor diminishes equally compelling evidence for the direct effects
of parenting cognitions and practices (Collins, Maccoby, Steinberg, Hetherington, and Bornstein,
2000).To cite an obvious example, genes contribute to making siblings alike, but (as we all recognize)
siblings normally also differ from one another, and it is widely held that siblings’ different experi-
ences (the nonshared environment) in growing up contribute to making them distinctive individuals
(Bornstein, Putnick, and Suwalsky, 2018a). Even within the same family and home setting, therefore,
parents help to create distinctive and effective environments for their different children (Turkheimer
and Waldron, 2000).
Empirical research attests to the short- and the long-term influences of parent- or caregiver-
provided experiences over infant development. Mothers who speak more, prompt more, and respond
more during the first year of their infants’ lives have 6-month-old infants to 4-year-old children
who score higher in standardized evaluations of language and cognition (Bornstein, 1985; Bornstein,
Tamis-LeMonda, and Haynes, 1999; Nicely, Tamis-LeMonda, and Bornstein, 1999). Even features of
the parent-outfitted material environment appear to influence infant development directly (Wachs
and Chan, 1986): New toys and changing room decorations promote child language acquisition in
and of themselves and separate and apart from parental language.
Indirect effects of parenting are subtler and less noticeable than direct effects, but likely no less
meaningful. One primary type of indirect effect on infants is support and communication in the
parents’ marriage. Conflicts and disagreements between parental partners increase with the birth of
a baby, marital satisfaction decreases from pregnancy to early childhood, and parents’ attitudes about
themselves and their marriages during this transition influence the quality of their interactions with
their infants and, in turn, their infants’ development (Cowan and Cowan, 1992). Effective coparent-
ing bodes well for infant development, and mothers (as indicated) who report supportive relation-
ships even with “secondary parents” (lovers or grandparents) are more competent and sensitively
responsive to their infants than are mothers deprived of such relationships.
In the extreme, conflict between spouses may reduce the availability of an important source of
support in infantrearing, namely one’s partner. Short of that, parents embroiled in marital conflict
may have difficulty attending to the sometimes-subtle signals infants use to communicate their
needs. Infants in these homes may learn that their caregivers are unreliable sources of information
or assistance in stressful situations. For example, year-old infants are less likely to look to their mari-
tally dissatisfied fathers for information or clarification in the face of stress or ambiguity than are
infants of maritally satisfied fathers (Parke and Cookston, 2019). In one study, the influence of the
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Parenting Infants
husband-wife relationship on mother–infant interaction in a feeding context was assessed (Pedersen,

1975). Ratings were made of the quality of mother–infant interaction during home observations
when infants were 4 weeks of age. Feeding competence referred to the appropriateness of the
mother in managing and pacing feeding without disrupting the baby and to her displays of sensitivity
to the baby’s needs for either stimulation of feeding or brief rest periods during feeding. In addi-
tion, the husband-wife relationship was evaluated, and neonatal assessments (Brazelton, 1973) were
made.When fathers were more supportive of mothers, esteeming maternal skills, mothers were more
competent in feeding babies. (Of course, competent mothers could elicit more positive evaluations
from their husbands.) The reverse held for marital discord:Tension and conflict in the marriage were
associated with more inept feeding on the part of the mother.The marital relationship also predicted
the status and the well-being of the infant as assessed by Brazelton scores. With an alert baby, the
father evaluated the mother more positively; with a motorically mature baby, the marriage was char-
acterized by less tension and conflict. In brief, research supports both direct and indirect effects of
parenting on infant development.
Models of Parenting Effects

Parenting cognitions and practices shape development in infancy by means of different temporal
pathways. A parent-provided experience might influence the infant at a particular time point in
a particular way, and the consequence for the infant endures, independent of later parenting and
any contribution of the infant. Theoreticians and researchers have long supposed that the child’s
earliest experiences herald later development (Plato, ca. 355 BC), and data derived from ethology,
psychoanalysis, behaviorism, and neuropsychology support this first early experience model. Empiri-
cally, mothers encouraging their 2-month-olds to attend to properties, objects, and events in the
environment uniquely predicts infants’ tactual exploration of objects at 5 months over and above
2- to 5-month stability in infant tactual exploration and any contemporaneous 5-month maternal
stimulation (Bornstein and Tamis-LeMonda, 1990).
In a second contemporary experience model, parents exert unique influences over their infants
at only a given point in development, overriding the effects of earlier experiences and independent
of whatever individual differences infants carry forward. Empirical support for this model typically
consists of failures of early intervention studies to show enduring effects and of recovery of function-
ing from early deprivation (Clarke and Clarke, 1976; Lewis, 1997; Rutter and the English and Roma-
nian Adoptees Study Team, 1998). Empirically, mothers’ didactic encouragement of 5-month-olds is
uniquely associated with infants’ visual exploration of the environment at 5 months, independent of
stability in infant exploration to that point and mothers’ didactic encouragement 3 months earlier
(Bornstein and Tamis-LeMonda, 1990).
The first two models are consonant with a sensitive period interpretation of parenting effects
(Bornstein, 1989b). A third cumulative/additive/stable environment model combines the two. That
is, a parent-provided experience at any one time does not necessarily exceed a meaningful thresh-
old to affect the infant, but effective longitudinal relations are structured by parenting that repeats
and aggregates through time (Abelson, 1985; Olson, Bates, and Bayles, 1984). Empirically, maternal
didactic stimulation when the infant is 2 and 5 months old cumulates to predict unique variance
(above stability) in infant nondistress vocalization when the infant is 5 months old (Bornstein and
Tamis-LeMonda, 1990).
Although longitudinal data in the first 6 months provide evidence for unique early, unique con-
temporary, and cumulative experiential effects between mothers and infants, for the most part chil-
dren are typically reared in relatively stable parenting environments (Holden and Miller, 1999), so that
cumulative experience is likely. Of course, there is nothing to prevent different models of parenting
influence from operating simultaneously in different spheres of infant development (as we have seen).
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Marc H. Bornstein
It would be equally shortsighted to assume that different kinds of parenting exert only independent
and linear effects over infant development; such a stance fails to consider complex, conditional, and
nonlinear effects of caregiving. Parenting of specific sorts might affect development monistically, but
different practices certainly also often combine in conditional ways; some parenting effects may be
direct, others indirect; some may be immediate, others may need to aggregate to be more effective.
In brief, parenting effects may follow any of three different temporal models.
Mechanisms of Parenting Effects

Parents’ cognitions and practices influence infants and infant development by different paths. A com-
mon assumption in parenting is that the overall level of parental involvement or stimulation affects
the infant’s overall level of development (Maccoby and Martin, 1983). An illustration of this simple
main effects model asserts that the amount of language infants command is determined (at least to
some degree) by the amount of language infants hear (Hart and Risley, 1995, 1999). Increasing evi-
dence suggests that complex and more nuanced mechanisms need to be brought to bear to explain
parenting effects. First, specific (rather than general) parenting cognitions and practices appear to
relate concurrently and predictively to specific (rather than general) aspects of infant competence or
performance; second, parent and infant transact to mutually influence one another through time; and,
third, parent–infant coregulation appears optimal for development.
The specificity principle states that specific parent-provided experiences at specific times exert
specific effects over specific aspects of infant development in specific ways (Bornstein, 1989a, 2015).
For example, mothers’ single-word utterances are just those that appear earliest in their children’s
vocabularies (Chapman, 1981). Several such specificities were observed in the longitudinal study of
relationships between mothers and their 2- to 5-month-old infants referred to earlier (Bornstein and
Tamis-LeMonda, 1990), and they generalize across cultures (Bornstein Putnick, Park, et al., 2017).
For instance, mothers who encourage their infants to attend to the mothers themselves have infants
who later look more at their mothers, whereas mothers who encourage their infants’ attention to
the environment have infants who explore surrounding properties, objects, and events more. Moth-
ers’ responses to their infants’ communicative overtures are central to children’s early acquisition of
language but exert less influence over the growth of motor abilities or play (Tamis-LeMonda and
Bornstein, 1994). (The point here is not to deduce causation; correlation cannot support such an
interpretation. Rather, the point here is to support specificity and coregulation.)
The transaction principle in development recognizes that the characteristics of individuals shape
their experiences and, reciprocally, that experiences shape the characteristics of individuals through
time (Bornstein, 2009). Endowment and experience mutually influence development from birth
onward, and each life force affects the other as development unfolds (Lerner et al., 2015). Infant
caregiving is differentiated by responsibility and lead. In Western industrialized cultures, parents are
generally acknowledged to take principal responsibility for structuring their exchanges with babies:
They engage infants in turn taking in verbal interchange (Bornstein, Putnick, Cote, Haynes, and
Suwalsky, 2015). Frequently, then, thinking about parent–infant relationships highlights parents as
agents of infant socialization with infants conceived of as passive recipients.To a considerable degree,
however, parenting infants is a two-way street. Infants cry to be fed and changed, and when awake
they are ready to play. Parents’ initiatives are proactive; often, however, they are reactive and thence
interactive. Infants appear to be sensitive to contingencies between their own actions and the reac-
tions of others, and such contingencies are a hallmark of parent–infant responsive exchanges.
By virtue of their unique characteristics and propensities—state of arousal, perceptual awareness,
cognitive ability, emotional expressiveness, and individuality of temperament—infants actively con-
tribute, through their interactions with their parents, to their own development. Infants influence
which experiences they will be exposed to, and they filter (“interpret”) those experiences and so in
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Parenting Infants
some degree determine how those experiences will affect them. Infants deliberately search for and
use others’ (parents’) emotional (facial, vocal, gestural) expressions to help clarify and evaluate uncer-
tain and novel events, termed social referencing (Kim and Kwak, 2011; Murray et al., 2008). Between
9 and 12 months of age, infants look to mothers and fathers for emotional cues and are influenced
by both positive and negative adult expressions (Dickstein and Parke, 1988; Hirshberg and Svejda,
1990). Indeed, in uncertain situations infants may position themselves so they can keep their mother’s
face in view (Sorce and Emde, 1981). That negative qualities of caregivers’ emotional expressions—
distress, disgust, fear, anger—influence infant behavior seems sensible, given that the overriding mes-
sage in a parent’s emotional expressions is that an event is or is not dangerous or threatening to
the baby. Infants not only play less with unusual toys when their mothers display disgust, instead of
pleasure, about the toys, but when the same toys are presented later infants show the same responses,
even though their mothers no longer pose emotional expressions but are instead silent and neutral
(Hornik, Risenhoover, and Gunnar, 1987). Infants are negatively affected immediately and long-term
by mothers’ lapsing into a “still face,” and infants of depressed mothers show inferior social referenc-
ing skills, perhaps because their mothers provide less frequent or less certain facial and vocal cues and
fewer modeling responses (Manian and Bornstein, 2009).
Infant and parent bring distinctive characteristics to, and each changes as a result of, every interac-
tion; both then enter the next round of interaction as changed individuals.Thus, infant temperament
and maternal sensitivity, for example, operate in tandem to affect one another and eventually the
attachment status of the child (Bates et al., 2019). Vygotsky (1978) theorized that, as a central fea-
ture of this transactional perspective, the more advanced or expert partner (usually the mother) will
elevate the level of performance or competence of the less advanced or expert partner (the infant),
and the dynamic systems perspective posits that reciprocity between parent and infant facilitates
higher-order forms of interaction.
Responsiveness is on these grounds a key component of parenting infants (Ainsworth et al., 1978;
Bornstein, 1989c). Although responsiveness takes many guises, parents who respond promptly, reli-
ably, and appropriately to their babies’ signals give babies good messages from the start.They tell their
children that they can trust their parents to be there for them. They give their children a sense of
control and of self. A baby cries, a mother comes—the baby already feels she or he has an effect on
the world. Responsiveness has been observed as a typical characteristic of parenting in mothers in
different regions of the world (Bornstein, Putnick, Cote, et al., 2015; Bornstein, Putnick, Rigo, et al.,
2017; Bornstein,Tamis-LeMonda, et al., 1992). Mesman et al. (2016) sampled 751 mothers in 26 cul-
tural groups from 15 countries around the globe and found strong pervasive convergence between
attachment theory’s description of the sensitive responsive mother and maternal beliefs about the
ideal mother. Some types of responsiveness are similar, but some vary relative to divergent cultural
goals of parenting. Mothers in different cultures respond to infant vocal distress and nondistress but
vary in when and how they do so (Bornstein, Putnick, Cote, et al., 2015).
Responsiveness to infant distress is thought to have evolved an adaptive significance for eliciting
and maintaining proximity and care (Bowlby, 1969). However, mothers respond variously in more
discretionary interactions, as in determining which infant attentional behaviors to respond to and
how to respond to them. In line with cultural expectations, for example, Japanese mothers empha-
size emotional exchange within the dyad in responsive interactions with their babies, whereas U.S.
American mothers promote language and emphasize the material world outside the dyad (Bornstein,
Tamis-LeMonda, et al., 1992).Transactional goodness-of-fit models explain much in infant develop-
ment.Thus Lea, who is an alert and responsive baby, invites her parents’ stimulation; Lea’s enthusiastic
responses are rewarding to her parents, who engage her more, which in turn further enriches her
life. By contrast, a baby whose parent has been unresponsive is frequently upset because the parent’s
inaccessibility may be painful and frustrating; furthermore, because of uncertainty about the parent’s
responsiveness, the infant may grow apprehensive and protest stressful situations.
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Marc H. Bornstein
Figure 1.2
Coregulation is a third principle of optimizing infant development. Well-functioning parent–

infant relationships are characterized by coordination, harmony, mutuality, reciprocity, and synchrony
(Bornstein, 2013a). Coregulation is the adaptive unfolding of individual action that is continuously
modified by changing actions of the partner. Parent–infant coregulation operates at biological (hor-
monal and nervous system) and behavioral (affective and cognitive) levels and consists of transacting
contributions of partners. Like a Gestalt, however, coregulation transcends actors and is a property of
the dyad; coregulation is dyadic, dynamic, and wholistic. Furthermore, early biological and behavioral
coregulation facilitate infant development of secure attachment which then promotes self-regulation
and fosters other domains of development. For examples, infant and maternal cortisol levels tend to
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Parenting Infants
be synchronous (Spangler, 1991; Sethre-Hofstad, Stansbury, and Rice, 2002; Stenius et al., 2008) as
infant and mother levels of the enzyme alpha-amylase tend to correlate (Davis and Granger, 2009);
infant affect becomes more positive when mutual mother–infant gaze had occurred in the previous
moment, suggesting that the experience of synchronicity is associated with observable shifts in affect
(MacLean et al., 2014); mothers vocalize contingently in response to their infants’ vocalizations,
and infants vocalize in response to their mothers, and the two are correlated (Bornstein, Putnick,
Cote, Haynes, and Suwalsky, 2015); infant and mother emotional availability intercorrelate as well
(Bornstein, Putnick, et al., 2012; Bornstein, Putnick, and Suwalsky, 2012; Bornstein, Suwalsky, et al.,
2010). Beeghly, Perry, and Tronick (2016) and Hofer (2006) have argued that the emergence of
self-regulation occurs primarily in a relational context: Affective behavioral matching during face-
to-face interaction fosters the transition from mutual regulation to self-regulation in infants (Noe,
Schluckwerder, and Reck, 2015).
Coregulation facilitates the growth of a sturdy sense of self (Stern, 1985) and has been linked to a
broad spectrum of positive outcomes in child social development, cognitive maturation, intellectual
achievement, and behavioral adjustment (van IJzendoorn, Dijkstra, and Bus, 1995; van IJzendoorn,
Juffer, and Poelhuis, 2005). More specifically, mother-infant coregulation is associated with attach-
ment security (De Wolff and van IJzendoorn, 1997), positive mood in the child (Lay,Waters, and Park,
1989), child compliance (Rescorla and Fechnay, 1996), delay of gratification and self-control (Feld-
man, Greenbaum, and Yirmiya, 1999; Raver, 1996), social attentiveness, social problem solving skills,
and nonaggression (Lindsey, Mize, and Pettit, 1997; Mize and Pettit, 1997; Pettit and Mize, 1993), and
cooperation, emotional reciprocity, maternal responsiveness, and child responsiveness (Deater-Deckard
and O’Connor, 2000). In brief, parenting effects operate according to several different principles.
Summary
Out of the dynamic range and complexity of caregiving infants, diverse domains of parenting cogni-
tions and practices have been distinguished: Parenting cognitions and practices are conceptually sepa-
rable but fundamentally integral, and each is developmentally significant. The attitudes parents hold
about their infants, and the activities they engage them in, are each meaningful to infant develop-
ment. Parenting infants follows multiple principles: Parents’ beliefs and behaviors affect infant devel-
opment directly as well as indirectly by means of parents’ influences on one another and the multiple
contexts in which they rear infants; parent-provided experiences affect infants following different
temporal models and follow different mechanisms of action according to principles of specificity,
transaction, and coregulation.The working model of parenting infants and infant development is that
specific parent-provided experiences at specific times affect specific aspects of infant development in
specific ways and that specific infant abilities and proclivities evoke specific interactions that inflect
specific trajectories of infant development.
Before leaving this omnibus if nuanced consideration of how parents think about and behave
toward infants, some reality testing is in order. In everyday life, parenting infants does not always
go well and right. Infanticide was practiced historically, but thankfully it is very rare (although not
unknown) today (Piers, 1978; Saavedra and de Oliveira, 2017). Nonetheless, the local 10 o’clock
news too often leads with some tragic account of infant neglect or abuse (Sturge-Apple, Toth, Suor,
and Adams, 2019). Short of outright pathology, numerous other risks alter postnatal parenting and
compromise the innocent infant: In 2016, 40% of births in the United States were to unmarried
women (www.cdc.gov/nchs/fastats/unmarried-childbearing.htm); in 2015, more than 1 in 3 single-
mother families lived in poverty (https://nwlc.org/resources/national-snapshot-poverty-among-
women-families-2015/); in 2016, 50% of child fatalities involved infants under 1 year of age (Child
Welfare Information Gateway, 2017); in 2011, 4.4% of pregnant women used illicit drugs, 10.8% used
alcohol, 3.7% engaged in binge drinking, and 16.3% smoked cigarettes (Behnke, Smith, Committee
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Marc H. Bornstein
on Substance Abuse, and Committee on Fetus and Newborn, 2013); and in 2013, more than 20% of
children under 2 were not fully immunized against preventable disease (Child Trends, 2015). Some
parents are simply distressed and so supervise their infants less attentively, and consequently know
their infants less well. Transient situations as well as ongoing pathology affect parenting. As many
as 25% of new mothers are depressed (Cates et al., 2019) and sometimes demonstrate a style of
interaction marked by intrusiveness, anger, irritation, and rough handling of their infants, a style to
which infants respond with gaze aversion and avoidance (Esposito, Manian, Truzzi, and Bornstein,
2017; Manian and Bornstein, 2009). Mothers who have abused drugs often fail simply to attend to
elementary parenting responsibilities (Chassin, Hussong, Rothenberg, and Sternberg, 2019; Mayes
and Bornstein, 1995). No matter that they are kissed publicly and often before every election as an
ultimate demonstration of political caring (Dickens, 1867), infants have always and in every society
suffered physical and psychological neglect and abuse.
Forces That Shape Parenting Infants

A critical step on the path to fully understanding parenting infants is to evaluate the many forces
that shape it. The origins of infant caregiving—cognitions or practices—are extremely complex, but
certain factors seem to be of paramount importance: (1) biological and psychological determinants
in parents, (2) actual or perceived characteristics of infants, and (3) contextual influences (Bornstein,
2016). That is, the ways parents think about and interact with their babies vary depending on a vari-
ety of factors, including parents’ and infants’ characteristics as well as social and economic circum-
stances, ideology, and culture.
Parent Biological and Psychological Determinants of Parenting

Diverse forces operating within the parent shape parenting. Because securing the survival of offspring
is fundamental to evolutionary pressure, it is likely that specific biological and psychological charac-
teristics evolved in the service of parenting. Basic physiology is mobilized to support parenting, and
some parenting cognitions and practices normally first arise around biological processes associated
with pregnancy and parturition. However, prenatal biological characteristics and events—parental
age, diet, and stress, as well as other factors such as contraction of disease, exposure to environmental
toxins, and even birthing anesthetics—also affect postnatal parenting.
Genetic endowment, neurohormonal activity, and central nervous system structure and function
constitute some central biological characteristics that condition parenting. Prospective and new par-
ents are showing increased interest in genetics: New companies will utilize computational methods
to combine and analyze the couple’s DNA (based on saliva samples) and deliver predictions of more
than 20 possible traits (ancestry, physical appearance) of a future child to parents via a mobile phone
app. Behavior genetics (BG) seeks to understand biological sources of variation in human charac-
teristics (Knopik et al., 2017). By studying individuals of varying genetic relatedness (identical and
fraternal twins, biological and adopted siblings who share or do not share the same experiences),
behavior geneticists attempt to estimate the amount of variation (heritability) in characteristics that
can be explained by genetic endowment. From a BG perspective, parenting is (just) another pheno-
type that reflects nature and nurture (Broderick and Neiderhiser, 2019; McGuire, 2003).
Expressions of caregiving have been linked to hormones that are sometimes homologous in
females and males (Bales, 2014; Feldman, 2019). Hormonal events involved in parturition prime the
brain to be sensitive to new and unique stimuli (Lambert and Kinsley, 2012). Oxytocin (OT) pro-
motes prosocial behavior (Galbally, Lewis, van IJzendoorn, and Permezel, 2011) and is known to sup-
port the parent–infant bond in mammals (MacDonald and MacDonald, 2010).Variation in the OT
receptor gene is associated with maternal sensitivity (Bakermans-Kranenburg and van IJzendoorn,
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Parenting Infants
2008). Baseline OT levels in mothers and fathers are associated with different gender-typed parent-
ing. Mothers’ OT levels are positively correlated with affectionate but not stimulatory infant contact,
whereas fathers’ OT levels are positively correlated with stimulatory but not affectionate infant
contact (Feldman, Gordon, Schneiderman, Weisman, and Zagoory-Sharon, 2010; Feldman, Gordon,
and Zagoory-Sharon, 2011). Utilizing a double-blind, placebo-controlled, crossover design, Weis-
man, Zagoory-Sharon, and Feldman (2012) observed fathers and their 5-month-old infants twice
in a face-to-face still-face paradigm following administration of OT or placebo to the father. OT
administration increased fathers’ salivary OT and key parenting behaviors that support parent–infant
bonding. Moreover, parallel increases were found in infant salivary OT and engagement, including
social gaze, exploration, and social reciprocity. In other words, OT administration had parallel effects
on the treated parent and untreated infant.
Other neurohormones show associations with parenting cognitions and practices. Cortisol is a
steroid hormone released in response to stress. It functions to increase blood sugar, to suppress the
immune system, and to aid in the metabolism of fat, protein, and carbohydrates. Mothers with lower
cortisol levels are less withdrawn and more interactive with infants (Flinn et al., 2012).Testosterone is
the primary male sex hormone and an anabolic steroid. Testosterone plays a key role in the develop-
ment of male reproductive tissues and promotes secondary sexual characteristics such as increased
muscle and bone mass, the growth of body hair, and aggressiveness. Fathers with lower testosterone
levels engage in more infant caregiving (Alvergne, Faurie, and Raymond, 2009; Kuzawa, Gettler,
Muller, McDade, and Feranil, 2009).
Just as genes and hormones are wrapped up in parenting, so are the structure and function of the
autonomic and central nervous systems (Bridges, 2008; Brunton and Russell, 2008; Stark, Stein,Young,
Parsons, and Kringelbach et al., 2019; Numan and Insel, 2003). Esposito and his colleagues (2014)
measured autonomic physiological arousal using infrared thermography while Italian and Japanese
adults viewed unfamiliar ingroup versus outgroup infant and adult faces. Both Italians and Japanese
showed selective and specific physiological activation (increased facial temperature) for both ingroup
and outgroup infant faces. Arousal responses to infants are mediated by the autonomic nervous system.
Parenthood also alters the adult brain (Barrett and Fleming, 2011; Bornstein, 2013a; Kim et al.,
2010; Leuner, Glasper, and Gould, 2010; Rilling, 2013). For example, Bornstein, Arterberry, and Mash
(2013) found that just 3 months of exposure to their own infant’s face shaped particular frontal and
occipital cortex evoked response potentials (ERP) in new mothers. Programmatic research with own
versus other baby photographs and videos (Bornstein et al., 2013; Leibenluft, Gobbini, Harrison, and
Haxby, 2004; Noriuchi, Kikuchi, and Senoo, 2008; Ranote et al., 2004; Strathearn, Li, Fonagy, and
Montague, 2008; Swain, Leckman, Mayes, Feldman, and Schultz, 2006) and with cries of own infant
versus standard cries versus control noises (De Pisapia et al., 2013; Ranote et al., 2004;Venuti et al.,
2012) has revealed enhanced activations in regions of mothers’ and fathers’ brains associated with
movement, speech, empathy, and emotion recognition and evaluation of own infants.
Papoušek and Papoušek (2002) developed the notion that some infant caregiving practices are
biologically “wired” into human beings, termed intuitive parenting. Such caregiving is develop-
mentally suited to the age and the abilities of the infant and has the overall goal of enhancing infant
adaptation and development. Parents regularly enact intuitive parenting programs in an unconscious
fashion—such programs do not require the time or the effort typical of conscious decision-making,
and, being more rapid and efficient, they utilize less attentional and cognitive reserve.
An example of intuitive parenting is the use of infant-directed speech. Parents and others habitu-
ally and unconsciously modulate myriad aspects of their communication with infants to match
infants’ presumed or evaluated competencies. Special characteristics of infant-directed speech include
prosodic features (higher pitch, greater range of frequencies, more varied and exaggerated intona-
tion); simplicity features (shorter utterances, slower tempo, longer pauses between phrases, fewer
embedded clauses, fewer auxiliaries); redundancy features (more repetition over shorter amounts of
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Marc H. Bornstein
time, more immediate repetition); lexical features (special forms like “mama”); and content features
(restriction of topics to the child’s world). Cross-cultural developmental study attests that infant-
directed speech is widespread (Soderstrom, 2007). Indeed, parents find it difficult to resist or modify
such intuitive behaviors, even when asked to do so (Trevarthen, 1979). Additional support for the
premise that some interactions with infants are intuitive comes from observations that nonparents
(males and females) who have little prior experience with infants also modify their speech as the
infants’ own parents do when an infant is actually present and even when asked to imagine speak-
ing to an infant (Jacobson, Boersma, Fields, and Olson, 1983). Children from 2 to 3 years of age also
engage in such systematic language adjustments when speaking to their year-old siblings as opposed
to their mothers (Dunn and Kendrick, 1982), and when communicating with their infants mothers
with hearing loss modify their sign language the way hearing mothers use infant-directed speech
(Erting, Prezioso, and Hynes, 1994).
Parenting derives in part from biology but also reflects psychological characteristics of an individ-
ual. Parent age and (as we have seen) gender are perennially important parenting topics (Bornstein,
2013b) as are parents’ attentiveness, intelligence, and cognitive preparedness as well as their transient
feelings, enduring personality traits, and developmental history.
The average age for first birth in the United States is about 26.0 years. However, the contem-
porary demographics of parturition indicate that the rate of teenage (15–19 years) motherhood
is epidemic (204,043 live births in the United States in 2015; CDC/National Center for Health
Statistics, 2017), as approximately 1 in 3 adolescent women becomes pregnant by the end of her
19th year. Having a baby is a major transition in a person’s life, marked by dramatic changes in
information seeking, self-definition, and role responsibility (Bornstein, 2015). Teenage mothers are
thought to have lower levels of ego strength, to be less mature emotionally and socially, and to lack
a well-formed maternal self-definition, perhaps because they themselves are negotiating their own
developmental issues and are unskilled because of a still-developing brain and dearth of life experi-
ence (Easterbrooks, Katz, and Menon, 2019).Younger European American mothers are less sensitive
and optimally structuring, and their infants and toddlers are less responsive and involving (Bornstein,
Putnick, and Suwalsky, 2012). Lewin, Mitchell, and Ronzio (2013) used the nationally representative
Early Childhood Longitudinal Study-Birth cohort data set to compare parenting practices of ado-
lescent mothers (<19 years), emerging-adult mothers (19–25 years), and adult mothers (>25 years)
when their children were 2 years of age. Controlling for socioeconomic differences, adolescent
mothers exhibited less supportiveness, sensitivity, and positive regard than emerging-adult mothers,
who exhibited less than adults. Adolescent and emerging-adult mothers reported equivalent frequen-
cies of spanking and use of time-out, significantly more than adult mothers. The sociodemographic
situations in which new mothers find themselves exert specific influences over parenting as well.
Many new mothers appear to start their career as parents by being disadvantaged in some way.
Large numbers of them in the United States have not finished high school and are not married when
their baby is born, for example.
Parents’ attentiveness, intelligence, mental functioning, and (as we see later) even memories of
their own childhood help to create “strategy frames” or “affective lenses” that color their parenting.
Attention at neurobiological levels is heightened in new mothers (Purhonen, Valkonen-Korhonen,
and Lehtonen, 2008); policewomen report enhanced vigilance following the birth of their first
child (Fullgrabe, 2002); and women’s improved attentional processing of infant emotions during
pregnancy relates to their later relationships with their infant (Pearson, Lightman, and Evans, 2011).
Analyzing data from the Massachusetts site of the National Institute of Child Health and Human
Development (NICHD) Study of Early Child Care and Youth Development, Mulvaney, McCartney,
Bub, and Marshall (2006) learned that mothers’ verbal intelligence predicted the effectiveness of
their scaffolding collaborations with their children (which in turn uniquely predicted later cognitive
capabilities of the children). Even “cognitive readiness” to parent predicts parenting, at least during
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Parenting Infants
infancy (Borkowski et al., 2002), and accounts for relations between early maternal interactions and
1-year attachment status (Lounds, Borkowski, Whitman, Maxwell, and Weed, 2005). Furthermore,
mothers’ knowledge of child development and parenting predicts positive emotional mother-infant
relationships (Bornstein, Putnick, et al., 2012).
Personality also plays a significant part in parenting: “One cannot take the ‘person’ out of the
parent” (Vondra, Sysko, and Belsky, 2005, p. 2). A burgeoning literature explores relations between
one or more of the Big Five personality factors and parenting (Bornstein, Hahn, and Haynes, 2011;
Prinzie, Stams, Dekovic, Reijntjes, and Belsky, 2009). The five personality factors (as variables and in
patterns as clusters) relate differently to diverse parenting cognitions and practices (Prinzie, de Hahn,
and Belsky, 2019). Other features of personality favorable to good parenting of infants might include
empathic awareness, predictability, nonintrusiveness, and emotional availability. Perceived self-efficacy
likely affects parenting because parents who feel competent are reinforced and thus motivated to
engage in further interactions with their infants, which in turn provides them with additional oppor-
tunities to read their infants’ signals, interpret them more accurately, and respond appropriately; the
more rewarding the interaction, the more motivated are parents to seek “quality” interactions again.
Adult adaptability may be especially vital in the first few months when infants’ activities appear
unpredictable and disorganized, and their cues less distinct and differentiated.
Negative characteristics of personality, whether transient or permanent, affect parenting infants
adversely. The upbringing of children is highly emotional for both parents and children (Leerkes
and Augustine, 2019). Self-centeredness likely leads to difficulties when adults fail to put infants’
needs before their own (Dix, 1991). Women who are more preoccupied with themselves, as meas-
ured by physical and sexual concerns, show less effective parenting in the postpartum year (Gross-
man, Eichler, and Winikoff, 1980). Self-absorbed, these mothers may not be adequately sensitive
to their infants’ needs, a situation that also seems prevalent among adolescent mothers. Depres-
sion might be an enduring psychological characteristic, or it might be fleeting, as in response to
economic circumstances or even the birth of the baby. Depressed mothers fail to experience—
and convey to their infants—much happiness with life. Depression’s associated mood disturbance,
worry, and rumination compromise mothers’ ability to attend, diminish their responsiveness, and
discoordinate their interactions with infants and children (Dix and Meunier, 2009; Manian and
Bornstein, 2009; Murray, Halligan, and Cooper, 2010; Stein et al., 2012). Mothers who present
with depression show increased negative affect and cognitions, apathy and lack of energy, and
decreased engagement with children (Dix and Moed, 2019). Psychopathology, such as mental ill-
ness, phobias, substance abuse, and antisociality, seriously impairs thinking, affect, and behavior, and
consequently parenting cognitions and practices (Suchman and DeCoste, 2019).Vesga-López et al.
(2008) estimated the prevalence of postpartum psychopathologies in mothers to range from 12%
for substance use to 15% for mood disorders. In short, many positive and negative aspects of adult
personality help to shape parenting and so may have short- as well as long-term consequences for
infants.
Furthermore, through intergenerational transmission (Kerr and Capaldi, 2019), by means of
genetic and experiential pathways, purposefully or unintentionally, one generation (G1) appears to
influence the parenting beliefs and behaviors of the second generation (G2) and thus the experiences
and even childrearing of the third infant generation (G3). Fraiberg, Adelson, and Shapiro (2003) once
referred to these inspirations as “ghosts in the nursery.” Mothers who report having had secure and
realistic perceptions of their attachments to their own mothers are themselves more likely to have
securely attached infants (Main, 1991). Kovan, Chung, and Sroufe (2009) provided a “longitudinal”
illustration of such intergenerational transmission when they recorded interactions of parents (G1)
and their 2-year-olds (G2) and then waited and recorded interactions of those 2-year-olds as parents
(G2) with their own 2-year-olds (G3). Even accounting for confounds, a relatively strong corre-
spondence emerged in parenting between generations.
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Marc H. Bornstein
Infant Effects on Parenting

Thinking about parent–infant relationships naturally highlights parents as agents of infant develop-
ment, and there is ample evidence that, between parents and infants, infants have less agency and
parents exert more sway (Kochanska and Aksan, 2004; Maccoby, 1992). Even if there is initially
asymmetry between parent and infant contributions to parenting, infants affect parents. For parents
(and professionals alike), the pervasiveness, rapidity, and clarity of changes in infancy engender fasci-
nation and motivate action. The most remarkable domains of change in infancy involve the growing
complexity of the nervous system; alterations in the anatomy and capacity of the body; sharpening
sensory and perceptual capacities; increasing abilities to make sense of, understand, and master objects
in the world; acquiring communication; the emergence of characteristic personal and social styles;
and forming specific social bonds. Parenting is also affected by developmental dynamics. During
infancy, children transform from immature beings unable to move their limbs in a coordinated man-
ner to people who control complicated sequences of muscle contractions and flections to reach or
grasp or walk, and from children who can only cry or babble to people who make needs and desires
abundantly clear in emotional displays and language. During infancy, children first make sense of and
understand the material world, first express and read basic human emotions, first develop individual
personalities and social styles, and form their first social bonds. Parents escort their infants through all
these dramatic “firsts.” Not surprisingly, each of these developmental dynamics is closely tracked by
parents, all shape parenting, and each in turn is shaped by parents (and so, on the transaction principle,
infant development itself). So-called “infant effects” take many forms. Some are universal and com-
mon to all infants; others are unique to a particular infant. Here they are examined in some detail.
Structural Characteristics
Some physical features of infancy probably affect parents everywhere in similar ways. By the con-
clusion of the first trimester, fetuses are felt to move in utero (“quickening”), and soon after (with
support) fetuses may survive outside the womb (“viability”). These are significant markers in the life
of the child and in the lives and psyches of the child’s parents (and society). After birth, the infant’s
nature as well as certain infant actions likely influence parenting. The newborn has a large head
dominated by a disproportionately large forehead, widely spaced sizeable eyes, a small and snub
nose, an exaggeratedly round face, and a small chin. The ethologist Lorenz (1935/1970) argued that
these physiognomic features of “babyishness” provoke adults to express reflexively nurturant reac-
tions toward babies—even across different species (Kringelbach et al., 2016). As noted earlier, viewing
a picture of one’s own infant activates brain areas associated with reward and motivation. Certain
common infant behaviors also elicit caregiving or other specific responses from parents. For example,
infant crying motivates adults to approach and soothe and babbling to continue the dialogue (Born-
stein, Putnick, Park, Suwalsky, and Haynes, 2017; Bornstein, Putnick, Rigo, et al., 2017).
Other structural characteristics of infants affect parenting and the quality of parent–infant interac-
tion: Infant health status, gender, and age are three. Preterm infants, for example, often have difficulty
regulating engagements with caregivers, as made evident by that increased gaze aversion, decreased
play, and lower levels of joint attention (Gattis, 2019), and their mothers are reciprocally more active
and directive. Parental patterns of interaction with infant girls and boys constitute a second nuanced
infant effect. On the one hand, parenting infant girls and boys is surprisingly similar as girl and
boy infants alike have many of the same developmental requirements (Bornstein, Putnick, Lansford,
Deater-Deckard, and Bradley, 2016). On the other, nurseries for newborn infants provide color-coded
blankets, diapers, and wallpapers; infant gifts, beginning with the baby shower, are carefully selected
with gender in mind; and infants are uniformly dressed in gender-typed clothing. Gender also organ-
izes parents’ initial descriptions, impressions, and expectations of their infants (Bornstein, 2013b).
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Parenting Infants
Infant development per se, a third structural infant effect, exerts pervasive effects on parental beliefs and
behaviors. For example, cross-cultural study shows that mothers of younger infants use more affect-
salient speech but that, as infants achieve more sophisticated levels of motor exploration and cognitive
comprehension, mothers increasingly orient, comment, and prepare them for the world outside the
dyad by increasing maternal information-salient speech (Bornstein, Tamis-LeMonda, et al., 1992).
State
Infants vary in how soon they establish a predictable schedule of behavioral states (Bornstein, Arter-
berry, and Lamb, 2014), and their regularity or lack thereof has critical implications for infant care
and development as well as for parental well-being. State determines how infants present themselves;
and much of what infants learn about people, their own abilities, and the world around them is
acquired during periods of quiet alertness and attentiveness. Therefore, infant state influences infant
development and adult behavior: Mothers lose hours of sleep during their infant’s first year (Hunter,
Rychnovsky, and Yount, 2009), often because of multiple infant awakenings, and mothers may expe-
rience negative effects of sleep deprivation on their physiology, cognitions, and emotions even with-
out being fully aware of it (Insana, Williams, and Montgomery-Downs, 2013; Montgomery-Downs,
Insana, Clegg-Kraynok, and Mancini, 2010; Peng et al., 2016).
Thus, different states determine the circumstances under which infants are with their parents and
what parents do: Babies are usually with their mothers when awake, and alone when asleep. Adults
soothe distressed babies instead of trying to play with them. At the same time, infant state is modifi-
able: Packer and Cole (2015) documented cultural conditioning of infants’ biological entrainment
to the day–night cycle. Among the Kipsigis, a people of the Kenyan desert, infants sleep with their
mothers at night and are permitted to nurse on demand. During the day, they are strapped to their
mothers’ backs, accompanying them on daily rounds of farming, household chores, and social activi-
ties. These babies often nap while their mothers go about their work, and so they do not begin to
sleep through the night until many months later than do U.S. American infants. State organization
and getting “on schedule” are subject to parent-mediated experiential influences.
Physical Stature and Psychomotor Abilities

Growth through the first 2 postnatal years is manifest even on casual observation because of its
magnitude and scope. On average, U.S. newborns measure 20 inches and weigh 7.5 pounds. In the
year after birth, babies grow half their birth length and their weight approximately triples (National
Center for Health Statistics, 2010). These physical changes are paralleled by signal advances in motor
skills (Adolph and Berger, 2015). Children’s achieving certain motor milestones—sitting, standing
upright, and walking, for example—dramatically alters the nature and quality of their subsequent
behavior and adult caregiving. Achieving sitting leads to more sophisticated visual-manual object
exploration, which in turn facilitates 3-D form perception (Soska, Adolph, and Johnson, 2010).
Consider the eagerness with which parents await their child’s first step. This achievement signifies an
important stage in infant independence, permitting new means of exploring the environment and
of determining when and how much time infants spend near their parents. By walking, infants also
assert individuality, maturity, and self-mindedness. These changes, in turn, affect the ways in which
parents treat the child: How parents organize the baby’s physical environment and even how they
speak to the walking, as opposed to the crawling, baby differ substantially.Walking infants make mov-
ing bids; crawling infants make stationary bids. In turn, infants’ locomotor status predicts mothers’
responses to their bids: Mothers of walkers respond much more and respond with action directives,
whereas mothers’ of same-age and equally verbal crawlers respond much less and in different ways
(Karasik, Tamis-LeMonda, and Adolph, 2013).
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Marc H. Bornstein
Psychomotor growth in infancy also reflects parenting practices: In anthropological studies

(hardly allowable today), Dennis and Dennis (1940) observed that relative locomotor delay in Hopi
Native Americans reflected Hopi babies’ traditional early constriction on a cradleboard; Mead and
MacGregor (1951) proposed that the manner in which Balinese mothers habitually carried their
infants promoted the emergence of unique developmental trajectories of motor function; and Ains-
worth (1967) attributed advanced Ganda infant motor abilities to a nurturing climate of physical
freedom. Antecedent to behaviors, beliefs in the form of parental expectations also play influential
roles. For example, Jamaican mothers living in an English city expect their infants to sit and to walk
relatively early, whereas Indian mothers living in the same city expect their infants to crawl relatively
late: Infants in each subculture develop in accord with their mothers’ expected timetables (Hopkins
and Westra, 1990).
Perceiving and Thinking

During infancy, the capacities to take in information through the major sensory channels and to
attribute meaning to perceived information improve dramatically. Although it is not always apparent,
there is no question that infants have an active mental life. Infants are constantly learning and devel-
oping new ideas. Infants actively scan the environment, pick up, encode, and process information, and
aggregate over their experiences (Bornstein and Colombo, 2012). Newborns are equipped to hear, to
orient to, and to distinguish sounds, and babies seem especially primed to perceive and to appreciate
sound in the dynamic form and range of adult speech. Newborns also identify particular speakers—
notably mother—right after birth (DeCasper and Spence, 1986; Kisilevsky et al., 2003), apparently
based on prenatal exposure to the maternal voice. By their preference reactions, newborns also give
good evidence that they possess a developed sense of smell (Allam, Marlier, and Schaal, 2006; Goubet
et al., 2002; Goubet, Strasbaugh, and Chesney, 2007; Steiner, 1979), and babies soon suck presump-
tively at the scent of their mothers, and reciprocally mothers recognize the scent of their baby based
on only 1 or 2 days’ experience (Porter and Levy, 1995; Porter and Winberg, 1999).
By 3 months of age, infants’ brains process their mothers’ face as different from an appearance-
matched stranger face (Bornstein et al., 2013), and by 4 or 5 months of age infants discriminate
among facial expressions associated with different emotions and even distinguish variations in some
emotional expressions (Kuchuk, Vibbert, and Bornstein, 1986). How parents look to infants will
meaningfully supplement what they have to say to them; indeed, as infants do not yet understand
speech, infants’ looks may be more telling. Looking is not solely a source of information acquisition;
gaze is also a critical channel of social exchange. Eye-to-eye contact between infant and caregiver is
rewarding to both and sets in motion routines and rhythms of social interaction and play and sup-
ports the role of mother-infant synchronicity in emotion regulation (Bhatt, Bertin, Hayden, and
Reed, 2005; Bornstein and Arterberry, 2003; Johnson, 2015; MacLean et al., 2014).
As a consequence of infants’ information-processing skills (Bornstein and Colombo, 2012), par-
ents’ displays and infants’ imitations of them serve as particularly efficient mechanisms for infants’
acquiring information of all sorts . . . just by listening and watching. How early infants imitate, and
what they can imitate, may be disputed research issues, but the existence and significance of obser-
vational learning in infancy are not.
Infancy culminates with the development of representational thinking and acquisition of lan-
guage. In the first year, for example, play with objects is predominantly characterized by sensori-
motor manipulation (mouthing and fingering) whose primary goal appears to be the extraction of
information about objects. In the second year, object play takes on an increasingly symbolic quality
as infants enact activities performed by self, others, and objects in simple pretense situations, for
example pretending to drink from empty teacups or to talk on toy telephones (Bornstein, 2007;
Tamis-LeMonda, Kuchirko, Escobar, and Bornstein, 2019). Maternal play influences infant play, and
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Parenting Infants
cross-cultural comparisons confirm that, where parents emphasize particular types of play, infants
tend to engage in those same types of play (Bornstein, Haynes, Pascual, Painter, and Galperín, 1999).
Speaking and Understanding

Early in life, infants communicate by means of emotional expressions like crying and smiling. In
remarkably short order, the infant’s repertoire of communicative tokens expands to organize speech
sounds, as indicated by babbling, and to include gestures. The comprehension of speech, combined
with the generation of meaningful utterances, rank among the major cognitive achievements of the
infancy period, but the motivation to acquire language may be social and is born in interaction, usu-
ally with parents (Bornstein, Putnick, Cote, et al., 2015; Tamis‑LeMonda and Bornstein, 2015). That
is, first language reflects the child’s early and rich exposure to the parent-provided target language
environment as much as it does competencies that are a part of the child. Language learning is active
but is embedded in the larger context of adult-infant social communication. Parent-provided experi-
ences swiftly and surely channel early speech development toward the adult target language. In the
space of approximately 2 years, infants master rudiments of language, often even without explicit
instruction or noticeable effort, but they always speak the language to which they have been exposed.
Emotional Expressivity and Temperament

Emotional expressions are evidence of how babies respond to events, and new parents pay spe-
cial attention to infants’ emotions in their efforts to understand and manage them. The advent of
emotional reactions—be they the first smiles or the earliest indications of stranger wariness—cue
meaningful transitions for caregivers. Parents read them as indications of emerging individuality—as
markers to what the child’s behavioral style is like now and what it portends. From the first days of
their infants’ lives, mothers support their babies’ expressions of joy by playing with facial displays,
vocalizations, and touch (Stern, 1985). Reciprocally, as early as the second half of the first year of their
infants’ lives, parents’ emotional expressions are meaningful to infants (Field, 2002; Klinnert, Campos,
Sorce, Emde, and Svejda, 1983; Malatesta, Grigoryev, Lamb, Albin, and Culver, 1986). Infants respond
emotionally to the affective expressions they observe in other people as when, for example, their car-
egivers are depressed (Manian and Bornstein, 2009). Infants as young as 1 year respond to emotional
messages, showing signs of distress when witness to angry interactions between family members
(Geangu, Benga, Stahl, and Striano, 2010, 2011; Hutman and Dapretto, 2009; Thompson, 2006).
Beyond emotional exchange, infants influence parenting by virtue of their individuality of tem-
perament (Bornstein, 2010). Activity level, mood, and soothability define dimensions of tempera-
ment by which parents typically characterize their infants. Just as parents and other infant caregivers
try to interpret, respond to, and modify infants’ emotional states, they also devote considerable energy
to identifying, adapting to, and channeling infants’ temperament (Bornstein, Arterberry, and Lamb,
2014). For one example, some infants appear better able to regulate their attention and emotions and
so engage parents in more rewarding bouts of joint attention (Raver, 1996). For another, babies with
autism spectrum disorders (ASD) have hunger cries that are higher pitched, and adults perceive them
as more aversive and demanding (Esposito, Nakazawa, Venuti, and Bornstein, 2012). Further to this
point, “difficult” babies are characterized by frequent and intense expressions of negative emotion,
and they demand and receive different patterns of attention than do “easy” babies (Bates et al., 2019).
Mothers of irritable infants engage in less visual and physical contact and are less responsive and less
involved with their babies (Van den Boom and Hoeksma, 1994), and maternal perceptions of infant
difficultness predict perceptions of aggressiveness and anxiety in children as they grow (Bates, Maslin,
and Frankel, 1985). In these ways and others, infant temperament influences parental cognitions and
practices (Bates et al., 2019). Infants who infrequently smile and laugh from ages 4 to 12 months have
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Marc H. Bornstein
mothers who engage in more negative parenting at 18 months, controlling for mother personality
(Bridgett, Laake, Gartstein, and Dorn, 2013). Having a temperamentally easy child or perceiving a
child as temperamentally easy (relatively happy, predictable, soothable, and sociable) enhances moth-
ers’ feelings of competence and efficacy (Dixon and Smith, 2003; Porter and Hsu, 2003; Putnam,
Sanson, and Rothbart, 2002) and promotes warmer and more responsive parenting, whereas chal-
lenging children often evoke parenting stress and harshness (Balge and Milner, 2000; Deater-Deckard
and Dodge, 1997; Gershoff, 2002; Mammen, Kolko, and Pilkonis, 2002). High levels of infant distress
at 1 year undermine mothers’ supportive parenting from 1 to 2 years (Scaramella, Neppl, Ontai, and
Conger, 2008). Children with more difficult temperaments often require more external parental sup-
port and usually are recipients of less sensitive parenting (Ciciolla, Crnic, and West, 2012).
Parents’ perceptions of child shyness at age 2 predict lower levels of parents’ self-reported encour-
agement of child independence at age 4, even controlling for initial levels of encouragement of
independence and stability in child shyness (Rubin, Nelson, Hastings, and Asendorpf, 1999). High
infant social wariness at 18 months is associated with diminished structured parenting at 27 months,
even controlling for parenting at 18 months and for changes in child social wariness (Natsuaki et al.,
2013); this study used adoptive children and their parents, thereby ruling out a shared-genes explana-
tion for the child temperament effect.
Just as in other spheres of infant life, cultural variation shapes interactions between infant emo-
tional expressions or temperament and parenting. No doubt some temperament proclivities of
infants transcend culture: Some smiles are more equal than others, and an infant’s smile is unques-
tionably first among equals. However, adults in different cultures socialize the emotional displays of
their infants by responding in accordance with culture-specific requirements or interpretations of
infants’ expressions and emotions. For example, infants universally respond to separation from parents
in characteristically negative ways, but mothers may perceive and interpret those reactions differently
according to cultural values. European American and Puerto Rican mothers both prefer infants who
display a balance of autonomy and dependence; however, European American mothers attend to,
and place greater emphasis on, the presence or absence of individualistic tendencies, whereas Puerto
Rican mothers focus more on characteristics associated with a sociocentric orientation, that is the
young child’s ability to maintain proper conduct in a public place (Harwood, 1992).Thus, the mean-
ing of infant behavior for parents is a complex function of act and context (Bornstein, 1995). To a
clinical point, the same behavioral intervention may rapidly soothe one infant yet is totally ineffective
for another, leading parents of different temperament infants to reach different conclusions about
their competence and effectiveness as parents, despite similarities in their parenting (Bates et al.,
2019). Although in many circumstances infant difficultness may be associated with long-term nega-
tive consequences, among Ethiopian infants otherwise starving, difficult temperament elicited adult
attention and feeding, and so proved adaptive (DeVries and Sameroff, 1984).
Social Life
The infancy period is witness to molting the cocoon of autism and the gradual dawning of social
awareness; over time babies assume increasing responsibility for initiating and maintaining social
interactions. Stern (1985) wrote of only an “emergent self ” before 2 months and glimmerings of
a “sense of a core self ” between 2 and 7 months. By 2 months of age, infants begin to engage in
responsive exchanges with their mothers, characterized by mutual give and take in the form of coos,
gazes, smiles, grunts, and sucks. On this basis, infants develop a sense of shared experience (termed
intersubjectivity; Trevarthen and Delafield-Butt, 2013). The development of emotional relation-
ships with other people—attachments mainly with parents—constitutes one of the most important
achievements of social growth in infancy (Ainsworth et al., 1978; Bowlby, 1969). By the middle of
the first year, the very social infant bears little resemblance to the seemingly asocial neonate.
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Parenting Infants
Infant-mother interactions have been referred to as the “cradle of social understanding” (Rochat
and Striano, 1999) for how they presumably color later social relationships. Once infants develop
the capacity to recognize specific people, they begin to prefer, and gradually form enduring attach-
ments to, adults who have been consistently and reliably accessible during their first months in the
world. Attachment formation is a product of the convergence of built-in tendencies on the part of
infants and propensities of adults to respond in certain ways to infants’ cues and needs. The nature
of parent–infant interactions provides a medium within which the chrysalis of the child’s future life
germinates and grows. The quality of parent–infant relationships shapes infants’ relationships with
others by multiple converging means: modeling the nature and course of interventions, affecting
infants’ willingness and ability to engage in interactions with others, as well as influencing lessons
infants take away from those interactions.
The developmental changes that take place in individuals during the 2½ years after their conception—
the prenatal and the infancy periods—are more dramatic and thorough than any others in the lifespan.
The body, the mind, and the ability to function meaningfully in and on the world all emerge and flourish
with verve.That dynamism, in turn, engages the world, for infants do not grow and develop in a vacuum.
Every facet of creation they touch as they grow and develop influences infants in return.These reciprocal
relations in infancy ultimately cast parenting in a featured role.
Developmental Change and Individuality in Infancy

Transcending development of individual systems (just reviewed) are overarching characteristics of
this first extrauterine phase of the life cycle. Development in infancy has some strong stable compo-
nents: Crying in 6-month-old infants and behavioral inhibition in 18-month-old toddlers may seem
different, when in fact their underlying source construct of fear might be the same (Bornstein, 2014).
However, much of infancy is unrelenting change, and too soon the infant is emerging from the new-
born and immediately after the toddler from the infant. Some change is common to all infants. Infant
age, for example, is associated with changes in the nature of infant vocalizations which in turn alter
the nature of parent language (Bornstein, Tamis-LeMonda, Hahn, and Haynes, 2008). At the same
time, all children change at their own rate. Last week, Jonathan may have stayed in the spot where
he was placed, this week he is creeping, and next month he will be scooting around faster than his
mother can catch him. Another baby the same age may not begin to locomote for a percentage of
a lifetime later. Understanding, anticipating, and responding to dynamic change in the context of
individual variation present major challenges to parenting infants. Parents need to know about and
be vigilant to all the complications and subtleties of infant development.
Infant development involves parallel and rapid growth in biological, psychological, and social sys-
tems. Moreover, even normal developmental trajectories may be nonlinear in nature, stalling some-
times, or even regressing temporarily (Bever, 1982; Harris, 1983; Strauss and Stavey, 1981). Infant
growth well illustrates the “systems” perspective on development, in the sense that the organization
of the whole changes as the infant matures and is exposed to new experiences; changes also take
place at many levels at once. Earlier emerging gestures (pointing) are less likely, and later merging
gestures (showing) are more likely, to elicit a label for a referent from parents (Olson and Masur,
2011).The emergence of self-produced locomotion involves advances in motor skills and also affects
visual-vestibular adaptation, visual attention, social referencing, and emotions. Babies who can pull
themselves up to standing position and cruise (which occurs sometime between 11 and 15 months
of age) engage the social and the object worlds in fundamentally new ways: The younger infant was
totally dependent on adults for stimulation, whereas the older infant self-stimulates and self-educates.
Standing infants seem more grown up to adults, who in turn treat them so. The Gusii of Kenya have
the expression “lameness is up,” meaning that only when children begin to walk are they liable to
get hurt (LeVine, 1977). By the second year, infants initiate activities with parents more than 85% of
31
Marc H. Bornstein
Figure 1.3
the time (White, Kaban, Shapiro, and Attanucci, 1977). With each infant advance, parents’ behaviors
toward infants change; they must now be vigilant about a range of new, and possibly dangerous, cir-
cumstances. Much more than before, parents must communicate that infants need to regulate their
own behavior.
The notable developmental achievements that unfold during infancy are impressive (especially
when infancy is viewed in terms of the small proportion of the entire lifespan it represents), but
normal variability in the timing of infant achievements is equally compelling. Characteristics idi-
osyncratic to specific infants influence parenting. Every infant is an original. Interest in the origins
and expression of inter-infant variability occupies a central position in thinking about infant devel-
opment and parenting (Bornstein, Putnick, and Esposito, 2017). The ages at which individual infants
32
Parenting Infants
might achieve a given developmental milestone typically vary enormously (some children say their
first word at 9 months, others at 29 months), just as infants of a given age vary dramatically among
themselves on nearly every index of development (at 1 year, some toddlers comprehend 10 words,
others 75; some produce zero words, others nearly 30). Goldberg (1977) taxonomized some salient
infant characteristics that affect parenting: responsiveness, readability, and predictability. Responsive-
ness refers to the extent and quality of infant reactivity to stimulation. Readability refers to the
definitiveness of infant behavioral signals. Predictability refers to the degree to which infant behav-
iors can be anticipated reliably. Each baby possesses her or his unique profile of these characteristics.
Of course, when and how their infants talk or walk or what-have-you exercise a strong psychological
draw on parents, even if it is temporary and the long-term significance of a given infant’s perfor-
mance at a given time is meaningful in only extreme cases.
Parenting an infant is, therefore, akin to trying to hit a moving target, with the ever-changing
child developing in fits and starts at her or his own pace. Amidst this spectrum of developmental
issues and matters that all parents confront, infants themselves are mute but potent. The very young
neither understand their parents’ speech nor respond to them verbally. At the same time, they are also
notoriously uncooperative and perversely unmotivated to perform or conform. Still other pervasive
infant characteristics vex parents or give them pause—depending on a parent’s perspective or the
moment: Infants possess limited attention spans and, in addition to lacking speech, command limited
response repertoires; in their first months, they are also motorically incompetent or inept.Yet infants
are insistent and unrelenting in their demands. Reciprocally, parents need to interpret aspects of
infant functioning unambiguously and must do so despite changes and fluctuations in infant state.
Perhaps the major problem faced by parents of infants is that, at base, parents are constantly trying
to divine what is “inside the baby’s head”—what infants want, what they know, how they feel, what
they will do next vis-à-vis the people and the things around them, and whether they understand
and are affected by those same people and things. Thus, parents of infants seem constantly in search
of patterns, often inferring them even on the basis of single transient instances. New (usually inex-
perienced) parents have the job of disambiguating novel, complex, and rapidly emerging uncertain
information, and at the same time they are called on to caregive appropriately and effectively. Even
if most face these formidable challenges of infancy with a degree of psychological naiveté, parents
do not meet these tests totally unprepared. Both biology and experience equip parents to respond,
understand, and interpret infancy and its vicissitudes.
Contexts of Parenting
The biology and psychology of parents and infants constitute influences on parenting from the start
(Bornstein and Leventhal, 2015). However, environmental and societal factors condition and channel
cognitions and practices of infants’ parents as well. Immediate situation, family configuration, social
support, SES, and culture are prominent examples of contexts that encourage diverse patterns of
parenting.
Situation
Low-challenge situations (e.g., unstructured play) prompt one kind of parenting (Miller, Wang, San-
del, and Cho, 2002), as emotional and instrumental demands are relatively minimal (Ciciolla et al.,
2012), but the degree to which parents of infants are challenged during interactions affects their
attitudes and actions, as parents must exert additional effort to remain calm and regulated under
more taxing conditions (A. L. Miller, McDonough, Rosenblum, and Sameroff, 2002; P. J. Miller et al.,
2002). Maas et al. (2013) examined effects of situational variables on mothers’ interactions at home
with their 6-month-olds. Levels of sensitivity and stimulation varied systematically across situations
33
Marc H. Bornstein
of free play, face-to-face play, and diaper change: During free play, mothers showed the highest levels
of stimulation toward their infants; face-to-face interactions evoked more positive responsiveness;
and in the goal-oriented diaper change situation, mothers hardly stimulated their infants and showed
less overall positive regard.
Family Configuration
Although a substantial proportion of developmental science has been constructed on mother-firstborn
relationships (Hoffman, 1991), roughly 80% of mothers in the United States alone have more than one
child (Feinberg, McHale, and Whiteman, 2019; Volling, 2017). Among the more dramatic (and often
disruptive and stressful) yet normative changes in family dynamics is one that takes place when a sec-
ond baby is born; consequently, the social and physical ecologies of firstborn and laterborn infants can
be very different (Bornstein, Putnick, and Suwalsky, 2018a). The births of later children alter the roles
of each family member and forever affect the ways in which each interacts with all others. Parents of a
secondborn infant are in many ways, therefore, not the same as parents of a firstborn infant. As siblings
differ in age, temperament, needs, and abilities, parenting must adjust between children. (Older siblings
also change in the transition to siblinghood; some grow and mature in response to the advent of an
infant in the family, whereas others adamantly object at being dethroned;Volling, 2012.)
Firstborn infants tend to receive more attention and better care as infants than do laterborn infants.
Mothers also engage, respond, stimulate, talk, and express positive affection more to their firstborn
babies than to their laterborn babies, even when firstborn and laterborn babies show no differences
in their behavior, indicating that these maternal behaviors do not solely reflect infant effects (Belsky
et al., 1984). Notably, behavioral geneticists have identified non-genetic environmental influences
that lead to divergent sibling outcomes (Feinberg et al., 2019). Parental differential treatment of sib-
lings occurs when siblings are recipients of different childrearing cognitions and practices (Solmeyer,
Killoren, McHale, and Updegraff, 2011). As sibling relationships constitute among the longest lasting
in a person’s lifetime, differential preferential treatment is known to last—and color sibships—well
into adulthood (Jensen, Whiteman, Fingerman, and Birditt, 2013; Suitor, Sechrist, Plikuhn, Pardo,
Gilligan, and Pillemer, 2009;Waldinger,Vaillant, and Orav, 2007).That said, mothers are prone to rate
their firstborn babies as difficult (Bates, 1987), which may derive from the fact that firstborn babies
actually are more difficult babies or, alternatively, because first-time mothers are more skittish and less
at ease with their infants and thus tend to perceive firstborns as more demanding. Mothers of sec-
ondborns know more about parenting and child development than mothers of firstborns (Bornstein,
Cote, Haynes, Hahn, and Park, 2010), and relatedly, multiparas report higher levels of self-efficacy
than primiparas (Fish and Stifter, 1993).
Social Support
Social support networks consist of the people who are important in a parent’s life, including a
spouse or significant other, relatives, friends, and neighbors. Social support can improve parenting
satisfaction, affecting the availability of parents to their infants as well as the quality of parent–infant
interactions. Emotional integration or isolation from potential support networks mitigates or exac-
erbates these effects in new parents. Well-supported mothers are less restrictive and punitive with
their infants than are less well-supported mothers, and frequency of contacts with significant others
can improve the quality of parent–infant relationships (Crnic, Greenberg, Ragozin, Robinson, and
Basham, 1983) as well as parents’ sense of their own effectance and competence (Abernathy, 1973).
Mothers report that community and friendship supports are beneficial, but intimate support from
husbands (“indirect effects”) has the most general positive consequences for maternal competence
(Crnic et al., 1983).
34
Parenting Infants
Socioeconomic Status
SES comprises income, education, and occupation of householders and is broadly influential in
parenting (Bornstein and Bradley, 2003). Mothers of different SES behave similarly in certain ways;
however, SES also orders the home environment and many beliefs and behaviors of parents toward
infants (Bornstein, Hahn, Suwalsky, and Haynes, 2003). Low SES is considered a risk factor in chil-
dren’s development on several counts. For example, using data from the Infant Feeding Practices
study, which tracked the diets of more than 1,500 infants until age 1, Wen, Kong, Eiden, Sharma,
and Xie (2014) documented considerable differences in the solid foods mothers from different SES
classes fed babies. Specifically, less-educated mothers from poorer households favored diets high in
sugar and fat, whereas more-educated mothers from more resourced households adhered to diets
that more closely followed conventionally proper infant feeding guidelines. The immediate conse-
quence of poor infant diets is early weight gain and stunted growth. In the longer-term, the Infant
Feeding Practices study analyzed data for the same children at age 6 and reported that infant feeding
patterns translated into similar unhealthy or healthy childhood eating habits. Financial and social
stresses adversely affect the general well-being and health of parents and demand attention and emo-
tional energy. These circumstances, in turn, may reduce parents’ attentiveness, patience, and tolerance
toward children. Low SES undermines mothers’ psychological functioning and promotes harsh or
inconsistent disciplinary practices (Conger, McMarty, Yang, Lahey, and Kropp, 1984; McLoyd and
Wilson, 1990; Simons, Whitbeck, Conger, and Wu, 1991). Low-SES compared with middle-SES
parents typically provide infants with fewer opportunities for variety in daily stimulation, less appro-
priate play materials, and less total stimulation (Gottfried, 1984).
Significantly, middle-SES mothers converse with their infants more, and in systematically more
sophisticated ways, than do low-SES mothers, even though young infants (presumably) understand
little maternal speech (Hart and Risley, 1995; Hoff and Laursen, 2019). Such social status differences
in maternal speech to infants are pervasive across cultures: In Israel, for example, higher-SES mothers
talk, label, and ask “what” questions more often than do lower or middle-SES mothers (Ninio, 1980).
Higher-SES mothers’ encouragement in language undoubtedly facilitates self-expression in children;
higher-SES babies produce more sounds (and eventually words) than do lower-SES babies (Hart and
Risley, 1995, 1999).
The lower-SES mother is likely to have been a poorer student, making it less likely that she will turn
to books readily as sources of information about pregnancy, infancy, and parenthood; among middle-
SES women, reading material is a primary source of parenting information (Young, 1991). Middle-
SES, more than lower-SES, parents also seek out and absorb expert advice about child development.
Social class along with culture pervasively influence the complexity and the resourcefulness with
which mothers view infant development (Palacios, 1990; Sameroff and Feil, 1985). Using UNICEF’s
Multiple Indicator Cluster Survey, Bornstein, Putnick, Bradley, Lansford, and Deater-Deckard (2015)
explored relations among maternal education, household resources, and infant growth in 117,881
families living in 39 low- and middle-income countries. Mother education led to improved infant
growth through availability and use of household resources. Unfortunately, in many low- and
middle-income countries around the globe, instructional capital in the form of maternal education is
limited: In those 39 low- and middle-income countries, for example, the median years of education
in 2010 for women aged 25 and over was only 5.17 (Barro and Lee, 2010).
Culture
Like social class, culture pervasively influences who parents (Leinaweaver, 2014) as well as how
parents view parenting and how they parent (Bornstein and Lansford, 2010). Culture defies ready
definition, but most scholars agree that culture embraces patterns of beliefs and behaviors, acquired
35
Marc H. Bornstein
through socialization, that distinguish social groups (Boyd and Richerson, 2005). The majority of
research in parenting refers to a Western, educated, industrialized, rich, and democratic cultural data-
base (Bornstein, 2010; Henrich, Heine, and Norenzayan, 2010; Tomlinson, Bornstein, Marlow, and
Swartz, 2014), yet cultural variation in beliefs and behaviors is always impressive, whether observed
among different ethnic groups in one society or among different groups in different parts of the
world (Bornstein, 2010; Bornstein and Putnick, 2012). As illustrations throughout this chapter amply
attest, cross-cultural comparisons show that virtually all aspects of parenting infants are informed
by culture. Parents in different cultures can differ radically in what they value for infants. Consider
language and play, for example: Parents in some cultures talk to babies and see them as interactive
partners (Bornstein, 2015), whereas parents in other cultures think that it is senseless to talk to nonver-
bal babies (Ochs, 1988). Parents in some cultures believe that play provides important development-
promoting experiences for infants; parents in others see play primarily to amuse; and parents in still
others do not include play in their job description (Bornstein, 2007; Bornstein and Putnick, 2015).
Different cultural groups possess parenting ideas, approach parenting tasks, and value parenting out-
comes differently (Cote, Bornstein, Haynes, and Bakeman, 2008; Goodnow and Lawrence, 2015). For
these reasons, parents from different cultural groups differ in their opinions about the significance of
specific competencies for their children’s successful adjustment, differ in the ages they expect chil-
dren to reach different milestones or acquire various competencies, and so forth. Specific goals arise,
in part, out of unique expectations of adult members of specific cultural groups. In turn, distinct
belief systems provide parents with frameworks for interpreting their children’s behaviors, guiding
their interactions with their children, and determining the activities and opportunities that they sup-
ply and so govern for their children’s development.
Culture influences parenting patterns and child development from very early in infancy through
such factors as when and how parents care for infants, how nurturant or restrictive parents are, which
behaviors parents emphasize, and so forth (Bornstein and Lansford, 2010). Even very basic parent-
ing cognitions and practices vary across cultures. Konner (1977) recorded wide variations in the
frequencies of African Kalahari San, Guatemalan, and Bostonian caregivers’ vocalizations to infants;
Caudill and Weinstein (1969) found that U.S. mothers talk more to their babies than do Japanese
mothers; and Richman et al. (1988; Richman, Miller, and LeVine, 1992) reported that North Ameri-
can, Swedish, and Italian mothers vocalized to infants at higher rates than Kenyan (Gusii) moth-
ers. European American mothers in Lafayette, Indiana, speak to infants in response to their infants’
vocalizations more than do mothers in Nagoya, Japan (Fogel, Toda, and Kawai, 1988); and mothers
in different countries show different levels of contingent vocal responsiveness to infants (Bornstein,
Putnick, Cote, et al., 2015).
Japan and the United States maintain reasonably similar levels of modernity and living standards
and both societies are child centered, but the two differ dramatically in terms of culture, including his-
tory, beliefs, and childrearing goals (Bornstein, Cote, Haynes, Suwalsky, and Bakeman, 2012). Japanese
mothers expect early mastery of emotional maturity, self-control, and social courtesy in their offspring,
whereas U.S. American mothers expect early mastery of verbal competence and self-actualization
in theirs. American mothers promote autonomy and organize social interactions with their infants
so as to foster physical and verbal assertiveness and independence, and they promote infants’ inter-
est in the material environment. Japanese mothers organize social interactions so as to consolidate
and strengthen closeness and dependency within the dyad, and they tend to indulge infants (Tamis-
LeMonda and McFadden, 2010). Japanese mothers encourage the incorporation of a partner in infant
pretense play; by contrast, U.S. American mothers encourage exploration and instrumental play. For
U.S. Americans, parent play with infants and the toys used during play are more frequently the topic
or object of communication; for Japanese, the play setting serves to mediate dyadic communication
and interaction (Tamis-LeMonda, Bornstein, Cyphers, Toda, and Ogino, 1992).
36
Parenting Infants
Cultural heritage even influences mothers of infants living in the same country. Tamis-LeMonda
and Kahana-Kalman (2009) interviewed low-income urban African Americans as well as Mexican,
Dominican, and Chinese immigrant mothers in maternity wards in New York City hours after the
birth of their baby. Mothers’ views were assessed using open-ended questions, and their responses
were coded as relevant to four main categories: child development, parenting, family, and resources.
Mothers from the four ethnic groups varied in how much they spoke about child development, fam-
ily, and resources. Relative to the other groups, Chinese immigrant mothers talked more about child
development; African American and Dominican immigrant mothers talked more about resources;
and Mexican immigrant mothers talked more about family. Latin American and African American
mothers read to their children less frequently as compared to European American mothers (Yarosz
and Barnett, 2001), and Spanish-speaking Latin American families have fewer children’s books avail-
able in the home than their non-Latin American counterparts (Raikes et al., 2006). An investigation
of expected developmental timetables in new mothers from Australia versus Lebanon, but all living
in Australia, found that cultural heritage shaped mothers’ expectations of children much more than
their experiences in observing their own children, comparing them with other children, and receiv-
ing advice from friends and experts (Goodnow, Cashmore, Cotton, and Knight, 1984).
Of course, culture-specific patterns of infant childrearing can be expected to be adapted to each
specific society’s settings and needs. However, differences are not the only or final word. Mothers in
different cultures show striking similarities in interacting with their infants as well. African American,
Dominican immigrant, and Mexican immigrant mothers in the United States reported about the
qualities they deemed desirable or undesirable in children age 1, 14, and 24 months. Mothers spon-
taneously referred to a common set of qualities, including self-maximization and connectedness; not
unexpectedly, most mothers approved of desirable qualities, such as achievement, and disapproved
of undesirable qualities, such as improper demeanor (Ng, Tamis-LeMonda, Godfrey, Hunter, and
Yoshikawa, 2012). In the end, different peoples (presumably) wish to promote some similar com-
petencies in their young. For example, all parents must nurture and promote the physical growth of
infants if their infants are to survive and thrive. Parents of infants sometimes do so in qualitatively
and quantitatively similar ways. Indeed, at the end of the day parents everywhere presumably want
physical health, academic achievement, social adjustment, and economic security for their children
(however those goals may be instantiated). In the parenting practices domain, Bornstein, Putnick,
Park, et al. (2017) examined rates, interrelations, and contingencies of vocal interactions in almost
700 mothers and their 5½-month-old infants in diverse communities from 11 countries (Argentina,
Belgium, Brazil, Cameroon, France, Israel, Italy, Japan, Kenya, South Korea, and the United States).
Although rates of mothers’ and infants’ vocalizations varied across communities, mothers’ vocaliza-
tions to infants were consistently contingent on the offset of their infants’ nondistress vocalizing, as
infants’ vocalizations were contingent on the offset of their mothers’ vocalizing; moreover, maternal
and infant contingencies were significantly correlated. Here are the likely common origins of uni-
versal turn-taking in conversation. Parenting presents the prospect of contributing to the develop-
ment of a new life, and if there are universal values in this world, it is probable that nurturing, and not
abusing, children stands among them. Whether shared patterns of parenting cognitions and practices
reflect common biological bases of caregiving, the historical convergence of parenting styles, or the
increasing prevalence of a single childrearing pattern attributable to migration or dissemination by
mass media is difficult, if not impossible, to determine (Bornstein, 2016).
Even where ultimate childrearing goals are similar, cultures may still differ in proximal ways to
achieve them (Bornstein, 1995). Furthermore, the parenting beliefs and behaviors of one’s own social
group may seem natural but may actually be rather unusual when compared with those of other
groups. Thus, social groupings likely condition parenting; all cultures prescribe certain beliefs and
behaviors in their members and proscribe others (Maccoby, 2000). For parents, some prescriptions
37
Marc H. Bornstein
and proscriptions, such as the requirement that parents nurture and protect their offspring, are (as
suggested) essentially universal. Others, such as what kinds of emotions can be expressed in public,
vary (sometimes impressively) from one social group to another. Culturally distinct parenting beliefs
provide parents with a framework for interpreting their children’s behaviors, guiding parents’ interac-
tions with their children, and determining the activities and opportunities that parents are willing to
supply for their infants’ development.
Summary
Parenting stands at the confluence of many complex tributaries of influence; some flow from within
the individual, whereas others have external sources in the child or context. Some reactions felt
toward babies may be reflexive and universal; others are idiosyncratic and vary with personality or
society. By virtue of their temperament and the quality and the contingency of their own respon-
siveness, infants exert a major impact on how parents parent and how parents perceive themselves
as parents. Situation, family, support, status, and culture loom large in shaping the parenting ecology
of infancy. Context differences color infantrearing cognitions and practices, and ideology also makes
for meaningful differences in patterns of parenting beliefs and behaviors toward infants. It is certain
that parenting has many determinants, and it is illogical and nonscientific to assert the preeminence
of one cause over another when each in its own way contributes to some effect. Within complex
developmental systems, it is unlikely that any single factor can be expected to account for substantial
amounts of variation. Parenting effects are also conditional and not absolute (i.e., true for all parents
under all conditions). More complex conceptualizations that incorporate larger numbers of influ-
ential variables will likely explain parenting better than simpler ones with fewer variables. The con-
structive enterprise is really to understand how all relevant forces work in concert to shape parenting
infants. Parenting is a multilevel phenomenon and will be best understood eventually by bringing to
bear evolutionary, biological, comparative, behavioral, and cultural perspectives.
Conclusions
Because of infants’ intrinsic nature as well as the range, magnitude, and implications of developmen-
tal change early in life, infancy is intensely fascinating and undeniably appealing, yet unrelentingly
challenging and daunting for parents. The popular belief that parent-provided experiences during
infancy exert powerful influences over development has been fostered from many quarters. Human
beliefs and behaviors are malleable, and plasticity remains a determinative feature of adaptation in
infancy and long after. Although not all infant experiences are critical for later development, and
single events are not always formative, infant experiences doubtlessly can have enduring effects.
Certainly, little and big consistencies of parenting aggregate across infancy to construct the person.
Parents intend much in their interactions with their infants: They promote their infants’ mental
development through the structures they create and the meanings they place on those structures,
and they foster infants’ emotional understanding and development of self through the models they
portray and the values they display. The complex of parent cognitions and practices with infants is
divisible into domains, and parents tend to show consistency as well as change over time in certain of
those domains. Some aspects of parenting are frequent or significant from the get-go, but later wane
in importance; others wax over the course of infancy. For new parents, the first years with an infant
constitute a period of adjustment and transformation.
Mothers typically assume primary responsibility for infant care within the family, and mother-
infant and father-infant interactions tend to complement one another. As a result, infants’ rela-
tionships and attachments with their two parents are distinctive. The interactive and intersubjective
aspects of parent and infant activities have telling consequences for the post-infancy development
38
Parenting Infants
of the child. Infants also form relationships with siblings and grandparents as with other nonfamilial
caregivers. Large numbers of infants have significant experiences outside the family—often through
enrollment in childcare settings—but the immediate and lasting effects of out-of-home care vary
depending on its type and quality as well as characteristics of infants and their families. Early rela-
tionships with mothers, fathers, siblings, and others all ensure that the “parenting” that the young
infant experiences is rich and multifaceted. Researchers and theoreticians today do not ask whether
parenting affects infant development, but which parent-provided experiences afforded by whom affect
what aspects of development in infancy when and how, and they are interested also to learn the ways
in which individual infants are so affected as well as the ways individual infants affect their own
development.
Parent biology and psychology, infants’ active mental life and intimate relationships, as well as
situation and within-family experiences, in addition to economic, social, and cultural circumstances,
all play important roles in determining infant parenting. A full understanding of what it means to
parent an infant depends on the social ecologies in which that parenting takes place and what is
expected of infants as they grow. Infants also alter their environment as they interact with it. Parent
and infant therefore convey distinct characteristics to every interaction, and both are changed as a
result. In other words, parent and infant actively co-construct one another through time.
Infancy is a distinctive period, a major transition, and a formative phase in the life cycle of every
human being, but infants are not at all self-reliant. Rather, parents have central parts to play in infants’
physical survival, social growth, emotional maturation, and cognitive development. A better under-
standing of the nature of the human being is afforded by examining parent–infant interaction and its
consequences in this period of the dyad’s initial accommodation—the unique and specific influences
of parent on infant and of infant on parent. That accommodation, in turn, shapes the experiences
of the infant and, with time, the person she or he becomes. Linked, parent and infant chart that life
course together. Infancy is a starting point of life for both infant and parent. With the birth of a baby,
a parent’s life is forever altered.
Acknowledgments
Supported by the Intramural Research Program of the NIH/NICHD, USA, and an International
Research Fellowship in collaboration with the Centre for the Evaluation of Development Policies
(EDePO) at the Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS), London, UK, funded by the European Research
Council (ERC) under the Horizon 2020 research and innovation program (grant agreement No
695300-HKADeC-ERC-2015-AdG).
Note
1 The Hebrew term for infant nurses and child-care workers.
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2
PARENTING TODDLERS
Marjolein Verhoeven, Anneloes L. van Baar, and Maja Deković
Introduction
A toddler is adorable. See the excitement on her face when she makes her first independent, short
and unsteady steps, when she toddles! And a toddler can be terrible. See him lying on the floor and
screaming “NO,” indicating that he does not want to put on a coat despite the cold outside! Their
parents are left in awe and amazement, while wondering how to keep them safe as they explore the
world, or in doubt, thinking about how to handle their temper tantrums.
Being able to walk independently is often seen as the onset of toddlerhood. As children start
walking independently at different ages—varying between 10 and 20 months (Van Baar, Steenis,
Verhoeven, and Hessen, 2014)—the exact start and end of the toddler period is not precisely defined.
Most researchers consider children to be toddlers when they are between 12 and 36 months old.
Within this relatively short span of 24 months, many developmental milestones are acquired that
bring joy and pride to both child and parents, but also lead to important changes in the parent–child
relationship. Parents are called on to actively set limits for their children, to protect them, and to keep
them safe. But they also must teach and stimulate them implicitly and explicitly how to learn, act,
and behave in ways that are best for the child right now, as well as for their functioning in the near
and later future. Objective, social, and moral rules need to be applied.
In this chapter, first some key normative developmental changes in toddlers are briefly discussed.
Next, three parenting tasks are discussed more thoroughly, as these are especially important in this
developmental period: stimulating the child’s autonomy, providing structure and discipline, and
maintaining warmth, responsiveness, and sensitivity. Some issues that are gaining more attention in
the literature on parenting during this developmental period, like the influence of fathers and media,
are highlighted, and suggestions for future research are provided.
Central Issues in Development During Toddlerhood

Developmental capacities increase tremendously in toddlerhood in all domains. In gross motor devel-
opment, walking independently, but also climbing, jumping, and running, need parental attention.
Increase in fine motor capacities allows exploring and playing with small objects, drawing, building,
and making puzzles, as well as starting to use utensils like spoon and fork or scissors. First words
increase to more words and combinations that become sentences, which elaborates communication
from predominantly nonverbal acts to speech and the use of language. Understanding the physical
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Parenting Toddlers
and social environment increases, with accompanying experiences of success, failure, and frustration
that need to be dealt with. Every milestone accomplished reflects improved adaptation of the toddler
and requires adjustment of the parents.
Cognition, Language, and Mobility

Cognitive development during toddlerhood is mostly about gaining a better understanding of how
the world works. To this end, toddlers actively explore new objects and deliberately try out actions to
investigate their consequences. To enable goal-directed action and adaptive responses to novel, com-
plex, or ambiguous situations, the child develops higher-order cognitive functions, such as inhibitory
control, working memory, and attentional flexibility (Diamond, 2013; Garon, Bryson, and Smith, 2008).
Another principal cognitive development of toddlerhood is the beginning of symbolic thought:
the ability to use words, objects, or actions to represent things or events that are not physically pre-
sent or actually happening. These emerging representational abilities build on the child’s growing
long-term memory skills and are especially obvious in the development of symbolic, make-believe
play, which marks the beginning of the awareness of a distinction between appearance and reality
(Bornstein, 2007; Tamis-LeMonda et al., 2019).
The acquisition of language is a specific example of the toddler’s growing capacity for symbolic
representation, as the child learns to use words to represent objects and events (McCune, 2010). Dur-
ing the relatively short toddler period, most children progress from speaking a few isolated words
to having full conversations. Toddlers learn how to put ideas into words (productive skills) and to
understand what other people say (receptive skills). Next to linguistic competence, they are also
developing communicative competence and learning how to use language socially. They learn about
turn-taking and giving relevant responses, and they start to recognize when they are misunderstood
and how to repair this.They also learn about the social routines and conventions for communication
and language use, such as greetings and leave-takings (hi, how are you?, bye-bye, see you soon) and
politeness (please, thank you).
Growing mobility allows children to move away from their parents to play and to explore their
environment; whereas infants need actual physical and visible contact with their parents to support
exploration, toddlers come to rely more on psychological contact (Marvin and Britner, 2008). Tod-
dlers become able to draw support from cues across a distance and become more comfortable with
separation from their caregivers, and this in turn makes it possible to become more independent
(Marvin and Britner, 2008). Toddlers start to develop a sense of personal agency, as they begin to
understand that they are autonomous, with the ability to manipulate objects and influence the out-
come of events. This knowledge of one’s own existence as a separate individual marks the beginning
of self-awareness (Brownell and Kopp, 2007).
Social Development
Supported by the rapid growth in cognition, language, and mobility, toddlers become more socia-
ble and more competent in their interactions with adults and other children. They have greatly
expanded capacities to observe and interpret other people’s actions, to imitate others, and to maintain
sequences of social interaction, and as such have an increased social awareness. The changing under-
standing of others as independent agents, with their own roles, intentions, and aims, enables toddlers
to become more sophisticated in their social interactions, as they can start to negotiate and arrive at
compromises. Affective sharing (e.g., sharing pleasure) and social referencing (e.g., looking at cues in
parents’ face for approval) grow during this developmental period, and toddlers develop the ability
to behave in a complementary manner with a peer. As a result, their play with others evolves from
parallel play to much more coordinated play, such as social pretend play (Thompson, 2007).
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Marjolein Verhoeven et al.
The growing awareness of the self is also related to the emergence of new emotions that require
self-consciousness, including feelings of shame and pride. Toddlers’ awareness of and sensitivity to
social rules are revealed in expressions of uncertainty or distress regarding a flawed object, or distress
when an external standard is violated or cannot be met. By the end of the second year, toddlers are
responsive to negative emotional signals from others, and they start to experience negative feelings
themselves when they are doing—or are about to do—something forbidden; the early beginnings
of empathy and moral development (Hoffman, 2007). Such emotions make it possible to relate to
other people at a new level, and they play a key role in the child’s beginning acceptance of social
rules and standards.
This is the developmental period in which internalization starts; toddlers absorb, transform, and
integrate social rules and conventions into their personal functioning, come to experience these
principles as their own, and feel volitional in regulating their behaviors accordingly (Kochanska and
Kim, 2014; Ryan and Deci, 2000; Smetana, Jambon, and Ball, 2014). Self-regulation—the ability to
effortfully modulate cognitions, emotions, and behavior—enables children to adjust their behaviors
to harmonize with cognitive and social demands in specific situations (Berger, Kofman, Livneh,
and Henik, 2007). In response to parental socialization, toddlers move from externally to internally
controlled behavior (Bernier, Carlson, Whipple, 2010; Blandon and Volling, 2008; Forman, 2007).
According to Kopp’s (1982) model of self-regulation, a first important milestone is the ability to
comply with requests, which toddlers first exhibit between 12 and 18 months. By their second
birthday, children have developed basic self-control:They are able to inhibit behavior and to regulate
behavior even when parents are absent. Around 36 months, children can modulate their behavior to
meet changing situational demands. Different categories of self-regulation, which are distinguished
in literature, require an ascending level of internalization (Karreman,Van Tuijl,Van Aken, and Deko-
vic, 2006): compliance (i.e., the ability to initiate, cease, or modulate behavior in response to paren-
tal requests; Kochanska, Coy, and Murray, 2001; Kopp, 1982), inhibition (i.e., delaying or stopping
behavior in the absence of external monitors; Kopp, 1982), emotion regulation (i.e., managing emo-
tional arousal and support adaptive responses; Calkins, Smith, Gill, and Johnson, 1998; Eisenberg and
Fabes, 1998; Thompson, 1991), and eventually effortful control (i.e., the ability to suppress a domi-
nant response to perform a subdominant response; Kochanska, Murray, and Harlan, 2000).
Parenting During Toddlerhood

As part of the socialization process, toddlers face two important developmental tasks: (1) becoming
a more independent, autonomous individual and (2) learning about and complying with social rules
and expectations. As a result of toddlers’ emerging developmental skills and their growing autonomy,
parents find themselves guiding, protecting, and taking care of a more active child who can go places
and do things that, literally, a few months ago were out of reach. As such, the task for parents during
this developmental period is to find the right balance between stimulating the child to become an
autonomous individual with own interests, skills, and identity, while at the same time guiding the child
to acquire behaviors that are appropriate and acceptable in social and cultural contexts—guidance
which is offered by setting rules and limits and disciplining the child (Grolnick and Pomerantz, 2009).
Parental Autonomy Granting

Once toddlers start to see themselves as active agents, independent of others, they actively start to
assert their newfound autonomy. Toddlers are intrinsically motivated to openly and spontaneously
explore, play, and interact with their environment, which provides them with different kinds of
learning opportunities. Satisfaction of the need for autonomy is of central importance to experience
an internal locus of causality for behaviors, which is necessary to fully take in social requirements as
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their own (Deci and Ryan, 2008; Ryan and Deci, 2000).Thus, the extent to which parents satisfy the
need for autonomy by actively supporting the child’s abilities to be self-initiating and autonomous
is thought to have a great impact on children’s healthy internalization, motivation, and development
(Ryan, Deci, Grolnick, and LaGuardia, 2006).
Autonomy support, or autonomy-granting behavior, refers to parental behaviors aimed at sup-
porting children’s goals, choices, and sense of volition and consists of taking the child’s perspective,
following the child’s ongoing activity, scaffolding, and ensuring that the child plays an active role in
successful task completion (Grolnick, Gurland, DeCourcey, and Jacob, 2002). Providing children with
experiences of successful problem-based learning is thought to enhance their motivation for self-
regulation (Carlson, 2003; Matte-Gagne and Bernier, 2011). Indeed, Bernier et al. (2010) found that,
when mothers were more autonomy supportive when their child was 15 months of age, children had
better self-regulation skills regarding executive functioning at 18 months (i.e., children performed
better on working memory and categorization) and at 26 months (i.e., children performed better on
conflict executive functioning). Similarly, maternal scaffolding at age 2 was associated with execu-
tive functioning at age 4 (Hughes and Ensor, 2009). Mothers showing more autonomy-supportive
behavior when children were 3.5 years old had lasting impact on socioemotional development (i.e.,
fewer internalizing and externalizing problems, and better social skills) at pre-adolescence (Matte-
Gagne, Harvey, Stack, and Serbin, 2015).
Opposite to parental autonomy support is parental overcontrol, parents’ attempts to excessively
regulate and manipulate children’s emotions, to intrude on children’s autonomous activities, or to
restrict the kinds of experiences children have (Eisenberg, Taylor, Windaman, and Spinrad, 2015;
Van der Bruggen, Stams, and Bögels, 2008). By giving children frequent instructions on how to
think, feel, or behave in desired ways, parents can restrict children’s feelings of autonomy and sense
of mastery. Intrusive parenting undermines opportunities for the child to learn behavioral and
emotional self-regulation and develop autonomy and independence. By being too directive and
overcontrolling, parents leave their children with few opportunities to independently learn how
to self-regulate, solve problems, and behave in socially constructive ways (Eisenberg et al., 2015;
Graziano, Keane, and Calkins, 2010). Intrusive parenting at 30 and 42 months predicts lower levels
of executive control a year later (Eisenberg et al., 2015; Taylor, Eisenberg, Spinrad, and Widaman,
2013). In addition, toddlers who experience higher levels of maternal restrictiveness have lower
scores on self-regulatory competence at age 8 (Olson, Bates, Sandy, and Schilling, 2002). Graziano
and colleagues (2010) observed that high levels of maternal overcontrol/intrusiveness (i.e., display-
ing a no-nonsense attitude, constantly and adversely guiding the child during a teaching task and
free play) at age 2 was negatively predictive of children’s effortful control at age 5.5. Parents’ use of
controlling behavior (e.g., physical enforcement, threatening, criticizing, bribing) during a clean-up
task with their 2-year-olds predicted a deterioration in committed compliance at 3½ years, while
autonomy-supportive behavior (e.g., providing a rationale, giving choices and suggestions) predicted
improvement (Laurin and Joussemet, 2017).
Parental overprotection is another form of parental overcontrol, which has especially been related
to anxiety in early childhood. By shielding their child from potential danger by intrusively provid-
ing unnecessary help and restricting exposure to a diverse range of experiences, parents convey the
message that the world is an unsafe place. As a result, the child’s awareness of danger increases, their
perceived level of control reduces, and avoidance behavior in the child is promoted, leaving them
with limited opportunities to develop a repertoire of coping skills and a sense of self-competence in
dealing with challenging situations (Rapee, 1997; Rubin, Coplan, and Bowker, 2009). Bayer, Sanson,
and Hemphill (2006) found that low levels of parental warmth and high levels of overprotection at
age 2 predict more internalizing symptoms at age 4. In a sample of parents rearing a 3- to 5-year-old
child, Edwards, Rapee, and Kennedy (2010) found that both maternal and paternal overprotection
predicted higher levels of anxiety symptoms 12 months later.
59
Psychological control is generally defined as control that intrudes on the child’s psychological
world and is characterized by manipulative and pressuring tactics including guilt induction, invalida-
tion of the child’s perspective, and love withdrawal (Barber and Harmon, 2002). The child’s emerg-
ing sense of self may be threatened by such intrusive and pressuring behavior, which increases the
likelihood of maladjustment and internalizing problems (Barber, 1996). In contrast to research on
adolescents (Soenens, Vansteenkiste, and Beyers, 2019), studies on parental psychological control in
early childhood are still scarce, despite the fact that toddlerhood is the period in which the sense of
self starts to emerge, and guilt induction and love withdrawal are commonly used by parents. Tod-
dlers and preschoolers whose parents use psychological control are more likely to display external-
izing behaviors in general (Verhoeven, Junger, Van Aken, Dekovic, and Van Aken, 2010a) and, more
specifically, relational and physical aggression (Casas et al., 2006). In addition, preschool children (54
months) who had psychologically controlling mothers were less compliant at age 6.5 years (Ver-
schueren, Dossche, Marcoen, Mahieu, and Bakermans-Kranenburg, 2006). How psychological con-
trol is related to internalizing problem behavior in toddlers is not yet clear.
Parental Structuring and Discipline

The goals of socialization are to support children to develop as independent beings (individuality) and
to teach children to comply with social rules and regulations (conformity). When interacting with a
child who wants to assert his or her own agenda in activities, parents must find a balance between
supporting this growing sense of autonomy and teaching their child to control emotions and behav-
ior to adjust to social demands and conventions. Although noncompliance is normal for toddlers,
strong resistance to parents between the ages of 2.5 and 5 years is associated with poor social com-
petence and poor parent–child relationships (Kochanska, 2002). By formulating and managing rules
and helping children to internalize them, parents play a fundamental role in enhancing children’s
self-regulation skills (Grolnick and Farkas, 2002). As such, the kind of requests parents pose to their
child and the disciplinary techniques parents use to modify the child’s behavior have long been of
interest to developmental researchers.
Parental Structuring: Setting Everyday Rules

Parents have to make decisions about what behavioral standards ought to be communicated to young
children, when they should be communicated, and in general how to move young children toward
compliance and internalize the standards. Starting at the age of 13–14 months, the first rules parents
set for their children are mainly focused on keeping the child safe, such as not touching danger-
ous objects or climbing on furniture (Gralinski and Kopp, 1993; Smetana, Kochanska, and Chuang,
2000). The number of safety rules increases during the toddler period. This increase in rules is a
response to the increasing the number of incidents in which their child is (almost) being injured
(Morrongiello, Widdifield, Munroe, and Zdzieborski, 2014), due to the fact that toddlers’ increase in
cognitive skills—and therewith their appreciation of hazards—hardly keeps up with their physical
and motor development. Also, parents may consider such safety rules to be more effective and come
to rely more on them as their children progress in their communicative and cognitive skills (Mor-
rongiello et al., 2014).
Next to safety rules, but to a lesser extent, mothers of 13- to 14-month-olds also communicate
rules regarding the protection of family properties (e.g., not tearing up books, drawing on walls) and
preventing harm to others (e.g., not taking toys from others or harming them; Gralinski and Kopp,
1993; Smetana et al., 2000). During the second year of life, mothers’ network of rules expands from
this primary focus on safety and survival to a concern with communicating family norms and cul-
tural standards. From age 2.5 to 4, mothers request more independent behavior regarding issues of
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Parenting Toddlers
delays (e.g., not interrupting others’ conversations), manners (e.g., saying please and thank you), self-
care (e.g., dressing self, going to bed when requested), and family routines (e.g., helping with chores,
keeping room neat; Gralinski and Kopp, 1993; Smetana et al., 2000).
When imposing rules, parents recognize children’s developmental limitations and adjust their
teaching strategies accordingly: Where parents initially focus on familiarizing young children with
the rules by frequently restating them, later parents put more emphasis on having children under-
stand the issue, by explaining and mentioning potential consequences (Morrongiello et al., 2014).
Parents seem to believe that children are more likely to comply if they understand the rationale
behind safety rules. Moreover, when parental expectations and requests are reasonable and appropri-
ate, children are likely to feel secure and accepted and are more willing to follow parents’ suggestions
and advice. Presenting behavioral rules (cleaning up, going to bed) in an autonomy-supportive man-
ner may motivate children to comply. Providing a rationale or explanation for the behavioral request,
while acknowledging the feelings and perspective of the child, offering choices, and minimizing the
use of controlling language and techniques, has been suggested to help young children internalize
rules (Côté-Lecaldare, Joussemet, and Dufour, 2016).
Parental Discipline Techniques

Setting rules is one important task of parents during toddlerhood. Ensuring that the child complies
to these rules and internalizes them is another. Discipline encounters form an important learning
context for how children control themselves (self-regulation), but also for parents to develop effec-
tive disciplinary techniques that promote child prosocial behavior or discourage misbehavior. The
number of mothers who explicitly discipline their child and the frequency of discipline encounters
increase between the ages of 12 and 48 months, with the strongest rise in the child’s second year
(Vittrup, Holden, and Buck, 2006). In their search for effective techniques that match their continu-
ously developing child, parents use a variety of disciplinary behaviors.
Cognitive disciplinary techniques. Most used are techniques from a cognitive approach with an
emphasis on providing the child with a rationale for desired behaviors and for ceasing misbehavior.
Almost all mothers report frequently using noncoercive cognitive control methods, such as diver-
sion, reasoning, and negotiating, in response to toddlers’ misbehavior (Huang, O’Brien Caughy, Lee,
Miller, and Genevro, 2009; Passini, Pihetm, and Favez, 2014;Vittrup et al., 2006). Inductive, authorita-
tive discipline in which parents remind children of rules and explain them, while taking into account
children’s perspective and providing them with information and guidance, is thought to be effective
for promoting children’s internalization, as they direct the child’s attention to the consequences of
their behavior on the well-being of others, which helps children to develop empathic motives to
behave in prosocial ways (Choe, Olson, and Sameroff, 2013; Hoffman, 2007). Van Zeijl and col-
leagues (2007) observed mothers who had to withhold their 1- to 3-year-old children from a treat.
They found that children showed less externalizing behavior when their mothers used more distrac-
tion and induction, and showed more understanding for the child’s feelings or thoughts. Chen and
colleagues (2003) also found a positive association between maternal induction (i.e., encouraging
children to express their opinions and reasoning with children when they misbehave) and child com-
pliance at age 2: As mothers more often used induction, their children were more compliant during
a clean-up and behavioral delay task. Mothers endorsing more inductive discipline (i.e., reminding
of rules and reasoning) at child age 3 reported less physical discipline and had children with fewer
externalizing problems at age 5.5 (Choe et al., 2013). Kerr, Lopez, Olson, and Sameroff (2004) found
that this reminding of rules and reasoning was related to more moral regulation and less externalizing
behavior in 3.5-year-olds. In response to the emergence of child language and cognitive skills, parents
increase the use of inductive discipline across toddlerhood (Verhoeven, Junger, Van Aken, Deković,
and Van Aken, 2007a).
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Behavior-Modification Techniques
Behavior-modification techniques are also used frequently to make children comply with paren-
tal rules. After “explaining the rules,” parents apply social reinforcement (e.g., praise, reward) and
negative sanctions (e.g., removal of privileges, time-out, planned ignoring) to manage their tod-
dler’s behavior (McMahon and Forehand, 2003; Passini et al., 2014;Vittrup et al., 2006). By reward-
ing or punishing children’s actions, parents can increase wanted and decrease unwanted behavior.
Reprimands and negative nonverbal responses function as punishers, and when they outweigh the
benefits of noncompliance for the child, they increase compliance (Owen, Slep, and Heyman, 2012).
Praise, however, has to be paired with nonverbal positive responses—including positive attention and
backup contingencies (e.g., edible treats, stickers, bonus time)—to become substantial enough to
motivate the child to comply (Owen et al., 2012).
Another behavior-modification technique that is amongst the most common forms of child
discipline used by parents of young children is the time-out: withholding the child from reinforc-
ing stimuli (e.g., social attention, access to objects) as a response to misbehavior (Barkin, Scheind-
lin, Ip, Richardson, and Finch, 2007; Corralejo, Jensen, Greathouse, and Ward, 2017; Riley, Wagner,
Tudor, Zuckerman, and Freeman, 2017). Giving a time-out teaches the child about the consequences
of inappropriate behavior and how to calm down and manage difficult and frustrating behavior
(Morawska and Sanders, 2011). Empirical evidence shows this technique to be effective for parents
of toddlers, at least when used as a part of a comprehensive parenting strategy (Kaminski,Valle, Filene,
and Boyle, 2008; Morawska and Sanders, 2006, 2011), and a time-out is recommended in evidence-
based parenting programs (e.g., Incredible Years Program; Webster-Stratton and Dahl, 1995) and by
primary care providers (Scholer, 2006). However, some concerns have been raised regarding the use
of this disciplinary technique, as the time-out could be applied by parents in an authoritarian way,
which labels children instead of their behavior and requires the child to excessively focus on their
misbehavior (Corralejo et al., 2017; Morawska and Sanders, 2011). Empirical evidence for these
concerns is lacking (Morawska and Sanders, 2011), but many parents reportedly fail to implement
the time-out as intended, which can undermine its effectiveness (Riley et al., 2017). Parent education
about this disciplinary technique is therefore much needed, although parenting programs, books, and
online recommendations are not always consistent with available research or lack a sufficient research
base (Corralejo et al., 2017).
Harsh discipline. Dealing with misbehavior and noncompliance can be frustrating and tiresome
for parents, especially as toddlers engage in misbehavior from 3.5 to 20 times an hour (Dix, 1991;
Wahler and Dumas, 1989). Parents have certain ideas about how they would like to respond during
discipline encounters, but their eventual choice for particular disciplinary techniques is not always a
rational one. Many parents frequently respond to child misbehavior with acts of physical (slapping,
spanking; Lee, Taylor, Altschul, and Rice, 2013; Maguire-Jack, Gromoske, and Berger, 2012; Zolo-
tor, Robinson, Runyan, Barr, and Murphy, 2011) or psychological (angry shouting, cursing, calling
names) aggression. At 12 months of age, 10–30% of mothers in a U.S. sample reported using these
aggressive disciplinary techniques, with levels increasing to 59% for spanking and 93% for yelling at
age 4 (Vittrup et al., 2006).Yelling is the third most common reaction to toddlers’ misbehavior, just
after explaining the rules and social reinforcement (Passini et al., 2014).
Such harsh, coercive disciplinary techniques are often used as a last resort, when other disciplinary
methods do not work, or when the child or mother loses control (Vittrup et al., 2006). Although
these techniques may lead to immediate compliance, they are generally thought to be ineffective for
the child’s internalization of rules and for promoting adjusted behavior. By using power-assertive
behaviors to solve parent–child conflicts, parents may teach the child to expect successful outcomes
from hostile and aggressive interactions. Moreover, by solving parent–child conflicts with this kind
of behavior, parents do not teach their children alternative problem-solving strategies, aside from
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Parenting Toddlers
aggression. In addition, parents’ use of power-assertive discipline may make the child feel discon-
nected and alienated from the parent and consequently resentful and rejecting of further parental
socialization efforts (Kim and Kochanska, 2015).
Results regarding the consequences of harsh discipline for the child are, however, still inconclu-
sive. While Larzelere and Kuhn (2005) found in their meta-analysis that the effects of normative
spanking (physical punishment not used severely or as the primary discipline method) on 2- to
12-year-old children are similar to the harmless effects of other common disciplinary actions (e.g.,
time-out, verbal reprimands), a more recent meta-analysis by Gershoff and Grogan-Kaylor (2016)
showed that the effect of spanking on child outcomes does not substantially differ from physical
abuse. A longitudinal study of 1- to 3-year-olds suggests that the consequences of parental physical
discipline may not be limited to the child’s behavioral development (Berlin et al., 2009). Spanking
at age 1 predicted child aggressive behavior at age 2 and lower cognitive scores at age 3, supporting
the conclusion that spanking during toddlerhood can have negative consequences for toddler’s soci-
oemotional as well as cognitive functioning.
Regardless of whether physical punishment does or does not have a negative impact on children,
there is hardly evidence that this type of discipline is associated with positive child outcomes, such
as conscience development and positive behaviors and feelings (Larzelere and Kuhn, 2005). Given
the potential risks of physical punishment and the unclear boundary between physical punishment
and physical abuse, it is not surprising that at least 51 countries have passed laws banning all physical
punishment of children by parents (UN Tribune, 2017).
Another form of harsh discipline used by parents of toddlers—psychological aggression (e.g.,
scolding, yelling, shouting)—has received less attention and also results that are inconsistent. Vissing,
Straus, Gelles, and Harrop (1991) found that children, including a cohort of 0- to 6-year-olds, who
experienced frequent levels of verbal aggression from their parents, exhibited higher rates of physical
aggression, delinquency, and interpersonal problems than children who did not experience parental
verbal aggression frequently. Parental verbal hostility displayed when the child was 4.5 years old was
related to less communal competence, individuation, self-efficacy, and more internalizing behavior
during adolescence (Baumrind, Larzelere, and Owens, 2010). Examining a large group of low-income,
ethnically diverse toddlers, Berlin and colleagues (2009), however, found no negative consequences of
maternal use of verbal punishment (i.e., shouting, expressing annoyance with hostility, negative com-
ments) or child aggressive behavior problems and cognitive development. By contrast, verbal punish-
ment predicted higher Mental Development Index scores on the Bayley and a decline in aggressive
behavior problems when children were Mexican American or when verbal punishment was com-
bined with higher levels of maternal emotional responsiveness (Berlin et al., 2009).
The toddler period is a significant time for parents to develop their repertoire of disciplinary
techniques. Studies show that the frequency of using certain disciplinary techniques increases, and
the kind of techniques a parent chooses to use is quite stable across the toddler period (Huang et al.,
2009;Verhoeven, Junger,Van Aken, Deković, and Van Aken, 2007b;Vittrup et al., 2006). It is impor-
tant to inform parents of toddlers about the various techniques they could apply to discipline their
child, how these different techniques can promote or undermine the child’s development, and how
convenient techniques may be employed in daily life.
Parental Warmth and Support

Next to granting autonomy, providing structure, and helping the child to comply to social rules, paren-
tal warmth and support are important for toddlers. The parent–child relationship creates important
conditions for the developmental tasks of toddlerhood (exploring, becoming autonomous, social-
izing), as there is clear association between the quality of the infant-caregiver relationship and how
well the child functions as a toddler. Securely attached toddlers use their caregiver as a secure base
63
to explore environments, pursue autonomous activities, and achieve self-regulation and attention-
regulation skills (Bowlby, 1988; Sroufe, 2005). Indeed, securely attached toddlers show more com-
mitted compliance (Lickenbrock et al., 2013) and are more responsive and willing to cooperate
with their parent (Kochanska, Aksan, and Carlson, 2005) than insecurely attached toddlers. When
interacting with their parents, securely attached toddlers show enthusiasm in their compliance, are
eager to respond to their parents’ cues, and have an open approach to discourse (Kochanska, Aksan,
et al., 2005). Such a willing stance of the child influences the parent to behave more positively toward
the child, and as such provides a strong base to keep building on a positive parent–child relationship
(Kochanska et al., 2015). In contrast, being insecurely attached puts children at risk for later behavior
problems (Fearon, Bakermans-Kranenburg, Van IJzendoorn, Lapsley, and Roisman, 2010), such as
externalizing and internalizing behaviors (Madigen, Brumariu, Villani, Atkinson, and Lyons-Ruth,
2016; Madigan, Moran, Schuengel, Pederson, and Otten, 2007;Wang,Willoughby, Mills-Koonce, and
Cox, 2016).
Parents who are warm and sensitive and respond to their children’s emotions in appropriate
ways may foster increased effortful control as they serve as a model for ways to cope with emotions
and behaviors (Davidov and Grusec, 2006; Hoffman, 2000). Warm parents are likely to allow their
children to express their feelings and use emotion coaching to help their children regulate strong
emotions. The maintenance of optimal levels of arousal and creating an environment in which the
child learns the basis of social relationships, warm and supportive parenting is thought to facili-
tate the development of effortful control (Feldman and Klein, 2003). Indeed, sensitive caregiving
has been associated with toddlers’ high regulatory skills (Bernier et al., 2010; Spinrad et al., 2012),
including delay of gratification (Li-Grining, 2007) and the ability to shift attention (Gilliom, Shaw,
Beck, Schonberg, and Lukon, 2002) and to regulate positive affect (Davidov and Grusec, 2006) and
emotions (Spinrad, Stifter, Donelan-McCall, and Turner, 2004). Moreover, high levels of maternal
warmth are associated with the development of guilt, conscience (Kochanska, Forman, Aksan, and
Dunbar, 2005), and empathy (Kiang, Moreno, and Robinson, 2004).
Parental warmth and support are also thought to determine the associations with other parent-
ing behaviors and child outcomes. A more positive parent–child relationship encourages the child’s
receptive orientation toward their parents, their active embrace of parental rules and agendas, and
their willingness to comply with parental requests, making them actively willing partners in the
socialization process (Kochanska, Forman, et al., 2005; Kochanska, Kim, Boldt, and Yoon, 2013;
Owen et al., 2012). Positive parenting behavior may also buffer negative effects of harsher behavior
the parent shows toward the child. Kim and Kochanska (2015) found an indirect effect of maternal
power assertion (at age 30 months) to children’s negative, adversarial orientation (at 33 months) to
future behavioral problems (at 40 months) when mothers’ responsiveness was either low or average,
but absent when mothers were highly responsive. It might be that children of responsive parents
interpret their parents’ use of harsh discipline as well intentioned, legitimate, and benevolent, as has
been found in research on children’s perceptions of discipline (Bugental and Grusec, 2006; Gershoff
and Grogan-Kaylor, 2016;Vittrup and Holden, 2010). Nevertheless, in a study by Lee, Altschul, and
Gershoff (2013), maternal warmth did not counteract the negative consequences of spanking.Verho-
even and colleagues (2010a) found that high levels of support strengthened the association between
maternal spanking and boys’ externalizing behavior, instead of diminishing the negative effects of
spanking. It is possible that the ambiguous signals that mothers send to their child by being both sup-
portive and aggressive at the same time negatively affect child adjustment by arousing internal distress
and negative emotions leading to externalizing behaviors (Olson et al., 2002). Another explanation
might be that precisely because children of warm and supportive parents are more open to parenting
behavior (Darling and Steinberg, 1993; Grolnick and Farkas, 2002), they can also be harmed more
when harsh disciplinary techniques are used.
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Parenting Toddlers
Changes in the Parent–Child Relationship

It is important that parents continue to be warm and supportive during toddlerhood. However, one of
the most difficult challenges for parents of toddlers is just that: maintaining the warmth and sensitivity
often easily used during infancy, but now combining this with discipline, control, and limit setting.
Clashes between the parent’s limit-setting efforts and the child’s need for self-assertion lead to more
frequent conflicts. Resistance to parent’s demands and often emotionally loaded negotiations with
young children may leave parents fatigued or irritable and challenge parents’ own regulation abilities
(Dozier and Bernard, 2017; Feinberg, Jones, Kan, and Goslin, 2010). Nevertheless, parents are capable
of keeping stability in their levels of sensitivity during this developmental period (Bornstein, Tamis-
Lemonda, Hahn, and Haynes, 2008; Bornstein et al., 2010; Hallers-Haalboom, et al., 2017; Lovas,
2005; Stack et al., 2012; Verhoeven, Junger, Van Aken, Deković, and Van Aken, 2010b). Some studies
found that parents become more sensitive with children’s increasing age (Braungart-Rieker, Hill-
Soderlund, and Karrass, 2010; Kemppinen, Kumpulainen, Raita-Hasu, Moilanen, and Ebeling, 2006).
Perhaps the child’s improving communication skills are an explanation, as these skills make it easier
for the parent to understand their child’s needs and respond accordingly. In addition, parents might
have developed more effective parenting strategies (Whiteman, McHale, and Crouter, 2003) and have
become more familiar with the child’s characteristics and needs (Hallers-Haalboom et al., 2017).
Diversity in Parenting Toddlers

In relation to parenting during toddlerhood, it is important to consider several specific character-
istics that reflect diversity in view of their association with developmental outcomes in toddlers. In
our work on establishing norms based on the Dutch population for the Bayley scales of infant and
toddler development (third edition) for children between two weeks and 42 months old, the sample
needed to be made representative and the analyses were weighed for gender, ethnicity, maternal edu-
cation, and region of living in The Netherlands (Van Baar et al., 2014). The importance of consider-
ing such characteristics is evident, as clear differences exist between the developmental trajectories of
different populations. For example, representative samples of Dutch (Steenis,Verhoeven, Hessen, and
Van Baar, 2015), Australian (Walker, Badawi, Halliday, and Laing, 2010), and Danish (Krogh, Væver,
Harder, and Køppe, 2012) children differed in their cognitive, language, and motor development
compared to a U.S. norm sample. This is likely due to the fact that countries differ in their constel-
lation of socioeconomic, cultural, and ethnic backgrounds of their population, factors which are
known to influence child development (Steenis et al., 2015; Walker et al., 2010).
Socioeconomic Status (SES)

Children growing up in families of low socioeconomic circumstances (i.e., children whose parents
have low levels of education, income, and/or occupational prestige) are at increased risk for poor
health outcomes and delays in social, emotional, and cognitive development (Bitsko et al., 2016).This
gap in development between children growing up in low versus high SES families is already apparent
in the toddler years (e.g., Bradshaw and Mayhew, 2005; Kiernan and Mensah, 2009; Fernald, March-
man, and Weisleder, 2013; Huttenlocher, Waterfall,Vasileyva,Vevea, and Hedges, 2010). To illustrate, a
cohort study in the UK showed that as early as age 3, a quarter of the children living in persistently
poor households exhibit cognitive delays, and a fifth of these low SES children display high levels
of behavioral problems (Kiernan and Mensah, 2011). Studying a representative sample of Dutch
children, Van Baar and colleagues (2014) found that—after controlling for effects of ethnicity—
from the age of 12 months up to 42 months, children of mothers with a low educational level
showed substantially lower levels of cognitive and language skills than children of highly educated
65
mothers. When entering school, children from a disadvantaged background may be several months
behind their peers regarding their school readiness, as they have difficulties in maintaining attention,
regulating emotion and stress, reflecting on information and experience, and engaging in sustained
positive social interactions with teachers and peers (Blair and Raver, 2015). These inequalities in
cognitive and social emotional development tend to grow as children grow older, eventually leading
to lower educational attainment with the accompanying reduction in chances for success in society
(Heckman, 2006), perpetuating the cycle of poverty.
A lack of early learning opportunities and less appropriate parent–child interactions are thought
to contribute to the loss of developmental potential in low SES children (Blair and Raver, 2015;
Walker et al., 2011). Low SES impacts negatively across different aspects of parenting, including read-
ing- and learning-promoting activities, relationship and interaction with the child, and positive and
negative disciplinary practices (Kiernan and Mensah, 2011). Parents with lower SES tend to talk less
to their children and their nature of speech is less supportive of language development compared
to higher SES parents (Hoff, 2013). Speech of parents with lower SES is more often used to direct
children’s behavior instead of eliciting and maintaining conversation, and they tend to use a more
restricted vocabulary and range of grammatical structures than parents from higher SES (Hoff, 2013).
A study by Azad, Blacher, and Marcoulides (2014) found that mothers who reported higher levels
of education showed higher levels of positive parenting—a constellation of positive affect, sensitivity,
cognitive stimulation, and detachment (i.e., uninvolved, unresponsive)—when their children were
3 years of age. At the same time, a higher family income was associated with a greater increase in
positive parenting over a 6-year period (Azad et al., 2014).
It is important to keep in mind that many children growing up in low SES families are still faring
well. Positive parenting improves the odds that children living in more disadvantaged circumstances
will do better in school (Kiernan and Mensah, 2011). Programs that support parents in promoting
their children’s health and development hold considerable potential for prevention of the long-term
effects associated with poverty (Yoshikawa, Aber, and Beardslee, 2012). Strengthening parent’s social
support and increasing positive parent–child interactions are seen as mechanisms for change (Morris
et al., 2017).
Parenting in Minority Groups

Empirical evidence suggests that infants and toddlers from minority groups may also be at a disad-
vantage with regard to various outcomes. In early childhood, minority children often score lower
on cognitive development and language skills compared to majority children (DeFeyter and Winsler,
2009; Duncan et al., 2012;Van Baar et al., 2014), and they are more likely to show behavioral prob-
lems (Jansen et al., 2010). In most countries, ethnic minority families are overrepresented in the lower
SES groups (Crul and Doomernik, 2003; Mesman,Van IJzendoorn, Bakermans-Kranenburg, 2012),
and they experience more daily hassles and psychological distress than majority families (Yaman,
Mesman, Van IJzendoorn, Bakermans-Kranenburg, 2010). This could explain why minority parents
have been found to be at risk for non-optimal parenting, including lower levels of sensitivity, com-
pared with majority parents (e.g., Fuligni and Brooks-Gunn, 2013; Yaman et al., 2010). Indeed, the
association between minority status and parenting disappears or becomes substantially smaller when
the analyses are controlled for SES (Mesman et al., 2012).
Another stressor that might explain why minority parents are at risk for less optimal parenting is
acculturation stress. Acculturation stress is a reaction to events that occur during the process of accul-
turation, e.g., discomfort with unfamiliar norms, missing family members, and a lack of social support
(Leidy et al., 2010). Indeed, within a sample of minority mothers of young children, those within
lower SES families experienced more acculturation stress as well as psychological distress, which
resulted in less positive parenting—sensitivity, structuring, and nonintrusiveness (Emmen et al., 2013).
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Parenting Toddlers
Parents who have higher levels of acculturation are generally more supportive in their parenting and
provide a more stimulating home environment, which influences their young child’s development
(Glick, Bates, and Yabiku, 2009; Keels, 2009). The language used at home seems especially important.
When parents speak the first language of the country they live in at a proficient level, this seems to
support their children’s cognitive and language skills (Becker, Klein, and Biedinger, 2013; Frumkin,
2013). In addition, non-Dutch mothers who did not have good Dutch language skills reported sig-
nificantly more behavioral problems in their children (Jansen et al., 2010).
Not only might parents of minority families raise their children differently, it could also be that
ethnicity influences how parenting is related to child outcomes. For example, maternal sensitivity
and negative/intrusive behavior were found to mediate the association between family SES and
child cognitive outcomes in majority children, whereas in minority children only maternal negative/
intrusive behavior played a role (Dotterer, Iruka, and Pungello, 2012). Other studies, however, did
not find such differences in the role of parenting: maternal responsiveness and detachment during a
mildly stressful task at 14 months of age predicted child cognitive and emotion outcomes, regardless
of ethnicity (O’Neal, Weston, Brooks-Gunn, Berlin, and Atapattu, 2017). These inconclusive results
suggest that more work is needed to disentangle the effects of ethnicity, minority, immigrant and
legal status, acculturation, and SES on parenting quality (Mesman et al., 2012).
Modern Issues and Future Directions in Research on Parenting Toddlers
Measuring Parenting During Toddlerhood

As any theoretical model or empirical study designed to explain child development must account
for the influence of parenting—either directly or indirectly (McKee, Jones, and Forehand, 2013)—
conceptualization and measurement of parental behavior constitutes a key component of research
on child development (Duppong- Hurley, Huscroft-D’Angelo, Trout, Griffith, and Epstein, 2014;
Putnick, 2019; Verhoeven, Dekovic, Bodden, and Van Baar, 2016). Regarding conceptualization and
measurement, toddlerhood seems to have been lost between infants and school-aged children. For
infants, the focus of most measurement instruments is on parental warmth, sensitivity, and respon-
siveness, which is too narrow for toddlers. For school-aged children, there is a variety of measure-
ment instruments to choose from, but most are concerned with one specific parenting behavior
(e.g., discipline, autonomy granting) and the content of the questions is often not appropriate for
parents of toddlers. New questionnaires for parents of toddlers have been published to overcome
these issues. Zimmer-Gembeck, Webb, Thomas, and Klag (2015) developed the Parenting as Social
Context Questionnaire-Toddlers (PSCQ-Toddlers), based on the self-determination theory (SDT;
Ryan and Deci, 2000). It taps into six dimensions of parenting that are theoretically linked to meet-
ing toddler’s needs of relatedness, competence, and autonomy: warmth, structure, autonomy support,
rejection, chaos, and coercion. Starting from three main theories regarding the role of parenting in
early childhood—attachment theory (Bowlby, 1969), Vygotsky’s learning theory, and social learn-
ing theory (Bandura, 1977)—Verhoeven and colleagues (2016) designed the Comprehensive Early
Childhood Parenting Questionnaire (CECPAQ). This questionnaire assesses parental dimensions
of support, structure, positive discipline, harsh discipline, and stimulation. Preliminary evidence
regarding reliability and validity has been reported for both questionnaires (Verhoeven et al., 2016;
Zimmer-Gembeck et al., 2015).
Child Effects, Parent Effects, and Reciprocity

Parenting plays an important role in child development, but it has long been recognized that both
parents and children act as active agents who co-create their emerging, bidirectional relationship
67
(e.g., Bell and Chapman, 1986; Kuczynski and De Mol, 2015; Maccoby, 2000; Sameroff and Fiese,
2000). A growing body of studies examines this reciprocity in toddlerhood. Results are somewhat
mixed.Verhoeven and colleagues (2010b) found child effects only: toddler boys’ externalizing behav-
ior, which elicited less support and structure and more psychological control and physical punish-
ment in both their mothers and fathers. These parental behaviors had no effect on boys’ levels of
externalizing behavior. Other studies have reported both parent and child effects, but these seem to
depend on the kind of child and parenting behaviors under investigation. In a small sample of low-
income families, maternal harsh parenting responses to their 1-year-old’s noncompliance during a
clean-up task predicted increased children’s distress at 24 months, although child distress at 1 year
did not predict harsh parenting at age 2 (Scaramella, Sohr-Preston, Mirabile, Robison, and Cal-
lahan, 2008). For maternal supportive parenting, the reverse was found. Here, child distress at age 1
predicted decreases in maternal support at age 2, while maternal support at age 1 was unrelated to
child distress at age 2 (Scaramella et al., 2008). A study by Berlin and colleagues (2009) also found
evidence for both parent and child effects. Child fussiness at age 1 predicted maternal spanking and
verbal punishment at ages 1, 2, and 3. At the same time, spanking at age 1 predicted child aggressive
behavior problems at age 2 and lower cognitive scores at age 3. Likewise, in a sample of low-income,
ethnically diverse boys, boys’ negative emotionality at 18 months predicted disruptive behavior at
24 months, particularly if their mothers used more negative control to facilitate child compliance
(Chang and Shaw, 2016). Child effects, however, were in an unexpected direction: Mothers whose
children showed higher levels of negative emotionality decreased their negative control from 18 to 24
months. Maybe mothers reduce their attempts to control their child’s misbehavior (more lax disci-
pline) or try alternative strategies to manage their child’s negativity (Chang and Shaw, 2016).
Thus, prior findings partially support reciprocal, transactional processes between parent and child
behavior. However, more research is needed to understand how parents and children reinforce each
other’s behavior:Why do parents in some studies respond to child behavior in unexpected directions
(Chang and Shaw, 2016) or show changes in some parental behaviors but not in others (Scaramella
et al., 2008), and why are children not affected by changes in their parents’ behaviors (Verhoeven
et al., 2010b)?
Fathers
Whereas past research on early childhood development has mainly focused on mothers, current
research increasingly focuses on both parents. This is likely due to a trend toward fathers becoming
more involved in caring for their children (Marshall, 2006; Roggman, Bradley, and Raikes, 2013),
although mothers continue to spend much more time with children than fathers do (Craig and
Mullan, 2011; Raley, Bianchi, and Wang, 2012). Looking at activities, fathers are relatively rarely alone
with their children, and they enjoy relatively more play and talking time with their children, whereas
mothers do more physical care (Craig, 2006). Looking at parenting behavior, there is more congru-
ence between mothers and fathers (Rinaldi and Howe, 2012; Verhoeven et al., 2010b), although
fathers are somewhat less sensitive and more intrusive toward their toddlers than are mothers (Berg-
mann, Wendt,Von Klitzin, and Klein, 2012; Hallers-Haalboom et al., 2017;Verhoeven et al., 2010b).
Couples tend to have similar disciplinary styles (Kim, Lee, Taylor, and Guterman, 2014), which may
be the result of mutual influence (assortative mating; Luo and Klohnen, 2005; Watson et al., 2004) or
socialization effects, whereby parents influence and/or adjust to each other and eventually settle on
the same parenting approach. It could also be the result of both parents rearing the same child, who
elicits similar behaviors of his/her parents. Parents are likely to learn from each other and to discuss
their rearing techniques and together decide how to adjust their behavior (Verhoeven et al., 2007b).
Although children generally experience similar parenting behaviors from their mothers and
fathers, they might be differently affected by maternal and paternal behaviors. Whereas mothers are
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Parenting Toddlers
important for calming and comforting the child in times of stress, fathers play a particular role in the
development of children’s openness to the world, by inciting the child to take initiative in unfamiliar
situations, explore, take risks, and overcome obstacles (Grossman et al., 2002; Paquette, 2004).There is
some evidence that maternal intrusive behavior—which is characterized by rejection and manipula-
tion as opposed to warmth and affection—is more detrimental for toddlers’ developmental outcomes
than paternal intrusiveness. To illustrate, maternal psychological control is a stronger predictor of
toddlers’ externalizing behavior than is paternal psychological control (Brook, Zheng, Whiteman,
and Brook, 2001; Verhoeven et al., 2010a). Cabrera, Shannon, and Tamis-LeMonda (2007) found
that maternal, but not paternal, intrusiveness was related to child emotional functioning at age 3.
However, their study also showed that supportiveness of both parents was positively related to chil-
dren’s language and cognitive outcomes at 24 and 36 months. Moreover, for social and emotional
development only, fathers’ supportiveness mattered. Differences in the roles of maternal and paternal
behavior in child development were also found by Rinaldi and Howe (2012), who showed that
permissive parenting by mothers, and authoritarian parenting by fathers, uniquely predicted toddlers’
externalizing behavior, while toddlers’ adaptive behaviors were only predicted by paternal authorita-
tive parenting.
Larger differences between mothers and fathers of young children can be found in the area of
play (Cabrera, Fitzgerald, Bradley, and Roggman, 2014; Möller, Majdandžić, De Vente, and Bögel,
2013).Whereas mothers engage more in pretend play (Lindsey and Mize, 2001), fathers are generally
more physical and challenging in their play (chasing, jumping, rough-and-tumble play; Fliek, Dae-
men, Roelofs, and Muris, 2015; John, Halliburton, and Humphrey, 2013; Möller et al., 2013) at least
starting from toddlerhood (Majdandžić, De Vente, and Bögel, 2016). The arousing character of such
play (e.g., physically challenging, competition) provides children with opportunities to practice how
to interpret other’s emotions, manage strong impulses (e.g., hitting, kicking), and cope with failure or
frustration (Peterson and Flanders, 2005). Rough-and-tumble play with fathers relates to children’s
self-regulation (Flanders, Leo, Paquette, Pihl, and Seguin, 2009; Flanders et al., 2010; St George,
Fletcher, and Palazzi, 2017). However, these studies only included fathers, leaving the question
regarding the relative importance of maternal and paternal play in child development unanswered.
Whether mothers and fathers play unique roles in their toddler’s development is not yet clear
and might depend on the kind of parenting behavior under study, the quantity and quality of this
behavior, and the developmental stage of the child. Due to women’s increased participation in the
paid labor market, fathers have become more involved in childcare. As such, mothers and fathers
are becoming more similar in terms of the amount of time they spend with their children and the
parenting behaviors they show (Raley et al., 2012), and they may therefore also become more simi-
lar in how they affect their child. To shed more light on this issue, it is important for future studies
to include the quality and the quantity with which mothers and fathers show particular behaviors
(Fagan, Day, Lamb, and Cabrera, 2014).
Family as a System
An exciting trend in research on the role of parenting in toddler development has been the push
toward understanding the family as a system (Kerig, 2019). From this perspective, the association
between parenting and toddlers’ behavior is influenced by maternal and paternal behavior and by
the interrelated components of the family system. Understanding the combined effects of mothering
and fathering on child development is more complex than just summing up the parental behaviors
the child is being exposed to (Lee, Kim, Taylor, and Perron, 2011; Martin, Ryan, and Brooks-Gunn,
2007). Kim and colleagues (2014) found that when mothers and fathers of 3-year-olds were incon-
gruent in their disciplinary styles, with mothers using high physical and psychological aggression
and fathers using low levels of discipline or aggression, this was associated with significantly higher
69
levels of child aggression than when both parents were highly aggressive. Likewise, looking at the
combined effects of mothering and fathering on toddler boys’ externalizing behavior, Verhoeven
and colleagues (2010a) found that in the context of low levels of maternal support, higher levels of
paternal support were related to higher levels of child externalizing behavior. This suggests that the
supportive behavior of one parent may not compensate for the potential negative effects of dysfunc-
tional parenting from the other parent and that discordant parenting approaches may be problematic
(Kim et al., 2014;Verhoeven et al., 2010a).
Future studies are needed to achieve a better understanding of the complexity of the family
system. More attention should be paid to different family structures, beyond the traditional one of a
mother and father and possible siblings living under one roof. LGBT families, ‘patchwork’ families,
and shared parenting after divorce are examples. How do individual family members and subsystems
(e.g., mother-child, father-child, mother-father dyads) influence one another? Especially interesting
in toddlerhood is the addition of a new family member, as the birth of a sibling is a normative eco-
logical transition for toddlers (Volling, 2012). Family dynamics change when a second child is born.
Parents need to adjust their coparenting behavior with their first child and develop a new copar-
enting system with the second, as they face the challenge of simultaneously coparenting multiple
children (Szabó, Dubas, and Van Aken, 2012). Also, parents have to divide their attention and affection
between two children. During early childhood, mothers and fathers tend to be more sensitive and
less intrusive toward their firstborn child than laterborns (Hallers-Haalboom et al., 2014), which
might be due to developmental differences between the children. These differences in sensitivity
toward siblings affects children: toddlers are more compliant with their fathers and better in sharing
with their younger sibling when their fathers are more sensitive toward them, but only when pater-
nal sensitivity toward the younger sibling was low (Van Berkel et al., 2015).Toddlers might show this
positive behavior to ensure their favored position, but it could also be that they try to compensate for
the lack of fathers’ sensitivity toward their sibling (Van Berkel et al., 2015).
Young Children and Media

Another modern issue concerns toddlers in the explosion of electronic media with videos, DVDs,
games, and television networks being specifically developed for toddlers. Toddlers are growing up in
a full media environment and access to and use of media have become part of daily life (Barr, 2019).
Little is known about the impact of media use on child development, despite the claims of produc-
ers that these programs have educational value (Vandewater et al., 2007). The American Academy of
Pediatrics (AAP) advocates that parents should avoid television viewing entirely for children who
are younger than 2 years and to limit viewing time to no more than 2 hours a day for older children
(AAP, 2011, 2013). Shifrin and colleagues (2015) offer more realistic, research-based recommenda-
tions for parents regarding children’s media use. For example, parents should set age-appropriate
limits and ensure that media use does not displace conversation, play, and creativity. Also, parents
should be attentive to their own (over)use of media, as parental behavior provides strong modeling
for children’s behavior, and as parents may ignore their children while using digital media (Shifrin,
Brown, Hill, Jana, and Flinn, 2015).
Parental attitudes and beliefs regarding media use by their young children are mixed. Parents are
concerned that media use will replace traditional play and learning and reduce social interactions,
which might impact on toddlers’ interaction and communication skills (O’Connor and Fotakopou-
lou, 2016). At the same time, parents believe media exposure can promote their child’s development
(Vittrup, Snider, Rose, and Rippy, 2016) and feel that their toddlers need to learn media skills to
be successful in their future education and careers (O’Connor and Fotakopoulou, 2016). Not sur-
prisingly, young children’s media use (including TV, computers, smartphones, and tablets) increases
when parents have more positive attitudes about the impact of media on child development and
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Parenting Toddlers
educational skills and when parents frequently use media devices themselves (Lauricella, Wartella,
and Rideout, 2015).
There is growing interest in how media affect parent–child interactions. In a review, Anderson and
Hanson (2017) found that coviewing television during early childhood changes parenting behavior;
parents interact less with their children while watching TV, regardless of whether the content of the
TV program is adult- or child-directed. However, when parents are actively engaged with their tod-
dlers while viewing a children’s program, they use richer language during and after viewing, which
increases the positive impact of educational programs. Moreover, program content that encourages
positive parent–child interactions stimulates parents to coview and become more positively engaged
with their child outside of the television-viewing situation (Anderson and Hanson, 2017). A greater
risk factor for the quality of the parent–child relationship may be parents’ own media use. A field
study observing families in fast food restaurants showed that about 30% of the parents were fully
occupied with their mobile devices, instead of interacting with their children (Radesky et al., 2014).
It is important for future studies to look beyond media time and media content for children
and examine how media influences parenting. Other new media—such as video chats, interactive
games, and interactive online storybooks—might promote parent–child interactions. In addition, the
introduction of new electronic devices to monitor children may become important for parenting
habits; for example, to keep an eye on their children through the use of cameras or GPS trackers
or to monitor sleep through the mattress1 or a wet diaper through a sensor in the diaper or clothes.
Conclusions
Toddlerhood marks an important period for the further differentiation and integration of parenting
behavior. Parents have to set limits and start to discipline their child, while at the same time they
need to stimulate their child’s growing autonomy and interdependence. How parents discipline their
children during this period is predictive of their disciplinary techniques when the child grows older,
as this review shows. Whether this stability in parenting behavior also holds for autonomy-granting
behavior is less clear. In addition, issues like interaction with the new media that rapidly become
available for toddlers and their parents require novel decisions about how to make adequate use
of their potential. Examining combined effects of parental limit setting, disciplinary behavior, and
autonomy granting during this developmental period and trying to discern the right balance among
these important parental behaviors in different contexts will advance our understanding of the role
of parenting during toddlerhood.
Note
1 “Sensi sleep pad”: a digital monitor-movement sensor that can be placed under the mattress of the child that
tracks whether the child is moving or not.
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3
PARENTING DURING MIDDLE
CHILDHOOD
Introduction
Parents of children between the ages of 5 and 12—the period commonly referred to as middle
childhood—face challenges arising from maturational changes in children and from socially imposed
constraints, opportunities, and demands impinging on them. Children in diverse societies enter a
wider social world at about age 5 and begin to determine their own experiences, including their
contacts with others, to a greater degree than previously. Between age 5 and adolescence, transitions
occur in physical maturity, cognitive abilities and learning, the diversity and impact of relationships
with others, and exposure to new settings, opportunities, and demands. These changes inevitably
alter the amount, kind, content, and significance of interactions between parents and children (Del
Giudice, 2014; Hartup and Collins, 2000). This chapter addresses the impact of the distinctive chal-
lenges and achievements of middle childhood on parent‑child relationships and on the processes of
socialization within families.
The chapter includes five main sections. The first section provides a brief overview of historical
considerations in the study of parenting 5- to 12-year-olds. The second section outlines key norma-
tive changes in children that affect parenting during middle childhood. The third section reviews
changes in parent‑child relationships in which parenting issues are embedded. The fourth section
distills findings from research on the issues of parenting and of parent‑child relationships that are
especially linked to the distinctive changes of the period. These issues include adapting processes of
control, fostering self‑management and responsibility, facilitating positive relationships outside of the
family, and maintaining contacts with schools and other out‑of‑home settings. The concluding sec-
tion underscores the key themes from research and notes persistent questions about the distinctive-
ness of parenting during middle childhood.
Historical Considerations in Middle-Childhood Parenting

In diverse cultures, early middle childhood historically has marked a major shift in children’s rela-
tionships with adults. The age of 6 or 7 years was the time at which children were absorbed into the
world of adults, helping to shoulder family responsibilities, and working alongside their elders. Well
into the eighteenth century in Western nations, many children left home by the age of 6 or 7 years
to work as servants in other households (Aries, 1962). If children remained at home, their parents
became more like supervisors or overseers. The assumption that children were capable of tasks now
81
largely reserved for adults was consistent with a general attitude toward forcing infants and young
children toward behavioral rectitude and submissiveness to authority.
Only in recent times have changing concepts of the family and the advent of formal schooling
removed children of this age from wide participation in adult society. In industrialized nations today,
the ages of 5–12 continue to be set apart from younger ages because they correspond to the begin-
ning of compulsory schooling. Schooling provides a distinctive social definition of childhood and
social structures that constrain and channel development. This secular change has meant that, rather
than taking on adult responsibilities as was the case in earlier periods, middle childhood primarily is
concerned with preparation for eventual responsibility. Children’s preparation for adulthood is con-
ducted not only by parents, but also by institutions and persons outside of the family.Thus, the central
contemporary issue of parenting during this period of rapid and extensive developmental change is
how parents most effectively adjust their interactions, cognitions, and affectional behavior to maintain
appropriate degrees of influence and guidance toward greater autonomy (Collins and Madsen, 2003).
Normative Changes in Children During Middle Childhood

To most parents in industrialized societies, middle childhood is less distinctive as a period of devel-
opment than infancy, toddlerhood, or adolescence. Nevertheless, ages 5–12 are universally set apart
because this period encompasses major transition points in human development (Del Giudice, Ange-
leri, and Manera, 2009; Rogoff, Pirrotta, Fox, and White, 1975). This section briefly reviews changes
in children that set the stage for transitions in parenting during middle childhood. These changes
include enhanced cognitive competence and the growth of knowledge, transitions in social contexts
and relationships, increased vulnerability to stress, altered functions of the self, and self‑regulation and
social responsibility.
Cognitive Competence and the Growth of Knowledge

Cognitive changes greatly expand capacities for solving problems and gaining information needed
for greater competence and resourcefulness. For parents, changes in children’s cognitive competence
necessitate adjustments ranging from the content of conversations, strategies for control and influ-
ence over children’s behavior, and expectations regarding competence and self‑regulation.
Three characteristic cognitive changes of middle childhood are noteworthy. One is a growing
ability to reason in terms of abstract representations of objects and events. For children younger
than 5–7 years, cognition characteristically involves limitations on the number of objects that can be
thought about at one time, and systematic or abstract reasoning is relatively rare. Between ages 5 and
9, most children gain capacities for reasoning effectively about increasingly complex problems and
circumstances; and by 10–12 years of age, children increasingly generalize across concrete instances
and evince capacities for systematic problem-solving and reasoning. Second, children organize tasks
more maturely and independently than in early childhood.This more planful behavior entails adopt-
ing goals for activities, subordinating knowledge and actions in the service of a superordinate plan,
and monitoring one’s own activities and mental processes. Third, increases occur in both the oppor-
tunity and the capacity for acquiring information and for using new knowledge in reasoning, think-
ing, problem solving, and action. Compared to younger children, 5- to 12-year-olds thus can solve
more difficult, abstract intellectual problems in school and can master increased, more complex
responsibilities at home and in other common settings. In middle childhood, these abilities espe-
cially mark children’s executive function, or the more deliberate, top-down neurocognitive processes
involved in self-regulation. Although executive function continues to develop well into adulthood,
the advancements that typically occur in middle childhood are significant (Koslowski and Masnick,
2010; Zelazo and Carlson, 2012).
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Parenting During Middle Childhood
These cognitive expansions eventuate in increased challenges to integrate knowledge and abilities
for understanding self and others, relationships, communities, and societies. Children in middle child-
hood contrast sharply with younger children in their abilities for social understanding (Jacobs, Lanza,
Osgood, Eccles, and Wigfield, 2002). Compared to younger children, 6- to 12-year-olds evaluate
others with greater accuracy and more often view classmates as teachers and other children do (Hey-
man, Barner, Heumann, and Schenck, 2014; Malloy,Yarlas, Montvilo, and Sugarman, 1996). Children
in middle childhood also increasingly distinguish among psychological traits, such as shy–outgoing,
nice–mean, and active–inactive (Heyman and Gelman, 2000). Compared to younger children, 5- to
12-year-olds more readily adopt the perspectives of others in interactions, which helps them to
infer possible reasons for others’ behaviors (Crick and Dodge, 1994; Dunn and Slomkowski, 1992).
Children of middle-childhood ages manifest rapid increases in understanding the content and nature
of social norms as well. For example, compared to preschool children, 6- and 7-year-olds judge rule
violations by other children and by themselves as equally non-normative (Diesendruck, 2012; Riggs
and Young, 2016). Such social cognitive skills underlie the further growth of social competence
during middle childhood, including skills for describing and explaining conditions and events (Hey-
man et al., 2014; Heyman, Fu, and Lee, 2007), for deceiving others and for detecting their decep-
tions (Heyman, Sweet, and Lee, 2009; Watson and Valtin, 1997), and for predicting the behavior of
other children (Droege and Stipek, 1993; Harms, Zayas, Meltzoff, and Carlson, 2014). Concepts of
parent‑child relationships move toward the idea that parents and children mutually have responsibili-
ties to each other, rather than viewing parents as the ones who satisfy children’s needs (Nucci, Killen,
and Smetana, 1996). For parents generally, the characteristic reasoning patterns of 5- to 12-year-olds
necessitate more elaborate and compelling explanations and justifications to have the same degree of
impact that, in earlier years, could be achieved by distracting or admonishing a child.
In addition to growth in interpersonal understanding, children in middle childhood increasingly
grasp many broader conditions of life. Compared to younger children, 5- to 12-year-olds generally
comprehend fundamental life experiences, such as conception, illness, and death, although many
of their beliefs about human biology remain inaccurate and simplistic (Morris, Taplin, and Gel-
man, 2000; Siegal and Peterson, 1999). At the group and societal levels, 5- to 12-year-olds generally
manifest a strong sense of fairness, both in the distribution of resources and in equal treatment under
the law (Helwig, 1998; Hetherington, Hendrickson, and Koenig, 2014). Moreover, they increasingly
believe in the rights of children of their age to some degree of self-determination and self-expression
(Helwig, 1997; Ruck, Abramovitch, and Keating, 1998).
The experiences of adoptive parents of 5- to 12-year-olds illustrate some of the challenges stem-
ming from the cognitive changes of the period (Brodzinsky and Palacios, 2005; Grotevant and McDer-
mott, 2014). Preschool children can and often do label themselves as adopted, but greater cognitive
capacities in middle childhood make it possible to form a more complex understanding of what adop-
tion means. For example, only after age 6 do children typically identify adoption and birth as alter-
native paths to parenthood (Brodzinsky, Smith, and Brodzinsky, 1998). Later, children recognize that
their adoptive parents’ joy in having them as a child necessarily involves the loss of parenting rights for
their birth parents, which sometimes precipitates a sense of loss for their biological family. Children in
mid- to late middle childhood (ages 8–12.5 years) question their parents about a significantly greater
number of adoption-related issues than do younger children (Wrobel, Kohler, Grotevant, and McRoy,
1998), and parents face pressing decisions about how to address the child’s curiosity while preserving a
positive view of the child’s adoptive status and heritage (Pinderhughes and Brodzinsky, in this volume).
Social Contexts and Relationships

Parents of 5- to 12-year-olds also encounter additional burdens and responsibilities because children’s
social networks expand significantly during middle childhood. Whereas most of children’s exchanges
83
with others during infancy and early childhood occur in their families, 5- to 12-year-olds spend less
time in the company of adults and family members, relative to peers and other adults outside of the
family. The shifts are most pronounced between the ages of 5 and 9. Not until early adolescence,
however, do contacts with peers, rather than those with adults, dominate social networks (Collins and
Laursen, 2004; Lam, McHale, and Crouter, 2014; Chapter 4 in this volume).
Middle-childhood experiences exert considerable pressure to create and maintain connections
with peers (Collins, Raby, and Causadias, 2012). Entering school especially increases the number and
kinds of developmental tasks and influences that children encounter. For parents, these experiences
outside of the family often necessitate monitoring children’s activities and choices of companions
at a distance and create new challenges in fostering positive behavior and development (Crouter,
Bumpus, Davis, and McHale, 2005; Wray-Lake, Crouter, and McHale, 2010).
The need for social support from a variety of others, moreover, is more apparent in middle childhood
than in earlier years. Contrary to stereotypes, perceptions of parents as sources of both emotional sup-
port and instrumental help typically remain stable across age groups during middle childhood. Five- to
12-year-olds, however, recognize that others, some outside of the family, serve significant social needs
in their lives (Bryant, 1985; Bukowski, Motzoi, and Meyer, 2009; Furman and Buhrmester, 1992).
To maintain these extended networks, children must learn to cooperate on more complex tasks
and to work without extensive oversight by adults. By ages 10–12, children become notably more
skilled in using goal‑directed planful strategies to initiate, maintain, and cooperate within peer rela-
tionships. One implication of these skills is a greater ability to manage conflicts with peers (Parker
and Asher, 1987). Consequently, parents may spend less time in direct management of peer relation-
ships. Children who do not gain these skills are at a disadvantage for optimal social development and
at risk for a variety of later problems (Bukowski et al., 2009).
Peer relationships play an increasingly complementary role to that of parents during middle child-
hood (Collins and Laursen, 2004). Over the years from age 5 to age 12, children increasingly view
their peers as important sources of intimacy as well as companionship. Although parents and peers
influence children toward similar values and behaviors in most cases, peers also often provide experi-
ences and expectations in areas in which families typically have limited impact, especially in areas
based on an understanding of give and take with others of equal power and status (e.g., collaborative
tasks). For the most part, however, parental and peer influences are reciprocal: Families provide chil-
dren with basic skills for smooth, successful peer relationships; and children often “import” knowl-
edge, expectations, and behavioral tactics from their interactions with peers that stimulate parents’
adjustments to their child’s maturing abilities (Bornstein, Jager, and Steinberg, 2012; Collins, 1995).
Classrooms, playgrounds, and school buses provide ready access to peers and opportunities for more
diverse contacts than many children would otherwise encounter (Hartup, 1996).Varying settings between
elementary and middle schools, however, may complicate children’s efforts to form and maintain stable
relationships with peers (Eccles, Lord, and Buchanan, 1996). The social field for children initially is the
classroom, and most interactions are only with one teacher and the same group of students throughout
the day, whereas in later grades the entire school is the social field, with multiple teachers, classrooms, and
common spaces. For parents, monitoring school experiences may entail more effort as the number of
teachers and settings increases.Additionally, many parents must arrange for and interact with out‑of‑home
childcare personnel and with adults who provide instruction and supervision in out‑of‑school learning
and recreational settings (Vandell, Larson, Mahoney, and Watts, 2015). Clearly, the transitions of middle
childhood generate new tasks for parents, as well as developmental challenges for children.
Risks and Coping

Parenting during middle childhood is compromised by increased risks and stressors for children,
relative to early childhood. Although children between the ages of 5 and 12 years are generally the
84
healthiest segment of the population in industrialized countries (Shonkoff, 1984), for many the
physical transitions of middle childhood and the secular trend toward earlier puberty hasten expo-
sure to some of the health risks of adulthood. Nevertheless, health problems first evident in middle
childhood hold considerable risks for health and economic status in later periods (Case, Fertig, and
Paxson, 2005). Accidents, the major cause of death during childhood, increase between the ages of 5
and 12. Also, middle-childhood experiences increase risks of beginning to use alcohol and tobacco
by middle adolescence (Dishion, Capaldi, and Yoerger, 1999); use of other drugs has become more
common for children in the middle-childhood age group as well.
Neighborhoods
The broadening of opportunities for children to interact in environments outside the home fre-
quently also broadens potential sources of risk. Children’s perceptions of their neighborhood are
linked to their socioemotional adjustment. Reported feelings of loneliness vary with children’s per-
ceptions of their neighborhood as problematic or child-friendly and by degree of perceived support
from neighbors. Negative neighborhood characteristics are linked to poorer socioemotional func-
tioning (Chase-Lansdale, Gordon, Brooks-Gunn, and Klebanov, 1997). Inner-city 9- to 12-year-olds
who rated their neighborhoods high on economic disadvantage and personal exposure to stressful
life events and low on personal support tend to be more involved in antisocial behavior and drug use
(Dubow, Edwards, and Ippolito, 1997).
The impact of neighborhood characteristics in middle-childhood development is often difficult
to pin down, perhaps because familial influences are consistent and more direct sources that fre-
quently either extend or actively counteract neighborhood influences (Chase-Lansdale et al., 1997;
Chase-Lansdale and Gordon, 1996; Dubow et al., 1997). For example, parents with negative percep-
tions of their neighborhoods supervise children more closely (Dubow et al., 1997). Neighborhood
characteristics also exacerbate familial difficulties. Low-income African American children living
in a single-parent family show especially high levels of aggression if they also live in a financially
disadvantaged neighborhood, whereas children from similar economic and family conditions in a
middle-income neighborhood are no more aggressive than other children (Kupersmidt, Griesler,
DeRosier, Patterson, and Davis, 1995). Middle-income neighborhoods do not unequivocally serve
as a protective factor or potentiator of developmental opportunities, however; the opportunities and
limitations impinging on children are more important than economic advantage per se.
Exposure to Violence
The broader environments of middle childhood carry, for many children, increased risk of exposure
to violence (Finkelhor, Turner, Ormrod, and Hamby, 2009). Risk of exposure to violence is as great
for 5- to 8-year-olds as for 10- to 12-year-olds.The ready availability of weapons to individuals of all
ages increases the likelihood of being a victim or perpetrator of violence during middle childhood.
Although the impact of violence surely concerns parents, even parents in high-risk neighborhoods
seriously underestimate the extent to which their children report exposure to violence (Hill and
Jones, 1997).
Experiencing violence, as a victim or witness, influences children’s sense of security and hope
in the world (Lewis and Osofsky, 1997). Ethnographic research with African American children in
an urban school revealed that children persistently discuss daily violent events in their community,
and their discussions reflect the insidious presence of these experiences in children’s minds (Towns,
1996). Children’s perceptions of violence in their communities are correlated positively with their
reports of fearfulness, distress, and depression at home and at school (Bell and Jenkins, 1993; Hill, Lev-
ermore, Twaite, and Jones, 1996; Osofsky, Wewers, Hann, and Fick, 1993). Exposure to violence and
85
victimization at home is associated with a variety of emotional and behavior problems and diminished
school performance (Emery, 1989; Guerra, Huesmann, and Spindler, 2003). One possible mechanism
linking childhood stress and subsequent problems is telomere erosion, a biological phenomenon asso-
ciated with aging. In a longitudinal study of a nationally representative sample, researchers found that
children who experienced two or more kinds of violence exposure (maternal domestic violence,
frequent bullying victimization, maltreatment by an adult) showed more telomere erosion between
age 5 (baseline) and age 10 (follow-up) measurements than those with less exposure. This relative
physical difference occurred even when controlling for child gender, socioeconomic status, and body
mass index. In short, exposure to violence during middle childhood may be associated with prema-
ture physical aging, including vulnerability to disease and other health problems (Shaley et al., 2013).
Parents may play a role by monitoring the degree of risk associated with extrafamilial settings and
by imposing appropriate safety measures, including training children to respond to high‑risk situ-
ations. Furthermore, parents are critical sources of social support to children in coping with risky,
threatening conditions. Children who perceive that persons are available with whom they can talk,
discuss problems, and so forth cope more effectively with the stress of multiple personal and social
changes during middle childhood and the transition to adolescence (Dubow,Tisak, Causey, Hryshko,
and Reid, 1991; Furman and Rose, 2015).
Development of Self-Concept, Self-Regulation, and Social Responsibility

Parents and other significant adults (e.g., teachers, coaches) also play a significant role in the growing
capacities of 5- to 12-year-olds to function as responsible individuals (Colman, Hardy, Albert, Raffaelli,
and Crockett, 2006).To attain mature self‑regulatory capacities requires knowledge of the self, emotions,
and cognitive capacities to focus on long‑term goals and to take account of others’ views and needs.
Self and Self-Regulation

During middle childhood, children’s descriptions of themselves become more stable and more com-
prehensive (Byrne and Shavelson, 1996; Raffaelli, Crockett, and Shen, 2005). This shift partly reflects
the growth of cognitive concepts and awareness of cultural norms and expectations for performance.
In addition, self‑evaluation intensifies as exposure to more varied persons and social contexts stimu-
lates comparisons between self and others and provides evaluative feedback about characteristics,
skills, and abilities (Pomerantz, Ruble, Frey, and Greulich, 1995). Linked to changing concepts of
self are greater capacities for self‑control and self‑regulation. For most children, impulsive behavior
declines steadily from early childhood into middle childhood (Maccoby, 1984). Regulation of affect,
behavior, and attention, as reported by mothers, has been found to increase from early to middle
childhood, with less marked increases from childhood to adolescence (Raffaelli et al., 2005).
Parents and adult mentors can further capacities for self‑regulation by exposing children to stand-
ards of conduct and models of socially valued behaviors and by providing rewards and punishments
in accord with those standards (Colman et al., 2006; Smoll and Smith, 2002). Parents’ and teachers’
impact on motivation is greatest when their encouragement emphasizes opportunities for learning
and mastery, rather than stressing the need to succeed at social or task goals (Erdley, Cain, Loomis,
Dumas-Hines, and Dweck, 1997; Kamins and Dweck, 1999). Furthermore, parents can stimulate
cognitive components of self‑regulation through discussion and reasoning that convey principles for
discerning right from wrong and that emphasize the consequences of transgressions.
As self-regulation increases during middle childhood, parents develop new expectancies (Collins,
1995). Parents ordinarily expect more autonomy and independence in tasks at school and at home,
including peer-group activities. Moreover, parents gradually allow children to assume more respon-
sibility for interacting with health care personnel and for mastering and acting on information and
86
instructions about medication, specific health practices, and evolving lifestyle issues with implications
for physical and mental well-being. These transitions lay the groundwork for greater autonomy in
adolescence and young adulthood.
Vulnerability and Coping

Five- to 12-year-olds generally may be vulnerable to different stressors than children of other ages
(Compas et al., 2014). For example, children of these ages generally are less distressed by short‑term
separations from parents than are younger children, but grieve over the death of a parent more
intensely and for longer periods (Rutter, 1983). Certain resources for coping with stress, moreover,
may be more readily available to 5- to 12-year-olds than to younger children (Denham, Warren,
von Salisch, Benga, Chin, and Geangu, 2011; Zimmer-Gembeck and Skinner, 2011). Among these
are greater knowledge of strategies for coping with uncontrollable stress, which may modulate the
degree of children’s vulnerability (Finnegan, Hodges, and Perry, 1996), and availability of social sup-
port (Dubow et al., 1991).
Normative Changes in Parent–Child Relationships

Concurrent with these individual changes of middle childhood are characteristic patterns of par-
ent‑child interactions and relationships that distinguish this period from earlier and later years of life.
Interactions and Affective Expression

Interactions between parents and children become less frequent in middle childhood. Parents are
with children less than half as much as before the beginning of school. This decline in time together
is relatively greater for parents with lower levels of education (Hill and Stafford, 1980). Moreover, par-
ents and children both show less overt affection during middle childhood than previously (McNally,
Eisenberg, and Harris, 1991; Roberts, Block, and Block, 1984). Children also report that parents are
less accepting toward them, especially during the later years of middle childhood (Armentrout and
Burger, 1972). Despite a decrease between ages 3 and 12 in displays of physical affection, however,
parents report little change in their enjoyment of parenting, having positive regard for their child, or
having respect for the child’s opinions and preferences (McNally et al., 1991; Roberts et al., 1984).
Parents and children alike are less likely to display and experience negative emotions in these
interactions. Emotional outbursts, such as temper tantrums, and coercive behaviors of children toward
other family members, ordinarily begin to decline in early childhood (Goodenough, 1931; Patterson,
1982). This trend continues during middle childhood, and the frequency of disciplinary encounters
also decreases steadily between the ages of 3 and 9. Nevertheless, several emotional characteristics
of interactions with 5- to 12-year-olds may complicate parents’ management of their relationships
with children. Compared to preschool children, 5- to 12-year-olds are more likely to sulk, become
depressed, avoid parents, or engage in passive non-cooperation with their parents (Clifford, 1959;
Denham et al., 2000). Furthermore, children become increasingly likely to say that their conflicts
with parents came about because parents provided inadequate help, did not spend enough time with
the child, or (among older children) because parents had failed to meet parent‑role expectations or
there was a lack of consensus on familial and societal values (Fisher and Johnson, 1990).
Mother–Child and Father–Child Relationships

Gender differentiates some aspects of relationships. Children generally spend more time with moth-
ers than with fathers (Collins and Russell, 1991). When both parents are with their children in
87
the middle-childhood years, however, mothers and fathers initiate interaction with children with
equal frequency, and children initiate similar numbers of interactions with each parent (Russell and
Saebel, 1997). As in early life, fathers typically are involved relatively more in physical/outdoor play
interactions, whereas mothers interact more frequently regarding caregiving and household tasks. In
observational studies with both parents present, though, fathers and mothers engage in caregiving to
a similar degree.
Both positive and negative emotional expressions and conflictual interactions are more likely in
mother‑child than in father‑child interactions (Russell and Saebel, 1997).This difference may reflect
the greater amount of time and greater diversity of shared activities involving mothers.There is some
indication that interactions with sons are marked by greater emotional expression than those with
daughters, although findings are inconsistent regarding whether the emotions are relatively more
positive or negative (for reviews, see Collins and Russell, 1991; Lytton and Romney, 1991).
Researchers frequently fail to find evidence of several commonly anticipated differences between
interactions with mothers and those with fathers. Collins and Russell (1991) argued that few parental
differences first emerge in middle childhood. For example, fathers as well as mothers increase their
attention to school achievement and homework during middle childhood (McNally et al., 1991;
Roberts et al., 1984). Likewise, studies of parental reinforcements for instances of behaviors, such as
competitiveness, autonomous achievement, or competence in cognitive or play activities, generally
show negligible differences between mothers and fathers. Neither have differences been found in
the degree to which mothers and fathers influence the development of executive function in middle
childhood (Meuwissen and Englund, 2016). Furthermore, the degree to which mother‑child and
father‑child relationships are complementary, rather than overlapping, is less likely to change during
middle childhood than during adolescence.
Mutual Cognitions
Parents’ and children’s cognitions about each other and about issues of mutual relevance also change
during middle childhood, especially the latter part of the period. Parents’ knowledge of their chil-
dren’s daily activities and preferences increases during the middle-childhood years (Bugental and
Johnson, 2000; Crouter, Helms-Erikson, Updegraff, and McHale, 1999; Miller, Davis, Wilde, and
Brown, 1993). Ten- to 11-year-olds and their parents tend to agree on the topics for which parents’
authority is legitimate, but disagreements become more likely during adolescence (Smetana, 1989).
Late middle childhood is an important time for achieving more mutual cognitions. Alessandri and
Wozniak (1987) found that 10- to 11-year-olds perceived their parents’ beliefs about them less accu-
rately than 15- to 16-year-olds did. Following those same 10- to 11-year-olds for 2 years, however,
the researchers found that the children, who were now ages 12–13, were more accurate in their
perceptions of what their parents believed about them (Alessandri and Wozniak, 1989).
Maccoby (1992) and Collins (1995) speculated that mutual cognitions are more significant deter-
minants of relationship qualities in middle childhood than in earlier periods (Bornstein et al., 2012).
By the time a child reaches middle childhood, shared experiences have created extensive expectan-
cies about the probable reactions of both parents and children. These expectancies then guide each
person’s behavior in interactions with the other. The rapid changes of late middle childhood stimu-
late both parents and children to adapt their respective beliefs and perceptions about the other to
maintain their relationship over time.
To summarize, changes in parent‑child relationships create new paradigms for interaction that
affect when and how parents will respond to the behavior of children during middle childhood.
Although partly resulting from adaptations to developmental changes that have already occurred,
these relational patterns also affect responses to further changes during and beyond middle child-
hood. The next section examines findings from research on parenting of 5- to 12-year-olds.
88
Issues in Parenting During Middle Childhood

Changes in children and parent–child relationships raise the question of whether middle childhood
is a distinctive period of parenting.This section addresses two related questions:What distinctive tasks
devolve on parents during the middle-childhood years, and what characteristics of effective parenting
have emerged in studies with 5- to 12-year-olds? These questions are examined in research findings
on four central issues of parenting pertinent to the developmental changes of middle childhood:
adapting control processes; fostering self‑management and a sense of responsibility; facilitating posi-
tive relationships with others; and managing experiences in extrafamilial settings.
Adapting Control Processes

Changes in interactions between parents and children, together with changing demands from
age‑graded activities and experiences, necessitate different strategies for exerting influence over
children’s behavior. These strategies may involve different disciplinary practices than in early child-
hood, more extensive shared regulation of children’s behavior, and altered patterns for effective
control.
Disciplinary Practices
Parenting young children typically involves distraction and physically assertive strategies for pre-
venting harm and gaining compliance. In middle childhood, however, parents report less frequent
physical punishment and increasing use of techniques such as deprivation of privileges, appeals to
children’s self‑esteem or sense of humor, arousal of children’s sense of guilt, and reminders that
children are responsible for what happens to them (Clifford, 1959; Roberts et al., 1984). These tech-
niques may reflect changes in parents’ attributions about the degree to which children should be
expected to control their own behavior and greater likelihood of viewing misbehavior as deliberate
and, thus, as warranting both parental anger and punishment (Dix, Ruble, Grusec, and Nixon, 1986;
Lansford, Bornstein, Dodge, Skinner, Putnick, and Deater-Deckard, 2011).
Maccoby (1984) proposed that children’s responses to parents’ control attempts during middle
childhood are affected by changes in children’s concepts of the basis for parental authority. Whereas
preschoolers view parental authority as resting on the power to punish or reward, children in early
middle childhood increasingly believe that parental authority derives from all the things that parents
do for them. After about age 8, children invoke parents’ expert knowledge and skill also as reasons
to submit to their authority (Braine, Pomerantz, Lorber, and Krantz, 1991). Maccoby (1984) specu-
lated that parental appeals based on fairness, the return of favors, or reminders of the parents’ greater
knowledge and experience may become more effective during middle childhood, with parents less
often feeling compelled to resort to promises of reward or threats of punishment. This line of rea-
soning implies that, during middle childhood, parents may find it easier to follow the disciplinary
practices that have been found most effective in fostering patterns of self‑regulated, socially respon-
sible behavior, namely, an emphasis on the implications of children’s actions for others (induction),
rather than on use of parents’ superior power to coerce compliance (Barber, Stoltz, and Olsen, 2005;
Hoffman, 1994).
Parents’ effectiveness as disciplinarians depends in part on the clarity with which they communi-
cate expectations and reprimands (Grusec and Goodnow, 1994). Children tend to “tune out” when
instructions and reprimands are ambiguous, as when a parent is inexplicit or reprimands the child
while smiling. Such ineffective messages often result from a parent’s sense of powerlessness or lack
of control over the child’s behavior, but also exacerbate behaviors parents wish to correct (Bugental,
Lyon, Lin, McGrath, and Bimbela, 1999).
89
Coregulation
Decreasing face‑to‑face interactions during middle childhood put additional pressures on parents’
strategies for exerting control over children’s behavior. Different methods are appropriate because
of the age and capabilities of children and because children must be trained to regulate their own
behavior for longer periods. At the same time, children’s increased abilities for planful, goal‑directed
behavior and for more effectively communicating plans and wishes to parents permit greater col-
laboration and more effective monitoring (Crouter et al., 1999; Maccoby, 1992).
Maccoby (1984) specified the responsibilities of both parents and children in this cooperative
process. First, parents must stay informed about events occurring outside their presence and must
coordinate agenda that link the daily activities of parents and child. Second, they must effectively
use the times when direct contact does occur for teaching and feedback. Third, they must foster the
development of abilities that will allow children to monitor their own behavior, to adopt acceptable
standards of good and bad behavior, to avoid undue risks, and to know when they need parental
support or guidance. This process is reciprocal: Children must be willing to inform parents of their
whereabouts, activities, and problems so that parents can mediate and guide when necessary.
Effective Control in Middle Childhood

Maccoby’s formulation implies that effective parental control processes are tantamount to training
of skills for self‑regulation. A key component of effective control is parental monitoring, which
requires careful attention to children’s behavior and associated contingencies. Monitoring is integral
to child‑centered control techniques, in which parents exert influence by sensitively fitting their
behavior to behavioral cues from children, rather than allowing the parents’ own needs to drive
parent‑child interactions (Maccoby and Martin, 1983). Ineffective parental monitoring repeatedly
has been linked to antisocial behavior in middle childhood and adolescence (Barber et al., 2005;
Forgatch, Patterson, and Gewirtz, 2013).
The effectiveness of monitoring, however, depends on the parents’ general style of control. Children
are most likely to manifest positive developmental outcomes when parents practice child‑centered
patterns of discipline, accompanied by clearly communicated demands, parental monitoring, and an
atmosphere of acceptance (authoritative parenting) toward the child (Baumrind, 1989; Maccoby, 1992;
Maccoby and Martin, 1983). For example, attentive, responsive care appears to be positively linked
to the development of self‑esteem, competence, and social responsibility. The meager evidence now
available from other cultures indicates that optimal childrearing practices frequently include somewhat
more restrictiveness than is usually implied by North American findings with middle‑class families
(Barber et al., 2005; Chao, 1994; Rohner and Pettengill, 1985). In every society, however, responsiveness
to children’s needs and support for their development appears to foster competent, responsible behav-
iors. Multiple authors (Barber et al., 2005; Darling and Steinberg, 1993; Maccoby, 1992) have observed
that a responsive, supportive, child‑centered parental style affects the impact of specific parental prac-
tices, such as monitoring of children’s behavior.
The research findings undergirding these generalizations generally do not provide definitive evi-
dence that the parenting characteristics specified in the studies determine particular child char-
acteristics, but studies from which causal effects can be inferred imply that these characteristics
constitute the currently best available description of effective parenting (Collins, Maccoby, Steinberg,
Hetherington, and Bornstein, 2000; Maccoby, 1992; Steinberg, 2001). A striking example comes
from a prevention program intended to foster more effective parenting following divorce (Forgatch
and DeGarmo, 1999). School-age sons of recently divorced single mothers often manifest increased
academic, behavioral, social, and emotional problems relative to sons of nondivorced mothers, and
the divorced mothers themselves commonly behave toward their sons in a more coercive and less
90
positive manner than non-divorced mothers (Lansford, 2009). The prevention program provided
year-long training and discussion groups encouraging mothers to use the effective parenting prin-
ciples described above during this post-divorce period. The children of these mothers underwent
no intervention. At the end of 12 months, treatment group mothers generally showed less coer-
cive behavior toward children and fewer declines in positive behavior than control-group mothers.
Moreover, the degree of change in the mothers’ behavior over the course of 12 months significantly
predicted the degree of change in the children’s behaviors, both at home and at school. By changing
the mothers’ behavior, these researchers changed the children’s behavior, thus implicating effective
parenting in the children’s improved behavior.
Findings from multiple studies consistently show that parents of 5- to 10-year-olds describe their
childrearing along two dimensions: nurturance–restrictiveness (ranging from positive, facilitating
reactions to negative, interfering reactions) and power (amount of active control exerted by the par-
ent, including both rewards and punishments). Moreover, no evidence of change in parents’ behavior
on these dimensions during middle childhood has emerged (Deković and Janssens, 1992). Neither
do children’s perceptions of firmness of control show reliable variation across groups from ages 9 to
13 years (Armentrout and Burger, 1972). Most experts now believe that firmness alone is an inad-
equate indicator of effective control. Lewis (1981) argued that, in many families, firmness of control
co‑exists with responsive, child‑centered parenting, which in turn enhances children’s motivation to
respond positively to their parents.
To summarize, middle childhood does not induce dramatic changes in parents’ typical styles of
childrearing. As in other periods, effective childrearing entails both attentiveness and responsiveness
to children’s needs and expectations of age‑appropriate behavior. Nevertheless, during middle child-
hood, patterns from earlier life are altered in ways that fundamentally affect the exchanges between
parents and children and the implications of those exchanges for further development. These altera-
tions involve a gradual transition toward greater responsibility for children in regulating their own
behavior and interactions with others.
Fostering Self-Management and Social Responsibility

Alterations in parents’ management and control activities partly result from children’s own develop-
ing self‑management skills. Although parents do not abruptly relinquish control any more than chil-
dren abruptly become autonomous, children’s enhanced self‑management skills probably contribute
to a gradual transition from parental regulation of children’s behavior to self‑regulation by the child
(Colman et al., 2006; Raffaelli et al., 2005).
This implicit transfer of regulatory responsibility is a hallmark of adolescent development (Chap-
ter 4 in this volume), but Maccoby (1984) argued that the transfer process begins earlier and lasts
longer than has commonly been assumed. She contended that the transfer of power from parents to
children involves a three‑phase developmental process: parental regulation, coregulation, and, finally,
self‑regulation. In the intermediate period of coregulation, parents retain general supervisory control
but expect children to exercise gradually more extensive responsibilities for moment‑to‑moment
self‑regulation. This coregulatory experience in turn lays the groundwork for greater autonomy in
adolescence and young adulthood.
In several formulations (Collins, Gleason, and Sesma, 1997; Grusec and Goodnow, 1994; Kuczyn-
ski, Marshall, and Schell, 1997), coregulation, rather than autonomous self‑regulation, is treated as the
norm for both parent‑child and other relationships. Interdependence is essential to social relation-
ships at every age, and socialization entails more mature and complex forms of interdependence with
age. Maccoby (1992, p. 1013) characterized the effective goal of authoritative parenting as “induct-
ing the child into a system of reciprocity.” Training for autonomy is seen not as preparing children
for freedom from the regulatory influences of others, but as enhancing capabilities for responsible
91
exercise of autonomy, while recognizing one’s interdependence with others (Collins et al., 1997).
Thus, parenting in middle childhood is less a matter of gradually yielding control than of transform-
ing patterns of responsibility in response to new characteristics and challenges.
Variations in parents’ behavior toward children are correlated with several distinctive aspects of
self‑management and responsibility: incidence of prosocial and undercontrolled, often antisocial,
behavior; internalization of moral values; and increasing responsibility for self‑care and for collective
well-being. These links are discussed in the following three sections.
Incidence of Prosocial and Antisocial Behavior

For most children, behaviors that benefit others increase and those that harm others decline begin-
ning in early childhood (for reviews, see Eisenberg, Eggum-Wilkens, and Spinrad, 2015; Eisner and
Malti, 2015). During middle childhood, several common changes imply that prosocial behavior
probably becomes more likely, and undercontrolled, antisocial behavior less likely. Among these are
declining tendencies to behave impulsively, increases in planfulness and other executive processes,
greater capacity for understanding the impact of one’s actions on others, and knowledge of what is
required for helpfulness (Barnett, Darcie, Holland, and Kobasigawa, 1982). Children in middle child-
hood also increasingly know the appropriate conditions for displaying anger and aggression (Dodge
et al., 2003; Underwood, Coie, and Herbsman, 1992).
Parents contribute to the development of prosocial norms in several ways. Parents’ own posi-
tive coping with frustration and distress serve to influence children’s regulation of their emotions
(Kliewer, Fearnow, and Miller, 1996). Parents’ use of explanations that emphasize the implications of
children’s behavior for others also is associated with helpful, emotionally supportive behavior toward
others (Hoffman, 1994; Malti and Krettenauer, 2013). Furthermore, parents generally are perceived
as sources of social support (Furman and Buhrmester, 1992). Children who perceive that they can
talk with parents, discuss problems with them, and draw on their support appear more likely to show
prosocial behaviors and attitudes, such as empathy, tolerance of differences, and understanding of
others (Bryant, 1985; Gentzler, Contreras-Grau, Kerns, and Weimer, 2005).
Middle childhood is significant in the development of the control of hostile aggressive actions.
Although the overall likelihood of aggressive behavior is lower in middle childhood than in early
childhood, 5- to 12-year-olds’ aggression is more often hostile and person‑oriented than aggression
that occurs in early childhood (Hartup, 2005). Parental behaviors and family environments marked
by harsh parental discipline repeatedly have been associated with the likelihood of antisocially
aggressive behavior (Pinderhughes, Dodge, Bates, Pettit, and Zelli, 2000; Tolan and Loeber, 1993).
A key linking the two appears to be a bias toward interpreting the actions of others as intentionally
harmful (Dodge, Bates, and Pettit, 1990; Orobio de Castro, Veerman, Koops, Bosch, and Monshou-
wer, 2002). Children generally regard acts that are unintended, unforeseeable, and unavoidable as
less blameworthy and less deserving of retaliation than other actions. However, habitually aggressive
children frequently are biased toward regarding ambiguous intent as hostile. This bias is most likely
in children who have experienced a history of harsh parental discipline in early childhood (Weiss,
Dodge, Bates, and Pettit, 1992). Not surprisingly, antisocial behavior is highly likely when children
have repeatedly experienced indifferent, unresponsive behavior from their parents (Patterson, 1982;
Stoltz et al., 2013). Antisocial tendencies place children at risk for peer rejection and school failure
during middle childhood and for involvement in antisocial behavior in adolescence and young
adulthood (Patterson, DeBaryshe, and Ramsey, 1989). Thus, antisocial behavior is the nexus of a
longitudinal process linking ineffective parenting and personal and social dysfunction (Finkelhor and
Dziuba-Leatherman, 1994; also see Chapter 15 in this volume).
Mass media portrayals of antisocial and prosocial behavior consistently have been shown to influ-
ence spontaneous behavior after viewing. Children who spend relatively small amounts of time with
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television and other electronic media generally show fewer antisocial behaviors and fare better on
many school and other tasks (Anderson and Bushman, 2002; Anderson and Kirkorian, 2015; Calvert,
2015). On the average, children in middle childhood devote 3–4 hours per day to television view-
ing, more time than any other age group in the first two decades of life. This amount varies greatly,
however, depending on the child’s gender, socioeconomic status, and many other factors. Parents’ own
viewing habits and the degree to which they attempt to regulate their children’s viewing influence
both the amount and kind of exposure to media models of positive and negative social behaviors.
Parents can help to reduce the negative impact of television viewing by watching programs with chil-
dren, providing explanations for complex situations and events, helping children differentiate between
reality and fiction, and encouraging children to make responsible choices about the content of media.
Internalization of Moral Values

Parents enhance social understanding by appealing to concerns for others and stimulating more
cognitively complex reasoning about moral issues (Hoffman, 1994; Kochanska and Aksan, 2006).
During middle childhood, these parental techniques may become more effective, because of chil-
dren’s increasing abilities for understanding others’ experiences and feelings (Carpendale and Lewis,
2015). The implications for behavior come from the well‑established correlation between parental
disciplinary approaches based on warmth, other‑oriented induction, and infrequent use of coercive
discipline without explanations and signs of “conscience”—confessing misdeeds, offering repara-
tions, feeling guilty (Killen and Smetana, 2015).
Responsibility for Self and Collective Well-Being

The term “responsibility” encompasses broad behavioral expectations, including “(a) following
through on specific interpersonal agreements and commitments, (b) fulfilling one’s social role obli-
gations, and (c) conforming to widely held social and moral rules of conduct” (Ford, Wentzel, Wood,
Stevens, and Siesfeld, 1989, p. 405). Parental practices associated with the development of prosocial
behavior and acquisition of moral values during middle childhood can be regarded as factors in the
development of responsibility generally.
More specific strategies, however, involve parental expectations regarding household tasks and
other activities considered relevant to the welfare of the family. Parents generally believe that expect-
ing children to carry out household tasks not only provides valuable work experience, but also
teaches about expected relationships with others. Goodnow (1988) viewed division of responsibility
for household tasks as an instance of distributive justice, referring not only to the distribution of labor
for efficiency’s sake, but also to the distribution in the sense of relational goals, such as obligation,
justice, and reciprocity.Warton and Goodnow (1991) found developmental progressions from middle
childhood into adolescence in understanding distribution principles, such as direct‑cause responsibil-
ity (“People should take care of the areas that they mess up.”).This progression involves moving from
a direct assertion of responsibility (e.g., “It’s Mom’s job.”) or an emphasis on some concrete details
of the situation, to the understanding the principle (“John should clean up the playroom because
he and his friends were playing down there, and I wasn’t involved.”), followed by a move toward a
modified, rather than rigid use of the principle (e.g., “John made this mess, but he has to do his paper
route on time; he’ll help me out some other time.”). Although parents of 5- to 12-year-olds are most
likely to be dealing with the first two phases of this progression, discussions emphasizing the third
view of equality may influence the growth of concepts of responsibility during middle childhood.
Amato (1989) reported that, for 8- to 9-year-olds, rearing environments characterized by high levels
of parental control and parental support, along with high allocation of household responsibility, are
associated with broad competence at tasks.
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To summarize, fostering self‑management and responsibility probably involves a more gradual process
than is implied by the common image of parents’ transferring control to their children. Co‑regulatory
processes, in which parents allocate responsibilities for gradually broader self‑management to children,
while retaining oversight, probably influence children through two key processes: (1) training for effective
self‑management and (2) enhancing capacities for interdependence, both with persons more powerful
than they and with persons of equal power (Baumrind, 1989).
Facilitating Positive Relationships

Parents’ relationships with their children during middle childhood, as well as in earlier periods,
influence the development of supportive relationships during middle childhood and enhance com-
petence in and beyond ages 5–12. This principle is apparent from the impact of parents on their
children’s relationships with each other and on their relationships with peers (Bornstein et al., 2012).
Sibling Relationships
Sibling relationships become increasingly positive, egalitarian, and companionable during middle
childhood (Dunn, 1992; Dunn and McGuire, 1992). The degree to which this occurs, however, is
related to parental interactions with both siblings. In a study of 10- to 11-year-old girls and their
7- to 9-year-old sisters, the daughters whose mothers were above average in responsiveness to their
daughters’ needs showed more prosocial behavior and less hostility toward their siblings than the
daughters of mothers who were below average in responsiveness (Bryant and Crockenberg, 1980). In
other studies, rates of positive, negative, and controlling behaviors directed by mothers toward each
child are correlated positively with the rates of such behaviors directed by siblings toward each other
(Stocker, Dunn, and Plomin, 1989).
Parents’ differential treatment has also been linked to negative relationships between the siblings.
This relation is apparent from several related research findings. One such finding is that the children
of parents who responded more extensively to one child over the other were more likely to behave
with hostility toward one another (McHale, Updegraff, and Whiteman, 2012). Another is that rates
of fathers’ and mothers’ positive behaviors directed to each child were associated with siblings’ posi-
tive behavior toward each other, and both negative parental behaviors generally and differences in
behaviors toward the children were associated with negative sibling interactions (Brody, Stoneman,
and McCoy, 1992). This contrast was especially likely when one child’s temperament was more dif-
ficult than the other child’s (Brody, Stoneman, and Gauger, 1996). Coder ratings of sibling enmesh-
ment and disengagement in late middle childhood have been found to predict greater adjustment
difficulties in adolescence, even after considering standard indices of sibling relationships quality (i.e.,
warmth, conflict) and structural characteristics (e.g., gender; Bascoe, Davies, and Cummings, 2012).
It is not possible to say whether parents’ differential treatment during middle childhood affects
sibling relationships more than differential behavior in other life periods. Children who perceive that
they are treated less positively than their sibling, however, are somewhat more likely than their sibling
to show negative personality adjustment in adolescence (Daniels, Dunn, Furstenberg, and Plomin,
1985; also see Chapter 7 in this volume).
Peer Relationships
Parents facilitate their children’s positive peer relationships indirectly and directly throughout child-
hood (Parke, MacDonald, Beitel, and Bhavnagri, 1988). Indirect or stage‑setting effects subsume the
advantages of positive, accepting, secure parent‑child relationships on children’s capacities for form-
ing and maintaining smooth, prosocial relationships with others (Contreras, Kerns,Weimer, Gentzler,
94
and Tomich, 2000; Dishion, 1990). Direct or intervention effects refer to parents’ management of
their children’s relationships with other children and the transmission of specific social skills for effec-
tive interactions with peers (Parke and Bhavnagri, 1989).
In general, the parental correlates of positive peer relationships during middle childhood parallel
the more extensive findings from studies of preschool children (Hartup and Collins, 2000). In middle
childhood, mothers and fathers of well‑liked children are emotionally supportive, infrequently frus-
trating and punitive, and discouraging of antisocial behavior in their children (Deković and Janssens,
1992).The families of these children are generally low in tension and are marked by affection toward,
and parental satisfaction with, their children. Furthermore, social skills that are significant to success-
ful peer relationships (e.g., self‑confidence, assertiveness, and effectiveness with other children) are
correlated with a history of affection from both parents and dominance from the same-gender par-
ent (Booth-Laforce et al., 2006; Parke et al., 1988). In research with 8- and 9-year-old children and
their parents, popularity with peers was positively correlated with children’s perceptions of positive
relationships with parents and observational measures of fathers’ receptivity to children’s proposed
solutions on a teaching task (Henggeler, Edwards, Cohen, and Summerville, 1991).
These findings imply both direct and indirect links between parent and peer relationships, but
leave open the question of how such links come about. Relevant evidence on one possible process
comes from a study of 5- and 6-year-old middle‑class European American children and their parents
(Cassidy, Parke, Butkovsky, and Braungart, 1992). When with their peers, the children in this study
were more cooperative and interacted more smoothly if their parents were emotionally expressive.
The relation was most pronounced for children who showed understanding of emotions, including
emotional expressions, experiences, conditions, and effective responses to feelings and actions. Thus,
the impact of the emotional tenor of parent‑child relationships may be especially great for those
children who can infer positive principles of interpersonal behavior from experiences with parents
and siblings. Later research revealed that positive relationships with parents contribute to a child’s
developing abilities for regulating their emotions, and this ability in turn makes the child more effec-
tive in interactions with peers (Contreras et al., 2000).
Parent‑child interaction patterns also have been linked to less positive behavior in middle child-
hood (Dishion, 1990; Ingoldsby et al., 2006; Schwartz, Dodge, Pettit, and Bates, 1997; Vuchinich,
Bank, and Patterson, 1992). In two cohorts of boys, ages 9–10 years, Dishion (1990) found that
erratic monitoring and ineffective disciplinary practices marked the families of rejected boys, as
did higher levels of family stress, lower socioeconomic status, and evidence of more behavioral and
academic problems for the boys themselves. Parents’ ineffective disciplinary practices increased the
likelihood of peer rejection by enhancing the likelihood of antisocial behavior and academic failure.
Later analysis of these data, along with data from a 2-year follow-up (Vuchinich et al., 1992), showed
a reciprocal relation between parental ineffectiveness and child behavior: parental discipline in these
families was ineffective partly because the children behaved antisocially, but the ineffective discipline
also helped to maintain these antisocial tendencies.
In addition to the association between parenting and antisocial behavior, the family environment,
including parents’ marital conflict and parental disagreement on childrearing standards and practices,
has been linked to children’s antisocial tendencies and poor relationships with peers (Cummings and
Davies, 2010; Gonzales, Pitts, Hill, and Roosa, 2000). These diverse pieces of evidence indicate that
parent‑child and peer relationships are linked through complex, multiple processes.
Timing of Effects
Considerable uncertainty exists about whether links between parent‑child relationships and inter-
personal competence during middle childhood reflect concurrent relationships or the longer his-
tory of interactions between parent and child. Longitudinal research indicates impressive stabilities
95
between parent‑child relationships in infancy and early childhood and extrafamilial relationships in
middle childhood (Colle and Del Giudice, 2011; Sroufe, Carlson, and Shulman, 1993b).
These findings come from research showing that security of attachment to caregivers at 12 and
18 months was associated with a variety of indicators of competence with peers at 10–12 years of
age (Elicker, Englund, and Sroufe, 1992; Sroufe, Egeland, and Carlson, 1999). The securely attached
children were more likely to be rated highly by adults on broad‑based social and personal com-
petence and were less dependent on adults. These children also spent more time with peers, were
more likely to form friendships, and were more likely to have friendships characterized by openness,
trust, coordination, and complexity of activity. They also spent more time in, and functioned more
effectively in, groups and were more likely to follow implicit rules of peer interactions than children
with histories of insecure attachment. An example comes from research on same‑gender versus
cross‑gender peer interactions. During middle childhood, frequency of cross‑gender interactions in
an open-field setting is negatively correlated with social skills and popularity. Insecurely attached
children more frequently engage in cross‑gender interactions than securely attached children (Sroufe,
Bennett, Englund, Urban, and Shulman, 1993a). Thus, 5- to 12-year-olds children’s orientation to
peers and teachers are similar to their orientations in early childhood; and both the early- and
middle-childhood patterns are correlated with attachment measures taken during the first 2 years of
life (Del Giudice, 2015; Kerns, Brumariu, and Seibert, 2011; Sroufe et al., 1993b; Sroufe et al., 1999).
These correlations may mean that relationships with parents have similar characteristics across
time. Parents who provided responsive, child-centered care in infancy might be more likely to adapt
those patterns of care to the support and guidance needed by children in later years, thus providing
continuity of care.The researchers suggest two other possibilities. One is that the patterns of behavior
formed in early relationships may persist, eliciting characteristically different patterns of reactions
from others in later life. That is, positive relationships with peers may result from skillful interper-
sonal behavior by the securely attached child. A second possibility is that children carry forward from
early relationships an internal working model of interpersonal relationships (Bowlby, 1973). Internal
working models are inferred cognitive representations or prototypes of one’s key relationships that
incorporate behaviors, feelings, and expectancies of reactions from others (Sroufe et al., 1999).
These possibilities are not mutually exclusive, and all three may contribute to the complex link-
ages between familial and peer relationships. Longitudinal analyses imply that early relationships are
probably linked to middle-childhood peer competence via internal working models (Fury, Carlson,
and Sroufe, 1997). Children’s internal working models of relationships were assessed at ages 4, 8, and
12 years. There were clear contrasts among groups varying in early attachment scores in early- and
middle-childhood measures of internal working models. Together, infant attachment scores and later
measures of internal working models accounted for 44% of the variance in ratings of social compe-
tence at age 12; early attachment alone, however, was not reliably related to later social competence.
Important questions remain, such as whether and how representations are affected by variations in
relationships after infancy. Findings to date, however, imply that parenting in middle childhood partly
is rooted in relational patterns established in earlier periods of life.
Beyond Middle Childhood

It should be noted that temporal linkages between familial and extrafamilial relationships run for-
ward, as well as backward, in time. Rejection by peers, which consistently has been linked to rela-
tionships with parents and siblings in childhood, is a compelling marker of long-term developmental
disadvantage (Parker and Asher, 1987). Individuals with unsatisfactory peer relationships in childhood
face greater risks for behavioral problems, school failure, and emotional maladjustment in childhood
and adolescence and for mental health problems and criminality in adulthood (Bornstein, Hahn,
and Haynes, 2010; Hartup, 1996). Parent–child relationships appear to affect these developmental
96
outcomes via their impact on antisocial behavior and academic failure in middle childhood (Patter-
son et al., 1989) and even via long-term unemployment in adulthood (Kokko and Pulkkinen, 2000).
More positive linkages to parent–child relationships have also been documented. Franz, McClel-
land, and Weinberger (1991) reported longitudinal follow-ups of individuals who were first studied
at the age of 5, together with their mothers. The participants were measured at age 41 on an indica-
tor of “conventional social accomplishment,” defined as having a long, happy marriage, children, and
relationships with close friends at midlife (Vaillant, 1977). Having a warm and affectionate father
and mother at age 5 was correlated with affiliative behaviors and reports of good relationships with
significant others 36 years later.These characteristics of parents also were associated with higher levels
of generativity, work accomplishment, and psychological well-being, a lower level of strain, and less
use of emotion-focused coping styles in adulthood. In a separate analysis with this same sample, par-
ents’ characteristics at age 5 were associated with empathic concern at age 31 (Koestner, Franz, and
Weinberger, 1990). As in the shorter-term longitudinal findings described earlier, a variety of possible
processes may account for this link between middle-childhood familial relationships and these var-
ied adult characteristics. Bornstein, Hahn, and Suwalsky (2010) further demonstrated that adaptive
functioning, as well as externalizing and internalizing behavioral problems, reflect a developmental
cascade across ages from 4 to 10 and 14 years. Even when considering child intelligence, maternal
education, and social desirability, adaptive functioning in early adolescence was foreshadowed by
adaptive functioning in early childhood and low levels of externalizing behavioral problems.
Parent–Peer Cross-Pressures
One widely invoked possible linkage between parent–child and peer relationships in middle child-
hood is an inverse one: namely, that increasing involvement with peers may be associated with
decreasing engagement with and influence of parents. This linkage, though, has only limited and
narrow support in the literature. A more common finding is that attitudes toward both parents and
peers are more favorable than unfavorable throughout middle childhood and adolescence (Collins,
1995; Collins et al., 2012).Within this general stability, however, some change does occur. For exam-
ple, the number of children reporting positive attitudes toward parents declines moderately during
middle childhood, although attitudes toward peers generally do not become more favorable during
this period.
With respect to endorsement of attitudes held by parents versus peers, the inverse relation occurs
only for antisocial behavior and, furthermore, is not especially intense prior to puberty (Hartup
and Collins, 2000). In a cross-sectional study of children ages 9, 12, 15, and 17 years, Berndt (1979)
charted age-related patterns of conformity to parents and peers regarding prosocial, neutral, and anti-
social behaviors. Antisocial behavior, in this instance, referred to such activities as cheating, stealing,
trespassing, and minor destruction of property. Children and adolescents alike conformed to both
parents and friends regarding prosocial behavior; there was some decline across ages in conformity to
parents, but not peers, on neutral behaviors; and conformity to peers regarding antisocial behaviors
increased between ages 8 and 15, but not beyond. Thus, there is relatively little evidence that pro-
nounced parent–peer cross-pressures are the norm in middle childhood.
More disruptive shifts may occur in families in which parents fail to maintain age-appropriate,
child-centered control patterns. Recent findings indicate that conformity to peers may be more
likely in families in which relationships with parents are perceived as unsatisfactory (Ingoldsby et al.,
2006). Earlier findings (Fuligni and Eccles, 1993) from 1,771 self-report questionnaires had revealed
more extreme peer orientation among 12- and 13-year-olds who believed their parents continued
patterns of power assertion and restrictiveness used when they were younger. Furthermore, those
who perceived few opportunities to be involved in decision-making, as well as no likely increase in
these opportunities, were higher in both extreme peer orientation and peer advice seeking. Studies
97
of school-age children and early adolescents who are on their own in the after-school hours also
show greater susceptibility to peer influence cross-pressures when parent–child relationships are
less warm and involve less regular parental monitoring (Galambos and Maggs, 1991; Smetana, 2008;
Steinberg, 1986).
Social Support for Parents

Parents’ perceptions of a supportive network beyond the family also influence their behavior
and children’s development. For example, interventions with troubled families are more effective
when parents perceive that social support is available to them (Sandler, Schoenfelder, Wolchik, and
MacKinnon, 2011), whereas isolation from community support systems often typifies abusive fami-
lies (Emery, 1989).
To summarize, qualities of relationships with parents have significant implications for develop-
ment in and beyond middle childhood. Furthermore, linkages to other periods indicate that middle
childhood experiences are inextricable from developmental influences and processes across the lifes-
pan. A variety of possible processes may link middle-childhood family relationships to both earlier
and later functioning.
Managing Extra-Familial Experiences

As children move into settings beyond the family, parents increasingly must monitor extra-familial
settings and negotiate with non-familial adults on behalf of children. Of these, the most prominent
is school. In addition, many parents must arrange for after-school or summer care by others or must
establish and monitor arrangements for self-care by children.
School
Children in the United States typically spend almost as much time at school as at home. Schools
advance both academic knowledge and knowledge of cultural norms and values and provide essen-
tial supports for learning literacy skills, which greatly extend cognitive capacities in many different
areas (Koslowski and Masnick, 2010). Experiences in school also affect children’s views of their own
abilities to learn and their actual achievement and adjustment (Eccles, Wigfield, and Schiefele, 1998).
Family experiences are linked to children’s successful adaptation to the demands of schooling.
A history of shared work and play activities with parents is positively linked to a smooth entry into
school, whereas early interactions characterized by a controlling parent and a resisting child, or by
a directing child, are correlated with poor adjustment (Barth and Parke, 1993; Pianta and Nimetz,
1991). Several parental characteristics are linked to both short-term and long-term academic moti-
vation: providing a cognitively stimulating home environment, regardless of socioeconomic level
(Gottfried, Fleming, and Gottfried, 1998), values favoring the development of autonomy rather than
conformity (Okagaki and Sternberg, 1993) and emphasizing goals associated with learning, rather
than goals associated with performance and evaluation (Ablard and Parker, 1997).
Children express more satisfaction with school when the authority structure of classrooms is simi-
lar to the authority practices they encounter at home (Epstein, 1983). Furthermore, parenting styles
consistently have been linked to school success. Authoritative styles that emphasize encouragement,
support for child-initiated efforts, clear communication, and a child-centered teaching orientation in
parent–child interactions are associated with higher achievement than are strategies characterized by
punishment for failure, use of a directive teaching style, and discouragement of child-initiated inter-
actions (Pianta and Nimetz, 1991).These correlations occur in studies with both European American
and African American families and with adolescents as well as younger children (Steinberg, Elmen,
98
and Mounts, 1989). These latter findings implicate authoritative parenting in higher school achieve-
ment and lower incidence of behavior problems in school, compared to authoritarian or permissive
parenting styles. In addition to parental control strategies, lower school achievement during middle
childhood has been linked with family environments characterized by inter-parent and parent–child
hostility (Feldman and Wentzel, 1990).
Parents’ expectations regarding children’s achievement also are implicated in school success (Stevenson
and Newman, 1986). Expectations have an impact from the beginning of schooling. Entwisle and Hay-
duk (1982) examined United States parents’ expectations for their children’s school performance each
year between the ages of 5 and 9. For middle- and working-class children, parents’ expectations were
strong influences on children’s first marks. After age 6, the influence of working-class parents appeared to
be considerably less than that of their middle-class counterparts (Alexander and Entwisle, 1988).
In European American middle-class families, parental expectations are correlated with achieve-
ment into the pre-adolescent years (Frome and Eccles, 1998; Stevenson and Newman, 1986). Changes
in expectations often occur during the early school years, however, and these changes are difficult
to explain. Children’s performance in school may affect these expectations, of course. Alexander and
Entwisle (1988) found significant impact of first-grade (age 6 years) achievement on parents’ sub-
sequent expectations for children’s school performance. In other instances, contrasting expectations
emerge for children who are equivalent in classroom grades and in test scores. For example, although
parents’ expectations for math performance do not differ by gender at school entry, boys are expected
to do better than girls by the beginning of the second grade (age 7; Entwisle and Baker, 1983).
High parental expectations also appear to be a key factor in cross-national differences in school
achievement during middle childhood. Stevenson and Lee (1990) examined parental correlates of
substantially lower levels of academic achievement by children in the United States, compared to
China and Japan.They found that parents in the United States have lower expectations for and assign
less importance to school achievement than Asian parents do; furthermore, mothers in the United
States are more likely to regard achievement primarily as a reflection of innate ability, whereas Asian
mothers emphasize the importance of hard work in attaining academic excellence. Compared to
parents in China and Japan, as well as immigrant parents in the United States, parents born in the
United States are more likely to believe that general cognitive development, motivation, and social
skills are more important than academic skills (Huntsinger, Jose, Liaw, and Ching, 1997; Okagaki and
Sternberg, 1993; Stevenson and Lee, 1990). Thus, not only expectations about children’s achieve-
ment, but the importance assigned to mastery of school tasks per se, affect the impact of parents on
their children’s school experiences (Huntsinger, Jose, and Larson, 1998).
Family difficulties, such as divorce, are also linked to children’s school learning and to their
emerging self-concepts (Lansford, 2009). In the first year or two after a divorce, children from one-
parent families frequently miss school, study less effectively, and disrupt their classrooms more often.
Furthermore, teachers observe difficulties in their general social behavior, including their relation-
ships with friends. Girls are seen to be more dependent, and boys are perceived as more aggressive
and less able to maintain attention and effort at assigned tasks and, in general, to be less competent
academically. One important context may compensate for difficulties in the other, as when family
members provide support for school difficulties, or teachers and classmates help to buffer children’s
distress over family problems.
Parents’ involvement with schools and with children’s school-related tasks also is correlated
positively with children’s school achievement. Parental involvement is variously defined as specific
expectations of school performance, verbal encouragement, direct reinforcement of school-relevant
behaviors, general academic guidance or support, and children’s perceptions of parents’ influence
on school progress (Fehrmann, Keith, and Reimers, 1987). Correlations are less impressive in the
secondary grades (usually, after age 12), perhaps because common forms of parental involvement at
these ages are perceived as intrusions on autonomy.
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The most studied area of parental involvement in schooling is homework. Leone and Richards
(1989) found that 11- and 12-year-old students in the top one-third of their classes spent sig-
nificantly more time on homework, including time spent working with a parent on school assign-
ments. Other studies have shown negative correlations, perhaps because parents are more likely to
become involved in homework when children have not been doing well on their own. Even under
these conditions, though, test scores generally improved when parents became involved, especially
when parents have been trained in how best to help their children complete homework assignments
(Miller and Kelley, 1991). Parental attitudes toward the importance of homework, like attitudes
toward the importance of school achievement generally, vary cross-nationally. For example, parents
in China, Japan, and Taiwan value school achievement more highly than U.S. parents do (Chen and
Stevenson, 1989).
Several factors influence the impact of parental involvement. One factor is parents’ general style
of childrearing. Among authoritative parents (those who characteristically showed responsive, child-
centered behavior and clear expectations for child behavior), involvement was highly correlated with
academic achievement, in comparison to involvement of authoritarian (restrictive, parent-centered,
controlling) parents. Likely, authoritative parents’ involvement is perceived as reflecting interest in and
support for children’s school-related activities, whereas authoritarian parents’ involvement may be
interpreted as intrusive, controlling, and implying disrespect and lack of trust for the child (Darling
and Steinberg, 1993). Another significant socioeconomic factor is parents’ years of schooling (Davis-
Kean, 2005; Magnuson, 2007).
After-School Care
At the start of the twenty-first century, 78% of parents with children age 6–13 participated in the
workforce. Because children spend only 6 hours each day in school, and these 6 hours frequently
do not correspond to parents’ work schedules, large numbers of children are alone without imme-
diate adult supervision for significant amounts of time (Capizzano, Tout, and Adams, 2000; Vandell
and Shumow, 1999; Vandell, Simpkins, and Wegemer, 2019). Estimates put the number of children
who spend unsupervised time at 3.6–4 million. After-school childcare arrangements vary by age of
children, ethnicity, parents’ availability, and whether parents have traditional or nontraditional work
hours.
Parents’ and children’s reports offer discrepant views of typical after-school arrangements, with
children reporting more time alone, less happiness with the arrangements, and whether the child
actually adhered to the arrangement (Belle, 1999). Frequent changes occur in after-school arrange-
ments, because of unsatisfactory arrangements, changing age, ability, and desires of the child, expense,
perceived danger, degree of structure in the arrangements, and balancing children’s needs with famil-
ial or parental work needs. In the latter years of middle childhood (ages 10–12), many families from
all ethnic and income groups begin a transition to letting children be on their own, rather than being
supervised directly by an adult, during the after-school hours (Capizzano et al., 2000; Kerrebrock and
Lewis, 1999;Vandell and Shumow, 1999).
Few general differences in academic performance or psychosocial status are apparent when
children in adult care arrangements are compared to those in self-care arrangements. Vandell and
Corasaniti (1988) reported that 8- and 9-year-olds in center care showed lower academic achieve-
ment and lower acceptance by peers than children in other care arrangements, including mother care.
Surprisingly, “latchkey” children—children who are at home alone after school—were not generally
disadvantaged academically or socially relative to mother-care children. The reasons for the deficits
observed in children cared for in centers are not clear.
Negative effects are most likely when children on their own are not monitored regularly and when
they are free to spend time away from home with peers (Galambos and Maggs, 1991; Steinberg, 1986;
100
Vandell and Shumow, 1999).These arrangements are more common in the pre-adolescent years than
the early elementary years. Older children are more susceptible to peer influences and more likely
to engage in problem behaviors than children who stay at home and those who are in regular tel-
ephone contact with parents.The negative effects from being allowed to roam may result partly from
generally less positive parent–child relationships. For girls particularly, permissive self-care arrange-
ments are associated with lowered perceptions of parental acceptance and higher levels of parent–
child conflicts (Galambos and Maggs, 1991). Among preadolescents and younger children alike, regu-
lar arrangements for parental monitoring and clear expectations for letting parents know where the
child is seems to overcome the potential negative effects of self-care (Galambos and Maggs, 1991;
Steinberg, 1986;Vandell and Corasaniti, 1988).
By contrast, school-age childcare programs clearly benefit children’s development, compared to
self-care. Although this conclusion may reflect the generally more positive developmental course of
the middle-class children who participate, the greatest benefits come from programs that are well
suited to the developmental level of the child, that offer flexible programs, and that feature a well-
educated staff and low child-to-staff ratios (Vandell and Shumow, 1999). One study compared 11- to
13-year-olds who participated for 2 years in an after-school enrichment program with a comparable
group of children who did not and found improved attitudes toward school, improved behavior at
school, better grades, and less tension at home for participants in the after-school enrichment pro-
gram (Huston et al., 2001).
In summary, parents’ involvement in children’s lives away from home entails many of the same
principles and processes that determine their effectiveness in direct interactions. Appropriate moni-
toring, in the context of warm, accepting relationships, is associated with positive school adjustment
and academic achievement and with benign impact of self-care arrangements. Children with better
relationships with their parents appear to be better able to understand the necessity for after-school
care, even if it is not their preference (Belle, 1999). Although these areas of children’s lives require
different forms of parental involvement, the general style of parents’ relationships with children is
a key factor in the impact of out‑of‑home experiences on development during middle childhood.
Conclusions
Parenting during middle childhood encompasses adaptation to distinctive transformations in human
development that affect not only the current well-being of children, but carry significant implica-
tions for later life. The age of 5–7 years is universally regarded as the advent of “the age of reason”
(Rogoff et al., 1975). In non‑Western cultures, children are assumed to develop new capabilities at
this age and are often assigned expanded roles and responsibilities in their families and communities.
Although the transition to adult‑like responsibilities is less pronounced in Western industrialized
societies, 5- to 12-year-olds are expected to show greater autonomy and responsibility in some are-
nas. These issues are also discussed in Chen (2019).
The unique experiences of individual children in middle childhood partly reflect changes expe-
rienced by virtually all children of this age and the interpersonal relationships and characteristics of
particular communities and social institutions. Such factors as urban versus rural residence, family and
domestic group status, parental and non-parental childcare arrangements, tasks typically assigned to
children, and the role of women in the society all affect important dimensions of childhood socializa-
tion in both industrialized and developing countries.
Common changes in children and in relationships have raised two key questions that underlie the
framework outlined in the chapter. One is the question of whether parenting during middle child-
hood is distinctively different from parenting in other age periods. Although the particular forms
of parental behavior and parent‑child interaction vary considerably, certain issues arise in virtually
all families of 5- to 12-year-olds in industrialized societies: exercising regulatory influence while
101
facilitating increasing self-regulation, maintaining positive bonds while fostering a distinctive sense
of self, and providing groundwork for effective relationships and experiences outside of the family
(Collins, 1995; Collins et al., 2012). These issues are integral to parent‑child relationships from birth,
although often in less obtrusive or more rudimentary forms than in middle childhood, and they
remain central in the adolescent years and, to a lesser degree, in early adulthood (White, Speisman,
and Costos, 1983).
The distinctiveness of parenting 5- to 12-year-olds largely arises from the relative novelty and
salience of issues specific to this age period. Middle childhood is a period of intensifying transitions,
many of which require parents to extend their activities on behalf of the child to interactions with
others, including teachers, peers, and other families. In addition, behaviors of children toward parents
change, as the result of cognitive, emotional, and social transitions. Consequently, both the scope of
the issues and the methods available for addressing them are altered in middle childhood.
Influential models of socialization imply that the most effective parental responses to changes in
children’s behavior combine child‑centered flexibility and adherence to core values and expectan-
cies for approved behavior (Barber et al., 2005). This combination may be more complex in middle
childhood than in other periods. Furthermore, the balance between assuring continuity and adapt-
ing to child‑driven change may be more difficult to maintain in and after middle childhood than
in early childhood. The capacity for age‑appropriate adaptation, however, likely is not exclusive to
effective parenting in this period, but is inherent in the characteristics of effective parenting at every
age. Barber et al. (2005) are among the few authors who show the relevance of prevailing models
across diverse cultural groups.
One question that is not directly addressed in this chapter concerns the linkages between parent-
ing and individual development during middle childhood and in later periods.These associations are
more often implicit than explicit. Nevertheless, research findings have documented some key con-
nections. The most extensively replicated finding is that parenting styles marked by authoritativeness
toward children, but clearly child‑centered attitudes and concerns, are correlated with a variety of
positive outcomes that attain salience in middle childhood and that are predictive of successful adap-
tation in later life. These beneficial outcomes include peer acceptance, school success, competence
in self‑care, and competence and responsibility in a broad array of tasks. Equally well established is
the finding that parenting attitudes and behaviors dominated by parental concerns, rather than child
characteristics and needs, are associated with less positive outcomes on all of these variables.The latter
must be regarded as middle‑childhood risk factors for long‑term dysfunction.
A caveat is that studies do not tell us whether experiencing negative conditions for the first time
in middle childhood affects later development differently in either kind or degree than experienc-
ing parenting problems over a longer period. Nevertheless, the documented consequences of these
negative conditions for 5- to 12-year-olds leave little doubt that effective parenting powerfully affects
development both during and after middle childhood.
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4
PARENTING ADOLESCENTS
Bart Soenens, Maarten Vansteenkiste, and Wim Beyers
Introduction
Adolescence is a developmental period with a reputation. Much like toddlerhood, it is often described
as a period of vehement conflicts with parents, emotional upheaval, and irrational behavior. Such
alarming portrayals of adolescence were common in early developmental research on adolescence
(Hall, 1904; A. Freud, 1958), and they continue to remain prominent in contemporary popular sci-
entific literature. Although the modern developmental science of adolescence paints a much more
nuanced picture of this developmental period (Steinberg, 2014), the notion that adolescence is a time
of perturbation is deeply entrenched in lay beliefs.
When parental beliefs about adolescence are misguided or exaggerated, they can be harmful.
Parental expectations can function as a self-fulfilling prophecy, with parents who anticipate “storm
and stress” being more likely to interact with their child in a way that actually contributes to strained
parent–child relationships (Laursen and Collins, 2009). Conversely, parents with more balanced or
benign beliefs about adolescence may interact in a more relaxed and supportive fashion with their
child. Given that stereotypes about adolescence persist and affect the quality of parent–adolescent
interactions, a first aim of this chapter is to provide a state-of the-art overview of developmental
changes in parent–adolescent relationships, thereby separating myths from facts.
Although many stereotypes about adolescents’ functioning and parent–adolescent relationships are
unwarranted, adolescence represents a key developmental period in life characterized by multidimen-
sional and multidirectional change in various domains of functioning. As such, adolescents face new
and unique developmental tasks, and parents have an important role in navigating their adolescent
through these challenges. Parents generally hold the belief that they have an important impact on
their adolescent’s development (Worthman, Tomlinson, and Rotheram-Borus, 2016), and research
confirms that parenting indeed continues to affect adolescents’ psychosocial adjustment (Collins, Mac-
coby, Steinberg, Hetherington, and Bornstein, 2000). To understand exactly how parenting is related
to adolescents’ development, there is a need for a clear and comprehensive framework delineating key
dimensions of parenting with relevance in adolescence. Unfortunately, the complexity of the develop-
mental issues adolescents and their parents are confronted with is mirrored in the complexity of the
literature on parenting during adolescence.Therefore, the second section in this chapter aims to bring
clarity to the socialization literature by proposing a theoretically well-grounded and empirically sup-
ported model of parenting dimensions. The parenting dimensions identified in this model are related
to important developmental outcomes in adolescents, and the processes involved are discussed.
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Of course, parenting adolescents is not a one-way street. By the time individuals reach adolescence,
their personality has been shaped to a large extent and they have developed characteristic ways of
processing information and relating to others (Klimstra, Hale, Raaijmakers, Branje, and Meeus, 2009).
As a result, adolescents are not merely passive recipients of parental behavior but are active agents in
the process of socialization (Kuczynski and De Mol, 2015). Adolescents differ in the meanings they
attribute to parental behaviors and in the ways they respond to parental requests. Also, adolescents
reflect in increasingly differentiated ways about the legitimacy of parental authority (Smetana, 1995).
The third section of this chapter addresses this agentic role of adolescents in interactions with parents,
discussing the transactional and dynamic interplay between parents and adolescents.
Changes and Challenges in Parent–Adolescent Relationships

The onset of puberty involves various physiological changes (e.g., ovarian and testicular hormone
secretions) and physical changes (e.g., the growth spurt and appearance of secondary sexual char-
acteristics) that mark the beginning of adolescence as a chronological phase in human life. These
biological changes come with a cascade of developmental changes, many of which have repercus-
sions for parent–adolescent relationships (Dahl, 2004; Paikoff and Brooks-Gunn, 1991). Some of
these changes influence the parent–adolescent relationship directly, with the biological changes of
puberty, for instance, being an important topic of discussion in parent–adolescent conversations.
Other changes have a more indirect influence, affecting parent–adolescent relationships through psy-
chological and social processes associated with puberty, such as increased emotionality and a stronger
orientation toward peers.
Irrespective of whether effects of puberty on parent–adolescent relationships are direct or indirect,
they usually have an impact on the family system as a whole (Beveridge and Berg, 2007; Granic,
Hollenstein, Dishion, and Patterson, 2003; Kerig, 2019; Laursen and Collins, 2009). That is, these
changes have an effect not only on the individual partners in the parent–adolescent relationship but
also on the very nature of the relationship itself and in many cases even on relationships between
family members in which the pubescent child is not directly involved, such as the marital relationship
and relationships between parents and younger siblings. Thus, with the advent of puberty, the fam-
ily system is dynamically shifting, and there is a reorganization and recalibration of all relationships
within the family.
Direct Impact of Puberty on Parent–Adolescent Relationships

Illustrative of the systemic impact of puberty on family functioning is the way parents and ado-
lescents discuss puberty-related changes and experiences. Some adolescents are open about these
puberty-related events, disclosing freely the changes they encounter and relying on their parents for
advice, information, and comfort. Other adolescents are more secretive and less likely to confide in
parents about the changes they are going through (Brooks-Gunn and Ruble, 1982).Younger adoles-
cents tend to be more secretive about their puberty-related experiences than older adolescents, with
girls being more open about these changes (particularly toward their mothers) than boys (Paikoff
and Brooks-Gunn, 1991). This gender difference is consistent with girls’ general inclination to com-
municate more about personal experiences with parents (Racz and McMahon, 2011; Youniss and
Smollar, 1985). Also, pubertal changes in girls (e.g., breast growth and menarche) are more visible
and more difficult to hide than changes in boys (e.g., testicular growth and spermarche). In spite of
these gender differences, there is much variation also among girls in the degree of reluctance or at
least ambivalence they experience to talk about these issues, especially in early adolescence (Brooks-
Gunn and Ruble, 1982).
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Parents themselves also differ in their direct response to pubertal processes and to adolescents’ dis-
closure or secrecy about puberty. Some parents respond with sensitivity and provide accurate infor-
mation and support, but other parents feel uncomfortable discussing these themes or have a difficult
time accepting their child’s lack of disclosure (Paikoff and Brooks-Gunn, 1991). The way parents
communicate with their child during puberty, in turn, affects the degree to which puberty contrib-
utes to strained parent–adolescent relationships and adolescent problem behaviors. When parents
communicate with adolescents in a supportive way, elevated levels of testosterone (in both boys and
girls) are unrelated to problem behavior (Ge et al., 2002). In contrast, low-quality parental commu-
nication during early adolescence amplifies the risks associated with puberty, including vulnerability
to both emotional distress (e.g., depressive symptoms) and risky behavior (e.g., truancy and alcohol
use; Booth, Johnson, Granger, Crouter, and McHale, 2003).
Among some parents, the child’s puberty also awakens midlife concerns, including concerns
about their own declining health and fitness, physical attractiveness, and sexual appeal (Steinberg and
Silverberg, 1987). While the child is maturing, making plans for the future, and displaying increased
interest in sexual relationships, some parents (particularly mothers) become painfully aware of their
age and of the more limited time still ahead of them. Thus, the child’s puberty can be reason for par-
ents to reassess their own identity. Parents who struggle with these midlife concerns and who have a
difficult time coming to terms with the identity-related challenges of middle adulthood display more
ill-being and lower marital quality (Silverberg and Steinberg, 1990).
To summarize, pubertal changes can represent either a topic of constructive conversation
strengthening the parent–child bond or a taboo subject contributing to distance and alienation in
parent–child relationships and even adolescent maladjustment. These changes can also elicit existen-
tial concerns in parents, with these concerns ultimately affecting parents’ mental health and marital
quality. In addition to being directly relevant for parent–child relationships and family dynamics,
puberty brings about numerous emotional and social changes that have an impact on parent–child
relationships. In the remainder of this first section, we focus on four important sets of changes: emo-
tional development, parent–child conflict, peer orientation, and independence.
Emotional Development
Developmental Changes
In stereotypical portrayals of (early) adolescence as a period of emotional upheaval, adolescents are
said to be moodier, that is to experience more negative and fewer positive emotions compared to
younger children, as well as to be on a rollercoaster of emotions, with positive and negative emotions
oscillating quickly on a moment-to-moment basis. The transition into adolescence indeed marks a
decrease in positive emotions and an increase in negative emotions (Larson and Lampman-Petraitis,
1989). However, these changes level out between middle and late adolescence (particularly among
girls), and individuals return to pre-adolescent levels of happiness during late adolescence (Holsen,
Kraft, and Vittersø, 2000). In addition to (early) adolescents’ tendency to experience more overall
moodiness, adolescents’ emotional functioning is more variable, with adolescents displaying more
pronounced emotional fluctuation from day to day (Maciejewski, Lier, Branje, Meeus, and Koot,
2015) and even from moment to moment (Larson, Moneta, Richards, and Wilson, 2002). Together
with these changes in the quality and variability of adolescents’ mood, adolescents undergo changes
in the capacity for emotion regulation (Silk, Steinberg, and Morris, 2003). Although the ability to
regulate emotions improves throughout childhood and into adolescence, the capacity for emotion
regulation is still more limited in adolescence compared to adulthood (Labouvie-Vief, DeVoe, and
Bulka, 1989; Zimmermann and Iwanski, 2014).
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Adolescents’ heightened emotionality and limited capacity for emotion regulation can be explained
by a combination of neurobiological processes (e.g., hormonal changes and structural brain devel-
opment; Luciana, 2013) and social influences (e.g., an increase in stressful life events; Ge, Conger,
and Elder, 2001). At the neurophysiological level, the production of reproductive hormones and co-
occurring activation of neuroendocrine systems (mainly the secretion of cortisol in the hypothalamus-
pituitary-adrenal axis) plays a role in adolescents’ heightened sensitivity to negative emotions (Forbes
and Dahl, 2010).Throughout adolescence, there are also important changes in brain structure and func-
tion (Somerville, Jones, and Casey, 2010). Increased activation in limbic structures (such as the amygdala
and hypothalamus), with a peak in middle adolescence, causes heightened reward sensitivity. At the
same time, the prefrontal cortex, which serves to regulate affective-motivational impulses originating
in subcortical areas, is maturing (through synaptic pruning and myelinization) only gradually and at a
slow, linear pace throughout adolescence.The different timing and pace of development in these brain
regions cause a temporary imbalance between bottom-up motivational and emotional impulses and
top-down regulation of these impulses (Casey, Jones, and Hare, 2008). To use a metaphor, it is as if the
teenage brain is hitting the gas while the brake is in repair (Casey, Jones, and Somerville, 2011). This
imbalance between affective-motivational processing and inhibitory control is said to be responsible
for the limited capacities for emotion regulation in adolescence and during middle adolescence in par-
ticular. Connections between subcortical areas responsible for affective processing and prefrontal areas
responsible for cognitive regulation and inhibitory control (e.g., the ventromedial prefrontal cortex)
continue to develop even during late adolescence (Spear, 2000).
Due to these neurobiological changes, there is room for improvement in capacities for emotion
regulation well into the later phases of adolescence. At the same time, adolescents’ still somewhat
limited capacity for emotion regulation is challenged by social stress. Adolescents are confronted with
a variety of stressors, including increased demands for maturity, higher expectations for academic
achievement, a transition to larger schools (with fewer opportunities for close teacher-student rela-
tionships), and more intense peer interactions (Eccles et al., 1993).
Implications for Parents

Whatever the sources of adolescents’ heightened emotionality and difficulties regulating emotions,
parents are affected both directly and indirectly. Parents and adolescents influence each other directly
and reciprocally via a process of emotional contagion. A vicious cycle of negative emotions exists both
in the long term (for instance with intervals of 6 months or more between measurement points;
Hughes and Gullone, 2008) and in the short term, with diary studies showing associations between
adolescents’ and parents’ daily display of negative emotions (Larson and Almeida, 1999). Parents’ and
adolescents’ proneness to depressive symptoms has also been shown to covary across time in clinically
depressed adolescents, with research showing that adolescents may also affect their parents’ emo-
tions in a more positive way (Perloe, Esposito-Smythers, Curby, and Renshaw, 2014). As adolescents’
symptom severity decreases throughout treatment, mothers’ depressive symptoms decline in tandem,
showing that mothers themselves also benefit from their adolescent’s treatment.
Long-term reciprocal affective influences have been documented primarily in mother-son dyads
and in father-daughter dyads, with pubertal timing also playing a role in these reciprocal processes
(Ge, Conger, Lorenz, Shanahan, and Elder, 1995). Daughters’ negative affect was most strongly pre-
dictive of fathers’ distress when daughters were maturing early. Daughters’ early puberty and accom-
panying emotionality may be particularly worrisome for fathers because fathers are concerned about
the consequences of their daughters’ premature sexuality and romantic involvement, issues they feel
more uncomfortable discussing with their daughters (Paikoff and Brooks-Gunn, 1991).
Adolescents’ emotions also affect parents in an indirect fashion, with heightened intensity and
lability of emotions increasing the odds of conflicted parent–adolescent interactions, which, in turn,
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impact on parents’ mental health, quality of parenting, and even marital quality. These processes are
interrelated in a dynamic and complex fashion, with (low) marital quality for instance being both
an antecedent and outcome of emotionally troubled and conflicted parent–adolescent interactions
(Hughes and Gullone, 2008).
In addition to being influenced by their adolescents’ emotions, parents themselves contribute to
adolescents’ emerging emotional competence, that is, adolescents’ capacity to adequately handle emo-
tions. Parents do so through at least three different pathways (Morris, Silk, Steinberg, Myers, and
Robinson, 2007; Morris, Criss, Silk, and Houltberg, 2017). First, through the expression of their
own emotions and their own style of dealing with emotions, parents serve as direct role models
for adolescents’ emotion regulation (Bariola, Gullone, and Hughes, 2011). By witnessing their par-
ents’ expression and modulation of emotions, adolescents receive implicit or explicit messages about
appropriate and common ways of handling emotion-laden situations. Consistent with principles of
social learning, adolescents of parents displaying emotion regulation difficulties report more prob-
lems in adequately regulating emotions themselves, with these problems in turn forecasting both
internalizing and externalizing problem behaviors (Buckholdt, Parra, and Jobe-Shields, 2014).
A second source of influence is parents’ attitude toward emotions and their corresponding
attempts to coach adolescents’ emotion regulation. When parents think of emotions as interesting
and informational signals that provide opportunities to grow and to build intimate relationships
(i.e., an emotion-coaching philosophy), parents are more inclined to engage in adequate emotion
coaching (Gottman, Katz, and Hooven, 1996).That is, parents with an emotion-coaching philosophy
actively attend to their own emotions and their child’s emotions, thereby taking an accepting stance
and providing adequate advice for dealing with emotions in future situations.This emotion-coaching
approach can be contrasted with an emotion-dismissing approach, where parents ignore, minimize,
or even invalidate and criticize children’s display and regulation of emotions (Gottman et al., 1996).
Although parental emotion coaching has been examined mainly among younger children, stud-
ies indicate that parental emotion coaching is also beneficial for adolescents’ emotional develop-
ment, personal well-being, and resilience against distress and behavioral problems (Katz and Hunter,
2007; Shortt, Stoolmiller, Smith-Shine, Eddy, and Sheeber, 2010; Yap, Allen, Leve, and Katz, 2008).
Moreover, parental emotion coaching contributes to the quality of parent–adolescent relationships,
with the likelihood of escalating emotional parent–adolescent exchanges decreasing when parents
recognize and accept adolescents’ negative emotions during interactions (Katz and Hunter, 2007).
Acceptance of the adolescent’s emotions appears to be particularly important in this regard (rela-
tive to, for instance, active advice about problem solving). Compared to younger children, adoles-
cents may need less direct parental advice but may, instead, want parents simply to be available and
to serve as a “mirror” reflecting the adolescent’s feelings. Conversely, also among adolescents an
emotion-dismissing parental orientation is associated with deficits in adolescent emotion regulation
and problem behaviors (Buckholdt et al., 2014; Yap, Allen, and Ladouceur, 2008). The critical role
of parental emotion coaching in adolescents’ development was demonstrated also in intervention-
based research, which found that a training to improve parents’ ability to respond to adolescents’
emotions in an accepting manner led to decreased emotional problems in adolescents (Kehoe,
Havighurst, and Harley, 2014).
A third, somewhat more distal, route through which parents can influence adolescents’ emotion
regulation is through the general quality of their parenting style (Morris et al., 2007). The role of
general parenting style is discussed in greater detail in the second part of this chapter. It suffices here
to say that parents’ general style of communicating with their adolescent (also in domains other than
emotions and feelings) determines the emotional climate in the family and, in doing so, yields reper-
cussions for adolescents’ emotional experiences at home (Darling and Steinberg, 1993). Also, parents’
general parenting style contributes to the development of several resources required for adequate
regulation of emotions, such as mentalizing capacities (i.e., the ability to understand and reflect on
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one’s own and other people’s mental states and feelings) and the establishment of a positive and
secure sense of self-worth (Morris et al., 2007).
To summarize, compared to younger children, adolescents are more prone to experience negative
emotions and to display emotional lability, particularly in early adolescence. This heightened emo-
tionality represents a challenge to parent–adolescent relationships and to parents’ own well-being.
Although adolescents have begun to develop more independent and sophisticated emotion regula-
tion strategies, their capacity for emotion regulation is far from complete. Parents still have important
roles to play, both as role models and as active coaches of their adolescent’s response to emotionally
charged episodes.The changes in emotional development taking place in adolescence have repercus-
sions for the quality of parent–adolescent relationships, including the occurrence of conflict, a theme
discussed in greater detail next.
Parent–Adolescent Conflict
The widespread notion that parent–adolescent relationships are deeply troubled and conflict-ridden
has a long history and is rooted in several theories, including classic psychoanalysis and evolutionary
models of adolescent development (Laursen and Collins, 2009). Considered from a Freudian perspec-
tive, puberty marks a resurgence of sexual and aggressive drives that were relatively silent during middle
childhood (i.e., the latency phase of psychosexual development).The energy and urges released by these
biological drives create increased potential for inner conflict (i.e., between immediate gratification of
needs and the internalized social demands of the super-ego) and for conflict with the outer world and
with family members in particular (S. Freud, 1905/1962). Similarly, evolutionary accounts of adoles-
cence assume that conflict plays an adaptive role in separating adolescents from parents, thereby launch-
ing adolescents into the broader social world (Laursen and Collins, 2009). As such, conflict would be
functionally adaptive to create opportunities for independent survival and sexual reproduction.
These strong claims about normative and puberty-driven increases in high-intensity parent–child
conflicts during (early) adolescence do not stand the test of contemporaneous research on adolescent
development. A meta-analysis by Laursen, Coy, and Collins (1998) showed that the frequency of
conflicts between parents and children increases from pre-adolescence to early adolescence and peaks
between the ages of 10 and 14 years (see also McGue, Elkins, Walden, and Iacono, 2005). However,
conflict frequency does not increase further between early adolescence and middle adolescence and
even decreases slightly. Still, the emotional intensity of conflict is elevated during middle adolescence
(Laursen et al., 1998). Although parent–child conflicts become somewhat less prevalent, middle ado-
lescents suffer more from these conflicts emotionally.
In terms of content, it is more apt to describe parent–adolescent conflicts as temporary disa-
greements rather than as fundamental and enduring differences of opinion (Adams and Laursen,
2001; Steinberg and Silk, 2002). Most disagreements revolve around mundane issues, such as chores,
homework, and family rules, rather than ideological issues (Smetana, 1989). The content of these
disagreements is relatively stable across adolescence. An exception is the issue of homework, which
is more prevalent in early adolescence, when children typically transition to new school settings and
are confronted with increasing expectations for academic achievement.
Contrary to lay beliefs and to early developmental theories on the role of puberty in parent–
adolescent conflicts, pubertal status is associated with conflict only weakly (Steinberg, 1988).
Chronological age appears to be a more robust predictor of conflict than pubertal maturation
(Laursen et al., 1998). As such, rather than being primarily biologically determined, increases in
conflict seem to be mainly a consequence of changing social expectations (e.g., demands for matu-
rity) and social roles (e.g., more time spent with peers).
Further highlighting the limited role of puberty in parent–adolescent conflicts is the fact that the
timing and course of conflicts depends also on children’s birth order (Shanahan, McHale, Osgood,
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and Crouter, 2007). Firstborn children experience a peak in conflict frequency in early adoles-
cence (around the age of 12–14 years), whereas their laterborn siblings display this peak earlier, that
is, toward the end of middle childhood (around the age of 9–11 years). One explanation for this
phenomenon is that there is spillover from conflicts occurring between older siblings and parents
to conflicts occurring between younger siblings and their parents. Such spillover may occur simply
through witnessing older siblings’ engagement in conflict or through active attempts by younger
siblings to intervene in the older siblings’ conflicts with parents. In addition to this spillover mecha-
nism, parents and children seem to learn from experience. Laterborn children’s conflicts with parents
wane more quickly than firstborn children’s conflicts, suggesting that experience with the firstborn
children’s conflicts strengthens parents’ expertise in dealing more effectively with conflicts with
laterborn children (Shanahan et al., 2007). These within-family differences in the timing of conflict
testify to the complexity of factors involved in puberty-related influences on parent–child relation-
ships. Specifically, these differences underscore that changes in adolescence do not only occur at the
level of individual parent–child relationships but also need to be understood in the context of the
family as a whole.
Apart from changes in the frequency and intensity of conflicts, parent–adolescent relationships
also witness fluctuations between harmonious and more troubled episodes (Granic et al., 2003).
Particularly during the transition into adolescence, when parents and children face a pile-up of
developmental changes, parents and adolescents oscillate quickly between positive (e.g., humorous,
affectionate) and negative (e.g., conflictual, hostile) interactions.This interactional variability subsides
by mid-adolescence, when parent–adolescent relationships return to more steady and predictable
patterns of interaction (Granic et al., 2003). Early adolescence in particular is a period of reorganiza-
tion where parents and adolescents establish new modes of interaction through trial and error.
This variability in conflictual episodes, and the ups and downs in emotions associated with it, are
assumed to be normative during early adolescence and to play an adaptive role in the renegotia-
tion of parent–adolescent relationships (Granic, 2005). Conversely, a lack of variability in emotions
displayed during conflicts may indicate a lack of openness and flexibility among family members
to express and regulate emotions during conflicts. Consistent with these assumptions, adolescents
expressing lower variability in conflict-related emotions in mother-child interactions during early
adolescence are at higher risk for aggression and internalizing distress in the later phases of adoles-
cence (Van der Giessen et al., 2015). Adolescents experiencing a richer and fuller repertoire of emo-
tions during parent–child conflicts in early adolescence seem to be armed better to cope effectively
with emotions and challenges later in adolescence. The finding that a lack of emotional variability
during conflicts is associated with problem behaviors further underscores the importance of oppor-
tunities for emotional expressiveness in the family. As discussed above, a family climate characterized
by openness and flexibility is of key importance for adaptive emotional development.
To summarize, although early adolescence is a period of heightened conflict frequency in parent–
adolescent relationships, the intensity and long-term impact of these conflicts should not be over-
stated. In most families, conflicts deal with everyday topics and do not signal an enduring deteriora-
tion of the parent–adolescent relationship. When parents and adolescents are emotionally expressive
during conflicts, these episodes may even contribute to adolescents’ capacities for emotion regulation
and may ultimately strengthen the parent–adolescent bond.
Heightened Orientation Toward Peers
Toward the end of middle childhood and in early adolescence, children begin to spend substantially
more time with peers and friends (Berndt, 1982; Larson and Richards, 1991; Richards, Crowe,
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Larson, and Swarr, 1998). This increased orientation to peers coincides with a decrease in time spent
with parents (Larson, Richards, Moneta, Holmbeck, and Duckett, 1996) and with decreased sharing
of information with parents (Keijsers and Poulin, 2013). Adolescents turn more frequently to peers to
disclose personal experiences and rely more often on peers for support and advice. Due to the more
central role of peers in adolescents’ social life, experiences with peers more strongly affect children’s
self-evaluation than in earlier developmental periods, with experiences of peer approval contribut-
ing to self-esteem and with experiences of exclusion or even victimization strongly undermining
confidence and well-being (Sebastian,Viding, Williams, and Blakemore, 2010).
Adolescents are very sensitive to feedback and social cues encountered in interactions with peers
and friends, a hypersensitivity rooted to some extent in the neurobiological changes characteristic
of adolescence (Blakemore and Mills, 2014). Experimental research demonstrates that the presence
of peers recruits neural circuits and brain areas involved in sensitivity to rewards, such as the ventral
striatum and orbitofrontal cortex, and does so more strongly among adolescents than among adults
(Albert, Chein, and Steinberg, 2013; Smith, Steinberg, Strang, and Chein, 2015). Similarly, adoles-
cents have been shown to take more risks in experimental games when observed by peers (Gardner
and Steinberg, 2005), an effect associated with increased activation of reward-related brain regions
(Chein, Albert, O’Brien, Uckert, and Steinberg, 2011).
Implications for Parents

For quite a long time, this orientation toward peers and its accompanying impact on self-evaluation
and problem behavior has been considered from a risk perspective, with research focusing on themes
such as peer pressure and susceptibility to deviant peer affiliation (Steinberg and Monahan, 2007).
Consistent with this risk perspective, adolescents’ affiliation with peers represents a source of con-
cern for many parents, who worry about negative peer influence and about risky behavior in the
company of friends (Bogenschneider, Wu, Raffaelli, and Tsay, 1998). Adolescents’ peer orientation
may also be perceived as a threat to the parent–child bond itself. Particularly parents high on sepa-
ration anxiety report heightened feelings of distress when discussing peer-related issues with their
adolescent, indicating that these parents are strongly concerned about their adolescent’s increasing
independence (Wuyts, Soenens,Vansteenkiste,Van Petegem, and Brenning, 2017).
Adolescents’ orientation toward peers also poses challenges to parents’ desire to know about their
adolescent’s whereabouts and activities (Crouter and Head, 2002). During adolescence, it becomes
more difficult for parents to stay aware of their child’s whereabouts because direct and proximal
modes of information gathering (such as direct supervision) can be applied less often (Laird, Criss,
Pettit, Bates, and Dodge, 2009).These difficulties are exacerbated by the fact that adolescents increas-
ingly seek contact with peers and friends in the virtual world (e.g., in multiplayer games and social
media) and by the fact that adolescents disclose information about themselves on digital fora (Liu,
Ang, and Lwin, 2013). As a result, parents need to resort to more distal channels to stay informed,
such as solicitation of information from adolescents or conversations with other adults, such as teach-
ers and neighbors (Waizenhofer, Buchanan, and Jackson-Newsom, 2004).
There is increasing recognition, however, that peer relationships not only represent a risk for
problem behavior but also contribute to adolescent development in many positive ways (Brown,
2004). Peers can serve as role models for desirable behavior, such as high educational aspirations and
prosocial behavior. Only when adolescents develop an extreme peer orientation, at the expense of
school engagement and high-quality relationships with parents, do peers represent a threat to parent–
child relationships and to healthy psychosocial development (Fuligni, Eccles, Barber, and Clements,
2001).
With this more balanced perspective on the role of peers, research has begun to show that the
relative influences of parents and peers on adolescent development are not a zero-sum game (Laursen
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and Collins, 2009). That is, the contribution of parents and peers to adolescent development is not
simply additive. Instead, parents and peers each have unique roles, being primarily involved in some-
what different life domains, with peers being highly influential in areas such as lifestyle (e.g., clothing
and music preferences) and with parents remaining important sources of influence in the academic
domain. Further, there are complex interactions between parents’ and peers’ contributions, with
parents affecting the degree to which either the adaptive potential or the risks associated with peer
involvement become prominent (Henry, Tolan, and Gorman-Smith, 2001; Kerr, Stattin, Biesecker,
and Ferrer-Wreder, 2003). Mounts and Steinberg (1995), for instance, showed that adolescents reared
by authoritative parents (i.e., parents combining clear rule setting with high levels of warmth) were
more susceptible to the positive effects of having high-achieving friends on adolescents’ own aca-
demic achievement. At the same time, these adolescents were more resilient to adverse effects of
affiliation with drug-using friends on adolescents’ own substance use. According to Mounts and
Steinberg (1995), authoritative parents provide adolescents with a set of internalized rules for con-
duct that allow them to reap the benefits of peer relationships while at the same time being armed
better against detrimental peer influences.
Given that parents and peers represent interconnected (rather than isolated and mutually exclu-
sive) contextual sources of influence, an important question is exactly how parents affect peer rela-
tionships. Much like parents are involved in adolescents’ emotion regulation through a variety of
direct and indirect pathways, parents affect adolescents’ peer relationships both directly and indi-
rectly (Brown and Bakken, 2011; Ladd and Pettit, 2002). Indirectly, parents’ general parenting style
fosters competence in relationships with peers and romantic partners by contributing to interven-
ing processes such as positive expectations and beliefs about peer interactions and constructive
problem-solving skills (Allen, Moore, Kuperminc, and Bell, 1998; Dekovic and Meeus, 1997;
Zimmer-Gembeck,Van Petegem, Ducat, Clear, and Mastro, 2018).
In addition, parents can be involved in adolescents’ peer relationships in more direct ways, thereby
managing and coaching adolescents’ social relationships through proximal strategies (Mounts, 2002;
Tilton-Weaver and Galambos, 2003). Mounts (2002, 2007) developed a model of parental peer
management strategies, distinguishing between consulting strategies (i.e., offering help with problem
solving and encouraging activities with peers) and mediating strategies (i.e., guiding an adolescent’s
selection of friendships). Associations between these peer management strategies and adolescents’
social adjustment are complex, with consulting strategies yielding small and somewhat inconsist-
ent relationships with social and behavioral outcomes and with mediating strategies typically being
related negatively to social competence and adaptive behavior (Mounts, 2001, 2002, 2007; Soenens,
Vansteenkiste, Smits, Lowet, and Goossens, 2007). Prohibiting friendships in particular is related to
maladaptive outcomes, such as affiliation with deviant peers and delinquency (Keijsers et al., 2012;
Soenens,Vansteenkiste, and Niemiec, 2009).
Given that associations between parental peer management strategies and adolescent outcomes
are not straightforward, research has focused on both contextual and personal characteristics that
may influence the effectiveness of parental involvement in adolescents’ social relationships. When
adolescents face a transition necessitating the formation of new peer relationships and friendships
(e.g., because the family moves to a new community), they seem to benefit from certain forms of
parental peer management.Vernberg, Beery, Ewell, and Absender (1993) found that parents’ facilita-
tion of adolescents’ formation of new friendships after relocation to a new school district was related
positively to better quality of adolescent friendships. Parents’ capacity to enable proximity with peers
in particular (e.g., allowing friends to sleep over and letting the adolescent go out with friends) was
beneficial to adolescents’ social adjustment in this period of transition. In such periods of transition,
adolescents are perhaps more likely to actively solicit parental guidance because they feel that they
need parental assistance and, therefore, to experience their parents’ involvement as self-chosen rather
than as meddlesome and inappropriate.
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Another contextual factor determining the role of parental peer management is the general
quality of parents’ rearing style. Mounts (2002) demonstrated that parental mediation is particularly
detrimental (i.e., related to increased drug use) when parents are generally uninvolved. Uninvolved
parents are more likely to engage in peer management in a reactive fashion, that is when adoles-
cents are already involved in problems. Because these parents have little legitimate authority overall,
adolescents are less likely to accept such reactive parental involvement and may oppose against it by
engaging in even more problematic behavior. Conversely, adolescents are more receptive to parents’
social coaching within a generally warm and positive parenting emotional climate (Gregson, Erath,
Pettit, and Tu, 2015).
In addition to these contextual influences on the effectiveness of parental peer management,
adolescents’ personal characteristics also play a role. Tu, Erath, and El-Sheikh (2017) found that ado-
lescents with low ability for behavioral and emotional self-regulation (as indexed by low autonomic
nervous system activity) benefited from parental involvement in peer management. Among these
adolescents, parental mediation of friendships predicted decreased affiliation with deviant friends and
peer rejection. Thus, parents’ peer management is most effective among adolescents who lack the
skills to make wise friendship choices themselves and among adolescents who are most sensitive to
the temptations presented by deviant peers. These findings illustrate that adolescents most in need
of guidance in the social realm benefit the most from parental coaching and involvement in peer
relationships.
To summarize, parents and peers do not constitute disconnected parts of adolescents’ social world.
Instead, they represent dynamically intertwined parts of adolescents’ social environment (Bornstein,
Jager, and Steinberg, 2012). Parents stay involved in adolescents’ peer relationships in both indirect
and direct ways. While parents can yield an indirect influence through their more general childrear-
ing style, they can also intervene more directly, for instance through their peer management strategies.
A key issue in parents’ degree and style of involvement in peer relationships is undoubtedly whether
parents accept adolescents’ increasing distance taking and independence, an issue we turn to next.
Distance Taking and Independence
Adolescents’ inclination to gravitate toward peers is part of a more general tendency to strive for
more independence from parents (Fuligni and Eccles, 1993). For quite a long time, this search for
independence has been described in terms of processes of parent–child separation and distance tak-
ing. Inspired by classic psychoanalytic theory (A. Freud, 1958) and separation-individuation theory
in particular (Blos, 1979), it was maintained that a normative developmental task for adolescents is to
relinquish childish dependencies on parents to achieve more independence. This process of distance
taking was thought to be temporarily painful yet inevitable in the service of establishing a mature
level of independence as well as to realize an individuated identity. Particularly in early adolescence,
adolescents would need to disengage from parents to explore the social world, to affiliate with peers,
and to develop a healthy sense of self (Steinberg and Silverberg, 1986).
In accordance with separation-individuation theory, adolescents increasingly deidealize parents
and strive for non-dependency, with these changes occurring mainly between early and middle
adolescence (Beyers, 2001; Chang, McBride-Chang, Stewart, and Au, 2003; Steinberg and Silverberg,
1986). Around the same time, the degree of closeness and support experienced in parent–adolescent
relationships dips (De Goede, Branje, and Meeus, 2009; McGue et al., 2005), followed by a ten-
dency by parents to gradually relinquish regulation of adolescents’ behavior from middle adolescence
onwards (Keijsers and Poulin, 2013). Together, these developmental changes point to increased sepa-
ration and distance taking during early and middle adolescence.
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Although adolescents increasingly take distance from parents, the field has now moved away from
the view that disengagement and separation are sufficient or even essential conditions for healthy
development of autonomy and psychosocial adjustment. An important reason for this change of view
is the observation that high scores on measures for parent–adolescent separation [such as Steinberg
and Silverberg’s 1986 Emotional Autonomy Scale (EAS)] do not necessarily forecast healthy inde-
pendence (as anticipated on the basis of separation-individuation theory) nor adolescent adjustment.
Using the EAS, Steinberg and Silverberg (1986) found that separation was related negatively (rather
than positively) to adolescent self-reliance. Other studies found inconsistent associations between
separation and self-reliance (Beyers and Goossens, 1999). Thus, although adolescents typically dis-
play some distancing toward parents in early to middle adolescence, adolescents who do so more
than others are not necessarily better able to become self-reliant and to develop a healthy sense of
independence. Further questioning the adaptive role of parent–adolescent distancing, some studies
have shown that adolescents who deidealize parents and who separate from parents are at increased
risk for problems, including internal distress, deviant behavior, and lower school grades (Beyers and
Goossens, 1999). Other studies have shown that separation is unrelated to problematic development
(Jager,Yuen, Putnick, Hendricks, and Bornstein, 2015), but few studies have demonstrated a system-
atic protective role of parent–adolescent separation against maladjustment, let alone a positive role of
separation in fostering well-being.
To explain the potential risks associated with adolescent distance taking, it has been argued and
shown that a stronger-than-average tendency to disengage from parents is often rooted in low-
quality parent–adolescent relationships (Fuhrman and Holmbeck, 1995; Ryan and Lynch, 1989).
Disengagement then represents a coping response to deal with insecure parent–adolescent relation-
ships. Although distance taking may be a natural response to such relationships, it does not guarantee
that adolescents develop a capacity to take independent decisions and, even more, it may diminish the
odds that adolescents will begin to rely on their own internal resources (Van Petegem,Vansteenkiste,
Soenens, Beyers, and Aelterman, 2015).
Boundary Conditions of Successful Independence

These findings about the potentially detrimental role of parent–adolescent distance taking have led
to more nuanced views of adolescent independence. It is now generally acknowledged that inde-
pendence ideally develops within the context of ongoing relatedness with parents (Cooper and
Grotevant, 2011; Grotevant and Cooper, 1986; Lamborn and Steinberg, 1993; Youniss and Smollar,
1985). When disconnected from parent–adolescent relatedness, adolescent independence is largely
unrelated to healthy psychosocial development or even predictive of problematic outcomes. Ado-
lescents who engage in unilateral decision-making, thereby making decisions fully independently
and without consulting with parents, are more at risk for delinquency and rule-breaking behav-
ior (Dornbusch et al., 1985; Lamborn, Dornbusch, and Steinberg, 1996). To avoid such unilateral
decision-making, strivings for independence need to happen against the background of a warm and
trusting relationship with parents.
Research on observed parent–adolescent discussions about disagreements supports the notion
that the combined presence of independence and relatedness within parent–adolescent relationships
is beneficial for adolescents’ psychosocial adjustment (Kansky, Ruzek, and Allen, 2018). Adolescents
who are able (and allowed by parents) to assert their own point of view (i.e., independence) while
still maintaining connectedness with parents during discussions (e.g., by collaborating with parents
to reach a solution to the disagreement) display adaptive developmental outcomes, such as higher
self-esteem and better ego development (Allen, Hauser, Bell, and O’Connor, 1994) and a less hostile
style of interaction with peers (Allen, Hauser, O’Connor, and Bell, 2002). Indeed, parent–adolescent
relationships characterized by a combination of independence and connectedness foster not only
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adolescents’ personal adjustment and well-being but also their social development. Such relationships
serve as a template for interacting with peers and romantic partners and for constructively dealing
with disagreements in such relationships (Allen and Loeb, 2015).
In addition to highlighting the importance of combining strivings for independence with ongo-
ing connectedness with parents, scholars also forwarded alternative conceptualizations of adoles-
cent autonomy, defining autonomy not only in terms of independence (Hill and Holmbeck, 1986;
Zimmer-Gembeck and Collins, 2003). One prominent alternative conceptualization of autonomy is
based on self-determination theory (SDT), a general theory of motivation and social development
(Deci and Ryan, 2000; Ryan and Deci, 2000, 2017). According to this theory, autonomy basically
entails volitional functioning. When functioning volitionally, adolescents experience a sense of own-
ership of their behavior, psychological freedom, and authenticity (Ryan and Deci, 2000). Such expe-
riences of volition ensue when adolescents’ behaviors and goals originate from, and are well-aligned
with, personal values, interests, and preferences (Deci and Ryan, 2000).
Importantly, the experience of volition is distinct from the pursuit of independence (Ryan, Deci,
and Vansteenkiste, 2016; Soenens, Vansteenkiste, Van Petegem, Beyers, and Ryan, 2018). Independ-
ence (relative to dependence) mainly concerns an interpersonal phenomenon because it deals with
the question of who is regulating a certain behavior or goal (adolescents, parents, or both). Whereas
adolescents are in charge in making decisions by themselves in the case of independence, they rely
on parents for advice and support in the case of dependence. In contrast, volition denotes an intrap-
ersonal experience, reflecting the degree of self-endorsement of one’s behavior and goal pursuits.
Specifically, volitional functioning entails regulation of behavior and goals based on deeply endorsed
values, preferences, and interests. The opposite of volitional functioning is heteronomy, which mani-
fests in feelings of being pressured to act, think, or feel in certain ways.
Illustrating the distinction between independence and volition, adolescents can display inde-
pendence in either more volitional (self-endorsed) or more heteronomous (pressured) ways. When
selecting an extracurricular activity at school, an adolescent may deliberately choose to decide alone
(without parental input), thereby displaying volitional independence. However, an adolescent may
also feel forced to decide independently, for instance because parents leave the adolescent to his or
her own devices (e.g., saying that at her/his age s/he should be able to make such decisions alone).
In this example, an adolescent has no choice but to act independently and, hence, displays heterono-
mous (pressured) independence.
Conversely, adolescents can display dependence on parents for either more volitional or more heter-
onomous reasons. An adolescent can ask parental advice about extracurricular school activities because
s/he is genuinely interested in and values parents’ opinion, which will help to make a more thoughtful
decision. This adolescent volitionally chooses to depend on parents for advice. However, an adolescent
may also feel pressured to rely on parents, for instance because parents express a strong opinion about
the most appropriate (or even prestigious) extracurricular activities and/or because parents use guilt to
enforce their own opinion. In the latter example, an adolescent is forced to depend on parents and even
to comply with the parents’ decision, thereby displaying heteronomous dependency.
Consistent with the conceptual differentiation between autonomy-as-independence and autonomy-
as-volition, research shows that measures of adolescent independence are distinct from measures of
volitional functioning (Van Petegem,Vansteenkiste, and Beyers, 2013). More importantly, independence
contributes to adolescents’ well-being only when regulated by volitional reasons (Van Petegem, Beyers,
Vansteenkiste, and Soenens, 2012). Overall, adolescent independence and volition are typically positively
related, but independence as such is less predictive of healthy psychosocial development than volitional
functioning (Chen,Vansteenkiste, Beyers, Soenens, and Van Petegem, 2013). For adolescents to experi-
ence well-being and to develop secure social relationships outside the family, it seems more important
that they regulate their behavior based on self-endorsed values and interests rather than because they are
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independent and no longer rely on parents. Also, dependency on parents is not necessarily a problem or
a sign of immaturity. Dependency can contribute to adolescents’ well-being and psychosocial adjustment
if adolescents volitionally choose to rely on parents for support and advice (Chen et al., 2013; Ryan, La
Guardia, Solky-Butzel, Chirkov, and Kim, 2005). In contrast, when adolescents feel pressured to depend
on parents (e.g., because parents enforce loyalty and emphasize the sacrifices they have made for their
adolescent), adolescents are prone to ill-being and may even be inclined to display reactance against
parental authority (Mayseless and Scharf, 2009; Van Petegem et al., 2012; Van Petegem, Vansteenkiste,
Soenens, Beyers, and Aelterman, 2015).
To summarize, adolescents gradually strive for more independence, thereby taking more distance
from their parents. However, this movement toward self-reliance does not guarantee healthy psycho-
social development. Important boundary conditions determine the degree to which independence
contributes to adolescent well-being and social adjustment. For adolescents to benefit optimally
from their increasing independence, their search for independence needs to occur in the context
of ongoing connectedness with parents. Accordingly, it remains important for parents to invest in a
close and secure relationship with their adolescent. Presumably, under these conditions, adolescents
are better capable of regulating independence volitionally, thereby grounding their decisions based
on self-endorsed values, interests, and preferences.When functioning volitionally, adolescents experi-
ence authenticity and psychological freedom, experiences that are indispensable for well-being and
social competence. Although independence can be accompanied by such feelings, this is not always
the case. Adolescents reap the benefits of independence mainly when they deliberately choose and
feel free to display independence. Also, adolescents do not strive for independence all the time. On
a regular basis, adolescents choose to take comfort in parents and choose to rely on parental advice.
Rather than insisting on independence, parents do well to be available and supportive when such
volitional dependence is called for by adolescents.
Conclusion
Adolescence is a time of change in parent–child relationships, with puberty being involved in some
changes either directly or indirectly. However, the nature and intensity of these changes are less dra-
matic than was assumed in the early days of research on adolescent development and in lay beliefs.
Chronic and severe disruptions of parent–child relationships are the exception rather than the rule.
Rather than being a period of fundamental disruption, adolescence is a period of gradual transfor-
mation toward a more egalitarian and horizontal parent–child relationship. Throughout this period
of transformation, parents remain key socialization figures. Parents are not simply replaced by peers
as a primary source of social influence. Instead, parents continue to affect adolescents’ development
and peer relationships in both direct and indirect ways. While adolescents display increased strivings
for independence, parents and adolescents need to stay connected for this development toward inde-
pendence to foster psychosocial adjustment.
The normative changes in parent–child relationships during adolescence need to be nuanced in
two important ways. First, when considered in an absolute sense, the average quality of parent–child
relationships remains high in adolescence (Steinberg and Silk, 2002). Most adolescents continue to
experience the parent–child relationship as supportive and secure (De Goede et al., 2009).Yet, when
parents use prior developmental periods as a point of reference, parents may be struck by the changes
occurring in the parent–adolescent relationship. In spite of the differences noted by parents between
adolescence and childhood, it is important for parents also to consider and appreciate the overall
quality of the parent–adolescent relationship in a more absolute sense.
Second, normative changes in parent–adolescent relationships need to be considered against the
background of relatively stable inter-individual differences between parent–child dyads and families
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(Laursen and Collins, 2009). While there is an average trend toward temporarily more strained and
less supportive parent–child relationships during adolescence, pre-adolescent patterns of interac-
tion are predictive of the degree of turmoil and conflict (versus support and harmony) experienced
during adolescence. Parents and children displaying relatively better quality of relationships prior to
adolescence fare comparatively better in navigating the changes and challenges of early adolescence
than parents and children with a history of troubled interactions. One factor contributing to this
relative (or rank-order) stability in relationship patterns is parenting style, which represents a fairly
stable interaction pattern between parents and their children (Darling and Steinberg, 1993; Holden
and Miller, 1999).
In contrast to the relatively specific parenting practices discussed in this first part of the chapter
(e.g., emotion coaching and peer management), parenting style refers to the more general affective
tone and emotional climate in parent–child interactions (Darling and Steinberg, 1993). General par-
enting style is assumed to affect adolescents’ development directly, with a more supportive style, for
instance, contributing to higher adolescent well-being, and indirectly, that is, by altering the effective-
ness of specific parenting practices (Darling and Steinberg, 1993). Parents convey their involvement
in specific life domains differently depending on their overall style of interaction. Also, adolescents’
perceptions of parental practices differ depending on the overall quality of parenting style. Both these
differences in parental communication style and adolescents’ perception of parenting practices, in
turn, affect adolescents’ willingness to accept (or defy) parents’ involvement. In the next section, we
discuss in greater detail how quality of parenting style can strengthen (or undermine) youth capacity
to navigate the many challenges of adolescence.
Parenting and Adolescent Psychosocial Development

Research on parenting and adolescent development has a rich yet rather complicated history. At
least two trends characterize the field. First, the literature has witnessed a shift from a configurational
approach to a more dimensional approach. Second, research is informed increasingly by a top-down
and theory-driven approach. Today, there is increasing consensus about the importance of a dimen-
sional approach, and there is growing convergence between bottom-up and top-down approaches
to parenting. Consequently, socialization scholars agree about the key parenting dimensions with
relevance to adolescent development. To understand the complexity of conceptualizing parenting in
relation to adolescent adjustment, this section first provides a brief historical description of research
on parenting and adolescent development. Next, we discuss the theory-driven approach to concep-
tualize parenting based on self-determination theory, arguing that this approach may help to resolve
some inconsistencies and conceptual problems in research on parenting adolescents.Throughout, we
discuss research examining associations between key dimensions of parenting style and important
areas of adolescent development, including well-being, social competence, emotion regulation, and
identity formation.
From a Configurational to a Dimensional Approach to Parenting
The Configurational Approach

Inspired by Baumrind’s (1971, 1991) seminal work, much research on parenting and adolescent
development focused on the tripartite distinction of authoritative, authoritarian, and permissive-
indulgent parenting styles. Authoritative parents make demands for maturity and set clear rules for
acceptable behavior.They do so within a climate of open communication and opportunity for nego-
tiation. Authoritarian parents insist on obedience and respect for authority, thereby attempting to
shape the adolescent’s behavior to a strict set of standards and leaving little room for the adolescent’s
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input. Permissive parents take an overly tolerant attitude toward the adolescent’s desires and behav-
iors. These parents fail to sufficiently restrict the adolescent’s behavior and leave too many decisions
up to the adolescent.
Maccoby and Martin (1983) proposed a model locating these parenting styles in a fourfold
scheme defined by two underlying dimensions: parental responsiveness (i.e., sensitivity, warmth, and
acceptance) and demandingness (i.e., control, consistent discipline, and high maturity demands).
The three parenting styles identified by Baumrind could be placed in this model, with authoritative
parenting involving a combination of high responsiveness and demandingness, with authoritarian
parenting involving demandingness in the absence of responsiveness, and with permissive parenting
involving low demandingness combined with high responsiveness. Furthermore, the fourfold scheme
identified a fourth parenting style, indifferent-uninvolved parenting. This parenting style, which is
characterized by a combination of low demandingness and low responsiveness, is typical of parents
who neglect their childrearing responsibilities or who even actively reject their child.
A key assumption in research based on Baumrind’s theorizing is that parenting styles represent
typologies or configurations, combinations of underlying parenting dimensions. Each parenting style
needs to be considered as a “Gestalt,” with combinations of parenting dimensions being “more and
different from the sum of their parts” (Baumrind, 1991, p. 63). As a result, effects of one parenting
dimension cannot be understood in isolation from the combined presence or absence of other
parenting dimensions. For instance, parental maturity demands are thought to have fundamentally
different repercussions for adolescent competence depending on whether these demands are com-
municated in a climate of parental responsiveness (as in the authoritative parenting style) or whether
they are conveyed in a cold fashion (as in the authoritarian parenting style).
Relying on this configurational approach to parenting, research systematically examined asso-
ciations between parenting style and a broad variety of adolescent outcomes, including self-worth,
problem behavior, academic performance, and social adjustment (see Steinberg, 2001, for an over-
view). Adolescents were typically classified into one of the four parenting styles based on their
ratings of parental responsiveness and demandingness. Using this methodology, Lamborn, Mounts,
Steinberg, and Dornbusch (1991) found that adolescents reared by authoritative parents reported the
most adaptive profile of adjustment and that adolescents perceiving parents as uninvolved, in contrast,
reported the most psychosocial problems (e.g., internalizing distress, school misconduct, and drug
use). Adolescents perceiving parents as authoritarian or permissive displayed adjustment patterns situ-
ated in between these two extremes.
Longitudinal research showed that the differences in psychosocial adjustment between adoles-
cents perceiving parents as authoritative or uninvolved even widened as adolescents grew older
(Steinberg, Lamborn, Darling, Mounts, and Dornbusch, 1994). The benefits of an authoritative par-
enting style were also demonstrated specifically with regard to adolescents’ engagement at school
and academic performance (Steinberg, Elmen, and Mounts, 1989; Steinberg, Lamborn, Dornbusch,
and Darling, 1992). Finally, research addressed the generalization of associations between parenting
style and adjustment to various populations, including juvenile offenders (Steinberg, Blatt-Eisengart,
and Cauffman, 2006) and adolescents with different socioeconomic, ethnic, and cultural backgrounds
(Steinberg, Mounts, Lamborn, and Dornbusch, 1991). Overall, authoritative parenting was found
to relate to better adolescent adjustment compared to the other parenting styles within and across
these more heterogeneous populations, with one notable exception. In African American and Asian
American adolescents, authoritarian parenting was related to equally high school performance as
authoritative parenting (Steinberg, Dornbusch, and Brown, 1992), a finding replicated sometimes
(but not consistently) with native Asian adolescents (e.g., Leung, Lau, and Lam, 1998). Based on a
meta-analysis examining effects of parenting in more than 150 samples, Pinquart and Kauser (2018)
concluded that, overall, there are more similarities than differences in associations between parenting
styles and adolescent adjustment across countries and ethnic backgrounds.
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Because of the developmental benefits associated with authoritative parenting, at the beginning
of this century Steinberg (2001) called for a translation of this scientific knowledge about adaptive
parenting to practice (e.g., through public health campaigns and prevention programs). This call for
the application of parenting research to policy and practice was laudable, but it raised the question
whether the field was ready for this move to practice. Although the configurational approach to par-
enting had its merits, it remained unclear whether the distinguished dimensions (i.e., responsiveness
and demandingness) sufficed to describe the variety of parenting styles comprehensively. Relatedly,
this approach did not provide detailed insight in the question of whether specific dimensions of par-
enting relate to specific domains of adolescent development.To address this question, research would
need to deconstruct the configurations into their constituting dimensions and examine their unique
associations with aspects of adolescent development. Such dimension-specific knowledge is impor-
tant for applied purposes, for instance to tailor advice to parents to the specific problems or chal-
lenges adolescents are faced with. Also, in the configurational approach, little attention was devoted
to the underlying psychological processes accounting for associations between parenting dimensions
and developmental outcomes. What is happening in the “black box” of adolescents’ functioning
when they are reared in a certain way and how do these processes relate to adolescent adjustment?
Such knowledge is again important from an applied perspective. With insight into the mechanisms
behind effects of parenting on adjustment, prevention and intervention efforts can focus on parental
behavior and on the underlying mechanisms. Because of these considerations, research on parenting
in adolescence gradually moved to a more dimensional approach.
Toward a Dimensional Approach

In the dimensional approach to parenting, the parenting typologies were deconstructed into their
constituent dimensions, and associations between these specific dimensions and distinct features of
adolescent development were examined (Forehand and Nousiainen, 1993; Gray and Steinberg, 1999;
Smetana, 2017). An important source of inspiration for this dimensional approach was Schaefer’s
(1965a) early research on parenting. Schaefer (1959, 1965a, 1965b) administered large numbers of
parenting-relevant items to adolescents and young adults and conducted factor analyses to examine
the internal structure of the parenting domain. Consistently, he arrived at a three-dimensional solu-
tion, distinguishing between acceptance versus rejection, psychological autonomy versus psychologi-
cal control, and firm control versus lax control. The first dimension was similar to the dimension of
responsiveness identified in Maccoby and Martin’s (1983) model of parenting typologies and was
most commonly referred to in the dimensional approach as “parental support” (sometimes also as
involvement, warmth, or acceptance). Parental support entails the degree to which parents interact
with adolescents in a warm and affectionate manner and at the same time are sensitive to the ado-
lescent’s distress and provide adequate support and comfort to alleviate distress (Davidov and Grusec,
2006).
Based on Schaefer’s work, scholars adopting a dimensional approach to parenting distinguished
between two dimensions within Maccoby and Martin’s dimension of demandingness (control). This
differentiation within the control dimension was referred to most often as a distinction between
behavioral control and psychological control (Steinberg, 1990), a distinction that received widespread
attention through the work of Barber and colleagues (Barber, 1996; Barber, Olsen, and Shagle, 1994).
Barber (1996) defined parental behavioral control as a set of parental behaviors aimed at regulat-
ing adolescents’ behavior and preventing misconduct (e.g., through rule setting, monitoring, and
consistent discipline). Behavioral control would provide guidance to adolescents and would create
a predictable home environment in which capacities for self-regulation of appropriate behavior can
develop (Barber et al., 1994). As such, this parenting dimension was expected to play a protective role
against disruptive behavior and externalizing problems. Barber (1996) distinguished this dimension
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from psychological control, which involves “socialization pressure that is nonresponsive to the child’s
emotional and psychological needs. . ., that stifles independent expression and autonomy. . ., and that
does not encourage interaction with others” (Barber, 1996, p. 3299). Key examples of psychologically
controlling practices include guilt induction, shaming, and love withdrawal. Because of the intru-
sive and manipulative nature of these strategies, psychologically controlling parenting was expected
to interfere with the development of a secure sense of worth and with healthy identity formation,
resulting in a susceptibility to psychopathology and to internalizing distress (Barber, 1996).
The notion that parental behavioral control would play an adaptive role in adolescent develop-
ment (protecting against externalizing problems in particular) and that psychological control would
contribute to risk for psychopathology (and internalizing distress in particular) received support
in Barber et al.’s (1994) initial studies. Behavioral control was related specifically and negatively to
adolescents’ externalizing problems, and psychological control was related positively to internaliz-
ing problems. These findings were replicated in several studies, some of which were longitudinal in
nature (see Pinquart, 2017, for a meta-analysis). In some of these studies psychologically controlling
parenting was related positively to externalizing problems as well (e.g., Barber, 1996; Pettit, Laird,
Dodge, Bates, and Criss, 2001). Apparently, psychologically controlling parenting has a robust emo-
tional cost for adolescents and, in some adolescents, additionally provokes a tendency to engage in
disruptive behavior (possibly in an attempt to defy parental authority; Brauer, 2017; Van Petegem,
Soenens,Vansteenkiste, and Beyers, 2015).
In addition to increasing risk for ill-being and problem behaviors, psychologically controlling
parenting undermines important resources for well-being and resilience, and it affects various areas
of adolescents’ psychosocial functioning. For instance, parental psychological control impairs adoles-
cents’ capacity for emotion regulation, as indexed by a higher likelihood of being overwhelmed by
negative emotions, such as anger and sadness (Cui, Morris, Criss, Houltberg, and Silk, 2014). It also
interferes with processes involved in healthy identity formation, a crucial developmental task in late
adolescence (Erikson, 1968). Adolescents experiencing parents as psychologically controlling have
a particularly difficult time making clear and personally meaningful commitments in life (Luyckx,
Soenens, Vansteenkiste, Goossens, and Berzonsky, 2007). Both these emotional and identity-related
difficulties possibly derive from the feeling of being pushed by parents in a certain direction, such
that adolescents become alienated from their emotions, personal preferences, and interests. In the
social realm, parental psychological control increases adolescents’ display of relational aggression in
interactions with peers (Kuppens, Laurent, Heyvaert, and Onghena, 2013; Loukas, Paulos, and Rob-
inson, 2005), with relational aggression in turn relating to lowered friendship quality and even loneli-
ness (Soenens, Vansteenkiste, Goossens, Duriez, and Niemiec, 2008). Relational aggression involves
manipulative social behavior aimed at damaging others’ social relationships and reputation (e.g.,
through threats of exclusion and gossip). Apparently, psychologically controlling practices serve a
modeling function, with adolescents exposed to manipulative parental behaviors being more inclined
to engage in similar manipulative practices in their relationships with peers and friends. Along simi-
lar lines, adolescents experiencing more maternal psychological control in early adolescence are
less able to constructively assert independence in peer relationships in middle adolescence (Hare,
Szwedo, Schad, and Allen, 2015). Thus, in addition to undermining adolescents’ personal well-being
and behavior, parental psychological control also hampers adolescents’ social adjustment (Oudekerk,
Allen, Hessel, and Molloy, 2015).
Barber’s initial work focused mainly on the distinction between behavioral control and psycho-
logical control, but subsequent studies also included assessments of parental support to determine
the unique and specific predictive value of each of the three parenting dimensions to adolescents’
development. In addition to confirming the differential associations of behavioral and psychological
control with adolescents’ problem behaviors, these studies found that perceived parental respon-
siveness was primarily predictive of adolescents’ positive psychosocial adjustment, as indicated by
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self-reliance and self-worth (Gray and Steinberg, 1999) and by social initiative and social competence
(Barber, Stolz, and Olsen, 2005).
Explanatory Processes
The “unpacking” of authoritative parenting yielded a more detailed picture of specific associations
between parenting dimensions and domains of adolescent development, and it created room for
an in-depth examination of intervening processes (i.e., mechanisms) behind associations between
parenting and adolescent adjustment. Such processes were examined mainly with regard to parental
responsiveness and psychological control.
One theory often invoked to explain effects of parenting on adolescents’ well-being and social
adjustment is attachment theory (Bowlby, 1980, 1988). In adolescence, quality of parenting is
assumed to continue to affect internal working models of interactions (Kobak and Sceery, 1988),
even though adolescents’ attachment representations show significant (yet relatively modest) conti-
nuity with internal working models developed in childhood (Fraley, 2002; Groh et al., 2014). Warm
and sensitive parenting would still contribute to secure parent–adolescent attachment representations
(involving the feeling of being lovable and expectations that parents are available and trustworthy),
with such representations being carried forward in relationships with others (e.g., teachers, friends,
and romantic partners). In contrast, psychologically controlling parenting would contribute to inse-
cure attachment representations and, more specifically, to the anticipation that other people’s love and
support are conditional, dependent on the degree to which one displays loyalty toward others (i.e.,
preoccupied or anxious attachment).
These attachment theory-based hypotheses have received support, with perceived parental
responsiveness being associated with secure attachment and with psychologically controlling par-
enting being related to insecure attachment and to preoccupied/anxious attachment in particular
(Allen, Grande, Tan, and Loeb, 2018; Doyle and Markiewicz, 2005; Karavasilis, Doyle, and Markie-
wicz, 2003). Booth-LaForce et al. (2014) even found that decreases in observed maternal responsive-
ness from toddlerhood to middle adolescence were predictive of a decrease in attachment security
between early childhood and late adolescence (see also Beijersbergen, Juffer, Bakermans-Kranenburg,
and van IJzendoorn, 2012). These findings suggest that changes in parenting from early childhood
to adolescence continue to matter for attachment representations in adolescence, and they under-
score the notion that both parenting and attachment representations are still susceptible to change
in adolescence. The attachment representations associated with parenting dimensions also have been
found to account for (i.e., mediate) associations between parenting and adolescent adjustment, with
attachment, for instance, playing an intervening role in differential associations of parental responsive-
ness and psychological control with adolescents’ internalizing problems (Brenning, Soenens, Braet,
and Bosmans, 2012).
Another psychological process involved in effects of parental responsiveness is empathy. Consistent
with several models of the developmental origins of empathy (Eisenberg and Valiente, 2002; Fabes,
Carlo, Kupanoff, and Laible, 1999), perceived parental responsiveness is related to adolescents’ capac-
ity for empathy (Laible and Carlo, 2004) and even predictive of over-time increases in adolescent
empathy (Miklikowska, Duriez, and Soenens, 2011). Adolescents who perceive parents as responsive
are willing and able to consider other people’s internal states and cognitions as well as feel with other
people’s emotions and express sympathy with those emotions. In turn, adolescent empathy has been
found to mediate associations between parental responsiveness and indicators of adolescent social
development, such as quality of friendships (Soenens, Duriez,Vansteenkiste, and Goossens, 2007).
Research also identified mediating processes with specific relevance to psychologically control-
ling parenting. Consistent with Barber’s (1996) claim that such parenting represents a threat to the
formation of a secure and positive sense of worth, studies have shown that parental psychological
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control is related to lower self-worth, with low self-worth in turn predicting internalizing distress
(Garber, Robinson, and Valentiner, 1997). In addition to predicting overall low levels of self-esteem,
parental psychological control also relates to a contingent and fragile type of self-esteem (Wouters,
Doumen, Germeijs, Colpin, and Verschueren, 2013). Such contingent self-esteem denotes a tendency
to let feelings about one’s worth as a person depend heavily on the attainment of standards for per-
formance in a given life domain (Deci and Ryan, 1995; Kernis, 2003). Much like psychologically
controlling parents provide or withdraw love based on the child’s ability to meet parentally imposed
standards, children of psychologically controlling parents have their own self-esteem hooked on the
attainment of standards for excellence. In turn, this fragile type of self-worth involves vulnerability
to psychopathology and to internalizing problems in particular (Heppner and Kernis, 2011;Van der
Kaap-Deeder et al., 2016).
The tendency of adolescents of psychologically controlling parents to develop a fragile sense of
worth is visible also in these adolescents’ vulnerability to develop self-critical perfectionism (Bleys,
Soenens, Boone, Claes,Vliegen, and Luyten, 2016; Kopala-Sibley and Zuroff, 2014; Soenens, Luyckx,
Vansteenkiste, Luyten, et al., 2008; Soenens, Vansteenkiste, Luyten, Duriez, and Goossens, 2005). In
line with developmental theories about the origins of perfectionism (Blatt, 1995; Flett, Hewitt, Oli-
ver, and MacDonald, 2002), studies show that adolescents who perceive parents as psychologically
controlling are more inclined to make their self-worth contingent on the attainment of very high (to
even unrealistic) standards and to engage in harsh self-scrutiny when failing to meet these standards.
In turn, self-critical perfectionism is a robust predictor of adolescent risk for psychopathology (Blatt,
2004; Luyten and Blatt, 2013).
Unresolved Issues in the Dimensional Approach

Although the dimensional approach to parenting yielded much additional insight into the specificity
and processes involved in effects of parenting on adolescent development, it also raised new questions
and unresolved issues. Two main issues involved (1) difficulties defining the high and low ends of
each parenting dimension and (2) the problematic conceptualization of parental behavioral control.
Although Schaefer had labeled both the positive and the negative sides of each parenting dimen-
sion in his early work, subsequent studies did not systematically address both sides. With the dimen-
sions of responsiveness and behavioral control, there was a tendency to focus on the positive (high)
ends of the continuum, to the neglect of research on the negative (low) ends of the continuum,
which were labeled by Schaefer (1965a) as rejection and laxness, respectively. In contrast, psycho-
logical control was situated by Schaefer (1965a) on a continuum ranging between psychological
autonomy and psychological control, and research largely focused on the negative (low) end of this
continuum, at the expense of research on parental support for autonomy. Hence, there was an imbal-
ance in the focus on either the positive or the negative side of these parenting dimensions.
This imbalance raised the question of whether low scores on one side of each parenting dimen-
sion can be equated with high scores on the other side of the dimension (and vice versa) or whether,
in contrast, each side of the dimension is better examined in its own right. For instance, some schol-
ars used only items tapping into psychologically controlling parenting to measure the dimension of
“psychological autonomy versus psychological control” and sometimes even used a reverse-scored
scale for parental psychological control as an indicator of parental support for autonomy. Other
scholars objected to this practice, arguing that an absence of psychological control does not neces-
sarily entail the presence of active parental efforts to support a child’s autonomy (Barber, Bean, and
Erickson, 2002; Silk, Morris, Kanaya, and Steinberg, 2003). This objection in turn raised the ques-
tion of exactly how parental support for autonomy should be defined and whether it has unique
relevance for adolescent development. Such conceptual questions are important from an applied
perspective. If active parental support for autonomy has unique predictive value for adolescents’
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adjustment (beyond an absence of psychological control), insight in the nature of parental support
for autonomy would be important for prevention and intervention efforts targeting parents’ ability
to strengthen adolescents’ resilience and well-being. Parents could then be advised to avoid engage-
ment in psychologically controlling practices and could be informed about ways in which to actively
contribute to adolescents’ experiences of autonomy.
Further, the construct of behavioral control remained conceptually problematic. Much like
the original term parental control, the term behavioral control is used to refer to a wide variety
of tactics to regulate and influence a child’s behavior. Such tactics include setting expectations,
attempting to monitor the child’s behavior, and enforcing rules through disciplinary measures. In
at least some studies, harsh and punitive parenting practices, such as verbal hostility and (physical)
punishment, have also been considered operational indicators of parental behavioral control (Jans-
sens et al., 2015; Nelson and Crick, 2002). Although these harsh tactics were then said to represent
“excessive” or “inappropriate” types of behavioral control, they were still considered instantiations
of parental behavioral control. Further, some well-known measures of behavioral control contain
items tapping into harsh and punitive parenting. For instance, the behavioral control scale from the
Child Report of Parent Behavior (CRPBI; Schaefer, 1965b), one of the most widely used meas-
ures of parenting, contains an item “My mother/father gives hard punishment.” This is remarkable
because, contrary to the notion of behavioral control as a protective parenting dimension, puni-
tive and harsh parenting practices are negatively related to adolescents’ self-regulatory capacities
(Brody and Ge, 2001) and positively related to problem behavior (Coie and Dodge, 1998; Pat-
terson, 1982; Prinzie, Onghena, and Hellinckx, 2006; Wang and Kenny, 2014). Thus, an important
problem with the concept of behavioral control is that it encompasses both potentially protective
parental strategies (such as communication of rules and supervision) as well as harmful strate-
gies (such as verbal hostility and harsh punishment). Because of this problem, the differentiation
between parental behavioral control and psychological control also risks getting blurred (Kakihara
and Tilton-Weaver, 2009; Smetana, 2017). That is, at high (or even excessive) levels of behavioral
control (resulting in a harsh parental approach), effects of behavioral control would be essentially
similar as effects of parental psychological control. In both cases, adolescents would experience
parents as intrusive and would be more likely to display emotional and behavioral problems (Kaki-
hara and Tilton-Weaver, 2009). Thus, the concept of behavioral control seems to have become an
umbrella term for a variety of parental behaviors with widely differing implications for adolescent
development (Grolnick and Pomerantz, 2009; Soenens and Vansteenkiste, 2010). The usage of
such an umbrella term is confusing not only in the scientific debate but also in the translation of
research findings to practice.
Summary
Although the dimensional approach to parenting advanced the field in important ways, essential
conceptual questions about the definition of the parenting dimensions and their significance for
adolescents’ adjustment remained unresolved. Possibly, these conceptual difficulties are due, at least
partly, to the bottom-up approach through which the dimensional approach to parenting initially
developed. Indeed, Schaefer’s work was mainly empirically driven rather than informed by an over-
arching theoretical framework. In recent years, a more top-down and theoretically driven approach
to parenting gained prominence in the literature. In particular, self-determination theory (Deci and
Ryan, 2000; Ryan and Deci, 2000, 2017; Vansteenkiste, Niemiec, and Soenens, 2010) increasingly
serves as a conceptual framework for research on parental socialization (Grolnick, 2003; Joussemet,
Landry, and Koestner, 2008; Soenens, Deci, and Vansteenkiste, 2017).We next present this perspective
on parenting and discuss how it helps to resolve some of the problems uncovered in the dimensional
approach to parenting.
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A Self-Determination Theory Perspective on Parenting Adolescents
Basic Psychological Needs and Adolescent Development

According to SDT, individuals have three innate, universal, and fundamental psychological needs, the
satisfaction of which is essential for individuals’ psychosocial adjustment: the needs for autonomy,
competence, and relatedness (Deci and Ryan, 2000; Ryan and Deci, 2000, 2017). Satisfaction of the
need for autonomy manifests in experiences of psychological freedom, authenticity, and ownership of
one’s behaviors and choices. When the need for competence is satisfied, people feel efficacious and able
to deal with challenges. The need for relatedness is satisfied when people feel loved and appreciated by
important others (e.g., parents, peers, and friends).
In SDT, psychological need satisfaction is considered essential for healthy psychological devel-
opment across the lifespan (Deci and Ryan, 2000; Vansteenkiste and Ryan, 2013). Consistent with
this strong claim, there is evidence that psychological need satisfaction and contextual support for
psychological needs matter from infancy (Bindman, Pomerantz, and Roisman, 2015; Frodi, Bridges,
and Grolnick, 1985) to old age (Kasser and Ryan, 1999). Research with adolescents demonstrates the
importance of psychological need satisfaction for adolescents’ psychosocial adjustment. For example,
while Veronneau, Koestner, and Abela (2005) showed that early adolescents’ general satisfaction of
each of the three needs was related to positive affect, and Milyavskaya et al. (2009) found that psycho-
logical need satisfaction within specific life domains with particular relevance to adolescents (i.e., in
friendships, at home, and at school) was also related to adolescents’ well-being. Further, psychological
need satisfaction is related negatively to ill-being, as indexed by depressive symptoms (Veronneau
et al., 2005) and non-suicidal self-injury, a type of self-harm quite common in adolescence (Emery,
Heath, and Mills, 2016).
Psychological need satisfaction also matters for adolescents’ approach to the process of identity
development. Luyckx,Vansteenkiste, Goossens, and Duriez (2009) found psychological need satisfac-
tion to foster adolescents’ thorough exploration of identity options and stronger commitments to
identity choices. Psychological need satisfaction would provide the energy to engage in an open and
flexible exploration of different lifestyles as well as the courage to make determined and personally
endorsed choices in life. Perhaps because of the beneficial role of psychological need satisfaction
in identity development, experiences of need satisfaction also contribute to adolescents’ sense of
authenticity (Thomaes, Sedikides, van den Bos, Hutteman, and Reijntjes, 2017). Adolescents expe-
riencing psychological need satisfaction feel that they can truly be themselves, a feeling of utmost
importance to adolescents’ well-being.
According to SDT, these three psychological needs are universally important (Deci and Ryan,
2000). Cross-cultural research increasingly confirms this claim, showing that psychological need
satisfaction relates positively to adolescents’ well-being and more adaptive psychosocial functioning
in nations across the globe (Ahmad, Vansteenkiste, and Soenens, 2013; Chen et al., 2015). In sum,
psychological need satisfaction is of key importance to adolescents’ overall well-being, to their resil-
ience against ill-being, and to their successful management of central developmental tasks such as
identity formation.
Recent work has also focused on the dark side of the psychological needs, that is on the role of
psychological need frustration in individuals’ development (Bartholomew et al., 2011). Psychological
need frustration manifests in experiences of feeling pressured to do things against one’s will (auton-
omy frustration), feelings of failure and inferiority (competence frustration), and feelings of loneliness
and social alienation (relatedness frustration). An important recent insight in SDT is that the dark
side of the psychological needs (i.e., need frustration) is distinct from the absence of the bright side
of these needs (i.e., need satisfaction). Need frustration ensues when psychological needs are actively
undermined rather than merely unsatisfied (Vansteenkiste and Ryan, 2013). For instance, experiences
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of exclusion by friends from social activities (i.e., relatedness need frustration) are worse than experi-
encing that friends are less friendly than usual (i.e., low relatedness satisfaction). Because experiences
of needs frustration indicate a stronger and more direct threat to individuals’ psychological needs
than an absence of need satisfaction, need frustration would render adolescents particularly vulner-
able to ill-being and psychopathology (Ryan, Deci, and Vansteenkiste, 2016). Research increasingly
supports the notion that psychological need frustration cannot be reduced to the deprivation of
psychological need satisfaction (Chen et al., 2015) as well as the prediction that need frustration is
particularly predictive of maladaptive developmental outcomes (Vansteenkiste and Ryan, 2013). For
instance, research with adolescents has shown that need frustration is related to physiological indica-
tors of stress (Bartholomew et al., 2011), internalizing distress (Cordeiro, Paixao, Lens, Lacante, and
Sheldon, 2016), and eating-disorder symptoms (Boone,Vansteenkiste, Soenens,Van der Kaap-Deeder,
and Verstuyf, 2014).
The Role of Parents in Adolescents’ Basic Psychological Needs

Research demonstrating the pivotal role of basic psychological needs in adolescents’ well-being and
adjustment offers important insights into the question of how parents can contribute to healthy ado-
lescent psychological development. Indeed, SDT argues that parents, in interaction with other key
individuals (i.e., teachers, peers, and friends), play a crucial role in the nurturing versus thwarting of
adolescents’ psychological needs. Specifically, SDT distinguishes between three central dimensions of
parenting style, with each dimension corresponding largely (but not uniquely) to one of the three
needs (Grolnick, Deci, and Ryan, 1997; Joussemet, Landry, and Koestner, 2008). Involvement primar-
ily nurtures the need for relatedness and involves parenting high on respect, warmth, and sensitivity.
Much like the concept of responsiveness in the dimensional approach to parenting, it is characteristic
of parents who express affection toward adolescents and who provide adequate support when ado-
lescents experience distress. Structure is most relevant to the need for competence. Parents high on
structure offer clear expectations for adequate behavior, provide help when needed, and give posi-
tive, process-oriented feedback to adolescents. Finally, autonomy support is essentially about taking the
adolescent’s frame of reference and creating conditions for adolescents to experience psychological
freedom. Parental autonomy support entails acknowledging the adolescent’s perspective, providing
choices, encouraging initiative, and giving a meaningful rationale when introducing rules. Each of
these parenting dimensions is mainly involved in one of the psychological needs, but there is not a
perfect one-to-one relation between the parenting dimensions and the needs (Grolnick et al., 1997;
Ryan and Deci, 2017;Vansteenkiste, Niemiec, and Soenens, 2010). Each parenting dimension is rel-
evant to some extent for each of the three needs. For instance, when parents allow an adolescent to
choose between different study choices (thereby being autonomy supportive), an adolescent is likely
to experience a sense of autonomy, and parental confidence in the ability to make a sound choice
(i.e., competence), and appreciation of who one is as a person (i.e., relatedness).
There are clear correspondences between the three parental dimensions proposed in the SDT-
based literature and the three dimensions identified in the broader developmental literature (Gray
and Steinberg, 1999; Schaefer, 1965a). This convergence is striking because it emerged from two
different approaches to chart the domain of parenting, that is a mainly top-down and theory-driven
approach (i.e., the SDT-based literature) and a more inductive and bottom-up approach (i.e., the
broader developmental literature on parenting). In spite of these differences in approach, both litera-
tures arrived roughly at a similar set of dimensions, with one dimension being about love and care,
a second dimension being about parental guidance and regulation, and a third dimension dealing
essentially with autonomy (Barber et al., 2005). This convergence strengthens confidence that these
dimensions are fundamental to describe the quality of parenting style. Still, there are also important
differences between the two approaches, with some differences being helpful to address unresolved
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issues in the dimensional approach to parenting described above, such as the difficulty to conceptual-
ize a counterpart for each of the three parenting dimensions and the problems of clearly defining
parental (behavioral) control.
Differentiating Between the Bright and Dark Sides of Parenting

Recent theorizing in SDT underscores the importance of differentiating between need-supportive
parenting (i.e., the bright side of parenting) and need-thwarting parenting (i.e., the dark side of par-
enting). Much like psychological need frustration cannot be equated with a lack of need satisfaction,
parenting that actively thwarts adolescents’ psychological needs is distinct from parenting character-
ized by low support for psychological needs (Vansteenkiste and Ryan, 2013). Need-thwarting par-
enting involves a stronger and more direct undermining of adolescents’ needs than the mere absence
of need-supportive parenting. To illustrate, when parents rebuff or ignore adolescents’ calls for com-
fort and emotional support they thwart adolescents’ need for relatedness in a more direct fashion
compared to when parents merely display little affection and warmth in parent–adolescent interac-
tions (which involves low relatedness need support). Similarly, critical and humiliating comments
represent a stronger and more direct threat to adolescents’ need for competence than low frequency
of parental positive feedback (which involves low competence need support). Conversely, parental
need thwarting involves low parental support for adolescents’ psychological needs. When parents
undermine adolescents’ psychological needs experiences, by definition they are low on need support.
Thus, there is an asymmetrical relation between parental need support and parental need thwarting,
with low support not necessarily involving need thwarting but with need thwarting implying low
support (Vansteenkiste and Ryan, 2013).
Accordingly, SDT formulates a need-thwarting dark side for each of the three need-supportive
concepts (Joussemet et al., 2008; Soenens et al., 2017), as can be seen in Figure 4.1. Rejection primar-
ily thwarts the need for relatedness and includes parental behaviors that are cold, neglectful, and
insensitive to adolescents’ calls for support. Chaos involves thwarting the need for competence and
involves parenting that is unpredictable and/or highly lenient (i.e., an absence of rules and limit set-
ting). When parents are unpredictable or unclear about their expectations for adolescents’ behavior
PARENTAL NEED SUPPORT PARENTAL NEED THWARTING
Need for Relatedness

Involvement Rejection
Warm, supportive, and sensitive parenting Cold, aloof, neglectful parenting
Need for Competence

Structure Chaos
Clear expectations, help and assistance, and Unpredictable parenting, laissez-faire, or even parental
positive, process-oriented feedback criticism
Need for Autonomy

Autonomy support Controllingness
Acknowledgment of adolescent’s perspective, Pressuring, manipulative, and domineering parenting
encouragement of initiative, provision of choice,
and formulation of relevant rationale
Figure 4.1 The Self-Determination Theory (SDT) perspective on parenting
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and goals, it is very difficult (if not impossible) for adolescents to build a sense of competence in the
process leading toward meeting those expectations. Further, parents can thwart adolescents’ need
for competence in an even more direct fashion by being highly critical of adolescents’ accomplish-
ments and performance. Controlling parenting involves parenting that is domineering and pressuring in
nature. Parents high on controllingness impose their own agenda and engage in pressuring, intrusive,
and manipulative practices to enforce their agenda.
Research with adolescents increasingly supports this conceptual differentiation between need-
supportive (bright) and need-thwarting (dark) sides of parenting. Skinner, Johnson, and Snyder
(2005) administered measures of each of the six parental concepts depicted in Figure 4.1 to both
parents and adolescents. They obtained clear evidence for a differentiation between need-supportive
and need-thwarting concepts relevant to each need. Hence, rather than representing the parent-
ing domain in terms of three bipolar dimensions (contrasting parental involvement with rejection,
structure with chaos, and autonomy support with controlling parenting), distinctions among the six
parenting concepts depicted in Figure 4.1 were found to be more valid.
The distinction between need-supportive and need-thwarting parenting is important, because these
two sides of the parenting process are said to have differential implications for adolescent development,
with need-supportive parenting primarily fostering positive adjustment and need-thwarting parenting
creating risk for maladjustment (Vansteenkiste and Ryan, 2013). Consistent with this prediction, need-
supportive parenting relates most strongly to positive developmental outcomes in adolescents (e.g.,
well-being, academic competence, and social adjustment) and need-thwarting parenting relates most
strongly to maladjustment (e.g., ill-being and externalizing problem behaviors) (Cordeiro, Paixao, Lens,
Lacante, and Luyckx, 2018; Costa, Soenens, Gugliandolo, Cuzzocrea, and Larcan, 2015; Costa, Cuz-
zocrea, Gugliandolo, and Larcan, 2016; Mabbe, Soenens,Vansteenkiste, and Van Leeuwen, 2016). These
findings suggest that, to understand fully the role of parenting in adolescent development, it is impor-
tant to attend to both the bright and dark sides of parenting. Rather than assuming that an absence of
need-supportive parenting equals the presence of need-thwarting parenting, need-thwarting parenting
deserves to be studied in its own right.These findings also have implications for practice. A key implica-
tion is that interventions targeting parenting do well to focus both on a reduction of need-thwarting
parenting (e.g., by informing parents about the nature and consequences of such parenting) and on the
promotion of need-supportive practices (e.g., by explaining, demonstrating, and providing exercises for
good practices).To really strengthen parents’ role in fostering adolescents’ growth and resilience, it is of
key importance to inform and teach parents about the benefits of a need-supportive approach (rather
than to focus mainly on the pitfalls associated with need-thwarting parenting).
In summary, SDT is more explicit than the general developmental literature on the dimensional
approach to parenting about the need to differentiate systematically between need-supportive and
need-thwarting features of parenting (i.e., the bright and dark sides of parenting, respectively). In
addition, the SDT-based conceptual model of parenting allows for an alternative and refreshing view
of more specific parenting concepts strongly relevant to adolescent development and concepts of
parental control, structure, and autonomy support in particular.
Further Clarification of the Concept of Parental (Behavioral) Control

Considered from the SDT perspective, much of the confusion surrounding the concept of behavioral
control stems from the ambiguous meaning of the term “control” itself (Grolnick, 2003; Grolnick
and Pomerantz, 2009; Soenens and Vansteenkiste, 2010). Control may refer to parents’ regulation and
supervision of adolescents’ behavior, and it may refer to parents’ use of a pressuring, manipulative, and
coercive rearing style. To resolve this problem, Grolnick and Pomerantz (2009) suggested using the
term “controlling parenting” only in reference to parenting that is pressuring, intrusive, domineer-
ing, and manipulative in nature. Rather than using the term “parental control” to refer to potentially
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adaptive parental practices (e.g., rules and supervision) and more maladaptive parental practices (e.g.,
harsh punishment), in SDT the concept of controlling parenting is reserved for parenting that is pres-
suring in nature. Because this type of parenting thwarts basic psychological needs and the need for
autonomy in particular, it is supposed to increase risk for adolescent maladjustment.
The concept of controlling parenting is then differentiated from the concept of parental structure,
which refers to parental behaviors aimed at facilitating adolescents’ sense of competence (Grolnick
and Pomerantz, 2009; Soenens and Vansteenkiste, 2010). Among other strategies, parental structure
involves the communication of clear and reasonable expectations and adequate supervision of adoles-
cents’ behavior in relation to these expectations (i.e., the more adaptive features of parental behavioral
control). Such transparent parental communication about and monitoring of expectations is a minimal
prerequisite for adolescents to be aware of parentally and socially valued standards and to begin build-
ing a sense of competence in meeting those standards. Importantly, harsh parental strategies, such as
(threats of) punishment and verbal hostility (i.e., the more maladaptive features of behavioral control),
would not be considered examples of structure because those strategies do not foster a sense of com-
petence and even undermine adolescents’ feelings of worth. Instead, these strategies would be con-
sidered as controlling (i.e., pressuring and intrusive) strategies much like psychologically controlling
strategies. Thus, the concept of controlling parenting in SDT encompasses both blunt and externally
pressuring parental behaviors (such as verbal or physical threats and withdrawal of privileges) and more
subtle, insidious, and internally pressuring strategies (such as guilt induction and love withdrawal).
Indeed, SDT distinguishes between two categories of controlling parenting, internally controlling
and externally controlling parenting (Soenens and Vansteenkiste, 2010). Internally controlling paren-
tal behaviors appeal to internally pressuring feelings in adolescents’ own functioning, such as feelings
of guilt, shame, loyalty, and separation anxiety. Guilt induction and love withdrawal represent key
examples of internally controlling parenting because such practices make adolescents feel pressured
“from within” to meet parental expectations and standards. Failure to meet parental standards would
come with feelings of failure, disappointment, and anxiety about losing parental approval. These
practices have in common that they reflect a conditionally approving parental attitude (Assor, Roth,
and Deci, 2004). Adolescents can earn parental approval and respect by meeting parental standards,
yet they can also lose affection when they fail to meet these standards. As a consequence, adolescents
feel internally conflicted and trapped between a desire to escape pressuring parental demands and
a desire to gain parental approval. Although this internal conflict may elicit short-term compliance
with parental demands, it also evokes resentment vis-à-vis parents and it has an emotional cost in
terms of internalizing distress (Assor et al., 2004; Soenens et al., 2005). In the long run, internally
controlling parenting may even elicit adolescent reactance against parental standards and subsequent
disruptive behavior (Van Petegem, Soenens, Vansteenkiste, and Beyers, 2015). The concept of inter-
nally controlling parenting is largely consistent with the concept of parental psychological control,
the key manifestations of which (such as guilt induction, shaming, and love withdrawal) indeed are
internally pressuring in nature (Soenens and Vansteenkiste, 2010).Thus, the evidence linking psycho-
logically controlling parenting to adolescents’ internalizing problems and sometimes also external-
izing problems (see Barber and Xia, 2013) is consistent with the SDT-based argument that this type
of parenting thwarts adolescents’ needs, thereby creating risk for emotional difficulties and in some
case even provoking defiance against parental authority.
In addition to using internally controlling tactics, parents can engage in more externally control-
ling practices, thereby pressuring adolescents “from the outside” (Soenens and Vansteenkiste, 2010).
Internally controlling parenting can be subtle and insidious (with parents, for instance, expressing
disappointment nonverbally), whereas externally controlling parenting is typically more explicit and
blunt. It involves practices such as taking away privileges, threats of punishment, and actual engage-
ment in verbal or physical coercion.With such parenting, adolescents are likely to feel pressured from
without to comply with parental expectations, resulting in an inclination to react against parental
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rules for conduct and heightened risk for externalizing problems. Many studies have demonstrated
effects of externally controlling parenting, and physical punishment in particular, on adolescent
externalizing problems, such as alcohol abuse (Brody and Ge, 2001), antisocial behavior (Burnette,
Oshri, Lax, Richards, and Ragbeer, 2012), and delinquency (Bender et al., 2007). Thus, in SDT
internally controlling parenting (which is akin to parental psychological control) and externally con-
trolling parenting are considered instantiations of a need-thwarting parental style and of autonomy
need thwarting in particular.
The two types of controlling parenting may have somewhat differential implications for ado-
lescent maladjustment (Soenens and Vansteenkiste, 2010). For instance, internally controlling par-
enting may elicit at least some short-term behavioral compliance, but it is likely to come at an
emotional cost because of the internal conflict it creates. In contrast, adolescents may be more likely
to directly oppose externally controlling parenting, resulting in an immediate lack of compliance
and a greater likelihood of externalizing problems. However, the manifestation of developmen-
tal problems associated with controlling parenting probably depends on various factors, including
adolescents’ personality-based and temperamental characteristics (Kiff, Lengua, and Zalewski, 2011;
Mabbe et al., 2016). In addition, internally controlling and externally controlling parenting prac-
tices often co-occur, rendering it difficult to fully tease apart effects of the two types of controlling
parenting (Soenens and Vansteenkiste, 2010).
These reservations notwithstanding, from the SDT perspective it is conceptually most accurate
and parsimonious to group together both psychologically controlling practices (e.g., guilt induction
and love withdrawal) and harsh behavioral practices (e.g., verbal hostility and physical punishment)
under the umbrella of controlling parenting (defined as parenting that is pressuring in nature) because
these practices have in common that they thwart adolescents’ psychological needs and increase the
risk for maladjustment. By grouping these practices together (instead of splitting them up in the rela-
tively blurry distinction between psychological and behavioral control), they can also be differenti-
ated more clearly from adaptive parental attempts to regulate adolescents’ behavior and to strengthen
adolescents’ competence. Considered from the SDT perspective, the latter parental behaviors belong
to the concept of structure, a concept which has strong potential to contribute to a fuller understand-
ing of the role of parents in adolescent development (Grolnick and Pomerantz, 2009).
There Is More to Structure Than Rule Setting and Supervision

The concept of structure shares with the concept of behavioral control an emphasis on clear and
consistent parental communication about rules and expectations. However, there is more to structure
than clear parental rule setting and attempts to follow-up on rules (e.g., through monitoring; Crouter
and Head, 2002; Dishion and McMahon, 1998). Structure is essentially about assisting adolescents in
building a sense of competence. Parents high on structure try to enable the development of adoles-
cents’ skills and do so not only with respect to adolescents’ ability to control impulses and follow rules
but also with respect to many other activities involving competence (e.g., school-related work, sports,
leisure activities, and social interaction; Reeve, 2006; Vansteenkiste and Soenens, 2015). Specifically,
parents who provide structure try to provide a level of support and help that is attuned to the ado-
lescent’s skill level. Structure can be contrasted with chaos, which is characteristic of parents who do
not match their level and type of involvement to what the adolescents need.They provide unclear or
confusing guidelines for adequate behavior, and they are inconsistent in the feedback they provide.
They give unwanted help and irrelevant information, and, at times, they may become explicitly criti-
cal of the adolescents’ behavior and achievements (Skinner et al., 2005).
Parents can provide structure before, during, and after adolescents’ engagement in an activity
(Reeve, 2006; Soenens et al., 2017;Vansteenkiste and Soenens, 2015). Prior to adolescents’ engaging
in an activity (e.g., going out to a party, playing a soccer game, or preparing for exams), parents high
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on structure provide clear guidelines (pointing out for instance at what time to be back home) and
help adolescents to set goals (discussing for instance what the adolescent hopes to achieve in terms of
exam results). Ideally, this is done with room for negotiation, asking adolescents whether they con-
sent with the guidelines and what they themselves think about the goals for a certain activity. Also, it
is important for parents to avoid providing redundant and unnecessary guidelines and expectations,
which may provoke irritation and possibly defiance in adolescents.
Parents can also provide structure during the activities by monitoring adolescents’ behaviors and
progress in a process-oriented fashion. When parents and adolescents have agreed to a rule, parents
high on structure are consistent in following up on the rule. They signal to adolescents in conse-
quent ways when agreements are not respected. Further, parents high on structure provide adequate
help during adolescents’ engagement in tasks, thereby being available in case help is needed. When
their help is solicited, parents give advice or help to break down the task (e.g., making an exam
schedule) into smaller units to make the task more feasible to the adolescents. In many cases, there
is a thin line between providing appropriate and inappropriate help—that is, providing informa-
tion and instruction—with inappropriate help being unwanted or excessive, such that the parents
are essentially taking over the task and precluding a possible learning opportunity for adolescents.
Because of their increased desire for independence, adolescents are highly sensitive to the nature
and amount of help provided, with inappropriate parental involvement eliciting feelings of incom-
petence and/or anger (Pomerantz and Eaton, 2000).
Finally, providing structure also entails giving informational feedback during and after the activity.
Ideally, this feedback is process-oriented and focused on the adolescents’ efforts and strategies (e.g.,
“You did a good job defending on your opponent.”) rather than on general and personal qualities
(e.g., “You are such a star player, the next Cristiano Ronaldo.”; Kamins and Dweck, 1999). Even
when adolescents do not do well at a task or fail to meet a rule, parents can provide structure. Instead
of giving their own take on the situation right away, parents high on structure would promote self-
reflection. They would invite adolescents to reflect on what happened, and perhaps ask adolescents
whether they see different ways they might try the task next time. By doing so, adolescents are able
to identify their own strengths and weaknesses.
In summary, there is more to structure than rule setting and the communication of expectations.
Clear expectations and rules are necessary, but not sufficient, conditions for adolescents to develop
a sense of competence (Grolnick, 2003; Joussemet et al., 2008; Soenens et al., 2017). Adolescents
are more likely to feel competent when parents also provide adequate help, give process-oriented
feedback, and assist adolescents in reflecting on their behavior and learning process. Further, struc-
ture is relevant to not only rules and appropriate behavior but to activities that involve learning and
competence (e.g., homework) and that appeal to adolescents’ interests and passions (e.g., hobbies).
As such, the implications of parental structure for adolescents’ development go beyond the preven-
tion of inappropriate behavior (the developmental outcome typically focused upon in research on
parental behavioral control). Structure is about the proactive promotion of competence and about
strengthening skills in various areas of adolescents’ lives.
The concept of parental structure has been examined mainly in the academic domain, with stud-
ies showing that structure is related positively to adolescents’ experiences of competence in school
and to subsequent academic engagement and performance (Farkas and Grolnick, 2010; Grolnick,
Raftery-Helmer, Flamm, Marbell, and Cardemil, 2015). Parental structure also plays a protective role
when adolescents are confronted with academic failure (Raftery-Helmer and Grolnick, 2016), with
structure relating to more adaptive coping responses after failure, such as problem solving and adap-
tive help seeking.
However, structure is relevant in other domains as well, with structure playing an even more
pronounced role in life domains and activities that are relatively new or unfamiliar to adolescents.
Using interviews with parents of early adolescents, Grolnick et al. (2014) showed that parents were
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more likely to provide structure in the domain of unsupervised activities (e.g., spending time with
peers outside the home) relative to other domains (e.g., academics and household chores). Probably
because these unsupervised activities are relatively new to early adolescents, parents feel that their
children need the most guidance and help in this unfamiliar domain. Moreover, associations between
structure and feelings of competence are most pronounced in this unfamiliar domain, indicating that
the provision of structure is most needed and effective when adolescents have little experience with
activities. Similar results were obtained asking parents and early adolescents to discuss both a neutral
topic of their choice (e.g., what to do for summer vacation) and the topic of sex, which represents a
more sensitive and unfamiliar topic at this age (Mauras, Grolnick, and Friendly, 2013). Again, parental
structure was found to relate most strongly to positive outcomes (e.g., feelings of relatedness and sat-
isfaction with the conversation) in the unfamiliar domain of sexuality. Laird (2014) found that novice
adolescent car drivers easily accept parental guidance regarding driving, which further demonstrates
the adaptive role of parental structure when adolescents have little expertise or experience with an
activity. Overall, these findings suggest that parents’ provision of structure is relevant in different life
domains and most of all in life areas in which adolescents are still novices.
The Pivotal Role of Parental Autonomy in Adolescent Development

An absence of (psychologically) controlling parenting does not necessarily imply that parents actively
encourage and support adolescents’ autonomy (Barber et al., 2002; Silk, Morris, et al., 2003). Because
the development of autonomy is so central to adolescent development, it is important to be clear
about what it means for parents to facilitate autonomy. SDT is a useful framework in this regard
because autonomy is at the heart of this theory (Ryan and Deci, 2017).
Autonomy-supportive parents essentially focus on their adolescent’s perspective (Grolnick, 2003;
Soenens et al., 2017). Rather than prioritizing their own personal agenda, these parents are interested
in and try to connect to the adolescent’s point of view (Deci, Eghrari, Patrick, and Leone, 1994;
Mageau, Sherman, Grusec, Koestner, and Bureau, 2017). Also, they unconditionally accept the ado-
lescent as s/he is so the adolescent feels able to be who s/he wants to be (Roth, Kanat-Maymon, and
Assor, 2016). Against the background of this general orientation, autonomy-supportive parents allow
input from their adolescent and encourage dialogue. They leave room for negotiation, offer choices,
and encourage initiative (Soenens, Vansteenkiste, et al., 2007). Such a participatory approach allows
adolescents to explore possibilities and to have a say in important decisions. Of course, parents cannot
always allow their adolescent to make decisions freely. Sometimes they introduce rules that set limits
to the adolescent’s behavior. But even in these instances parents can be autonomy supportive by pro-
viding a meaningful rationale and by hearing the adolescent’s voice. Rather than simply imposing a
rule, they give explanations that are relevant to the adolescent. Doing so helps adolescents internalize
the personal importance of the rule (Deci et al., 1994; Grolnick et al., 1997).
Parental support for autonomy also entails an open attitude toward adolescents’ negative emo-
tions, oppositional behaviors, and diverging opinions. Rather than minimizing such experiences or
behaviors, autonomy-supportive parents show an active interest in these “deviant” feelings, behaviors,
and opinions. Rather than perceiving them as irritating, they curiously explore their meaning to fully
understand the adolescent’s perspective (Vansteenkiste and Soenens, 2015). For instance, even when
adolescents defy parental rules, autonomy-supportive parents pay attention to adolescents’ reasons
for doing so and to the feelings that elicited reactance. Having heard the adolescent’s opinions, they
acknowledge the adolescent’s perspective and perhaps flexibly adjust the rule or, if the rule cannot be
changed, explain why the rule is meaningful and needs to be maintained.
Consistent with SDT, autonomy-supportive parenting predicts psychological need satisfaction
(and satisfaction of the need for autonomy in particular) and subsequent well-being in adolescents
(Costa et al., 2016; Grolnick, Levitt, and Caruso, 2018; Joussemet et al., 2008; Lekes, Gingras, Philippe,
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Koestner, and Fang, 2010). Thus, adolescents who experience parents as autonomy supportive have
more secure self-worth, experience more positive affect, and are more energetic because they feel
that they can be themselves and that their actions are self-chosen. Parental autonomy support is also
beneficial for the quality of the parent–adolescent relationship itself, as it fosters more open, honest,
and satisfying conversations (Bureau and Mageau, 2014; Mauras et al., 2013; Roth, Ron, and Benita,
2009; Wuyts,Vansteenkiste, Soenens, and Van Petegem, 2018).
Autonomy-supportive parenting also relates positively to adolescent adjustment in specific life
domains. For instance, this type of parenting is related positively to academic performance (Vasquez,
Patall, Fong, Corrigan, and Pine, 2016), with this association being accounted for by experiences
of competence and by high-quality (autonomous) motivation (Grolnick, Kurowski, Dunlap, and
Hevey, 2000; Grolnick, Ryan, and Deci, 1991; Soenens and Vansteenkiste, 2005;Vansteenkiste, Zhou,
Lens, and Soenens, 2005). That is, perceived parental autonomy support is beneficial for adolescents’
engagement and performance because it contributes to a sense of confidence and control over aca-
demic outcomes and because adolescents find an interest in their study material and see the personal
relevance of their efforts. Similarly, autonomy-supportive parenting is related to high-quality moti-
vation and adjustment in other domains of adolescents’ life, such as sports (Gagné, Ryan, and Barg-
mann, 2003) and friendships (Soenens and Vansteenkiste, 2005). Overall, adolescents who perceive
their parents as autonomy supportive adjust better to a variety of contexts because in these contexts
they engage in activities with a sense of volition.They are involved in activities because they want to
rather than because they have to.
Further, autonomy-supportive parenting contributes to developmental skills and processes with
crucial importance in adolescence, such as emotion regulation and identity development. Autonomy-
supportive parenting predicts adolescents’ integrative emotion regulation, which refers to the capac-
ity to attend to emotions in an accepting and nonjudgmental fashion and to learn from emotions
for future behavior (Brenning, Soenens,Van Petegem, and Vansteenkiste, 2015; Roth, Assor, Niemiec,
Ryan, and Deci, 2009). Similarly, autonomy-supportive parenting creates room for adolescents to
become aware of and actively explore identity-relevant self-attributes (Ryan and Deci, 2017). Thus,
autonomy-supportive parenting would contribute to the formation of an inner compass, which
represents an integrated set of personal values, preferences, and interests (Assor, 2018). This inner
compass serves as a basis for the selection and regulation of authentic identity commitments, with
such authentic identity choices giving rise to feelings of self-congruence and self-acceptance. Con-
sistent with this reasoning, autonomy-supportive parenting relates to adolescents’ experiences of
self-congruence (i.e., feelings that behaviors reflect deeply endorsed values and interests; Yu, Assor,
and Liu, 2015) and to stronger convergence between adolescents’ implicit and explicit attitudes
toward sexuality (with such convergence signaling more self-acceptance; Weinstein et al., 2012). In
brief, autonomy-supportive parenting contributes to an open, curious, and nondefensive orientation
toward emotional experiences and toward identity-relevant personal attributes, resulting in a strong
sense of adolescent authenticity and self-acceptance.
Two additional clarifications need to be made regarding the meaning of autonomy-supportive
parenting. First, autonomy-supportive parenting is not synonymous with parental promotion of inde-
pendence (Ryan et al., 2016; Soenens, Vansteenkiste, et al., 2007; Soenens et al., 2018). Autonomy-
supportive parents do not necessarily encourage adolescents to be self-reliant, let alone leave
adolescents to their own devices. Indeed, parents can be autonomy supportive also in situations
where adolescents turn to parents for advice and input (i.e., situations of dependence). In such
situations of dependence, parents can be autonomy supportive by recognizing adolescents’ need for
parental guidance and by actually offering advice, thereby still providing options and asking about
the adolescent’s point of view. Conversely, parents who promote independence do not necessarily
do so in an autonomy-supportive fashion (i.e., in a way supporting adolescents’ sense of volition)
and can even do so in a controlling fashion. Indeed, parents can also insist on adolescent self-reliance
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and convey the importance of independence using pressuring language (e.g., pointing out that an
adolescent, at his/her age, should be able to stand on his/her own two feet).Thus, for parents to really
support adolescents’ need for autonomy (defined as the need to experience authenticity and voli-
tion), it is more important to take an adolescent’s perspective than to merely highlight the value of
acting independently.
Second, autonomy support should not be equated with a permissive (“laissez-faire”) approach.
That is, parents can be autonomy supportive when setting rules and when communicating expecta-
tions for behavior (Grolnick and Pomerantz, 2009).They can do so by providing a meaningful ration-
ale when introducing guidelines and, if needed, by showing understanding for adolescents’ negative
feelings or objections associated with the guidelines. In fact, this combination of clear guidelines (as
an aspect of structure) and autonomy support is considered ideal for adolescents to accept and under-
stand the personal relevance of guidelines (Soenens and Vansteenkiste, 2010). Indeed, adolescents of
autonomy-supportive parents display deeper internalization of parental rules and values (Roth, 2008;
Vansteenkiste, Soenens,Van Petegem, and Duriez, 2014) and better subsequent behavioral adjustment
(Sher-Censor, Assor, and Oppenheim, 2015). With an autonomy-supportive parental approach, ado-
lescents follow rules and adopt values because they accept and understand them rather than because
they feel compelled to do so, resulting in more wholehearted and persistent adherence to guidelines
for appropriate behavior.
Conclusion
Although the search for a comprehensive framework to conceptualize parenting in relation to ado-
lescent development is complicated and remains ongoing, there is consensus that the quality of
parents’ general parenting style relates in important and meaningful ways to adolescents’ psycho-
social adjustment (Collins et al., 2000; Darling and Steinberg, 1993). Authoritative parenting and
the dimensions representing such parenting (i.e., high warmth, adequate regulation of adolescent
behavior, and low engagement in psychologically controlling practices) are systematically predictive
of adolescent well-being and resilience (Steinberg, 2001). Moreover, the field witnesses a striking
and promising convergence between bottom-up and top-down approaches to the conceptualization
of parenting, with self-determination theory increasingly serving as a theory-driven framework for
understanding effects of parenting on adolescent adjustment. These trends in research on parenting
in adolescence are displayed graphically in Figure 4.2.
SDT essentially represents a needs-based approach to the conceptualization of parenting (Jousse-
met et al., 2008; Soenens et al., 2017), meaning that the nature of parenting dimensions as well
as their repercussions for adolescent development are understood through the lens of adolescents’
psychological needs for autonomy, competence, and relatedness. Such a needs-based approach has
two important advantages. First, it allows for clear and a priori predictions about how parental
behavior affects adolescent adjustment, with adolescents’ needs-based experiences serving as a cri-
terion to evaluate the effectiveness of parental behavior. Importantly, this needs-based criterion for
understanding effects of parenting has led to a distinction between parental structure (i.e., parental
behaviors aimed at supporting the need for competence) and controlling parenting (i.e., behaviors
that thwart adolescents’ need for autonomy). Second, because the basic psychological needs assumed
in SDT have both a bright and a dark side and help to explain both adolescent resilience and vul-
nerability (Vansteenkiste and Ryan, 2013), the needs-based approach to parenting allows for more
balanced attention to both growth-promoting and dysfunctional dimensions of parenting.
Because the three basic psychological needs are considered universally important (Deci and Ryan,
2000; Ryan and Deci, 2017), it is assumed that all adolescents benefit when they perceive par-
ents as supporting these needs. Conversely, perceptions of parents as thwarting these needs would
be universally detrimental to adolescents’ development. Consistent with these assumptions, there is
140
THE CONFIGURATIONAL THE DIMENSIONAL THE NEEDS-BASED APPROACH (SDT)
APPROACH APPROACH
Discerns four parenting Examines separate effects of Evaluates the effectiveness of parenting on the basis of
typologies on the basis of two three parenting dimensions adolescents’ psychological needs, thereby
underlying dimensions distinguishing between the bright and darks sides of
parenting
Need-Supportive Need-Thwarting
Parenting Parenting
RESPONSIVENESS RESPONSIVENESS INVOLVEMENT REJECTION
BEHAVIORAL CONTROL STRUCTURE CHAOS
- Rule Setting and - Rule Setting and
Monitoring Monitoring
- Excessive and Harsh - Other Strategies to
Control Foster Competence
(e.g., Process-
DEMANDINGNESS oriented Feedback)
AUTONOMY-SUPPORT CONTROLLING
PARENTING
- Externally
Pressuring
PSYCHOLOGICAL
CONTROL - Internally
Pressuring
Figure 4.2 Trends in research on parenting adolescents

Bart Soenens et al.
increasing evidence that perceived autonomy-supportive parenting is related to beneficial develop-

mental outcomes in countries across the globe and that associations between perceived controlling
parenting and adolescent maladjustment also generalize across countries and cultures (Barber et al.,
2005; Cheung, Pomerantz, Wang, and Qu, 2016; Chirkov, Ryan, and Willness, 2005; Wang, Pomer-
antz, and Chen, 2007). However, this assumption of universality does not preclude the possibility of
contextual and person-related differences in effects of parenting (Grolnick et al., 2018; Soenens,Van-
steenkiste, and Van Petegem, 2015). One important way in which contextual conditions (e.g., cultural
background) and individual differences (e.g., personality-based characteristics) can affect the conse-
quences of parenting is through their effects on adolescents’ appraisal of parental behavior. That is,
depending on their (cultural) background and personal characteristics, adolescents may perceive and
interpret parental behavior differently (Bornstein, Putnick, and Suwalsky, 2018; Lansford et al., 2010).
For instance, adolescents from more collectivist cultural backgrounds have been found to inter-
pret potentially controlling parental behaviors (e.g., guilt induction) in relatively more benign ways
compared to adolescents with a more individualist cultural background (Camras, Sun, and Wright,
2012; Chao and Aque, 2009; Chen et al., 2016; Helwig et al., 2014). Still, even in adolescents with a
collectivist cultural orientation, perceived parental controllingness is related to distress and problem
behavior in much the same way as in adolescents reared in individualistic contexts (Pomerantz and
Wang, 2009; Soenens and Vansteenkiste, 2010). Hence, there is room for interpreting parental behav-
ior differently depending on contextual and personal characteristics, and subjective experiences of
parental support (versus thwarting of) basic psychological needs appear to be universally relevant.
Because research on contextual and individual differences in effects of parenting is still relatively
scarce, an important avenue for future research is to examine more systematically the degree to
which personal characteristics (including personality and biological differences such as genetic vari-
ants) and contextual characteristics (such as culture, ethnic background, and socioeconomic status)
affect parenting-adjustment associations in adolescence. To unravel the specific processes involved
herein, research ideally considers adolescents’ appraisal of parental behavior and their specific ways of
responding to parental interventions (Soenens et al., 2015).These micro-processes involved in effects
of parenting on adolescent adjustment bring us to the final topic of this chapter, adolescents’ agency
in the socialization process.
Adolescents as Active Agents in the Socialization Process

Throughout the lifespan, interactions between parents and children are dynamic and reciprocal. By
the time individuals transition into adolescence, they have accumulated many personal and social
experiences. As a consequence, their personality and style of social interaction have become gradually
more crystallized (although there is still room for change; Caspi, and Roberts, 2001; Caspi, Roberts,
and Shiner, 2005; Roberts, Caspi, and Moffitt, 2001). Because adolescents’ personality and interper-
sonal style become more stable (Klimstra et al., 2009; Soto, John, Gosling, and Potter, 2011) and at
the same time affect the way adolescents interact with others (Neyer and Asendorpf, 2001; Robins,
Caspi, and Moffitt, 2002), adolescents’ own characteristics are likely to increasingly determine the
nature and quality of their relationship with parents.
Testifying to the increasing role of adolescents’ own characteristics in parent–child interactions,
the heritability of various behaviors (e.g., externalizing behavior) and attitudes (e.g., conservatism
and religiousness) has been found to increase as children grow older, and throughout adolescence
in particular (Bergen, Gardner, and Kendler, 2007). Apparently, adolescence is a life period in which
genetically predisposed characteristics manifest more strongly than in earlier life periods.This genetic
amplification of various characteristics is assumed to occur at least partly through active gene–
environment associations (Scarr and McCartney, 1983). Genetically determined characteristics affect
the type of environments adolescents seek (or even create) as well as their selection of relationship
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partners (e.g., friends, peers, and romantic partners). For instance, adolescents with an inclination
toward impulsiveness and sensation seeking are more likely to seek the company of deviant friends.
This proactive influence of genetically determined characteristics on individuals’ environment mani-
fests more strongly in adolescence, because this is a developmental period in which individuals
become more independent from parents and have more room to shape their own environment
outside the home context.
Because these genetically determined characteristics in turn affect relationships with parents (with
impulsiveness and sensation seeking, for instance, eliciting more conflict and less warmth) across
adolescence, the quality of parent–adolescent relationships becomes influenced more strongly by
adolescents’ own characteristics (Ludeke, Johnson, McGue, and Iacono, 2013).This effect is caused by
evocative gene–environment associations, with adolescent characteristics eliciting certain reactions
from parents, and with these reactions in turn further reinforcing these characteristics. For instance,
parents may be inclined to grant much confidence to an adolescent who is naturally conscientious
(thereby further reinforcing the adolescent’s capacity for self-control), but parents may respond in
more controlling and harsh ways to an adolescent with impulse control difficulties (thereby further
undermining the adolescent’s capacity for independent self-regulation). Evidence suggests that such
evocative gene–parenting associations become more prominent in adolescence compared to early
childhood (Avinun and Knafo, 2014). Thus, over time adolescent characteristics and parental behav-
iors get intertwined in a complex, dialectical interaction (Collins et al., 2000), with adolescents’ own
characteristics playing an increasingly important role in the quality of parent–child relationships
(Klahr and Burt, 2014).
Cognitive development also contributes to adolescents’ agency in parent–child relationships. Ado-
lescents think in increasingly sophisticated and differentiated ways, thereby displaying a stronger abil-
ity to reflect about abstract and hypothetical issues (Eccles, Wigfield, and Byrnes, 2003). Because of
these changes in cognitive maturation, adolescents discuss, reason, and negotiate with parents in more
sophisticated ways, thereby thoughtfully considering the quality of arguments and reflecting about
how things could be different (rather than uncritically accepting the status quo). As a consequence,
parental authority is taken less for granted and parents face the challenge of renegotiating authority,
of reflecting about the necessity of rules that were once self-evident, and of finding valid and person-
ally meaningful arguments for rules that still apply.
Because of these various reasons, parenting adolescents is by no means a unidirectional process.
Instead, parental characteristics (e.g., behaviors and experiences) are related to adolescent character-
istics in an inherently reciprocal and dynamic fashion (Grusec and Goodnow, 1994; Maccoby and
Martin, 1983). This reciprocity manifests in at least two important ways, one of which is through
bidirectional influences in parent–adolescent relationships. These bidirectional influences involve
mutually reinforcing, quantitative changes in parents’ and adolescents’ behaviors or characteristics.
For instance, higher levels of adaptive parental behavior elicit a stronger display of positive adolescent
behavior (and vice versa), but higher levels of dysfunctional parenting are related to more adolescent
engagement in problem behaviors (and vice versa).
There is more to the dynamics of parent–adolescent relationships than simple bidirectional-
ity (Kuczynski and De Mol, 2015; Sameroff, 1975). Parents and adolescents contribute to more
profound, complex, and qualitative changes in the parent–adolescent relationship. That is, through
transactional exchanges they transform the very nature of their relationship, thereby redefining and
renegotiating each other’s position in the relationship and seeking new ways of relating to each
other. Central to this process of qualitative transformation is adolescents’ appraisal of and response
to parental practices (Kuczynski, 2003). With benign adolescent appraisals of parental behavior and
subsequent constructive ways of responding to parental behavior, such as negotiation (Skinner, Edge,
Altman, and Sherwood, 2003; Van Petegem, Zimmer-Gembeck, et al., 2017) or willing compliance
(Kuhn, Phan, and Laird, 2014), there is a stronger likelihood that the parent–adolescent relationship
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will become more balanced, mature, and egalitarian. Instead, with more hostile adolescent appraisals
of parental behavior and corresponding maladaptive ways of responding to parental behavior, such
as reactance (Parkin and Kuczynski, 2012), it is more likely that the parent–adolescent relationship
will undergo a power struggle, with both partners in the relationship striving for dominance in
the hierarchy. As such, these transactional processes ultimately define the nature and quality of the
parent–adolescent relationship (Kuczynski, 2003).
Because reciprocity in parent–adolescent relationships can take different forms, in this final part
of the chapter we review research on bidirectionality in parent–adolescent relationships and research
on more complex manifestations of adolescents’ agency in the transformation of parent–adolescent
relationships. Specifically, we discuss adolescents’ (1) negotiations about legitimate parental authority
in different social domains, (2) strategies to manage information in interactions with parents, and (3)
styles of resolving conflicts with parents.
Bidirectional Influence in Parent–Adolescent Relationships

The quality of parent–adolescent relationships is related to adolescents’ adjustment in a bidirec-
tional fashion. For instance, Branje, Hale III, Frijns, and Meeus (2010) showed that high-quality
parent–adolescent relationships played a protective role against adolescents’ susceptibility to depressive
symptoms. At the same time, adolescents’ risk for depression was found to erode the quality of the
parent–adolescent relationship, with depressive symptoms eliciting a decrease in parent–adolescent
relationship quality.
Similarly, there is increasing evidence that associations between parenting style and adolescent
developmental outcomes are reciprocal in nature (Meeus, 2016). Reciprocal associations have been
demonstrated using both configurational and dimensional approaches to the assessment of parenting
(see Pinquart, 2017a, 2017b for meta-analyses demonstrating these bidirectional associations). For
instance, relying on a configurational approach, Padilla-Walker, Carlo, Christensen, and Yorgason
(2012) found that mothers’ authoritative parenting was predictive of adolescents’ prosocial behavior
toward their mother, with this behavior in turn predicting increased maternal authoritativeness. An
authoritative parenting style likely contributes to adolescents’ internalization of the importance of
altruistic behavior in the family and to subsequent enactment of more prosocial behavior. In turn,
this prosocial behavior makes it easier for mothers to be warm and to allow the adolescent’s input
when communicating rules (i.e., to be authoritative).
While adaptive parenting sets in motion a positive spiral of parent–adolescent interactions, mala-
daptive parenting evokes a negative spiral of inadequate parental practices and difficult adolescent
behavior. Harris, Vazsonyi, and Bolland (2017) found that permissive parenting predicted increased
deviance in a sample of inner-city African American adolescents and that deviance, in turn, predicted
increased parental permissiveness. Confronted with adolescent deviance, parents appear to give up
on attempts to regulate the adolescent’s behavior. Instead, they step down and no longer even try
to provide guidelines for appropriate behavior. This increased parental leniency in turn reinforces
adolescent problem behavior (Kerr, Stattin, and Pakalniskiene, 2008).
Such reciprocal effects between parenting and adolescent adjustment have also been demonstrated
using a dimensional approach to parenting. Associations between psychologically controlling parent-
ing and internalizing problems (Soenens, Luyckx, Vansteenkiste, Duriez, and Goossens, 2008; Wang
et al., 2007) and externalizing problems (Janssens et al., 2017) are bidirectional, with such parenting
not only increasing risk for problems but with adolescent problems also eliciting more psychologi-
cally controlling parenting across time. Adolescents displaying more difficult behavior seem to pull
for more controlling parental practices. Possibly, parents experience more negative emotions when
faced with adolescent problem behavior (including worry and disappointment or even anger), emo-
tions that increase the likelihood of a parent-centered and domineering response (Dix, 1991). In
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addition to this emotional mechanism, parents may believe that a controlling response is the most
effective way to alter their adolescent’s behavior in the short term. Some forms of controlling parent-
ing, such as love withdrawal, relate to adolescent compliance with parental requests in the short term
(Assor et al., 2004), leading parents to believe that a controlling approach is an efficient short-cut to
obtain immediate compliance. Ironically, these controlling practices often contribute to an escalation
of further problem behavior in the longer term. Thus, consistent with Patterson’s notion of coercive
cycles (Patterson, 1982; Reid and Patterson, 1989), parents and adolescents risk getting caught in a
downward spiral of pressuring and reactant interactions (Vansteenkiste et al., 2014).
At first sight it may seem contradictory that parents respond to difficult adolescent behavior
with both permissiveness (Harris et al., 2017) and increased controllingness (Janssens et al., 2017).
However, both types of parental reactions can co-occur in daily life. Confronted with persistent ado-
lescent problem behavior, parents may become generally inclined to give up on attempts to monitor
the adolescent’s behavior or to apply consequences. Driven by a sense of helplessness, these parents
may wait (too) long to intervene, leaving opportunities for adolescents to engage in additional rule-
breaking behavior, and leading parents to suppress their own negative emotions (e.g., worry and
anger) regarding the adolescent’s continued (or even increased) problem behavior. However, parents
can suppress these negative emotions for only so long, and when negative emotions boil over (e.g.,
because of a new incident), parents are likely to intervene in a harsh and impulsive fashion, resulting
in an abrupt controlling response.
These bidirectional dynamics apply to long-term exchanges between parents and adolescents and
to short-term (e.g., daily) episodes and interactions. Diary studies demonstrate that, although there
are fairly stable inter-individual differences in parental behavior, parenting also fluctuates on a day-
to-day basis, with parents for instance showing substantial daily variation in psychologically control-
ling (Aunola, Tolvanen, Viljaranta, and Nurmi, 2013) and autonomy-supportive parenting (Van der
Kaap-Deeder,Vansteenkiste, Soenens, and Mabbe, 2017). Particularly in adolescence, a developmental
period characterized by substantial ups and downs in adolescents’ and their family members’ experi-
ences, parental behavior oscillates quite strongly on a daily basis (Mabbe, Soenens,Vansteenkiste, van
der Kaap-Deeder, and Mouratidis, 2018). Part of the daily variation in parental behavior seems to
be driven by daily fluctuations in adolescents’ daily experiences and behaviors. For instance, research
identified bidirectional associations between adolescents’ daily emotional distress and daily conflicts
with parents (Chung, Flook, and Fuligni, 2009; Fuligni and Masten, 2010).
In summary, there is mounting evidence that the quality of parent–adolescent relationships and
parenting are related to adolescents’ psychosocial adjustment in a bidirectional fashion, with parents
and adolescents affecting each other’s behaviors and experiences not only on a long-term basis but
also in the short term (and even on a daily basis).
Reasoning About Legitimate Parental Authority

In toddlerhood, children begin to reason in differentiated ways about different social domains, distin-
guishing for instance between moral issues (i.e., acts that pertain to others’ welfare or rights, such as
fighting, lying, or stealing) and conventional issues (i.e., acts that pertain to social norms, such as table
manners; Nucci and Nucci, 1982; Nucci, 2014; Turiel, 1998). With increasing age, children differen-
tiate more clearly between social domains and they add more domains. Children begin to develop
fine-grained conceptions of the prudential domain (which pertains to issues of health and safety, such
as healthy eating habits and behavior in traffic) and of the personal domain (which involves private
issues and choices with personal consequences only, such as clothing and preference for music; Smet-
ana, 2006; Smetana, Crean, and Campione-Barr, 2005).
Adolescence marks a substantial change in individuals’ reasoning about social domains, with ado-
lescents considerably expanding the personal domain and considering more issues as falling under
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their personal jurisdiction (Smetana, 1995). Because of the tendency for adolescents to consider
more issues as personal, there is also an increase in multifaceted issues, that is issues showing an
overlap between several domains. Multifaceted issues are a common source of conflict because ado-
lescents and parents often disagree about the nature of these issues, with adolescents mainly empha-
sizing their personal nature and with parents primarily highlighting their prudential, conventional,
or moral nature of these issues. For instance, gaming entails overlap between the moral, prudential,
and personal domains. Parents may be concerned about the display of violence in games (i.e., a moral
feature) and about the health costs of the sedentary lifestyle associated with gaming (i.e., a prudential
issue), but adolescents may consider gaming a matter of individual preference and even an expression
of their identity (i.e., a personal issue).The increase in discussions about multifaceted issues in (early)
adolescence helps to explain the increase in parent–adolescent conflicts observed in this period
(Smetana, 1989; Smetana and Asquith, 1994).
As adolescents begin to reason about social domains in more differentiated ways, their concep-
tions of legitimate parental authority change. Adolescents generally believe that parents maintain
legitimate authority about moral, conventional, and prudential issues, but they increasingly reject
parents’ authority about personal issues. From early to middle adolescence, adolescents’ acceptance
of parental authority over multifaceted issues also declines (Smetana and Asquith, 1994; Smetana
et al., 2005). Much like adolescents, parents themselves believe that they retain authority over moral,
conventional, and prudential issues, and parents indicate that they have more legitimate authority
over these issues than over personal and multifaceted issues. Moreover, as their adolescent grows
older, parents assert less authority over multifaceted issues.Yet, the pace of parents’ changing concep-
tions of legitimate parental authority lags behind on the pace of adolescents’ changing conceptions
(Smetana et al., 2005). As a result, in early and middle adolescence, parents and adolescents have a
substantially different point of view on personal and multifaceted issues, with parents continuing to
affirm relatively high levels of authority over these issues and with adolescents rejecting authority in
these domains more firmly. These developmental patterns of conceptions of authority as well as the
mismatches between parents and adolescents in terms of these conceptions have been documented
in different ethnic groups (Fuligni, 1998) and in different cultures (Yau and Smetana, 1996). Thus,
adolescents across the globe seek to redefine their position in the parent–child relationship, thereby
asserting more independence in the personal domain in particular (Smetana, 2006, 2018).
Adolescents thus take the lead in renegotiating the boundaries of legitimate parental authority.
Adolescents’ responses to parental involvement in different social domains signal to parents whether
the involvement is considered appropriate or not. When parents intervene in the personal domain,
adolescents typically perceive parental interventions as intrusive and meddlesome (Smetana and Dad-
dis, 2002). Possibly because of this perception of parental involvement in the personal domain as
intrusive, adolescents are more likely to display reactance against parental authority in the personal
domain (Smetana, 2005; Smetana, Wong, Ball, and Yau, 2014). This reactance indicates to parents
that, from the adolescent’s perspective, the boundaries of the personal domain were violated. Con-
fronted with this signal, parents then face the challenge of reflecting about their involvement in the
adolescent’s life. Such reflection may result in parents adjusting their involvement, with parents for
instance intervening less often in the personal domain. However, parents differ in their ability and/or
willingness to adjust their involvement to different social domains. For instance, parents with a gen-
erally authoritarian parenting style are less inclined than parents with other parenting styles to grant
adolescents jurisdiction over personal and multifaceted issues (Smetana, 1995). Parents with a gener-
ally authoritative parenting style have been shown to discriminate most clearly between the social
domains, allowing adolescents to make independent decisions in the personal domain but keeping
parental authority in the moral, conventional, and prudential domains (Smetana, 1995).
Because adolescents increasingly delineate the boundaries of their personal domain, parents
become gradually less inclined to intervene in issues that fall under adolescents’ personal jurisdiction.
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On average, parents are less restrictive, set fewer rules, and introduce fewer prohibitions in the per-
sonal domain compared to other domains, such as morality (Van Petegem,Vansteenkiste, et al., 2017).
Still, parents differ in the degree to which they intervene within each of the social domains. This
within-domain variation between parents is important because the effectiveness of parents’ socializa-
tion practices depends on the domain involved. Research increasingly shows that the developmental
outcomes of parental interventions differ depending on the social domain involved (Grusec, Dany-
liuk, Kil, and O’Neill, 2017; Hasebe, Nucci, and Nucci, 2004; Smetana, Campione-Barr, and Daddis,
2004). For instance, parents’ communication of rules is related differentially to adolescent outcomes
within different social domains (Arim, Marshall, and Shapka, 2010).While parental rule setting in the
moral-conventional domain is unrelated (or even related negatively) to adolescent problem behav-
iors, rule setting in a more personal or multifaceted domain, such as friendships, is related positively
to problem behaviors, and to externalizing problems in particular. Thus, parental rule setting in the
moral domain plays a potentially protective role in adolescent behavior, but rule setting in more per-
sonal domains seems to backfire more often and to increase the risk for problem behaviors.
These domain-dependent effects of parental rule setting can be explained by differences in the
degree to which adolescents are willing to accept and internalize parental guidelines. For instance,
the degree to which parents prohibit moral misbehavior is related positively to adolescents’ inter-
nalization (i.e., self-endorsed acceptance) of rules for moral behavior (Vansteenkiste et al., 2014;Van
Petegem, Vansteenkiste, et al., 2017). Because moral rules and prohibitions are considered as legiti-
mate and as falling under parents’ jurisdiction, adolescents more easily accept parental guidelines in
this domain. In contrast, the degree to which parents prohibit certain friendships relates negatively to
internalization and even positively to adolescents’ oppositional defiance against parental prohibitions
(Van Petegem,Vansteenkiste, et al., 2017). Because parental intervention in this domain is perceived
as illegitimate, adolescents are likely to react against parents’ authority in an attempt to restore their
independence and to safeguard their personal domain.This rebellious response then elicits a tendency
to do the opposite of what parents expect, resulting in a heightened risk for problem behaviors.
Given that adolescents are so sensitive about parental intervention in the personal domain, should
the personal domain then be considered a total “no-go zone” for parents? Is any type of parental
involvement in this domain doomed to yield conflict and adolescent defiance? Not necessarily. Even
within a highly personal domain such as friendships, parents can set rules or introduce prohibitions
in a way that does not elicit resistance. This can be achieved by adopting an autonomy-supportive
style of communication (Soenens et al., 2009). Indeed, when parents take the adolescent’s perspec-
tive (i.e., asking about the adolescent’s point of view and recognizing that it may not be easy to take
some distance from certain friends) and provide a meaningful rationale, adolescents may be open to
consider the parent’s point of view and accept the rule or prohibition. To provide such a meaningful
rationale, parents do well to highlight the moral and prudential aspects of their intervention (e.g.,
indicating for instance their concerns with the friends’ morally inappropriate behavior) rather than
more personal aspects (such as parents’ disapproval of these friends’ lifestyle). When, instead, parents
communicate the prohibition in a more pressuring fashion (e.g., threatening to withdraw privileges
when a friendship is not terminated), adolescents are more likely to react against the parent’s prohi-
bition and still affiliate with friends who are not approved of by parents (Soenens et al., 2009). Thus,
although parental involvement in the personal and multifaceted domains is more risky (because
there is an increased likelihood that parents’ involvement will be perceived as illegitimate and will be
reacted against), even within these domains parents can still intervene in a way that supports adoles-
cents’ autonomy and that contributes to appropriate behavior.
Similarly, parents’ style of communication matters within the other social domains as well.
Although adolescents are more inclined to accept parental authority and rule setting in the moral
domain compared to the personal domain, when parents adopt a controlling (i.e., pressuring) style in
the moral domain, adolescents are less likely to internalize parents’ rules and are more likely to defy
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those rules (Hardy, Padilla-Walker, and Carlo, 2008; Padilla-Walker and Carlo, 2006; Vansteenkiste
et al., 2014;Van Petegem,Vansteenkiste, et al., 2017). Hence, also in the moral domain it is important
for parents to take adolescents’ frame of reference and to support their autonomy rather than to
impose rules in an authoritarian, threatening, or patronizing fashion.
In summary, adolescents increasingly differentiate between social domains and they evaluate the
legitimacy of parental authority and rule setting differently depending on the social domain involved.
Parents face the challenge of adjusting their involvement in adolescents’ life to these changing con-
ceptions of legitimate parental authority. The degree to which parents adequately and flexibly adjust
their socialization efforts to adolescents’ domain-differentiated views of legitimate parental authority
determines the effectiveness of parents’ rules and restrictions.
Active Information Management

Another way in which adolescents demonstrate their agency in parent–child relationships is through
their active management of the degree and type of information they provide to parents (Marshall,
Tilton-Weaver, and Bosdet, 2005; Smetana, 2008).The importance of adolescents’ information man-
agement is underscored by the finding that most of parents’ knowledge about adolescents’ wherea-
bouts and activities stems from adolescents’ spontaneous disclosure of information (Kerr and Stattin,
2000; Kerr, Stattin, and Berk, 2010; Stattin and Kerr, 2000; Stattin and Skoog, 2019) and to a lesser
extent from active parental efforts to seek information about adolescents’ behavior (e.g., through
supervision and solicitation of information; Fletcher, Steinberg, and Williams-Wheeler, 2004; Soen-
ens,Vansteenkiste, Luyckx, and Goossens, 2006). Thus, differences between parents in terms of how
much they know about their adolescent’s activities are largely a function of adolescents’ own disclo-
sure (versus secrecy).
Adolescents generally disclose less information to their parents compared to younger children,
with disclosure (and corresponding parental knowledge) declining in particular in early adolescence
(Keijsers, Frijns, Branje, and Meeus, 2009; Laird, Marrero, Melching, and Kuhn, 2013). In addi-
tion, adolescents become more selective in the type of information they disclose to parents and
they develop a broad spectrum of specific information management strategies. In between the two
extremes of full disclosure of information and full concealment and secrecy, adolescents rely on a
variety of strategies, including partial disclosure (i.e., telling only part of the story or telling the truth
but omitting details), telling parents only if they ask, avoiding issues (e.g., by directing the conversa-
tion away from sensitive issues), and lying (Bakken and Brown, 2010; Darling, Cumsille, Caldwell,
and Dowdy, 2006). Using this differentiated arsenal of strategies, adolescents attempt to actively
regulate the amount and type of information available to parents and to protect their privacy in the
parent–adolescent relationship.
Although there is a general decline in adolescent disclosure, on average information management
strategies aimed at revealing information (i.e., through full or partial disclosure) remain more preva-
lent than secrecy and lying strategies aimed at concealing information (Laird et al., 2013).Yet, there
are substantial individual differences between adolescents as well as within-adolescent variations
(across situations and time) in the usage of these information management strategies. Adolescents
actively reflect about the pragmatic value and consequences of these strategies, thereby considering
for instance anticipated parental reactions to (non)disclosure of information and the legitimacy of
parental knowledge in specific situations and domains (Smetana, 2008). Based on these considera-
tions, adolescents then select information management strategies that best serve their goals, prefer-
ences, and values.
One important consideration in adolescents’ selection of information management strategies is
parents’ anticipated response to (disclosure) of misbehavior (Tilton-Weaver et al., 2010). Adolescents
become more secretive when they expect that parents will respond negatively (i.e., in a cold, angry,
148
and critical fashion) to misbehavior, and they are more inclined to disclose information when they
expect that parents will respond more positively (i.e., attempting to understand what happened and
displaying warmth). Most likely, these anticipated parental reactions are themselves a function of both
adolescents’ behavior and parents’ general parenting style. Adolescents who engage more often in
misbehavior and who display externalizing problems are less likely to disclose information and more
likely to be secretive toward parents (Laird et al., 2013), with parents in turn having less knowledge
about these adolescents’ whereabouts and activities (Laird, Pettit, Bates, and Dodge, 2003). Because
these adolescents have more serious misconduct to hide, they anticipate more negative consequences
when parents become aware of the misconduct. Parents’ general parenting style also plays a role. Ado-
lescents disclose more information and are more open about their whereabouts and activities when
parents are generally experienced as warm and autonomy supportive (Darling et al., 2006; Fletcher
et al., 2004; Soenens et al., 2006). Within such a secure parenting climate, adolescents are probably
more likely to anticipate a reasonable and appropriate parental response to disclosure of inappropri-
ate behavior. Also, such a need-supportive parenting climate can contribute to adolescents’ perceived
legitimacy of parental authority, with this perceived legitimacy in turn increasing adolescents’ will-
ingness to disclose information. Indeed, adolescents more often disclose information to parents in
response to parental attempts to obtain knowledge (e.g., through monitoring of behavior) when they
perceive parents’ authority as being legitimate (Keijsers and Laird, 2014).
Adolescents’ beliefs about parents’ legitimacy to be informed also depends on the social domain
involved. Much like adolescents make domain-specific evaluations of the appropriateness of parental
rules, they differentiate between social domains when reflecting on the need to disclose information
to parents. Adolescents believe that parents have more legitimate authority to be informed about
prudential issues than about personal or multifaceted issues, with moral and social-conventional
issues taking an intermediate position between the two extremes (Smetana, Metzger, Gettman, and
Campione-Barr, 2006). As a consequence, adolescents think it is more acceptable to manage infor-
mation provided to parents (e.g., by omitting details or telling only if asked) in the personal domain
compared to the prudential domain (Rote and Smetana, 2016). Parents largely share these domain-
differentiated beliefs about their right to know about adolescent activities, and parents also view
adolescents as less obligated to disclose activities as they get older (Smetana et al., 2006). Still, parents
generally believe (i.e., across domains) that they should be informed more than adolescents do.
In summary, adolescents regulate the communication of information to parents in an active, dif-
ferentiated, and sophisticated way, with various considerations and beliefs playing a role in their actual
degree of disclosure or non-disclosure vis-à-vis parents. Ultimately, this degree of (non)disclosure
of information has important repercussions for the quality of parent–adolescent relationships and
for adolescents’ psychosocial adjustment. Low levels of disclosure forecast more troubled parent–
adolescent relationships (Smetana,Villalobos,Tasopoulos-Chan, Gettman, and Campione-Barr, 2009)
as well as increases in externalizing problem behaviors (Keijsers et al., 2009) and internal distress
(Laird et al., 2013; Laird and Marrero, 2010). Particularly when adolescents are actively secretive
(rather than merely low on disclosure), they display psychosocial problems (Finkenauer, Engels, and
Meeus, 2002; Frijns et al., 2010; Frijns, Finkenauer, Vermulst, and Engels, 2005). Thus, adolescents’
information management in parent–adolescent interactions is an important indicator of the quality
of the relationship as well as a reliable predictor of psychosocial adjustment.
Conflict Management Styles

Conflicts between parents and adolescents are particularly prevalent in early adolescence (Laursen
et al., 1998) but should not be regarded as uniformly problematic. Conflicts can be meaningful epi-
sodes providing learning opportunities for emotion regulation and constructive social interaction
(Collins, Laursen, Mortensen, Luebker, and Ferreira, 1997; Granic, 2005).The extent that adolescents
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actually learn from these episodes depends on both parents’ and adolescents’ ways of managing con-
flicts (Adams and Laursen, 2007; Branje, Van Doorn, Van der Valk, and Meeus, 2009). To understand
adolescents’ contribution to the resolution of conflicts with parents, research has addressed the role of
four different styles of conflict management (Missotten, Luyckx,Van Leeuwen, Klimstra, and Branje,
2016; Van Doorn, Branje, and Meeus, 2008). Positive problem solving involves attempts to understand
the parent’s point of view and to negotiate with the parent constructively. This constructive style
of conflict management can be contrasted with three more dysfunctional styles. Conflict engagement
refers to a hostile, impulsive, and overtly destructive way of dealing with conflicts, as expressed in
anger, verbal abuse, and an attacking attitude. Withdrawal involves disengagement from the conflict,
with the adolescent avoiding talking and becoming distant. Finally, compliance entails that the adoles-
cent submits to the parent’s solution to the conflict, without however asserting his/her own position
and without really endorsing the value of the parent’s resolution.
As they grow older, adolescents become more effective in managing conflicts with parents.
Indeed, while the use of constructive problem solving generally increases throughout adolescence,
conflict engagement decreases (Van Doorn, Branje, and Meeus, 2011). Most likely, this development
toward engagement in more mature conflict management styles is affected by other developmental
processes, including increasing capacity for self-control (Duckworth and Steinberg, 2015) and abili-
ties for perspective taking (Crone and Dahl, 2012;Van der Graaff et al., 2014).
Demonstrating the importance of adolescents’ conflict management, problem solving was found
to predict decreases in frequency of conflicts between parents and adolescents (Missotten, Luyckx,
Branje, Hale, and Meeus, 2017; Rueter and Conger, 1995). This constructive style of conflict man-
agement prevents an escalation of conflicts, whereas the more dysfunctional styles of conflict man-
agement do not have such a preventive effect or even increase the likelihood of conflicts. Associations
between conflict management styles and conflict frequency are reciprocal in nature, with these styles
not only affecting the occurrence of conflicts, but with the frequency of conflicts also having an
effect on the quality of adolescents’ conflict management. Indeed, in families in which conflict is
highly frequent, adolescents are more likely to resort to maladaptive ways of approaching conflicts,
including conflict engagement and compliance (Missotten et al., 2017).
In addition to affecting the frequency of conflict, conflict management styles also affect the
developmental consequences of conflict. High-frequency conflict is generally detrimental to ado-
lescents’ development, but the conflict management styles used by adolescents determine to some
extent the manifestation of developmental problems associated with high-frequency conflict (Branje
et al., 2009). Adolescents who display a mixture of dysfunctional conflict management styles are
particularly likely to suffer from conflicts in terms of internalizing distress, whereas adolescents who
often withdraw from conflicts with parents are particularly susceptible to the effect of conflicts on
externalizing problems (Branje et al., 2009). Adolescent withdrawal from conflicts is strongly associ-
ated with externalizing problems when parents at the same time engage in conflicts (Caughlin and
Malis, 2004;Van Doorn et al., 2008). This so-called demand-withdraw pattern of conflict resolution is
indicative of a coercive style of resolving family conflicts, resulting in a tendency for adolescents to
distance themselves from the family.
Ultimately, adolescents’ conflict management styles determine not only adolescents’ within-family
exposure to conflict and their personal adjustment, but also their interpersonal functioning in rela-
tionships beyond the family, including relationships with peers, friends, and romantic partners (Adams
and Laursen, 2001). Adolescents involved in destructive conflict management patterns at home are
involved more frequently in similar patterns of conflict management while interacting with peers
at school and during leisure-time activities (Trifan and Stattin, 2015). Similarly, early adolescents’
conflict management styles with parents forecast their conflict management styles with friends (Van
Doorn, Branje, van der Valk, De Goede, and Meeus, 2011). In middle and late adolescence, associa-
tions between conflict management styles with parents and conflict management styles with friends
150
become bidirectional, with conflict management styles used in both types of relationships reinforcing
each other either in a positive direction in the case of constructive conflict resolution or in a nega-
tive direction in the case of dysfunctional conflict management (Van Doorn, Branje, et al., 2011).
Adolescents’ conflict management with parents even translates into their conflict management with
romantic partners, with positive problem solving in relationships with parents predicting problem
solving in late adolescents’ romantic relationships (Staats, van der Valk, Meeus, and Branje, 2018).
Overall, conflict management styles used in the home context appear to serve as a template for how
conflicts are dealt with in the outside world.
Given the important developmental implications of conflict management styles, research exam-
ines the sources and antecedents of adolescents’ engagement in different styles. In line with the idea
that adolescents’ personality increasingly affects their interaction with parents, adolescents’ personal-
ity traits are related to their conflict management styles, with agreeableness in particular being related
to more constructive (i.e., problem-solving) attempts to handle conflicts (Missotten et al., 2016).
However, over and above effects of adolescent personality, parents’ rearing style also plays a role.
Adolescents who generally experience parents as more need-supportive (e.g., high on responsiveness
and low on psychological control) are more inclined to seek constructive ways of resolving conflicts
(Missotten et al., 2016; Rueter and Conger, 1995). Several processes are likely involved in the effects
of generally supportive parenting on constructive conflict management, including parents’ own dem-
onstration of adequate conflict resolution, adolescents’ stronger valuation of a high-quality relation-
ship with parents, and adolescents’ resources for adequate emotion regulation and social interaction.
In summary, adolescents’ style of conflict management in parent–adolescent interactions sub-
stantially affects the degree to which conflicts are learning experiences or, instead, experiences that
increase risk for ill-being and problematic behavior. Adolescents’ conflict management styles are
rooted in a complex interplay between personal characteristics (e.g., personality) and parent-related
characteristics (e.g., quality of general parenting style), and these styles are related to the frequency of
conflict between parents and adolescents in a bidirectional fashion. Because of their importance in
the adequate resolution of conflicts, conflict management styles play a significant role in adolescents’
psychosocial development, with constructive conflict management not only constituting a resource
against personal maladjustment but also spilling over to conflict management and relationship satis-
faction in relationships outside the family.
Conclusion
The view that parents have a unidirectional impact on adolescent development has long been obso-
lete (Bornstein et al., 2012). Although models describing parent–adolescent relationships as bidirec-
tional and reciprocal in nature were developed some time ago (Bell, 1968; Maccoby and Martin,
1983; Sameroff, 1975), systematic empirical research examining reciprocity in parent–adolescent
relationships began to accumulate only relatively recently. The collection of larger, multiwave lon-
gitudinal datasets and the increased availability of easy-to-use statistical programs to analyze longi-
tudinal data (e.g., through cross-lagged modeling and latent growth curve modeling) undoubtedly
enabled a more systematic inquiry into bidirectional developmental processes. This research clearly
confirmed theoretical models of bidirectional socialization, demonstrating that high-quality parent-
ing contributes to adolescents’ psychosocial adjustment and that adolescents who are well adjusted
make it easier for parents to interact with them in a supportive fashion. Unfortunately, some parents
and adolescents are caught in a negative vicious cycle of dysfunctional, need-thwarting parenting and
adolescent ill-being and inappropriate behavior.
Reciprocity in parent–adolescent relationships manifests in bidirectional influences between par-
ents’ and adolescents’ behavior. However, adolescents also contribute to more fundamental and quali-
tative changes in the nature of the parent–adolescent relationship. For instance, adolescents define
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more clearly the boundaries of their personal domain and privacy, become more selective in the
information they provide to parents, and become increasingly proactive in their attempts to resolve
conflicts in parent–adolescent relationships. A common theme in these different strategies applied by
adolescents is the search for ways to reconcile their personal goals and preferences with those of their
parents. As such, the transformation of parent–adolescent relationships essentially revolves around
themes of identity and autonomy (Laursen and Collins, 2009; Steinberg and Silk, 2002). When these
themes are dealt with constructively, the parent–adolescent relationship becomes more balanced and
egalitarian.
Because the empirical literature on the theme of adolescent agency is fairly new, there is a strong
need for additional research. Ideally, this future research will take a dynamic and ecologically valid
approach (e.g., using diary studies and observations of parent–adolescent interactions) to examine
adolescents’ appraisals (e.g., perceptions and legitimacy beliefs) of and responses to parental behavior.
The identification of these appraisals and responses is essential to better understand why adolescents
differ in their sensitivity to the benefits of potentially growth-promoting parenting and in their vul-
nerability to the risks associated with potentially detrimental parenting. By examining factors that
affect adolescents’ appraisals and responses (e.g., social domain considerations, personality traits, and
contextual determinants), much additional knowledge can be obtained about the dynamic interplay
between adolescents’ and parents’ contributions to the socialization process.
Conclusions
Although one may wonder whether parents still matter in adolescence, a developmental period in
which children take distance from the family and develop more independence, the research reviewed
in this chapter demonstrates abundantly that parents remain key socialization figures in adolescence.
This is not to say that parents’ role is straightforward. Adolescent development is highly dynamic and
multidirectional. As a result, parents of adolescents face various challenges and their contribution to
adolescents’ development must be considered in the context of many other sources of influence on
adolescent behavior and well-being (including biological changes and peer influences). Still, parents
are involved in adolescents’ development in several important ways. Both through specific practices
and through the quality of their general parenting style, parents can help their adolescent to navigate
through the various developmental tasks of adolescence, including coping with puberty, developing
adequate emotion regulation strategies, forming their identity, and building social competence. Also,
an important task for parents is to adjust adequately to their adolescent’s attempts to renegotiate the
parent–child relationship. This adjustment requires flexibility and a willingness to reconsider earlier
modes of relating to their child. Ultimately, this adjustment process affects parents’ own identity and
involves coming to terms with a new role as a parent.
There are many ways to achieve these complex goals, but it is generally important for parents to
support adolescents’ needs for autonomy, competence, and relatedness. When adolescents feel that
these needs are satisfied, they fare well emotionally, they are more resilient against adverse contextual
influences (e.g., negative peer pressure), and they contribute to their own development in more
proactive, courageous, and constructive ways. The specific ways in which parents can nurture these
psychological needs depend on many factors, including the social domain involved, adolescents’ per-
sonality, and the family’s cultural background. In the end, however, it is essential for adolescents to
experience their parents as creating room for authenticity, as having confidence in adolescents’ skill
development, and as being involved in a caring and loving manner. To support adolescents’ needs
is by no means an easy task. However, it is highly worthwhile because a high-quality parent–child
relationship continues to serve as a source of resilience throughout adolescence and contributes to a
successful launch into adulthood.
152
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5
PARENTING EMERGING ADULTS
Introduction
A growing body of research across a diverse number of countries and cultures suggests there is a
considerable portion of young people who do not yet see themselves as adults. For example, a study
of college students from numerous institutions across the United States, when asked whether they
felt like they had reached adulthood, revealed that 16% of the emerging adults answered “yes,” 13%
answered “no,” and 72% answered “in some ways yes, in some ways no” (Nelson et al., 2007). The
parents of these emerging adults felt the same way about their children, answering in almost identical
proportions to their children when asked, “Do you think that your child has reached adulthood?”
Although the nature of the sample employed in this example (predominantly European American
college students from privileged socioeconomic backgrounds) precludes any broad generalizations
of how all young people and their parents feel about the nature of the transition to adulthood, these
findings point to the growing realization that the role of parents in the lives of their children may not
be finished as their children prepare to and then enter the third decade of life. It may, in fact, be the
growing variance in how and when young people make the transition into adulthood that neces-
sitates a closer examination into the role that parents may play in the lives of their 18- to 29-year-old
children (“emerging adults”).
The past several decades have marked numerous changes that have increased the timing, diversity,
and complexity of paths out of adolescence and into adulthood. For example, as the average age of
marriage has risen (29 years for males and 27 years for females in the United States; U.S. Census
Bureau, 2015), and the number of jobs available to those without higher education has decreased,
more and more young people are single, living at home, and financially dependent (at least partially)
on parents well into their twenties. In some of these scenarios, compared to past generations, there
is a greater need for many parents to remain engaged in the parenting process longer than previ-
ously expected. For others, economic and familial factors necessitate a more immediate donning of
adult responsibilities and independence. For them, parents may play less of a role, or parents may play
equally important but different roles than emerging adults who are less independent. Taken together,
it is not surprising that this edition of the Handbook of Parenting marks the first to have a chapter
devoted solely to parenting during emerging adulthood.
The work reviewed in this chapter reflects the significance of examining the diverse and impor-
tant ways that parents may influence the lives of their children during the third decade of life. Specifi-
cally, this chapter (1) provides a theoretical and developmental foundation for the study of parenting
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Parenting Emerging Adults
during the third decade of life, (2) examines specific aspects of parenting, including parenting styles,
parenting dimensions, and the parent–child relationship in relation to adjustment and maladjustment
during emerging adulthood, and (3) outlines directions for future work in regard to parenting of
emerging adults.
Theories of Parenting in Emerging Adulthood

A number of theoretical models may help us understand the importance of parent–child relation-
ships during emerging adulthood and how these relationships are important for development during
the third decade of life. The general theoretical view of socialization suggests that parents’ behaviors
shape children’s psychological adjustment and interpersonal abilities (Feldman, Gowen, and Fisher,
1998) and equip them with the skills to succeed in the varied settings (e.g., school, workplace) and
social interactions (e.g., peer group, romantic relationships) they encounter as they make their way
toward adulthood. The centrality of parent–child relationships in this socialization process during
emerging adulthood is best considered by examining both continuity (social learning theory and
attachment theory) and change (family systems theory and life course perspective) in relationships
over time. Finally, both dynamic systems and family systems theories emphasize the role that context
has in shaping the functioning of familiar relationships and the individual development that occurs
within those relationships.
Social learning theory (Bandura, 1977) suggests that individuals learn by observing one another.
Specifically, the learner imitates the behavior of another person who is demonstrating, or modeling,
a particular behavior. In regard to the socializing role of parents in the transition to adulthood, social
learning theory (Whitbeck, Hoyt, and Huck, 1994) suggests that patterns of interactions that are
established and maintained during the formative years will be modeled to some degree as emerging
adults leave the parental home and establish new relationships and, ultimately, families of their own
(Aquilino, 2006). Indeed, parents serve as models for what it means to be an adult in domains such
as family and work contexts. For example, parents hold very specific views of what is requisite to
become an adult (Nelson et al., 2007) and to be ready for important role transitions such as marriage
(Willoughby, Olson, Carroll, Nelson, and Miller, 2012). In a recent study examining young people’s
beliefs, values, and behaviors related to marriage, Willoughby and James (2017) illuminate just how
much of young people’s approaches to issues related to marriage (e.g., timing of, desire for, and readi-
ness to marry as well as desired characteristics of potential spouses) stem from what they saw within
their own parents’ marriages. In summary, it is clear that parents serve as important models that affect
beliefs, values, choices, behaviors, and relationships during the third decade of life.
Another way that early patterns of interaction with family members continue to impact young
people during emerging adulthood is via the nature of the parent–child relationship. In particular,
attachment theory suggests that early parenting behaviors shape children’s internal working models
of attachment (Ainsworth and Bowlby, 1991). These internal working models in turn influence
subsequent relationships, including the formation of romantic relationships (which is a key devel-
opmental milestone within the third decade of life; Arnett, 2000) by affecting children’s sense that
they are worthy of another person’s love and can trust others. Although internal working models
of attachment may change over time, the attachment relationship that is formed early in life will
generally remain stable and in turn influence the formation of relationships during emerging adult-
hood (Fraley and Roisman, 2015). Indeed, research has found a moderate level of continuity in the
parent–child relationship in particular over the transition to adulthood (Englund, Kuo, Puig, and
Collins, 2011). Although stability in the attachment relationship is certainly not the case for all
emerging adults, and a number of transitions (e.g., living away from home, marriage) may influence
the quality of attachment, it is clear that attachment with parents is as an important lens through
which young people navigate the relational landscape of emerging adulthood.
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Although continuity is likely, family theories suggest that changes in the family system or changes
over time also impact development. Family systems theory suggests that it is specifically the family
that provides the environment within which individual members are impacted by and impact each
other as an interconnected set (or system) of relationships. In terms of change in relationships over
time, a family life course perspective suggests that the trajectories of family members are interde-
pendent and there is a consistent interplay between the individual development of the emerging-
adult children and other family members (Aquilino, 2006). This interplay is based on two main
processes, namely that (1) family relationships change over time as a function of the development
of individuals in that family and (2) life trajectories of family members are influenced by changes
in family relationships over time. Like other living systems, families attempt to maintain a sense of
equilibrium in their relationships so as changes occur within the family, the system (i.e., the pattern
or relationships within the family) will constantly strive to establish a new state of equilibrium. As
emerging adults experience different life transitions (e.g., leaving the family home, college, work,
marriage), many of their relationships may change and begin a new period of development wherein
emerging adults and their parents interact in new ways, which, in turn, impact the trajectory (for
good or bad) of emerging-adult children.
Based on the theoretical notion that changes brought about in the course of development are the
impetus for restructuring parent–child interactions that in turn influence the trajectories of individuals,
it is important to also consider developmental changes that might be unique to emerging adulthood.
First, going beyond the pubertal changes that occurred during adolescence, the brains of emerging
adults are continuing to grow. Synaptic pruning, myelination of the prefrontal cortex, and changes
in the limbic system occur within the brain from early adolescence into the early twenties (Sowell,
Trauner, Gamst, and Jernigan, 2002; Steinberg, 2005). Given the reorganization of the prefrontal cor-
tex, young people are able to plan, engage in metacognition, and think increasingly well about abstract
concepts. As a result, they are able to contemplate abstract notions related to identity development,
including exploration of various abstract beliefs related to religion, politics, and worldviews in general.
Furthermore, growth in these areas of the brain contributes to greater executive functioning (e.g., the
ability to control impulses and emotions, organize, and self-monitor), which means that tasks requir-
ing self-restraint, planning, and thinking about consequences for the future will be difficult for young
people whose prefrontal cerebral cortex is not yet fully mature (Luna et al., 2001; McClure et al., 2004;
Steinberg et al., 2009). Given that this part of the brain is not fully developed until approximately
25 years of age (Steinberg, 2010), there may be significant ramifications for the range and potential
impact of possible choices and behaviors (e.g., pursue education or not, career decisions, participation
in risk behaviors, financial choices) facing young people as they leave adolescence.
Second, dynamic systems theory posits that children (including their minds and bodies) and their
environments (physical and social contexts) form an integrated system that guides mastery of new
skills, and this system is constantly changing (Fischer and Bidell, 2006; Thelen and Smith, 2006).
It is beyond the scope of this chapter to outline the vast number of contexts and cultures within
which young people are transitioning to adulthood. Instead, we provide an example of how context
may interact with intrapersonal factors (brain growth) to shape development to demonstrate why
parents matter in the lives of their emerging-adult children. In the United States and many other
Western, industrialized nations, marriage is being postponed. Also, there has been a move away from
a manufacturing economy to a service economy, and the jobs within this type of economy require
postsecondary education, which delays entrance into self-sustaining careers (Arnett, 2000). Taken
together, the transitions in what were traditionally seen as milestones of adulthood (marriage, parent-
hood, finishing education, starting a career) are being delayed until well into the third decade of life
for many young people.
Given this context within which many (but, again, certainly not all) young people are developing,
we are now prepared to examine the role that parents may play in development. For example, if we
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take the changes that are occurring within individuals (brain growth) and the developmental context
(delay of marriage and need for higher education resulting in an unstructured time to explore and
experiment) within which those individuals live, we might see a potential problem. As discussed pre-
viously, tasks requiring self-restraint, planning, and thinking about consequences for the future may
be difficult for young people for whom the prefrontal cerebral cortex is not yet fully mature (Luna,
Thulborn, Munoz, Merriam, Garver, Minshew et al., 2001; McClure, Laibson, Loewenstein, and
Cohen, 2004; Steinberg, Graham, O’Brien, Woolard, Cauffman, and Banich, 2009). That being said,
the age of 18 brings higher levels of autonomy for young people within a context lacking structure.
Young people in this context may have the means, time, and opportunities to explore and experi-
ment without the future-thinking, regulatory, and planning skills requisite to navigate that context.
Without the foundational skills provided for by development of the prefrontal cortex (e.g., the abil-
ity to control impulses and emotions, organize, plan for the future, and self-monitor), some young
people may flounder as they are presented with the opportunities to engage in risky exploration and
experimentation that are so common during this period of life (Ravert, 2009).
Given this reality, parents could potentially provide a bridge from the more structured world of
adolescence to the point in time when the prefrontal cortex has developed more fully, allowing for
greater maturity in offspring decision-making and behavior. Again, it must be underscored that indi-
vidual characteristics and developmental contexts vary tremendously across genders, cultures, socio-
economic conditions, and so forth. However, by providing the example of developmental context, it is
our desire to show that it is at the intersection of individuals and their environment that we will better
understand the roles that parents play as their children approach and then enter the third decade of life.
In summary, there are a number of strong theoretical arguments for the important role of parents
during emerging adulthood. Parents may directly socialize their children along the developmental
path toward adulthood in ways that include serving as models for what it means to be “adult.” Parents
may also indirectly impact their children’s development during the third year of life via, for example,
the internal working models of relationships that have developed within the parent–child attach-
ment relationship.Taken together, although young people may be striving for greater autonomy from
their parents, even that developmental quest occurs within the context, or system, of the family as
life trajectories of family members both impact and are influenced by changes in family relationships
over time. Hence, to best understand young people’s development during the third decade of life,
theoretically it appears essential that we understand the role of parents in the process.
Reviewing literature to determine just how parents can do that best (i.e., parent in a way that
leads to flourishing rather than floundering in their children) will be the focus of the next sections
of the chapter. It is notable that research on parenting during the third decade of life is in its infancy
compared to parenting during the formative years. That being said, there are substantive bodies of
research on broad parenting styles during emerging adulthood as well as dimensions of parenting
such as parental support, autonomy granting, and control. The remainder of this chapter will discuss
each of these aspects of parenting in turn, while also highlighting important ideas for future research.
Parenting Styles
Parenting styles are characterized as making up the broad, overarching emotional climate of the rela-
tionship between parents and children (Darling and Steinberg, 1993) and theoretically moderate the
link between more specific parenting practices and children’s outcomes (Padilla-Walker and Son, in
press). In other words, specific parenting strategies or practices may be more or less effective depend-
ing on the parenting style or climate of the overall relationship. Although most research on parent-
ing styles has been conducted during the formative years of childhood and adolescence, a growing
body of research also has explored parenting styles during emerging adulthood using the original
characterization of parenting styles including authoritative, authoritarian, and permissive approaches.
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Overall, it appears that emerging-adult college students primarily perceive their parents to be
authoritative (i.e., high levels of warmth and support, as well as high levels of appropriate demand-
ingness and expectations), although there are some differences in perceptions as a function of gender
and ethnicity. College students in the United States (Nelson, Padilla-Walker, Christensen, Evans, and
Carroll, 2011), Australia (Conrade and Ho, 2001), South Africa (Roman, Makwakwa, and Lacante,
2016), Korea (Kim and Chung, 2003), and Israel (Alt, 2015) report authoritative parenting to be the
most common. Mothers are generally reported to be more authoritative than are fathers. One study
also found that young men perceived fathers to be more authoritarian and mothers to be more per-
missive than did young women, whereas young women perceived mothers to be more authoritative
than did young men (Conrade and Ho, 2001). In a sample of South African college students, black
fathers scored lower on authoritativeness than did white fathers (Roman et al., 2016). Similar to
research conducted during the formative years (Grusec and Goodnow, 1994), research shows that
perceptions of parenting styles during emerging adulthood vary somewhat in frequency as a func-
tion of gender and culture/ethnicity. Research on the associations between parenting styles and child
outcomes during emerging adulthood reveal similarly complex patterns.
More specifically, during emerging adulthood authoritative parenting has been the most con-
sistent parenting style associated with adaptive outcomes. For example, mothers and fathers who
were authoritative had children who reported lower academic amotivation (Alt, 2015), higher self-
esteem (Jackson, Pratt, Hunsberger, and Pancer, 2005), better adjustment to university, and lower
levels of depression, impulsiveness (Patock-Peckham, King, Morgan-Lopez, Ulloa, and Moses, 2011),
and drinking behavior. However, links between parenting, impulsiveness, and drinking for young
women were only significant for fathering, whereas for young men they were only significant for
mothering, again highlighting the complexity of relations between parenting styles and child out-
comes. Authoritative mothering (but not fathering) has been associated negatively with anxiety and
depression for young women only (Barton and Kirtley, 2012), and with lower odds of drug use for
young men only (in the Philippines; Hock et al., 2016). Authoritative fathering (but not mothering)
has been associated with androgynous gender identity (Lin and Billingham, 2014), which was linked
to better health practices and socioemotional outcomes. One study found that emerging-adult col-
lege students who reported having both an authoritative mother and father had the lowest levels of
internalizing and externalizing problems, those with either an authoritative mother or father had
moderate levels of problem behaviors, and those who had no parent who was authoritative were by
far the most maladjusted (McKinney, Morse, and Pastuszak, 2016).
In contrast to authoritative parents, authoritarian and permissive parenting are relatively less adap-
tive during emerging adulthood. For example, authoritarian mothering and fathering have been
associated positively with maladaptive perfectionism in college students, which was then associated
with test anxiety (Soysa and Weiss, 2014). Similarly, authoritarian parenting has been positively asso-
ciated with extrinsic motivation (Alt, 2015), anxiety (among Chinese students; Cheung, Cheung, and
Wu, 2014), and low self-reliance (among Korean American college students; Kim and Chung, 2003).
One study found that authoritarian fathering was associated positively with stress, but for young men
only (Barton and Kirtley, 2012). In terms of permissive parenting, research has found that permissive
mothering and fathering have been associated with academic entitlement (Barton and Hirsch, 2016),
stress (Barton and Kirtley, 2012), and anxiety, which in turn were associated with higher levels of
depression among college students. Permissive parenting has also been associated with more impul-
siveness (Patock-Peckham et al., 2011), alcohol-related problems (Whitney and Froiland, 2015), aca-
demic amotivation (Alt, 2015), and drug use (for young men; Hock et al., 2016).
An interesting note regarding the research on parenting styles relates to the larger theoretical
question about whether parenting looks the same during emerging adulthood as it does during the
formative years. Whereas most research has used the same parenting styles during emerging adult-
hood as have been explored during childhood (e.g., authoritative, authoritarian, permissive), one
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study asked the question of whether different parenting styles were used during emerging adulthood
than those that exist prior to that point. Although also based on a college student sample, Nelson and
colleagues (2011) considered a variety of dimensions of parenting (e.g., control, warmth, autonomy)
and used a person-centered approach to determine what parenting styles might emerge during
emerging adulthood. They found that about 45% of mothers and 30% of fathers could be classified
as authoritative, which was the most common style, but other styles included uninvolved (i.e., scores
below the mean on all parenting dimensions), and controlling-indulgent (i.e., scores above the mean
on both control and indulgence, while scoring low on warmth) also emerged. These unique styles
suggest that perhaps parenting does not look the same during emerging adulthood as it does during
childhood and adolescence when children are in the home, and continued research should not only
consider traditional types of parenting during emerging adulthood, but also allow for unique patterns
and approaches as both parents and children adjust to their changing roles.
In summary, clearly research supports the adaptive nature of emerging adults who perceive their
parents to be authoritative, with less adaptive outcomes for parents who are perceived as being
authoritarian or permissive. These findings are relatively consistent with research during childhood
and adolescence, but consider outcomes that are more appropriate for the developmental tasks of
the third decade of life. It is also clear from the available literature that results vary as a function of
the gender of the parent and the child, although not in any meaningfully consistent manner. These
differences could be a function of the larger number of studies exploring authoritative parenting, but
findings also suggest that the impact of authoritative parenting may differ somewhat more consist-
ently as a function of these contextual variables than do authoritarian or permissive parenting. It is of
note that the vast majority of studies used college student samples that were predominantly European
American and an average age of 18–20 years old. The majority of studies also considered only the
child’s perception of parenting, without considering the parents’ perspective or that of an outside
observer. More research is needed that considers the role of parents in the lives of emerging-adult
children who are not currently in school, as roles may differ widely when parents are supporting a
child through college compared to when a child is working and supportive him- or herself. A nota-
ble number of studies considered parenting styles from other countries, and findings across cultures
were similar, but the use of college samples from multiple cultures may result in more similarity than
is really there cross-culturally (due to similarity across cultures in college student samples; Haidt,
Koller, and Dias, 1993), necessitating more research with samples of varying ethnic, socioeconomic,
and cultural backgrounds.
Dimensions of Parenting
Throughout childhood and adolescence, three important dimensions of parenting have been identi-
fied, including support (e.g., acceptance, warmth, affection, nurturance), autonomy granting (e.g.,
giving choices, allowing the child input on rule making, permitting the expression of ideas, avoiding
intrusive behavior), and control (e.g., limit setting, supervision, reasoning about consequences; Hart,
Newell, and Olsen, 2003). Each aspect of parenting has been linked to specific child outcomes, but
the unique balance, or ratio, of these features of parenting changes across development. For exam-
ple, it is much more appropriate to exert higher levels of control over toddlers than adolescents or
emerging adults. In addition to the developmental shift in the appropriate balance between these
key aspects of parenting, the forms they take likewise change developmentally. For example, paren-
tal warmth and support toward children (e.g., assisting with homework, driving to baseball games,
attending piano recitals) might look different than it would for emerging adults (e.g., listening to
work- or school-related concerns). In summary, the balance among support, autonomy, and control
changes across development as do the ways in which each is displayed. By the end of adolescence,
it is expected that the balance will shift extensively toward the need for greater child autonomy
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and much less (if any) parental control. This is not meant to suggest that the beginning of emerging
adulthood brings an end to the role of parents in the lives of their children, but it should signify the
beginning of what may arguably be the most significant reorganization of the parent–child relation-
ship in development, including a shift in the balance and form of the dimensions of parenting. Thus,
a closer look at the dimensions of parenting in emerging adulthood is necessary to understand the
roles that parents play in the lives of their children during the third decade of life.
Parental Support
Research on parental support during emerging adulthood exists in many forms, with little attempt at
connection across literatures. In this section, we synthesize a broad literature and suggest that perhaps
the most commonly studied aspect of parenting during emerging adulthood is overall support. In
some studies support is conceptualized as social support, in others warmth or attachment, and in yet
others the overall quality of the parent–child relationship. Although coming from somewhat differ-
ent perspectives, we argue that all of these studies tap into the same underlying aspect of parenting
that is considered during the formative years (e.g., warmth/support), but that the ways in which it is
measured and the types of support may be somewhat different during emerging adulthood than they
were during childhood or adolescence.
Theories of social support suggest that a supportive parent–child relationship may be important
for emerging adults, and that parental support (compared to support from other sources) may be
especially important in meeting certain needs such as chronic stress or financial problems (Messeri,
Silverstein, and Litwak, 1993). Similarly, functional specificity models of relationships suggest that
relationships are not only a matter of preference and need, but also may serve very distinct functions
in the lives of emerging adults (Simons, 1983). This model purports that the basic needs of security,
intimacy, and self-esteem are met by relationships and that different relationships meet these needs
in unique ways. For example, parent–child relationships may be especially important for feelings of
security during the transition to adulthood, but may not be as central for intimacy or self-esteem
needs compared to other sources of social support. That being said, there is ample evidence that
parental support is key to a variety of healthy developmental outcomes during the third decade of life.
More specifically, both mothers and fathers are important sources of social support for emerging-
adult children across a variety of cultures. For example, parental social support has been associated
concurrently with less depression and loneliness for both European and African American college
students (Mounts, 2004). Parental social support has also been associated with lower levels of risky
sexual behavior (Simons, Burt, and Tambling, 2013), open parent–child communication about sex,
and higher sexual self-esteem among college students (maternal support; Riggio, Galaz, Garcia, and
Matthies, 2014). Longitudinally, parental social support has been associated with lower levels of
self-criticism and higher levels of goal attainment in Israeli college students (Dickson and Shulman,
2016), better psychological adjustment (well-being, distress) from ages 18–20 for European American
college students (Holahan, Valentiner, and Moos, 1994), and better academic and social adjustment
over a 3-year time span for Croatian college students (Smojver-Ažić, Dorčić, and Juretić, 2015).
One study found that a sample of diverse emerging adults (not a college student sample) who
reported intense levels of support from parents (several times a week, financial, advice, emotional
support) reported better psychological adjustment and higher life satisfaction than those who did
not report intense support (Fingerman et al., 2012). Given research and popular media attention sug-
gesting that parents are increasingly overinvolved in their college students’ lives, this study was novel
in claiming that not only support, but also high levels of support, can be adaptive during emerging
adulthood. It is likely that intense emotional and financial support can be adaptive, while similar
behaviors that are used in a controlling manner (e.g., helicopter parenting) are less adaptive. Thus, it
is important to take into account parental motivation and specific parenting practices (as opposed to
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broad dimensions and styles). Relatedly, the majority of studies suggest social support is a strength,
but one study found that perceived parental support among Finnish emerging adults was associated
with lower levels of volunteerism 2 years later, suggesting that perhaps emerging adults who are
overly close with their family may be less willing to reach out and help strangers (Pavlova, Silbereisen,
Ranta, and Salmela-Aro, 2016). In other words, the maintenance of close family relationships during
the transition to adulthood could impact emerging adults’ willingness to reach out and build rela-
tionships with others. However, this study was the only one that linked social support to a less than
optimal outcome, and whereas it is an intriguing finding, it is certainly in need of replication. Taken
together, the majority of research on the role of parental support suggests that parents continue to
play a key role in helping their children during the transition to adulthood, especially in terms of
positive psychological adjustment.
Similar to general measures of support, specific aspects of the parent–child relationship indicative
of support have also been linked to positive outcomes during emerging adulthood. For example, par-
ent–child attachment in college student samples has been associated with higher levels of self-esteem,
especially for young women (60% Latino/a; Laible, Carlo, and Roesch, 2004), and paternal (but not
maternal) acceptance was associated with psychological adjustment (Poland; Filus and Roszak, 2014)
and lower levels of anxiety (Reitman and Asseff, 2010). In one study, maternal warmth was associ-
ated with less production of cortisol (healthy cortisol levels peak in the morning and then decrease
throughout the day) and also moderated relations between stress and cortisol production among
college students (50% Asian American; Lucas-Thompson, 2014). Maternal warmth/responsiveness
has also been associated with lower levels of drug use among European American (but not Asian
American) college students (Luk, Patock-Peckham, and King, 2015), higher academic achievement
via perceived teacher social support among Argentinean college students (mother and father respon-
siveness; de la Iglesia, Hoffmann, and Liporace, 2014), and higher levels of self-regulation and social
competence among Turkish emerging adults (non-college student sample; Moilanen and Manuel,
2017). Parental warmth and attachment have also been consistently linked with romantic relationship
quality during emerging adulthood. More specifically, paternal warmth/attachment was associated
with romantic relationship quality in European American college students (Karre, 2015) and inti-
mate relationship satisfaction among college students from Mozambique (Cruz, 2014). In a sample
of Italian emerging adults (non-college student sample), attachment to the father was directly and
positively related to life satisfaction, whereas attachment to the mother was negatively associated with
insecure romantic attachment, which was in turn associated with life satisfaction (Guarnieri, Smorti,
and Tani, 2015). In summary, it is clear that the research on warmth and attachment is consistent with
the research on support in suggesting that emerging adults who feel they have a supportive, loving,
trusting relationship with parents, also report positive psychological and relationship outcomes.
Finally, research on parent–child relationship quality is also consistent with research on social sup-
port suggesting that, overall, a positive parent–child relationship is beneficial during the transition
to adulthood. Child-reported mother-child relationship quality (support, companionship, intimacy,
aid) was associated positively with prosocial values, religious faith (Barry, Padilla-Walker, and Nelson,
2012), and prosocial behavior (Barry, Padilla-Walker, Madsen, and Nelson, 2008) among college
students. Positive parent–child relationship quality (intimacy, conflict, relative power) has also been
associated with higher levels of well-being when making the university-to-work transition (German
college students; Buhl, 2007), lower levels of anxiety and higher academic self-efficacy and GPA
(Cutrona, Cole, Colangelo, Assouline, and Russell, 1994), and higher overall happiness for emerging-
adult college students (40% European American, 40% African American; Demir, 2010). Relationship
quality protects against problem behaviors such as risky drinking (Serido, Lawry, Li, Conger, and
Russell, 2014) and nonmedical prescription opioid use (non-college sample; Cerda et al., 2014).
Thus, the body of research assessing relationship quality adds to the social support literature in sug-
gesting that emerging adults who report having a positive relationship with their parents not only
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report lower levels of risk behaviors, but also higher levels of both academic and moral outcomes,
as well as general well-being and happiness. Whether parental support is operationalized as general
support, parental warmth, attachment, or relationship quality, it appears that parents continue to be
important in the lives of their emerging-adult children, especially in terms of providing support
during the transition to adulthood. This body of research tells us little about specificity in parenting
practices, but it does suggest that the foundation of a positive relationship with parents is widely
studied and consistently associated with a variety of healthy child outcomes.
Parental Autonomy Support

Another aspect of support during emerging adulthood, autonomy support, is characterized by par-
ents who support their child in making his or her own decisions. Given the developmental impor-
tance of an increase in autonomy during the transition to adulthood (see Grolnick, Deci, and Ryan,
1997), there are surprisingly relatively few studies that consider the impact of parental autonomy
support on the parent–child relationship and child outcomes during this time period. Certainly, as
will be discussed below, a relatively larger body of research considers the role of parental control, but a
lack of control does not necessarily mean a promotion of autonomy. A number of studies considered
both autonomy support and other aspects of parenting during emerging adulthood, and autonomy
support was not always significantly associated with child outcomes once other parenting was taken
into account (Fulton and Turner, 2008). Given the challenge many parents face in balancing involve-
ment and autonomy support when their children leave the family home, parental autonomy support
will be an important area for continued research.
Research that has explored the role of perceived parental autonomy support during the emerging-
adult years has generally found that it is associated with positive outcomes. For example, parental
autonomy support has been associated with subjective well-being among college students (Ratelle,
Simard, and Guay, 2013), and parental denial of autonomy has been associated with alcohol problems
for European American (but not Asian American) college students (Luk et al., 2015). Parental auton-
omy support has also been associated with feelings of autonomy and relatedness (which were in turn
negatively associated with anxiety) in both U.S. and Italian college student samples (Inguglia et al.,
2016) and protective self-regulatory processes (which were in turn negatively associated with depres-
sion) among non-college African American emerging adults (Kogan and Brody, 2010). Another study
found that for Latino immigrant college students, parental facilitation of autonomy was important
to success in school, although sometimes this felt like a mixed blessing because it was often due to
parents’ inability to help (Ceballo, 2004). This study suggests that the impact of autonomy support
may be different depending on the parental motivation or the child’s perception of why the support
is being given. It seems clear that research is consistent with theory suggesting the importance of
parental autonomy support during the transition to adulthood, especially as it relates to psychological
well-being. However, additional research is clearly needed to explore how autonomy support might
impact additional child outcomes and how it interacts with other aspects of parenting (e.g., control,
involvement) and child characteristics (e.g., temperament) to influence child outcomes.
Parental Control
Similar to research conducted during the formative years, the growing body of work examining con-
trolling and intrusive forms of parenting in emerging adulthood shows that, when parents attempt to
exercise negative control aimed at limiting their children’s behavioral autonomy (i.e., harsh, threat-
ening, authoritarian behaviors) or psychological and emotional autonomy (i.e., psychological con-
trol), the outcomes tend to be negative. In this section we discuss three forms of control, namely
behavioral control, psychological control, and helicopter parenting. These three forms are related
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but unique types of control and are linked to a variety of mostly negative outcomes in the lives of
emerging-adult children.
Behavioral Control
Given the developmental appropriateness of granting greater levels of autonomy to young people as
they leave adolescence, parental behavioral control should diminish significantly in emerging adult-
hood even for those living at home. However, many parents still try to control the behavior of their
emerging-adult children. Obviously, behavioral control in emerging adulthood will look different
than it did in childhood and adolescence when it took the form of time-outs, grounding, revok-
ing television/computer/video game privileges, or corporal punishment (e.g., spanking, slapping).
In emerging adulthood, some parents still attempt to maintain control over the behavior of their
emerging-adult children by setting rules about how they spend their money, trying to control what
classes they take or jobs they pursue, or controlling what they do with their free time.
Not surprisingly, the increasing amount of evidence on the effects of parental behavioral control
during emerging adulthood reveals that it is correlated both concurrently and longitudinally with
numerous negative outcomes. For example, maternal self-reports of behavioral control have been
linked to college students’ lower emotional control (Manzeske and Stright, 2009), and parents who
use high levels of punishment and hostility have emerging-adult children with higher levels of
depression, anxiety, and impulsivity and lower levels of social competence, self-worth, and kindness
(Nelson et al., 2011). Although these studies suggest that control is linked to negative outcomes, the
picture may be a little more complex than imagined at first glance, as research has found variability in
emerging adults’ perceptions of parents’ legitimate authority to control their behavior. More specifi-
cally, in a study of university students in the United States, Padilla-Walker, Nelson, and Knapp (2014)
examined the extent to which young people felt their parents had legitimate authority in social con-
ventional (e.g., socially acceptable behavior), moral (e.g., lying, cheating), personal (e.g., free time),
and prudential (e.g., personal safety) domains of their lives. The majority of emerging adults (66%)
perceived their parents to have moderate legitimate control in some areas (e.g., moral), but not others
(personal), whereas a smaller group (11%) consisted of emerging adults who perceived their parents
to have legitimate authority in all four domains and a third group (24%) consisted of emerging adults
who did not perceive their parents as having legitimate control in any domain.
Emerging-adult children who felt their parents had legitimate authority over most issues in their
lives tended to feel less like adults, reported parents who were financially involved in their lives, and
reported high levels of behavioral control and helicopter parenting (Padilla-Walker et al., 2014). In
summary, factors such as perceptions of legitimate authority may determine just how quickly parents
begin granting greater autonomy for their children. Notably, if parents are financially involved in the
lives of their emerging-adult children, the children see parents as having some legitimate authority
in decisions (Padilla-Walker et al., 2014), although parents may then use this financial advantage as a
means to control emerging-adult children inappropriately to the detriment of their children’s well-
being (Nelson et al., 2011). Behavioral control appears to take on different forms and be used less
frequently in emerging adulthood, but when it is used, it is linked to rather negative outcomes in
the third decade of life.
Psychological Control
Compared to behavioral control, there is a larger body of work examining psychologically control-
ling forms of parenting in emerging adulthood, possibly because psychological control is a more
common form of control in emerging adulthood due to the fact that it is difficult to behaviorally
control children at this age (often due to not being in physical proximity). Psychological control is a
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parent’s attempt to control his or her child’s thoughts and psychological world (see Barber, 1996; Bar-
ber and Harmon, 2002) and includes parents inducing guilt if the child does not do what is desired
(“After everything I’ve done for you, this is all that you’re going to do for me?”), ignoring the child
if behavior is seen as unacceptable (referred to as love withdrawal), and trying to change how the
child thinks or feels through manipulation.
Emerging-adult children with psychologically controlling parents report problems in numerous
domains of development. In particular, maternal psychological control has been associated with anxi-
ety among college students, especially young women (Reitman and Asseff, 2010). Parental psycho-
logical control has also been linked to depression (Reed, Ferraro, Lucier-Greer, and Barber, 2015),
lower levels of autonomy (Zimmer-Gembeck, Madsen, and Hanisch, 2011), lower levels of emo-
tional regulation (Manzeske and Stright, 2009), and difficulties in coping with interpersonal stress
(Abaied and Emond, 2013). Psychological control has been found to be indirectly associated with
lower levels of same-sex peer competence and romantic partner social competence (Moilanen and
Manuel, 2017), eating disorder symptoms and exercise dependence symptoms (Costa, Hausenblas,
Oliva, Cuzzocrea, and Larcan, 2016), and participation in risk behaviors (e.g., getting drunk, use of
illegal drugs, driving drunk; Urry, Nelson, Padilla-Walker, 2011).
Emerging adulthood is a time during which young people explore their identity in regard to
work, love, and worldviews (Arnett, 2000) and is also a key time for gaining an education, starting
a career, and establishing more stable and intimate romantic relationships. Psychological control
is detrimental in all three of these areas. More specifically, one longitudinal study with university
freshman in Flanders, Belgium, found stable associations between psychological control and iden-
tity (i.e., negative associations with both commitment dimensions and a positive association with
exploration in breadth; Luyckx, Soenens, Vansteenkiste, Goossens, and Berzonsky, 2007). Another
longitudinal study found that lower initial levels of and decreases in paternal psychological control
were associated with higher levels of education completed, and, for young men, higher perceived
educational abilities (Desjardins and Leadbeater, 2017). Also for young men, decreases in maternal
psychological control were associated with higher perceived educational abilities. Finally, in a study
conducted in the United States with slightly older university students who were mainly female
and European American, Karre (2015) found that less paternal psychological control was linked
to greater levels of support in romantic relationships for young men, and higher levels of paternal
psychological control was linked to more conflict in the relationship for both young men and
women.Thus, psychological control seems to be detrimental to developmental tasks that are central
to emerging adulthood.
There is also a body of work examining factors that mediate the links between psychologically
controlling parenting and emerging adults’ adjustment. For example, in a study of American and Ital-
ian emerging adults, researchers found that links between psychological control and emerging adults’
anxiety and depressive symptoms were mediated by lower levels of perceived autonomy and relat-
edness (Inguglia et al., 2016). Similarly, research has found that links between psychological control
and educational abilities were mediated by emerging adults’ depression (Desjardins and Leadbeater,
2017), such that decreases in psychological control were related to lower levels of depression, which
were in turn associated with higher levels of educational outcomes. Other mediators between psy-
chological control and emerging-adult outcomes include lower levels of self-regulation (Moilanen
and Manuel, 2017), maladaptive perfectionism (Costa et al., 2016), and emerging adults’ willingness
to disclose to their parents (Urry et al., 2011). In summary, a growing body of evidence suggests that
psychological control appears to foster problems of an internalizing nature, hinder developmentally
important markers of growth (e.g., educational and occupational attainment, identity development),
and negatively impact emerging adults’ relationships with others including parents, peers, and roman-
tic partners.
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Helicopter Parenting
A final way that parents sometimes attempt to control their children during emerging adulthood is
via helicopter parenting. This form of intrusive parenting consists of parents “hovering” over their
emerging-adult children and making important decisions for them such as where they should live,
whom they should date, and what classes they should take. The term “helicopter” parenting first
emerged via media and popular culture (Gabriel, 2010; Marano, 2010) and caught on and persisted
without any empirical evidence supporting the claim that it was a unique form of controlling parent-
ing during emerging adulthood. It should be noted, though, that similar constructs such as overpro-
tective and over-solicitous parenting have been studied extensively for years with younger children
and have been consistently linked with maladaptive outcomes (Rubin, Hastings, Stewart, Henderson,
and Chen, 1997). Helicopter parenting has since been distinguished from behavioral control and
psychological control (Padilla-Walker and Nelson, 2012) as well as other forms of parenting such as
autonomy support (Reed, Duncan, Lucier-Greer, Fixelle, and Ferraro, 2016).
The work that has emerged examining helicopter parenting suggests that it may not be as harmful
as behavioral or psychological control but is linked nevertheless to less than optimal outcomes. This
developmentally inappropriate parenting practice appears to be linked to various indices of malad-
justment within the educational setting in particular. For example, helicopter parenting has been
found to be associated with low self-efficacy (Bradley-Geist and Olson-Buchanan, 2014), alienation
from peers, and lack of trust among peers (van Ingen et al., 2015) for European American university
students. Helicopter parenting has also been negatively related to indices of adjustment, such as school
engagement (Padilla-Walker and Nelson, 2012), school functioning (Luebbe et al., 2016), coping
skills (Abaied and Emond, 2013; Odenweller, Booth-Butterfield, and Weber, 2014; Segrin, Woszidlo,
Givertz, and Montgomery, 2013), and decision-making skills (Luebbe et al., 2016). Research has
also found that students whose parents engaged in higher levels of overparenting produced more
maladaptive responses to potential workplace scenarios (e.g., blaming others, lying, getting others to
solve problems for them; Bradley-Geist and Olson-Buchanan, 2014). Taken together, these findings
are disconcerting given that educational and early career successes are significant milestones for many
individuals during the third decade of life.
Educational contexts are not the only settings wherein children of helicopter parents appear to
struggle. Numerous studies have revealed a link between helicopter parenting and indices of anxiety
and depressive symptoms (Luebbe et al., 2016; LeMoyne and Buchanan, 2011; Rousseau and Scharf,
2015; Schiffrin et al., 2014), negative internal locus of control (Kwon,Yoo, and Bingham, 2016), and
lower levels of well-being (for young women, Kouros, Pruitt, Ekas, Kiriaki, and Sunderland, 2017).
This latter study by Kouros and colleagues is particularly noteworthy because it is one of the few
studies on helicopter parenting to explore ethnic differences, but results did not find that ethnic-
ity played a role in the association between helicopter parenting and indices of well-being. Finally,
another important developmental milestone of the third decade of life is forming more stable and
intimate romantic relationships including, for many, marriage (Arnett, 2000). Albeit very limited,
emerging work suggests that helicopter parenting may take a toll in this domain as well, as it has
been found to influence emerging adults’ attitudes and beliefs, including negative marital attitudes
(Willoughby, Hersh, Padilla-Walker, and Nelson, 2015).
Just as with other forms of controlling parenting, there may be factors that mediate and mod-
erate the effects that helicopter parenting has on young people in the third decade of life. Self-
efficacy (Bradley-Geist and Olson-Buchanan, 2014), attachment anxiety (Jewish-Israeli emerging
adults; Rousseau and Scharf, 2015), and perceptions of psychological control may mediate relations
between helicopter parenting and maladaptive outcomes. Similarly, links between helicopter parent-
ing and child outcomes may be moderated by other aspects of parenting, the most notable of which
is parental warmth. Indeed, some of the media depictions of hovering parents suggest that it is a form
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of control that might be driven by excessive warmth and care on the part of the parents as they want
to prevent their children from making mistakes or experiencing failure. However, research does not
seem to reflect the notion that helicopter parenting is even significantly associated with parental
warmth, positively or negatively (Padilla-Walker and Nelson, 2012). One study found that helicopter
parenting was associated with lower levels of self-worth and higher levels of risk behaviors for those
emerging adults who reported low levels of warmth from their parents (especially their mothers),
but not for those with high levels of warmth. These results suggest that warmth in conjunction with
helicopter parenting does not lead to positive child outcomes, but the lack of warmth in the context
of helicopter parenting is particularly harmful.
The exploration of warmth in relation to helicopter parenting also raises the question of paren-
tal motivation. Are helicopter parents loving and protective, albeit misguided, or are they trying to
control their children? One study examined the extent to which parents’ having a prevention focus
(e.g.,“Not being careful enough has gotten me into trouble at times.”) versus a promotion focus (e.g.,
“I feel like I have made progress toward being successful in my life.”) predicted their use of helicop-
ter parenting (Jewish and Arab families; Rousseau and Scharf, 2017). Analyses revealed that higher
levels of prevention focus (for mothers and fathers) were associated with higher levels of helicopter
parenting, which led the authors to speculate that parents with higher levels of prevention focus may
use helicopter parenting as a tactic for preventing their children from making mistakes. These results,
along with attempts to examine the role of warmth (Nelson et al., 2015), point toward the need to
better understand the motivations that parents have for engaging in helicopter parenting.
Taken together, research shows that helicopter parenting is a unique and measurable form of con-
trol in emerging adulthood. Furthermore, it is becoming increasingly clear that helicopter parenting
in and of itself is not inherently warm and is not facilitative of emerging adults’ development. In fact,
it appears to be linked to negative outcomes in educational pursuits and to be associated with prob-
lems reflective of both internalizing problems and externalizing problems, especially when helicopter
parenting occurs in the context of low parental warmth. It is of note that behavioral and psychological
control are generally more detrimental to child outcomes than is helicopter parenting, but in sum-
mary it is clear that all forms of control appear to be far from adaptive during the third decade of life.
Future Directions in Parenting During Emerging Adulthood

Given that research on emerging adulthood is in its infancy, it is impressive to review the wealth
of research that has considered the role of parents in the lives of their emerging-adult children.
Although existing research clearly highlights the continued importance of parents during the transi-
tion to adulthood, much still needs to be done to increase our understanding and provide parents
and educators with information that will help families and young people. In this section, we discuss
a few directions that research should consider as the field moves forward. First and foremost, research
needs to consider the diversity of individuals who make the transition to adulthood (college versus
non-college, culture, ethnicity, age, gender, and so forth) and explore how different aspects of parent-
ing might be differentially important for some compared to others. Second, research should consider
the bidirectional nature of the parent–child relationship, especially given findings that parenting may
become less directly associated with child outcomes as children get older (Padilla-Walker, 2014).
Third, research on parenting during emerging adulthood would benefit from greater specificity and
exploration of multidimensionality in both parenting and child outcomes (Bornstein, 2015). Fourth,
future research should explore how emerging adults who have their own children in the third decade
of life adjust to the transition to parenting compared to those who have children in their 30s or 40s.
Finally, research on parenting during emerging adulthood should consider how parents of emerging
adults navigate this time in their child’s life, as parents of emerging-adult children are also experienc-
ing numerous transitions.
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A Need for Diversity

Not surprisingly, the majority of research on parenting during emerging adulthood relies on U.S.
college student samples. In addition, most of these samples are convenience samples, and researchers
often do not consider the developmental issues that might be unique to emerging adulthood and to
college students. Indeed, we know little about whether parenting during emerging adulthood is dis-
tinct from parenting during adolescence, and how parenting might vary meaningfully for university,
college, and non-college emerging adults. Although nearly 70% of U.S. American adolescents attend
college, this group is overrepresented by European American and high-income individuals (Arnett,
2016a). Furthermore, only half of this 70% attend 4-year universities, with the remainder attending
2-year colleges, so data using primarily university samples, at best, only represent about a third of
emerging adults in the United States, not to mention those who are underrepresented by using uni-
versity samples in other countries. The majority of university samples also consist of emerging adults
in the first few years of the third decade of life. Given that emerging adulthood is purported to span
the years 18–29, continued research should explore how parenting might change from early to late
emerging adulthood, both in terms of parenting behavior and children’s needs. Indeed, a child who
is making her first transition from the family home to college life or to work is likely quite different
in terms of the need for parenting and parental support than is a child in his late 20s who already has
a family and has been working for 5 years.
There is also still a great deal of debate regarding whether the theory of emerging adulthood
(Arnett, 2000) applies across different social classes and cultures. Arnett (2016b) argued that there are
similarities across social class (Arnett, 2016b), whereas others continue to argue convincingly that
there are meaningful differences and more research is needed (du Bois-Reymond, 2016; Furstenberg,
2016). Beyond culture, ethnicity, and social class there is mounting evidence that emerging adulthood
is largely a “his” and “hers” reality, with young men and young women experiencing this time period
differently, with young men reporting higher levels of floundering overall (Nelson and Padilla-
Walker, 2013). Given these findings, we know relatively little about how the role of parents may differ
for young men and young women. Although some studies certainly found differences, taken together
these differences did not approach a meaningful pattern of results, and continued research is needed
in this area. In short, there is a great need to expand our study of parenting during the third decade
of life to include diversity in a variety of ways to understand more clearly the variability that exists
in the transition to adulthood.
Bidirectionality of the Parent–Child Relationship

Parenting research during the formative years has long called for additional research considering
the active role of the child in shaping parent–child interactions (Grusec and Goodnow, 1994), and
researchers have been increasingly responsive. However, there is a relative dearth of research consid-
ering the active role of the child during the third decade of life, perhaps because of the paucity of
longitudinal studies during this period. Given parenting research suggesting that the goal of Western
socialization is to rear children who are independent and autonomous and who internalize parental
and societal values, it is logical that, as children age, parenting should be less directly associated with
child outcomes and more indirectly related (Grusec and Goodnow, 1994; Padilla-Walker, 2014). The
direct impact of parenting may decrease as children age, but research during late adolescence has
found that children continue to shape parenting (Maggs and Galambos, 1993; Padilla-Walker, Carlo,
Christensen and Yorgason, 2012), and additional research is needed during emerging adulthood.
One study found support for the active role of the child, but suggested that it depends on the
aspect of the child’s behavior that is considered. More specifically, the authors found that emerging-
adult college students’ rule-breaking behavior was associated with parenting, while aggression and
181
ADHD were not (McClelland and McKinney, 2016). Whereas this study provides initial support
for the idea that child characteristics impact parenting during emerging adulthood, these data were
cross-sectional and so could not accurately assess direction of effects. Another study found that
emerging-adult college students’ personality was more strongly associated with adjustment than was
parenting style, although relations between the child’s personality and parenting were not explored
(Schnuck and Handal, 2011). However, this study suggested that, although direct paths between
parenting and child outcomes are present during emerging adulthood, they are weak and somewhat
inconsistent compared to child characteristics (which are notably shaped by parenting during the
formative years). We are also aware of one study that explored bidirectional longitudinal associations
between parenting (involvement, autonomy support, warmth, and control) and emerging-adult col-
lege students’ prosocial behavior, and found that children’s prosocial behavior at Time 1 was a consist-
ent predictor of parenting 1 year later, but parenting was not longitudinally associated with prosocial
behavior (Padilla-Walker, Nelson, Fu, and Barry, 2017). More specifically, emerging adults who were
more prosocial at Time 1 reported mothers who had higher levels of warmth and autonomy support
and lower levels of behavioral control 1 year later, suggesting that children’s behavior was shaping
parenting rather than the other way around.Taken together, we can determine little that is conclusive
from these studies, but it is clear from theory and research during the formative years that children
are active participants in the parent–child relationship, so certainly more research should consider
how children influence their parents (and vice versa) during the transition to adulthood.
Specificity and Multidimensionality

It became clear in reviewing the literature on parenting during emerging adulthood that the aspects
of parenting and the types of child outcomes that have been explored are relatively limited.The larg-
est body of research by far is that exploring the role of general social support and the broad parent–
child relationship. Whereas it is fruitful to understand that having a positive relationship with one’s
child is important during the transition to adulthood, this broad information leaves relatively little
detail to provide parents with specific answers to how one might go about maintaining or building
this relationship. In other words, we know that parents are important during emerging adulthood,
but know much less about parenting during emerging adulthood. The specificity principle (applied
to parental cognitions in particular, but related to many aspects of parenting) suggests that “specific
cognitions and practices on the part of the specific parents at specific times exert specific effects over
specific children in specific ways” (Bornstein, 2015, p. 77). This principle also supports the idea that
effective parenting at one stage of life might not be effective at another and helps to highlight the
need for a more nuanced approach to parenting during emerging adulthood. For example, we know
that a parent should support his or her child and should not be controlling, but what type of support
is the most helpful (e.g., financial, emotional, social) and how much support is optimal (see Bornstein
and Manian, 2013)? A positive relationship is associated with adaptive outcomes, but how can parents
best maintain a positive relationship with their children when the child no longer resides with the
parent or when the parent–child relationship was strained during the formative years? If a child is
struggling in work or in school, what specific strategies might parents use to encourage and support
their child? Is supportive parenting associated positively with some child outcomes, while inhibiting
other outcomes such as autonomy or independence? Are there aspects of parenting (e.g., helicopter
parenting) that might be unique to emerging adulthood and that therefore need to be explored with
greater specificity? As noted earlier, it will be essential for future research to not just look at parent-
ing during emerging adulthood as more of the same, but to critically examine how parenting might
look different during this period, or how it ought to look different given the age of the child. Both
parenting and child outcomes are multifaceted, and recent edited volumes have argued for a need to
182
explore diverse dimensions of parenting to more fully capture its influence across the lifespan (Laible,
Carlo, and Padilla-Walker, in press).
In addition to more specificity needed in how to measure and think about parenting, the research
during emerging adulthood generally has focused on child outcomes that are somewhat risk based
to the exclusion of indicators of flourishing beyond general life satisfaction (see Padilla-Walker and
Nelson, 2017). Thus, continued research should explore not only how diverse aspects of parenting
impact a variety of risk behaviors, but also how parenting promotes or detracts from positive child
outcomes during emerging adulthood, such as civic and political engagement, moral development,
self-esteem, and prosocial behavior, as well as positive relationship formation and other aspects of
flourishing. In short, the existing research on parenting during emerging adulthood is an impres-
sive start given the relative infancy of the field, but overall next steps should include specificity and
multidimensionality.
Emerging Adults Who Are Parents

There is a significant literature on the transition to parenthood, but few studies make a distinction
between those who transition to parenthood during emerging adulthood and those who transi-
tion later. Given that the average age of first parenthood in the U.S. is during emerging adulthood
(26.3 years for women, 27.4 for men; Mathews and Hamilton, 2016), a significant portion of emerg-
ing adults are becoming parents, but we know little about how this impacts their development dif-
ferently than it might those who become parents later in life. Or perhaps more importantly, we know
little about how becoming a parent in one’s early 20s is related to developmental outcomes compared
to becoming a parent in one’s late 20s or early 30s. The age of first parenthood is lower than the age
of first marriage in the U.S., highlighting that the context for becoming a parent is changing, with
many emerging adults having children within cohabiting relationships (Holmes, Brown, Shafer, and
Stoddard, 2017). This recent chapter by Holmes and colleagues highlights the transition to parent-
hood for emerging adults, but acknowledges that the majority of existing research does not focus on
this developmental period specifically when considering mental and physical health outcomes for
parents. Thus, we know little about whether becoming a parent is uniquely challenging (or benefi-
cial) during early-emerging adulthood when one is potentially also balancing school or a new job,
so future research should consider these questions.
Parents of Emerging Adults

Whereas research has focused with increased regularity on how parents are involved in the lives of
their emerging-adult children and how this impacts the child, there is less research considering how
parenting an emerging-adult child impacts the parent. Although media depictions would lead one to
believe that most parents of emerging-adult children are either fed up with their child or are engag-
ing in extreme helicopter parenting, the research that has been done suggests that parents are gener-
ally satisfied with their child and are experiencing positive mental health. Research from a national
survey of over 1,000 parents of emerging adults in the U.S. (Arnett and Schwab, 2013) suggested
that a vast majority of parents reported that their relationship with their emerging-adult child was
a primary source of enjoyment for them (in addition to hobbies, media, and relationship with their
spouse) and that the relationship with their child had become more enjoyable and respectful now
that the child was an emerging adult.
About 45% of U.S. parents reported helping their children frequently or regularly with financial
support, although very few parents reported being helped financially by their parents when they were
emerging adults (Arnett and Schwab, 2013).The majority of Australian parents in a large longitudinal
183
study of families reported not only providing financial help, but also providing emotional help in
the form of listening, assistance with problems, and providing advice (Vassallo, Smart, and Price-
Robertson, 2009). About half of parents of emerging adults ages 18–21 in the U.S. reported that
their emerging-adult child still lived in the family home, but the majority of parents also reported
that residing with their adult child was related to feelings of companionship and help with house-
hold responsibilities (Arnett and Schwab, 2013). It is also of note that findings highlighted important
differences in the parents of emerging-adult children as a function of ethnicity, with African Ameri-
can and Latino parents, as well as parents with less education, feeling strongly (compared to Euro-
pean American and college-educated parents) that their emerging-adult children would have more
opportunities and a better life than they did. Although parents of emerging adults generally report
they are doing well, findings from the national survey also suggest that a majority feel like this time
of their life is stressful and full of changes, and a small group report increased conflict with their child.
Research has also found that some parents struggle with separation anxiety when their children leave
the home (Kins, Soenens, and Beyers, 2013) or with empty nest syndrome (Bouchard, 2014), though
these struggles are not shared by the majority of parents of emerging adults.
Taken together, although few empirical studies have focused on the well-being of parents of
emerging-adult children, initial evidence exists that by and large parents are doing well, though some
certainly struggle with letting go and allowing their children autonomy in decision-making (Kloep
and Hendry, 2010). This is an area of research that is ripe for study, as parents’ successful later years
may be, in part, a function of how they adjust to the empty nest (see Bouchard, 2014) generally, but
well-being in later life could also specifically be influenced (positively or negatively) by how the
quality of the relationship with their children emerges from this time of change.
Conclusions
This is the first chapter in the Handbook of Parenting to consider the role that parents play in the lives
of their emerging-adult children. Although a number of studies explore continuity in parenting from
adolescence through the transition to adulthood, in this chapter we have chosen to focus on how
parenting might be important during the third decade of life and how it might meaningfully differ
from parenting (in either frequency or practice) during the formative years. A number of theoretical
foundations provide support for the continued importance of parents as well as theories suggesting
that developmental changes during the transition to adulthood (especially due to historical changes
in context for many young people) may result in changes to the family system and to the individual
that necessitate change in the parent–child relationship.
Research on parenting during emerging adulthood is sparse compared to childhood and adoles-
cence, but there is a growing body of research particularly focused on parental support and parental
control. Research summarized in this chapter provides ample evidence, for example, that authori-
tative parenting and parental support are importantly related to developmentally appropriate out-
comes during the third decade of life, while parental control (e.g., behavioral and psychological
control) is even more harmful when used during emerging adulthood than it might be earlier in
development. There was also initial evidence that parents of emerging-adult children may provide
support (e.g., financial) and engage in controlling strategies (e.g., helicopter parenting) in different
ways than support or control that is used during childhood and adolescence. We noted throughout
this chapter that there is wide variability in how emerging adults and parents from different cul-
tures, contexts, and socioeconomic backgrounds experience this time of life, but overall findings
in regard to parenting were relatively consistent across the groups studied in the existing body of
research. We encourage researchers to explore the wealth of topics relating to parenting during
emerging adulthood, first and foremost the need to explore variability and diversity as well as bidi-
rectionality and multidimensionality. The field would also benefit from a greater understanding of
184
emerging adults who are parents, as well as the effect of the transition to adulthood for the parents
of emerging-adult children. Finally, the field would benefit from a clearer focus on parenting that
might be unique to the third decade of life, rather than merely measuring the same parenting con-
structs from childhood and adolescence to assess adaptive parenting during a time of life that may
be unique in meaningful ways. Despite limitations in the existing body of research, this chapter
makes a strong case for the continued need for parents to be involved in the lives of their children as
they transition to adulthood. Continued research should aim to provide education for both parents
and children who seek counsel on how to best navigate this variable and somewhat unstable time
of life, and parents and children should optimistically seek ways to engage in meaningful relation-
ships with one another.
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6
PARENT–CHILD RELATIONSHIPS
IN ADULTHOOD AND OLD AGE
Karen L. Fingerman, Steven H. Zarit, and Kira S. Birditt
Introduction
Parent–child relationships span the entire life course. Rather than ceasing when children are launched
from the family, these relationships endure, characterized by complex patterns of interaction, support,
and assistance that wax and wane around key transitions and major events in the adult years. Indeed,
family issues, such as intergenerational conflict, mutual assistance, and inheritance, have a timeless feel
to them. Several trends in contemporary society, however, have modified and made these issues more
complicated. Changes in mortality (death rates) and morbidity (disease rates) have resulted in more
people living longer, often with disabilities in later life. As a result, older people are likely to depend
on family for help, sometimes for a long period of time. Altered patterns of marriage and divorce
have also meant more individuals entering old age without the support of a spouse and with more
complex relationships with children. At the same time, other trends, such as slow growth in jobs and
wages along with lower rates of savings and accumulation of wealth, have diminished the economic
prospects of younger generations and magnified the importance of tangible help and emotional sup-
port that adult children receive from their parents.
In this chapter, we review the most recent research on the nature of relationships between aging
parents and their adult children. Reflecting the basic premises of a life course perspective, we pos-
tulate that ties between aging parents and their adult children are a two-way street; that is, not only
do children provide support and care to parents, but parents continue to support their children long
after they have been launched into adulthood. We examine the circumstances when adult children
provide assistance to disabled elderly parents, and, conversely, when older parents continue giving
help to their adult children. These everyday interactions between aging parents and their children
and grandchildren provide a richness to life but also can be a stage on which long-standing tensions
in families continue to play out.
The aspect of family relationships in later life that has received the most attention from research
and the media has been the care provided to disabled parents or other relatives. The need for, and
provision of, care to an aging parent is a momentous event in later life that affects not just children
who provide care, but also children who are not directly involved in caregiving (Amirkhanyan and
Wolf, 2003, 2006). With ever-increasing costs of medical and long-term care, assistance by family
members is often essential to the security and well-being of an older parent. Unfortunately, for many
families this involvement is stressful. Assisting a severely disabled parent may interfere with children’s
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own employment, family life, and/or well-being or reawaken long-standing conflicts with parents or
siblings (Aneshensel, Pearlin, Mullan, Zarit, and Whitlatch, 1995; Zarit and Heid, 2015).
We have included in this chapter this dual focus on everyday interactions and support between
children and parents and caregiving, because an emphasis only on caregiving does not capture the
reciprocal, contingent nature of parent–child ties across the lifespan. Even when children are assist-
ing a disabled parent, the parent may still be returning some support as well. Moreover, older adults
typically require care for a relatively brief period of a few years at the end of life; for decades before
that, relatively healthy parents interact with and often assist their grown children in many different
ways. From a life course perspective, caregiving is only one part of this long history of interactions
and exchanges between parents and children. We believe that examination of these complementary
patterns of exchange contributes a fuller understanding of intergenerational relationships in later
life than would a focus on caregiving the aged alone, because most relationships of parent and adult
child do not involve caregiving, and when care is needed, it develops in the context of long-standing
relationships with their unique histories of exchange, affection, conflict, and values.
We begin this chapter with an examination of the demographic changes that have dramatically
altered the structure of the family and family relationships over the adult years. Based on these trends,
critical issues in intergenerational relationships are identified. We then present theoretical perspec-
tives that illuminate the exploration of family relationships in adulthood. Turning to research, we
identify patterns of assistance from older parents to their adult children and the assistance given from
children to parents. We next review the extensive literature on care of a disabled parent, including
who provides care, stressors associated with caregiving, determinants and mediators of caregiving
stressors, and interventions that can lower stress on caregivers. We end with a discussion of future
trends of ties between the generations. As we look ahead, we ponder whether we should be optimis-
tic or pessimistic about the ability of families to support and care for each other across generational
lines.
How Demographic and Social Changes Have Affected Family Ties

The demographic revolution in the twentieth century changed family structure in substantial ways.
Increased life expectancy and decreased family size resulted in an aging of the population and of the
family. Having an older relative in the family had once been a relatively rare occurrence; now, it is
usual and expected. In the United States in 1900, life expectancy at birth was 49 years for women and
46.4 years for men. Currently, women have an expected lifespan of 81.2 years and men 76.4 years
(National Center for Health Statistics, 2015). Life expectancy at age 65, which adjusts for mortality
earlier in life, yields higher figures—85.5 years for women and 82.9 years for men. The increased
rate of survival into old age means that relationships between parents and children endure for longer
periods than in the past, as do relationships of grandparents and their grandchildren (Smith and Wild,
2019). Increased survival to advanced ages also means that adult children are likely to provide care
to one or both parents at some point in their lives. Similar trends are found throughout much of the
world, particularly in developed nations.
Most older people are healthy and live independently, but rates of cognitive and functional dis-
ability increase with age (National Center for Health Statistics, 2015). For example, difficulties per-
forming daily activities among women rose from 9.4% of the population aged 65–74 to 45% at
ages 85 and older; for men the comparable figures were 6.4% and 26.2%. As would be expected, the
proportions of individuals living in nursing homes or other residential settings rise with advanced
age (Kinsella and Velkoff, 2001).
Several characteristics of the older population have implications for family relationships. Given
the gender difference in life expectancy, women constitute a greater proportion of the population
over 65 (56.4%). This gender gap increases with advancing age. Among people 85 and older, 66.6%
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are women (Ortman,Velkoff, and Hogan, 2014).The preponderance of women is one of the defining
features of the social world of late life.
Gender differences in survivorship, combined with the fact that women tend to marry men 2 or
more years older than themselves, means that older women are much more likely to be widowed
(34% of women over age 65 compared to 11% of men; Mather, Jacobsen, and Pollard, 2015). Further-
more, older men who are widowed are more likely to remarry than older women. As a result, 72% of
men aged 65 and older are married, whereas 48% of older women are married. These differences in
marital status are why older women are much more likely to live alone, become institutionalized at
earlier ages, have incomes below the poverty line, and to be more likely to need support from family
(Kinsella and Velkoff, 2001).
Another factor affecting the intergenerational experiences of aging people is the high rate of
marital dissolution (Brown and Lin, 2013). Children of divorced parents may have ambivalent feel-
ings toward one or both of their biological parents and may be reluctant to provide support and
assistance. Conversely, when their children divorce, older adults may find themselves providing help
ranging from caring for grandchildren to financial assistance.
The economic status of older adults in the United States is probably better than at any time in
history. The poverty rate for persons aged 65 years and over was 10% in 2014 (Mather, Jacobsen,
and Pollard, 2015). This amount is considerably less than for children (21%), and slightly lower than
among working age adults (14%). The economic circumstances of older people vary widely, how-
ever. Persons who are 75 and older have poverty rates that are more than one-third higher than the
young-old (aged 65–74). Poverty rates are also higher for single, divorced, and widowed women and
ethnic minorities, groups that have increasingly characterized the older population. Moreover, a siz-
able proportion of older adults are “near poor” or just above poverty.The Social Security program has
played a major role in reducing poverty among older people (Mather, Jacobsen, and Pollard, 2015),
but concern about its rising cost and political opposition to government programs could lead to
substantial changes in that program. Moreover, 21% of married adults and 43% of unmarried older
adults who rely solely on Social Security for 90% of their income and circumstances are already in
tight economic circumstances (Social Security Administration, 2017).
In sum, demographic changes underlie many of the changes in intergenerational ties that have
occurred over the past 50 years. In particular, increased longevity has resulted in a great number of
generations living at the same time. Other demographic changes such as marital patterns have also
contributed to variability in these ties.
Critical Issues in Parent–Child Relationships

To understand these long-enduring relationships between adults and their parents, this chapter
addresses several critical questions that permeate the literature on intergenerational ties:
1. How do qualities of relationships between adults and parents vary over time and within families?
2. What are typical patterns of intergenerational support and exchanges between parents and their
adult offspring, and how do these patterns contribute to health and emotional well-being?
3. To what extent do families serve as a safety net, providing help both upward toward older gen-
erations and downward from the older to younger generations?
4. How do qualities of parent–child relationships contribute to helping patterns?
5. How does the emergence of caregiving to an older adult affect exchanges of support within
families?
6. What are the major stressors associated with caregiving for middle-aged adults and strategies
that can maintain the challenges of caregiving at manageable levels?
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These questions convey a story about adult development and parent–child relationships. In early
adulthood, as young adults traverse an increasingly complex transition into adult roles, parents typi-
cally remain invested in the child (more so than the reverse). Over time, the relationship progresses
toward increased reciprocity. Toward the end of life, as aging parents accumulate physical and cogni-
tive declines and losses, midlife adults increasingly find themselves in positions of caregiving. This
progression has yielded research addressing each of the questions posed above.
Theoretical Approaches to Parent–Child Relationships in Adulthood

The parent–child tie in adulthood involves multiple ties and is not solely a dyadic phenomenon.
Given changes in longevity, multi-generational families have become increasingly the norm. As such,
many individuals spend decades of adulthood in which they are simultaneously a grown child and a
parent. Moreover, most parents have more than one child, and many grown children have more than
one parent who is alive. Grown children may also have ties to stepparents and in-laws (for children
who are married).Thus, the critical issues described above become more complex from a theoretical
perspective in considering how any given dyad fits into the array of family relationships.
Furthermore, life course scholars have long noted the structural and contextual factors that shape
relationships between adults and parents. But structural factors alone do not account for how parents
and children feel about one another and what they are willing to do for one another. Rather, psy-
chological issues, such as their affection for one another and their beliefs about their relationships,
shape the nature of the tie.
We have developed the multidimensional intergenerational support model (MISM) to provide a
framework for the factors that influence ties between parents and grown children (Fingerman, 2017;
Fingerman, Sechrist, and Birditt, 2013; see Figure 6.1). This framework considers structural factors,
such as the historical context and socioeconomic position of the parents and grown children, that
shape the resources parents have to share and the demands grown children place on those resources.
During historical periods or in circumstances where grown children struggle to gain a foothold
Time 1 Time 2
Determinants of Exchange Determinants of Exchange
Resources
Contingencies Contingencies
and - Everyday needs - Everyday needs
Demands - Crises or problems - Crises or problems
Relationship quality Relationship quality
Potential achievement Potential achievement
Support provided Support provided
Support Exchange Support Exchange

- Type of support - Type of support
- Appraisals - Appraisals
Well-being Well-being
Figure 6.1 The multidimensional intergenerational support model
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in a well-paying job, parents are more likely to fill in with financial support and housing (Finger-
man, 2017; Newman, 2012). Family context also matters. For example, researchers have repeatedly
shown that parents’ marital status (e.g., two biological parents married versus stepparent and biologi-
cal parents) influences the likelihood that parents will provide financial support to grown children
(Henretta, Wolf, van Voorhis, and Soldo, 2012). Moreover, experiences in the parent–child tie vary
depending on whether the party is a child or a parent in that relationship. Finally, qualities of the
relationship (e.g., affection) and individual beliefs are also key factors in determining the nature of
the tie, the frequency of contact, and the types of support the parties provide.
Intergenerational Relationship Qualities

The positive and negative qualities of the relationship between parents and their adult children
have ongoing implications for well-being and health across the adult years. Positive aspects of the
tie include the extent to which parents love and care for one another and understand one another
(Bengtson, Giarrusso, Mabry, and Silverstein, 2002). Negative qualities include the extent to which
parents and children get on one another’s nerves and make too many demands on one another
(Umberson, 1992).
These qualities vary by gender, age, and generation. Mothers and daughters typically report both
more intense positive and negative ties than do fathers and sons (Birditt Tighe, Fingerman, and Zarit,
2012). Indeed, research shows that mothers tend to report better quality ties (i.e., favoritism), as well
as conflict, with daughters than sons (Suitor et al., 2016). Parent–child ties tend to become both more
positive and less negative as parents age (Tighe, Birditt, and Antonucci, 2016).
In addition, the literature shows that parent–child ties consistently vary by generation between
parents and children in dyads and within person by the generation of the interaction partner (i.e.,
whether the partner is a parent or a child). Parents typically report greater investment, positivity, and
lower negative quality with children than do their children regarding the relationship (Aquilino,
1999; Giarrusso, Silverstein, Gans, and Bengtson, 2005; Shapiro, 2004). This is referred to in the lit-
erature as the “intergenerational stake” (Bengtson and Kuypers, 1971). Parents view their children as
continuations of themselves and are highly invested in their achievements and successes. Based on
this theory, we developed what we refer to as the intraindividual stake hypothesis (Birditt, Hartnett,
Zarit, Fingerman, and Antonucci, 2015). According to this hypothesis, individuals are more invested
in their own children than in their parents.We have examined this theory in different ways and found
support for the hypothesis. Middle-aged individuals report greater investment as well as greater nega-
tive relationship quality with their children than with their parents (Birditt et al., 2015).
Parent–Child Daily Interactions in Adulthood

In contrast to the vast literature regarding parent–child interactions in childhood and adolescence
(Bornstein, 2019; Chapters 3 and 4 in this volume), only scant research literature has examined
qualities of interactions between adults and their aging parents. On an everyday basis, parents report
frequent enjoyable interactions with their grown children. In diary studies, parents reported the
majority of their daily encounters with grown children were enjoyable and they frequently shared
laughter (Fingerman, Kim, Birditt, and Zarit, 2016). Yet, stressful encounters also occur on a regu-
lar though less frequent basis. Moreover, parents and grown children experience tensions with the
each other, without ever confronting the other person (Birditt, Rott, and Fingerman, 2009). Parents
report more intense tensions than do adult children particularly with regards to individual issues (e.g.,
finances, health) but not problems with the relationship in general (Birditt et al., 2009).
Daily interactions and their effects on parents’ well-being also vary depending on whether adult
children are experiencing life problems such as drug and alcohol addiction, financial crises, divorce,
195
or serious health issues. Birditt, Kim, Zarit, Fingerman, and Loving (2016) found that parents were
more likely to report negative daily interactions with adult children who suffered from such life
problems. Furthermore, interactions with children who had problems were associated with parent’s
diurnal cortisol rhythms, which is a physiological marker of stress. Interactions with adult children
who had lifestyle–behavioral problems had more delayed or next-day associations with cortisol.
Conflict Strategies
Most parents and grown children find successful ways to navigate tensions in their relationships in
adulthood without disbanding their ties. Estrangement between grown children and parents is relatively
uncommon and primarily attributable to extraneous factors such as perpetual non-involvement of a
father, parental incarceration, or death (Hartnett, Fingerman, and Burditt, 2017).
Rather, parents and grown children engage in conflict behaviors that maximize positive feelings
in the tie and minimize dissent (Birdit et al., 2009). In particularly positive relationships, parents and
grown children cope with interpersonal tensions in the tie in ways that sustain strong ties. First, a par-
ent or child may cognitively frame the other party’s negative behaviors in terms of a flaw in the other
party, rather than as a personal affront. For example, a midlife daughter might view her mother’s inter-
mittent phone calls throughout the day as a sign of the mother’s loneliness rather than as the mother’s
intruding on the daughter’s time. Second, such parents and grown children are unlikely to confront
the other party, but instead accept the problem and find ways to deal with it (Fingerman, 2001).
These behaviors also vary by context and by generational stations. Birditt et al. (2017b) found
that middle-aged individuals were more likely to report active strategies with adult children (e.g.,
discussing problems), whereas they were more likely to use passive strategies (e.g., avoidance) with
aging parents. Conversely, middle-aged individuals who did use passive strategies with adult children
reported greater depressive symptoms. Research also shows that daily interpersonal interactions vary
by generation. Birditt, Manalel, Kim, Zarit, and Fingerman (2017a) found that middle-aged indi-
viduals reported having more frequent contact with their adult children than their aging parents, but
more negative interactions with their aging parents than adult children. Furthermore, they found that
daily interactions with adult children were more consistently associated with daily negative affect and
diurnal cortisol than interactions with aging parents. Daily negative interactions with adult children
may be more salient because tensions with adult children occur less frequently than tensions with
parents.
The qualities of parents’ and children’s relationships are important for each party’s well-being.
But in addition to emotional bonds, ties between adults and parents are resource rich; that is, these
relationships often involve exchanges of tangible and nontangible support.
Exchanges of Support Across Generations

The first critical question posed at the start of this chapter—regarding typical patterns of intergener-
ational support and exchanges between parents and their adult offspring—has received considerable
research attention across cultures. Around the world, in childhood, parents are expected to support
and care for their children’s material and nonmaterial needs. But in adulthood, expectations on fam-
ily vary by culture and type of government (e.g., social welfare state vs. conservative government).
Parental Support of Grown Children

Despite some variability, across Western cultures family support usually flows downstream from older
generations to their progeny, at least until parents incur health problems in late life (Kohli, Albertini,
and Künemund, 2010). Parents typically provide both intangible and tangible support to grown
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children. Tangible support includes financial assistance as well as help with practical tasks that have
financial value, such as helping with childcare and chores. Intangible support involves emotional sup-
port, companionship, and discussing recent events. Parents are most likely to provide intangible forms
of support, such as emotional support, followed by practical and financial support. Parents provide
intangible support at least once a week or even every day, and tangible support weekly, once a month,
or several times a year (Fingerman, Kim, Davis Tennant, Birditt, and Zarit, 2015; Fingerman, Miller,
Birditt, and Zarit, 2009).Yet, parents typically give 10% of their income to grown children each year,
regardless of their own financial circumstances (Kornrich and Furstenberg, 2013).
The frequency with which parents provide different types of support to grown children varies based
on structural factors associated with needs and resources. For example, age of offspring is one of the
strongest predictors of parental support, with younger adult offspring receiving more frequent support
of all types than older offspring (Hartnett, Furstenberg, Fingerman, and Birditt, 2013). This age asso-
ciation is linked to offspring needs; younger adults are more likely to be transitioning into adulthood
and, as such, to be unmarried, a student, or employed in low-wage jobs that necessitate support from
parents. Indeed, across cultures, parents provide more support (particularly financial support) to stu-
dents than to non-students (Henretta et al., 2012; Johnson, 2013; McGarry and Schoeni, 1995, 1997).
Parental resources play a key role in support with regard to both intangible resources (e.g., having
a spouse) and tangible resources. Children in lower SES families receive less frequent support of all
types (Fingerman et al., 2015). Upper SES parents are more likely to be able to pay for their children’s
education, a key form of support in the U.S. where secondary education requires private resources (as
opposed to many European countries where the government underwrites college tuition; Henretta,
Wolf, van Voorhis, and Soldo, 2012; Johnson, 2013). Nevertheless, parents in all SES circumstances in
the U.S. attempt to assist their grown children; even lower SES parents give 10% of their income to
their children (Fingerman et al., 2015; Kornrich and Furstenberg, 2013).
Part of the SES disparity reflects the constellation of other factors associated with parents’ upper
and lower SES status. For example, parents who are better off financially are also more likely to be
college educated, to be married to the grown child’s other parent, to have fewer children, and to be in
better health, facilitating their ability to support their grown children (Henretta et al., 2012; McGarry
and Schoeni, 1995, 1997).
Other structural factors, such as gender and geographic proximity, play a role in parental support.
Parents are more likely to provide practical support and emotional support to daughters and children
who live closer to them (Suitor, Pillemer, and Sechrist, 2006). Studies examining daily reports of
support have confirmed these findings showing that parents provide more daily support to children
with greater needs (children with more problems, who were unmarried, younger, daughters, students,
coresident children, and those with children; Fingerman et al., 2015; Fingerman, Huo, Kim, and
Birditt, in press).
Qualities of the relationship also determine who gets support. Parents provide more support to
grown children whom they view as successful (Fingerman et al., 2009). Consistent with the devel-
opmental stake hypothesis, parents remain invested in the parental role, and watching their children
succeed is partially a reflection of their own success as parents (Cichy, Lefkowitz, Davis, and Finger-
man, 2013). When parents and grown children have more affectionate bonds, parents also provide
more to grown children (Fingerman et al., 2011). Furthermore, parents provide more support to off-
spring who provide more support to them (Suitor et al., 2006). This pattern of reciprocity raises the
question of life course patterns—when and why do grown children start to support aging parents?
Offspring Provision of Support to Parents

In young adulthood, grown children may not provide much support to midlife parents. A majority
of grown children do report offering their parents emotional support at least once a month (Cheng,
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Lam, Kwok, Ng, and Fung, 2013), but this is an infrequent rate of emotional support given that most
grown children report talking with their parents nearly every day (Arnett and Schwab, 2012; Finger-
man et al., in press). Furthermore, consistent with the typical flow of support in Western countries
and the premise of the intergenerational stake, young adults typically only provide practical support
to parents in extreme circumstances, such as when a midlife parent incurs severe physical illness
(Pakenham and Cox, 2012).
Some cultural variability is evident in these patterns. For example, Latino families may harbor
an expectation that young people will contribute to the overall family well-being via caregiving
and financial contributions, beginning in adolescence (Kuperminc, Wilkins, Jurkovic and Perilla,
2013). Although cultural brokering in childhood has been widely studied in immigrant populations
(Weisskirch et al., 2011), and there is a belief that Latino young adults are involved in supporting their
parents, research on this topic is all but absent.
Although offspring only support parents under limited circumstances when parents are in midlife,
they increase that support over time.The question then arises as to what factors contribute to midlife
adults’ support of aging parents. Offspring support their parents due to need; as parental needs
increase (particularly disabilities) offspring support increases (Eggebeen and Davey, 1998; Fingerman
et al., 2011; Silverstein, Gans, and Yang, 2006; Silverstein, Parrott, and Bengtson, 1995).
Structural and relationship factors also play a role in how much assistance offspring give to par-
ents. For example, grown children who live near parents provide more support than their more dis-
tant siblings (Fingerman et al., 2011; Pillemer and Suitor, 2013). Offspring are more likely to support
parents when they feel closer to the parent, they value the relationship, and they spent time together
in the past (Fingerman et al., 2011; Silverstein et al., 2002).
A great deal is known about relationship qualities and exchanges of support between adults and
parents due to a vast array of survey data.Yet, as discussed below, the focus and patterns of such meas-
urement has changed over the past few decades.
Measurement of Parent–Child Relationships in Adulthood

Research addressing parent–child relationships in adulthood has primarily relied on survey method-
ologies. Adults are proficient at reporting on themselves and their relationships. Often, parents and
grown children reside at a distance and bringing both parties into the lab is not feasible. As such, a
large literature built up derived from adults’ self-reports of ties to parents or grown children.
In the twentieth century, much of the research on relationships between adults and parents
focused on a single member of the family—a parent or a grown child—and that individual answered
questions about intergenerational ties (Eggebeen and Davey, 1998; Rossi and Rossi, 1990; Silverstein
et al., 1995; Willson, Shuey, and Elder, 2003).
Indeed, it was only in the 1990s that some researchers collected data aimed at dyadic processes in
parent–child ties in adulthood, by interviewing pairs including a parent and a grown child (Cohen
and Pollack, 2005; Fingerman, 2001; Lyons, Zarit, Sayer, and Whitlatch, 2002). These types of analy-
ses revealed patterns in which grown children affected their parents’ well-being and vice versa. This
research and subsequent studies confirmed parental sensitivity to their grown children’s problems
(Fingerman, Cheng, Birditt, and Zarit, 2012), as well as grown children’s susceptibility to parental
distress, particularly when the parents suffered health problems (Cohen and Pollack, 2005; Finger-
man, Hay, Kamp Dush, Cichy, and Hosterman, 2007). Dyadic studies also revealed findings consistent
with the developmental stake hypothesis; parents were typically more positive about their relation-
ships with the grown child than the reverse (Cichy, Lefkowitz, Davis, et al., 2013; Fingerman, 2001).
The most recent studies of intergenerational ties have focused on patterns of within-family dif-
ferences (Suitor et al., 2018). That is, most people who become parents have more than one child.
As such, parents appear to have distinct relationships with different children, favoring children who
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share their values or who are successful (Fingerman et al., 2009; Suitor et al., 2006). Grown children
seem to be aware of such patterns and to suffer when they perceive their parents as favoring a sibling
(Jensen, Whiteman, Fingerman, and Birditt, 2013). Some studies have included parents’ dyadic dis-
crepancies with different grown children, combining the dyadic and within-family methodologies
(Kim, Zarit, Eggebeen, Birditt, and Fingerman, 2011), showing when and how discrepancies arise
between parents and a specific child’s perception of the relationship.
Researchers have also expanded studies to ask about more than two generations of adults by
examining young adults, midlife parents, and aging grandparents. Examination of three generations
of adults reflects current demographic trends that families typically have three, four, or even five
generations alive simultaneously (Bengtson, 2001). One study focusing on three generations found
that the two younger generations (midlife parents and young adult children) had more emotion-
ally intense relationships than the midlife generation had with the aging grandparents (Birditt et al.,
2015). Research has shown that midlife adults typically provide more support to grown children
than to parents, but reverse that pattern when parents incur health declines (Fingerman et al., 2011).
Another study focused on patterns of physical problems and psychological problems across three
generations. In a majority of families, few members of any generation suffered such problems, but in
other families either the young adults incurred life problems and physical problems, or the grandpar-
ents suffered disabilities. That study of three generations suggested that families may evolve through
a life sequence of coping with different types of problems as their members grow older (Fingerman,
Huo, Graham, Kim, and Birditt, in press).
Notably, the literature examining adult’s intergenerational ties is not completely constrained to
self-report surveys. A few studies have used observational methods with dyads of parents and grown
children (Cichy, Lefkowitz, and Fingerman, 2013). Some studies have also relied on daily reports of
encounters with parents and grown children, including measures of salivary hormones mentioned
previously (Birditt et al., 2016; Birditt et al., 2017a; Fingerman, Huo, Kim, and Birditt, 2017; Finger-
man, Kim, Tennant, Birditt, and Zarit, 2016).
Although the research regarding intergenerational ties is rich, there are also several topics or areas
of study absent from the literature. For example, despite many studies of SES disparities in raising
children, there is a surprising dearth of research focusing on socioeconomic disparities in intergen-
erational relationships after the children reach adulthood. Similarly, some research has examined
ethnic differences in parent–child ties, particularly with regard to support and caregiving (Fingerman,
Vanderdrift, Dotterer, Birditt, and Zarit, 2011; Gallagher et al., 2003; Suitor, Sechrist, and Pillemer,
2007). But the literature is much richer with regard to ethnic difference in parents’ ties to children
earlier in life.
Finally, the literatures regarding intergenerational ties broadly and caregiving in late life are dis-
tinct. A few studies have attempted to examine the transition period from everyday support patterns
to more intensive caregiving (Kim et al., 2016; Suitor, Gilligan, Johnson, and Pillemer, 2012; Suitor,
Gilligan, and Pillemer, 2013), but for the most part, the literature examining parents with disabilities
is separate, as though the disabilities arose in new relationships that lacked a prior history. As such,
additional research is needed to examine continuity and discontinuity in intergenerational relation-
ships from earlier to later adulthood when caregiving and health problems become increasingly
likely. We address the literature regarding parental disabilities in the next section.
Older Parents With Disabilities

Patterns of everyday support provided by adult children to their aging parents may eventually shift
toward “caregiving,” where they are giving more intensive assistance with activities of daily living
(ADL) as well as helping in other ways. Caring for an aging parent with cognitive, emotional, and/
or physical disabilities is one of the most challenging tasks during the adult years. Brody (1985)
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characterized caregiving as normative but stressful. Caregiving is normative in the sense that long
life carries with it the likelihood of experiencing disability for a period at the end of life and for
one’s children to be involved in varying degrees in providing care. A survey by the National Alli-
ance for Caregiving and the American Association of Retired Persons (2015) estimated that 14.3%
of adults in the United States are assisting a person 50 years of age or older who needs help with
daily functioning (e.g., cooking, cleaning, shopping) and/or personal care (e.g., bathing, dressing).
Nearly half of all the care goes to persons 75 years of age or older. Unlike other normative life events,
however, caregiving is often stressful (Brodaty, Woodward, Boundy, Ames, and Balshaw, 2014; Joling
et al., 2015). Caring for a parent or other relative who is experiencing a major decline in health and
functioning is often physically and emotionally demanding and time consuming. Caregiving can also
be rewarding. Caregivers can have positive experiences in their interactions with their parent and
may gain a sense also of fulfilling an obligation (Cheng, Mak, Lau, Ng, and Lam, 2016; Goodman,
Steiner, and Zarit, 1997).
The belief that families are responsible for the care of their elderly relatives has long been a
central tenet in most cultures (Habib, Sundström, and Windmiller, 1993). With the emergence of
modern nuclear families, there has been a concern that families will pull back from their traditional
obligation to care for parents and instead turn over their care to formal institutions. Most people,
however, endorse attitudes of filial obligation, indicating that children should be involved in their
parents’ lives and provide assistance when needed (Brody, Johnsen, and Fulcomer,1983; Stein et al.,
1998; Youn, Knight, Jeong, and Benton, 1999). Furthermore, although historical trends can be dif-
ficult to estimate, it appears that families remain highly involved, even in countries such as Sweden
where extensive formal services are available (Habib et al., 1993; Shea et al., 2003). Indeed, given the
increased probability of becoming a caregiver and assisting someone for a long period, adult children
may be providing more help to older parents than ever before.
Helping patterns between children and their aged parents are characterized by considerable het-
erogeneity. Children may be helping parents with different types of problems, including acute and
chronic health concerns, functional and/or cognitive disabilities, and emotional difficulties such as
depression and anger.The amount and type of help needed and assistance provided range from mini-
mal to extensive, around-the-clock responsibilities. At any single point in time, most older people
need little or no regular assistance, so the amount of help being provided by children will be mini-
mal. On occasions, however, even these minimal involvements can be very stressful, with children
perceiving that their parents are making excessive demands on them or where the need for assistance
rekindles long-standing family conflict with a parent or siblings. An additional source of heterogene-
ity involves who helps an aging parent. Much of the literature has focused on a single caregiver, but
it is common for multiple family members to provide assistance, with one person serving as primary
caregiver who coordinates care and has the greatest involvement (Koehly, Ashida, Schafer, and Lud-
den, 2015; National Alliance for Caregiving and the American Association of Retired Persons Policy
Institute, 2015). Patterns of multiple family caregivers and multiple care recipients are found in many
Mexican American families (Evans, Coon, Belyea, and Ume, 2017).
Family members sometimes provide assistance to a parent on a short-term basis, for example, fol-
lowing a hospitalization or other event that temporarily limits the older person’s ability to perform
daily activities (National Alliance for Caregiving and the American Association of Retired Persons
Policy Institute, 2015). More commonly, caregiving involves assisting a parent suffering from chronic
and often deteriorating conditions, such as dementia, that may persist over several years and ultimately
lead to death. In these situations, caregiving is an evolving role that changes over time in response
to the care receiver’s needs and how the caregiver adapts to the situation. To capture the dynamic
changes in caregiving, we use a framework developed by Pearlin and Aneshensel (1994) that views
caregiving as a career with three primary phases: acquisition, enactment, and role disengagement.
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Becoming a Caregiving: Acquisition of the Role

Caregiving sometimes is initiated following a major event, such as an acute illness or injury, but more
often it develops gradually, growing out of the pattern of mutual support between aging parents and
their adult children. Children begin providing more assistance with everyday tasks in response to a
parent’s needs. As an example, assistance that a child previously gave that was discretionary, such as
taking a parent to the grocery store, becomes necessary due to the parent’s increasing difficulty with
driving or mobility. Children may have a growing awareness that a parent needs help, or may worry
that minor difficulties will become worse. Often it takes an event such as a parent getting lost or hav-
ing difficulty transitioning home following a hospitalization that crystallizes awareness of caregiving.
Cultural norms influence which family member steps forward to provide care (Cantor, 1983;
Stein et al., 1998; Wolff and Kasper, 2006;Youn et al., 1999). If a parent is married, a spouse is most
likely to take on responsibilities for care. Couples, however, who married in later life may have less
commitment to giving care to one another, especially when high levels are needed, such as with
dementia (Sherman, Webster, and Antonucci, 2013). Sometimes both parents have health or mental
health problems that limit their ability to help one another. Typically, children play a supporting role
when one parent is caring for the other. Children may, however, encounter resistance when trying
to intervene to improve the parents’ living situation or health habits or to bring in paid help (Heid,
Zarit, and Fingerman, 2016).
When an older person is not married, or when both parents are disabled, then a daughter is more
likely to assume the primary caregiving role (Pillemer and Suitor, 2006). Sons and daughters-in-law
become primary caregivers when there are no daughters, or if daughters are unwilling or unavailable
to help (Wolff and Kasper, 2006; Williamson and Schulz, 1990). In the absence of any living adult
children or when adult children are unable to take on primary caregiving responsibilities, then other
relatives or, in some instances, friends or acquaintances may do so.
Who becomes the primary caregiver is also influenced by geographic propinquity (Pillemer and
suitor, 2006). The child or other relative who is local is likely to become caregiver. When there is no
one in the local area, children living at a distance face the problem of obtaining reliable information
about the parent’s situation, identifying and assessing local resources which might help the parent,
and deciding when to intervene. Because social services in the United States can vary so much from
one region to another, finding out quickly what services are available and which agencies provide
better quality home care can present a formidable and time-consuming task. Care managers for the
elderly are increasingly available and can provide care coordination for an elder whose children live at
some distance. Parents, however, may refuse help that a child arranges and insist that they can manage
on their own (Heid, Zarit, and Fingerman, 2016). Refusing help is fairly common and often becomes
a source of worry and frustration for children.
When it is difficult to arrange for or monitor services at a long distance, children may consider
moving a parent closer to them or into their house. In weighing this decision, children are painfully
cognizant of the problems the parent is having in daily functioning, but they often are unaware of
the pitfalls associated with a move. On the positive side, a move can address children’s concerns about
their parent’s safety.They can more directly monitor their parent and any paid help hired to assist the
parent. A move will also cut down children’s travel time, and they will be more accessible to a parent
in the event of an emergency. On the downside, moving parents from a community in which they
have lived for many years can disrupt their familiar routines and sever ties with old friends and neigh-
bors. Children may unrealistically expect the parents to recreate their social life after a move, but the
unfamiliarity of a new place and new routine can overwhelm an older person whose functioning
is already compromised. The result may be greater dependency on children than they anticipated.
Another aspect of the emergence of care is that parents have their own preferences about who
among their children should be their caregiver. A study of older mothers found they preferred
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daughters who lived closer to them as caregivers, but they also took into account children’s personal-
ity and which child would likely be a good caregiver (Suitor et al., 2013). Not getting the caregiver
they preferred was associated with greater parent depression over time.
Caregiving varies among social and ethnic groups and can differ within groups. As an example, in
the African American community, the amount and type of help that the primary caregiver receives
from family and friends can vary considerably (Dilworth-Anderson, Williams, and Cooper, 1999).
Another trend found in some inner-city African American families is compression between genera-
tions, such that grandparents, who may be in their 30s and 40s, raise their grandchildren and also assist
their own elderly parents and grandparents (Burton and Sörensen, 1993).These types of variations in
family care are important to consider when assessing a family or planning interventions.
The transition to caregiving changes existing patterns of support to parents. Kim, Bangerter,
Polenick, Zarit, and Fingerman (2016) used longitudinal data to show that as parents became disa-
bled, their children responded by increasing practical assistance but not nontangible support, such as
socializing or emotional support. A parent’s increasing disability was also associated with decreases in
children’s rating of the quality of their relationship with the parent, but not with changes in children’s
emotional well-being. Other research, however, has found that the transition to caregiving is associ-
ated with increased depressive symptoms (Dunkle et al., 2014; Rafnsson, Shankar, and Steptoe, 2015).
Enactment of the Caregiving Role

Caring for a parent or other older relative is a uniquely challenging experience. Caregivers in high-
stress situations, such as assisting someone with dementia or chronic mental illness, experience high
levels of burden, emotional distress, and risk of health problems (Brodaty et al., 2014; Clyburn, Stones,
Hadjistavropoulos, and Tuokko, 2000; Dassel and Carr, 2016; Joling et al., 2015; Klein et al., 2016; Liu,
Kim, and Zarit, 2015). Depressive symptoms tend to be greater among daughters caring for a parent
than sons, especially over time (Bookwala, 2009). Even children who are not providing direct care to
a disabled parent may report increased stress and depression (Wolf, Raissian, and Grundy, 2015). In
the following sections, we examine stressors that affect caregiver’s physical and emotional well-being
and factors that modify or buffer the stress process.
Caregiving Stressors
Caregiving stress is not a single process, but rather multiple factors that contribute to a buildup of
distress or burden. Stressors can be divided into two broad groups: (1) primary stressors, which are
activities directly related to providing care, and (2) secondary stressors, which represent the spillover
of caregiving activities into other areas of the caregiver’s life (Aneshensel et al., 1995).
Primary Stressors
Among the various care-related stressors, cognitive, behavioral, and/or emotional problems have the
greatest impact on caregivers (Brodaty et al., 2014; Clyburn et al., 2000; Koerner and Kenyon, 2007).
In dementia care, although memory problems occur more frequently than other problems, caregivers
experience disruptive and depressive behaviors as the most stressful (Fauth and Gibbons, 2014; Teri
et al., 1992). Providing help with daily activities can also be stressful (Clyburn et al., 2000), especially
when it involves a physically demanding task such as transferring a parent from bed to chair, or when
helping with personal activities like bathing and toileting that can be embarrassing for both caregiver
and care recipient. Stress is also greater if the care-recipient resists or struggles when the caregiver
tries to help with these tasks (Fauth, Femia, and Zarit, 2016).
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In addition to the strain involved in managing specific tasks and problems, caregivers experience
stress as a result of the time, effort, and energy it takes to assist a parent (Aneshensel et al., 1995).
Caregivers of persons with dementia, for example, often find themselves continually involved in
providing care. Not surprisingly, they report high levels of overload, that is, feeling exhausted because
they have more to do than they can manage (Aneshensel et al., 1995).
Another primary stressor is caregivers’ perspective on the effects the illness has on the care recipi-
ent. Pearlin, Mullan, Semple, and Skaff, (1990; see also Aneshensel et al., 1995) proposed that diseases
such as Alzheimer’s alter personality and behavior so fundamentally that they erode closeness and
intimate exchanges between patient and caregiving. Along the same line, Monin and Schulz (2010)
suggested that caregivers’ perception that the care recipient is suffering is a major source of emotional
distress.
Much of the focus in the caregiving literature falls on the effects of chronic illness and disability.
An overlooked aspect of caregiving is the burden placed on families when a parent is hospitalized due
to an acute illness or injury.Whether or not the parent had been receiving care prior to the problem,
there is often pressure to make a quick decision about whether the parent can return home, go to
an in-patient facility offering rehabilitation, or move to a nursing home. Caregivers may have little
information about the choices available in their community (for example, home care services to help
the parent return home), and they may not know what their parent might want. Hospitals, in turn,
may have only minimal social work staff to help the family with discharge planning. Furthermore,
hospital stays have become increasingly briefer. It is not uncommon for patients to be discharged
within 24 hours of major surgery. Families who take a parent home are often expected to perform
medical tasks, such as wound care, injections, and administering intravenous fluids, and to operate
medical equipment, such as ventilators and tube feeding (Reinhard, Levine, and Samis, 2012). Fami-
lies, however, report that they received little training for these tasks and often feel overwhelmed.
Secondary Stressors
The buildup of primary stressors centered on care activities can proliferate into other areas of the
adult child’s life, leading to what have been called “secondary stressors” (Aneshensel et al., 1995).
Theses stressors are not secondary in the sense of having less impact, but rather because the time
and strain associated with providing care spill over and interfere with other areas of a person’s life.
Caregivers, for example, report decreases in social and leisure activities (Mausbach, Patterson, and
Grant, 2008). They may have less time meeting other family obligations or just spending time with
a spouse or children. Balancing caregiving and employment is a frequent challenge faced by middle-
aged adults caring for a parent. Some caregivers leave the workforce when taking on responsibility
for care of a parent (National Alliance for Caregiving, and the American Association of Retired
Persons Public Policy Institute, 2015). Among those caregivers who continue in the workforce, it is
not uncommon to have increased absences, reduce work hours, or experience other disruptions of
work that result from caregiving (National Alliance for Caregiving, and the American Association of
Retired Persons Public Policy Institute, 2015). Having a child at home under the age of 18 adds to
this pressure (Scharlach and Boyd, 1989).
A study by Stephens and her colleagues illustrates how caregiving may impact on other roles
(Stephens, Townsend, Martire, and Druley, 2001). The sample included women who were caring for
a parent or parent-in-law and who simultaneously held roles as parent, wife, and employee. Sixty-two
percent of the sample reported some difficulty balancing between caregiving and their other roles.
Among daughters reporting conflict between caregiving and other roles, 34% indicated they had the
most difficulty caring for their own children, 28% said they had the most trouble balancing time with
their husband, and 38% had the most difficulty with their work role. Not surprisingly, greater role
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conflict was associated with poorer psychological well-being. Employment, however, appeared to
buffer the stresses associated with caregiving (see also Edwards, Zarit, Stephens, and Townsend, 2002).
Another type of secondary stressor is disagreements between the primary caregiver and other
family members over caregiving. Family members may argue with the caregiver about the parent’s
medical diagnosis, treatment, or how the caregiver is providing help (Aneshensel et al., 1995; Sem-
ple, 1992). In a study that assessed stress over multiple days, Koerner and Kenyon (2007) found that
disagreements between caregivers and other family members were associated with increased depres-
sive symptoms, burden, and health symptoms. Siblings, in particular, may disagree over who should
provide care, how much care they should each provide, and who should make decisions about care.
Perceived closeness with and favoritism shown by a parent as well as past inequality in help given
by parents are associated with greater tensions among siblings (Lashewicz and Keating, 2009; Suitor
et al., 2012). Money issues and anticipated inheritance are also a frequent source of contention
among siblings (Lashewicz and Keating, 2009).
The loss of valued activities and roles can threaten caregivers’ psychological sense of self (Pearlin
et al., 1990). Caregivers may feel trapped or engulfed by caregiving or feel that restrictions of other
roles and activities are eroding their identity (Aneshensel et al., 1995; Johnson and Catalano, 1983;
Skaff and Pearlin, 1992). These feelings have been found to be the strongest predictors of placing a
disabled elder into a nursing home (Aneshensel, Pearlin, and Schuler,1993).
Although the stress process model posits that secondary stressors emerge due to the spillover of
care into other areas of the caregiver’s life, it is also possible that there could have been stressors and
conflict prior to the onset of caregiving in employment, family relationships, finances, health, and
other areas of life. According to Pearlin, Schieman, Fazio, and Meersman (2005), early life adversities
and their resulting economic strain and discrimination experiences make enactment of caregiving
and other transitions in middle and later life more difficult by adding to these existing strains as well
as to the erosion of psychological and social resources that result from ongoing hardships.
When planning clinical interventions, the origins of these problems may be important. Most
research interventions have assumed that treatment of the core sources of stress associated with care
tasks will be sufficient in helping caregivers. The converse may be true in some cases that it is more
productive to help caregivers to address secondary stressors initially or as part of the overall course of
treatment. As an example, a caregiver who is experiencing an acute health problem or a flare up of
chronic pain may only be able to make changes in caregiving once those issues are managed better.
Moderating or Buffering Caregiving Stressors

One of the early and enduring themes in the caregiving literature is that there is considerable het-
erogeneity in how people adapt to the caregiving role (Zarit, Reever, and Bach-Peterson, 1980;
Zarit and Zarit, 1982, 2007).Two people may be caring for parents who have similar disabilities. One
person reports high levels of burden and the other states that she experiences relatively little stress.
Social, psychological, and economic resources can help caregivers manage primary stressors associ-
ated with care more effectively and reduce the spillover of those stressors into other areas of their
lives (Aneshensel et al., 1995).
Social support, either from family or paid help (Chappell and Funk, 2011), is a critical resource for
caregivers. Larger support networks are generally associated with lower stress and burden, especially
when care tasks are shared across multiple people and when there are fewer disagreements between
the primary caregiver and other helpers (Cheng, Lam, Kwok, Ng, and Fung, 2013; Tolkacheva, Van
Groenou, de Boer, and Van Tilburg, 2011). Siblings typically assist each other in caring for parents
(Brody et al., 1989; Suitor and Pillemer, 1993), although there may also be conflict over this help.
Friends may also be an important source of emotional support (Suitor and Pillemer, 1993). Spouses
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of caregivers helping a parent can be a valuable source of support (Brody, Litvin, Hoffman, and Kle-
ban, 1992).
How caregivers cope with daily stressors and challenges also affects their emotional well-being.
It has generally been suggested that people with better problem-solving skills, who can distance
themselves somewhat from problems and think about alternative courses of action, will function
better than caregivers who respond emotionally to their situation (Hepburn, Tornatore, Center, and
Ostwald, 2001; Okabayashi et al., 2008; Pruchno and Resch, 1989;Vitaliano, Becker, Russo, Magana-
Amato, and Maiuro, 1988–89). A greater sense of mastery or self-efficacy may contribute to more
effective coping and lower burden (Cheng, Lam, Kwok, Ng, and Fung, 2012; Mausbach, et al., 2011).
As an example, Li, Seltzer, and Greenberg (1999) found that daughters who were higher in mastery
used more problem-focused coping strategies in caring for a parent and that led to less depression
over an 18-month period. When coping with Alzheimer’s disease or other long-term degenerative
conditions, cognitive coping strategies, such as finding meaning in the situation, or seeking comfort
in one’s religious beliefs can be very helpful (Pruchno and Resch, 1989).
Caregiving Transitions and Disengagement From the Role

Caregiving activities may span several years, shifting in intensity in response to changes in the par-
ent’s condition and other circumstances in the caregiver’s. Caregivers can follow different trajectories,
with some showing increased problems and stress-related symptoms, but others improving, even as
the elder’s condition worsens (Aneshensel et al., 1995; Joling et al., 2015; Schulz,Williamson, Moryca,
and Beigel, 1993; Townsend, Noelker, Deimling, and Bass, 1989; Zarit, Todd, and Zarit, 1986).
Two major transitions, placement of a parent in a care setting and death of the parent, substan-
tially restructure the caregiving role. Each of these transitions is associated with its own stressors and
challenges.
Placement of a Parent Into a Care Setting

Placement is often considered as ending the care role, but it is best viewed as a restructuring of that
role in a way that minimizes some stressors but may increase some problems and introduce new
challenges (Aneshensel et al., 1995; Gaugler, Zarit, and Pearlin, 2003). Placing a parent remains a last
choice for many people. Children may feel guilty and depressed about the prospects of placement.
They also encounter realistic problems, including poor quality of care in some facilities and specifi-
cally in the United States the cost of long-term care, which is not covered by Medicare.
As an alternative to traditional nursing homes, new types of care facilities, often grouped under
the umbrella term “assisted living,” have been developed to offer elders more autonomy and a bet-
ter quality of life than available in nursing homes (Zarit and Reamy, 2013). Rather than operating
on the medical model as nursing homes do, assisted living emphasizes the social aspects of daily life
and tries to help people maintain their involvement in ordinary activities. The best of these facilities
are an excellent housing option for older people, but many are plagued with the same problems as
nursing homes, such as staff shortages and turnover, inadequately trained staff, and unimaginative
activities for residents.
Placement does not mean the end of a caregiver’s involvement. Children typically remain
involved, visiting their parent frequently, in some cases assisting their parent with daily activities such
as feeding or dressing, and interacting with staff to assure good care (Gaugler et al., 2003). Although
placement relieves some features of emotional distress associated with caregiving, many caregivers
continue to experience high levels of depression and other problems after institutionalization (Zarit
and Whitlatch, 1992). For many caregivers, this is a critical period when they may feel guilty and
205
question their decision. They can benefit from support but often family members or friends view
the problem of caring for a parent as resolved or they may be openly critical of the decision. Perhaps
not surprisingly, feelings of depression that emerge around placement may persist for years (Zarit and
Whitlatch, 1993).
Death and Bereavement

Death of a parent is a major milestone for children. They grieve for the loss of a mother or father,
and also experience a shift to being the oldest generation in the family. After a prolonged period of
caregiving, responses to death of a parent can vary (Aneshensel, Botticello, and Yamamoto-Mitani,
2004; Aneshensel et al., 1995). For some people, grief can be intense and last 6 months or more.
Spouse caregivers are more likely to experience distress than adult children (Ott, Sanders, and Kelber,
2007). Some caregivers of persons with chronic conditions such as dementia experience a sense of
loss as they deal with their parent’s ongoing decline and so they view death as a release from suffer-
ing (Aneshensel et al., 1995). There may also be stress around such issues as closing a parent’s home
or apartment and inheritance, both of which can become contentious among siblings. These varied
responses underscore that there is no typical or normative pattern of bereavement and that express-
ing empathy and understanding for how each individual is coping with death of a parent may be the
most useful response. Supportive services as well as treatment for complicated grief are also available
(Bergman, Haley, and Small, 2011; Rosner, Pfoh, Kotoucova, and Hagl, 2014).
Managing the Stress and Burden of Caregiving

A growing clinical and research literature proposes strategies for helping lower distress and emotional
burden of family caregivers. Intervention approaches are based typically on stress management and
family systems models. Stress management interventions target increasing personal resources that
may buffer the experience of care-related stressors. Interventions at the family level are designed to
improve support received by the primary caregiver and decrease conflict. Another approach is to
give caregivers regular breaks from caregiving through the use of respite services. Some programs
combine all these elements.
Two caveats need to be considered about current intervention research. First, most of the research
has been conducted on caregivers of persons with dementia, although a growing body of work now
addresses programs for other types of disorders, such as stroke or cancer, as well as serious mental
health problems (Baucom, Porter, Kirby, and Hudepohl, 2012; Martire, Schulz, Helgeson, Small, and
Saghafi, 2010). Second, much of the research lumps all caregivers together, and does not consider
how well an intervention might work for adult children caring for a parent, compared to other car-
egiving situations.
Psychoeducational Programs for Caregivers

The typical psychoeducational program provides education about the care receiver’s disease and pos-
sible treatments, training for the caregiver in behavioral problem solving skills to manage challenges
related to the care receiver’s behavior and other care-related stressors, and sometimes also addresses
family issues (for a review, see Zarit and Heid, 2015).
Many interventions have used fixed manualized interventions, which administer the same treat-
ment to each individual. By contrast, the REACH II program (Belle et al., 2006) use an innovative
approach that tailors goals and treatment specifically to problems that most concerned caregivers.
This program has been widely adopted in the United States. Burgio et al. (2009) have shown that
REACH II can be administered with fidelity in community as opposed to research settings.
206
Support groups have long been popular among caregivers and have the advantage of providing
a setting where caregivers can learn from one another. Group interventions that introduce problem
solving and cognitive behavioral skills have shown some promise. Gallagher-Thompson and her
colleagues (Coon et al., 2003; Gallagher-Thompson, 2003) have shown that training caregivers of
persons with dementia in a group setting with cognitive behavioral and other skills can diminish
feelings of anger and depression. Likewise, Hepburn and colleagues (Hepburn, Tornatore, Center,
and Ostwald, 2001; Hepburn et al., 2007) used a group setting to help caregivers gain emotional
distance and perspective so that they would be able to utilize problem-solving approaches more
effectively. Their research showed sustained improvement in depressive feelings and subjective bur-
den and increased self-efficacy among caregivers in treatment groups compared to those in a con-
trol condition.
Family Systems Interventions

Couples or family systems interventions, which have the potential of building support for the pri-
mary caregiver and reducing conflict in the family, have shown considerable promise with dementia
caregivers (Mittelman, Roth, Coon, and Haley, 2004; Qualls and Noecker, 2009). Building on early
treatment models that included family meetings (Whitlatch et al., 1991; Zarit, Orr, and Zarit, 1985),
Mittelman and colleagues showed benefits of an intervention that combined training in skills for
managing behavioral support and involvement of multiple family members in the treatment sessions.
Their trial, however, only included spouse caregivers. Gaugler, Reese, and Mittelman (2015) tested
an adaptation of the Mittelman model with adult child caregivers and found reductions in depressive
symptoms in adult children. About half the treatment sample, however, did not follow the protocol
and did not actually involve other family members in sessions.
In interventions for caregivers of persons with dementia, the care recipient’s cognitive problems
often preclude participation in treatment, except when symptoms are early and mild (Whitlatch,
Judge, Zarit, and Femia, 2006). Couples based interventions have been developed for other types of
disorder such as diabetes, osteoarthritis, cancer, and chronic mental health disorders (Baucom et al.,
2012). Although studies often recruit married couples, treatments could also be adapted for adult
child-parent dyads.
Respite
Respite programs, such as adult day services (ADS), in-home helpers, and overnight care can directly
address fundamental dilemmas facing most caregivers—how to balance the time needed for care
with other responsibilities and reduce daily stress. Respite provides caregivers with a block of time
that allows them to engage in other activities, including employment for many children caring for
a parent (Aneshensel et al., 1995; Zarit et al., 2011). It also has the effect of lowering exposure to
care-related stressors. One study, for example, found that caregivers had a reduction of 43% in the
time they dealt with care-related stressors on days their parent or spouse attended an ADS program
compared to days when they provided all the care (Zarit et al., 2011).
By lowering stressor exposure, ADS and other types of respite lead to improved well-being and
may have protective effects for caregivers’ health. Studies of caregivers of persons with dementia
using ADS have demonstrated improvements in affect as well as in physiological markers of the stress
process on days their relative attends an ADS program compared to days when they provide all the
care (Klein et al., 2016; Zarit, Kim, Femia, Almeida, and Klein, 2014; Zarit, Whetzel, et al., 2014).
Caregivers’ health outcomes after 1 year were associated with amount of respite used. Receiving
more days of respite was associated with stability in functional health over a 1-year period, whereas
caregivers using fewer days were more likely to decline (Liu, Kim, and Zarit, 2015).
207
Although caregivers can seek relief from caregiving demands by using paid help for respite or
other purposes, rates of unmet needs are fairly high while amount of service use is fairly low (Anesh-
ensel et al., 1995; National Alliance for Caregiving, 2015). Factors affecting utilization include dif-
ficulties in finding appropriate and good quality services, reluctance by family caregivers to turn
responsibilities over to someone else, and resistance of a parent to using paid help (Heid, Zarit, and
Fingerman, 2016; Malone Beach, Zarit, and Spore, 1992; Mullan, 1993). Caregivers’ emotional state
may also affect service use. Caregivers who are depressed and may have the most need for assistance
use formal services the least (Mullan, 1993). Their depression and concomitant feelings of helpless-
ness and hopelessness may act as barriers to obtaining assistance.
Cost of services is a major reason for low use of paid help. Alone among economically advanced
countries, the United States does not have public insurance for most long-term care services, includ-
ing nursing homes. Although paid in-home care is part of many private long-term care insurance,
numbers of people who buy those policies remain low.
Future Trends in Intergenerational Ties

It was not long ago that family scholars were predicting the demise of the extended family, and
gerontologists focused on whether older people were becoming socially isolated. Instead, as we have
described, social and economic trends over the past 30 years have led to strengthened intergenera-
tional ties that under optimal circumstances function to the benefit of younger and older generations.
Families potentially support one another in normal circumstances and when there are hardships.
Older parents can be a continuing source of emotional, practical, and financial support for children
struggling with dual-career issues, childcare, the cost of their children’s college and a myriad other
issues. In turn, adult children provide emotional and practical support to aging parents in everyday
interactions as well as in response to declining health and functioning.
This pattern of exchanges between older parents and their children may become the basis of a
new social compact. Feelings of obligation, reciprocity, and affection toward parents, which have
always been part of most cultures, may strengthen, and generations will rely on one another for
assistance, although in some instances with reluctance. The multi-generational family, with all its
tensions and limitations, may take on a paramount role in buffering each generation from social and
economic strains of the modern world.
We need to consider, however, how well families are prepared for these tasks. This role likely
plays out best in families with adequate social, psychological, and economic resources who will find
constructive ways of managing the added burdens. But for the many families with limited resources
and who are too divided by conflict, intergenerational pressures may be just another source of the
widening gap between haves and have-nots in society. For some tasks, such as care of an adult child
with a severe developmental or mental health problem or care of an aging parent with dementia
or other debilitating disorders, even families with extensive resources may be overwhelmed by the
demands associated with care.
A central question, then, is what role should government play is supporting families in care and
in relieving pressures in other areas, such as the costs of childcare or advanced education. Policies
developed in the Nordic countries and as well as in some European countries have specifically been
designed to support young adults with stipends that help them continue their education. Programs
also support young adults with extensive family leave programs following birth of a child as well as
low-cost and high-quality childcare (Lee, Duvander, and Zarit, 2016). Likewise, universal health care
and publically supported coverage of the cost of long-term care of older adults reduce pressures on
families. These programs are also critical for supporting older people who cannot rely on or do not
have close family members (Shea et al., 2003). Aging populations place pressures on these programs,
but thus far governments have maintained their commitment to extensive welfare state policies
208
(Davey, Malmberg, and Sundström, 2014). It is hard to be optimistic, however, that these types of
programs will be adopted in the United States. Indeed, cornerstone programs such as Medicare,
Medicaid, and Social Security have been under attack, and their survival as effective programs is not
guaranteed despite their popularity. As a result, the continued growth of the older population will
likely place new burdens on children and grandchildren. As we look to the future, the critical ques-
tions are whether countries with extensive social, educational, and health programs can continue to
provide this level of support and whether countries with more rudimentary program can find a bet-
ter balance to meet the needs of young and old. At a fundamental level, communities need to ask if
they benefit as a whole when everyone has an opportunity for high quality childcare and education
and when there are supports for persons of any age with severe disabilities that supplement the care
given by families, or if they believe that each person should take on these responsibilities, no matter
if they have the resources and abilities to do so.
Conclusions
Relationships between parents and their children remain for most people a fundamental focus of
their lives across the life course. We do not cease being parents when children have left the house,
and we do not cease being children until parents are deceased. These lifelong ties are characterized
by patterns of reciprocity of support, even when parents have disabilities or other limitations. How
these connections play out, as well as the rewards and stressors associated with ongoing parent–child
ties are likely to vary widely both within as well as between families. Such factors as cultural beliefs,
family history, social and economic resources, and current life problems and health are likely to affect
the tone and substance of intergenerational relationships in families. Caregiving will often be the
final act of this drama. The challenge is to find a path that supports the older person’s dignity and
preferences without overwhelming the resources of their children.
Acknowledgments
We acknowledge support by grants from the National Institute on Aging which contributed to some
of the research discussed in this chapter—award number R01AG027769, “The Family Exchanges
Study II” (Karen L. Fingerman, Principal Investigator) and award number R01 AG031758, “Daily
Stress and Health Study” (Steven H. Zarit, Principal Investigator).
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ed.) New York, NY: Guilford.
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PART II
Parenting Children of Varying Status

7
PARENTING SIBLINGS
Mark E. Feinberg, Susan M. McHale, and Shawn D. Whiteman
Introduction
To discuss parenting in the context of sibling relationships situates the sometimes abstract notion of
parenting within a family context rich with intersecting relationships, alliances, and rivalries. As any
parent of more than one child recognizes, parenting becomes substantially more complex and some-
times fraught in the sibling context. Similarly, for parenting scholars, insights gleaned from single-
child research designs must be re-conceptualized and assessed with the incorporation of additional
sibling-related dimensions. Such work requires the development of new theory, research questions,
and, sometimes, more complex methods. Although difficult to pursue at times, sibling-focused par-
enting research has the potential to inform the parenting field about factors that are relevant—but
not recognized—in single-child family research.
Managing sibling relationships presents some of the most difficult and stressful childrearing chal-
lenges parents face (Perlman and Ross, 1997). Indeed, the most frequent source of disagreements
and arguments between parents and young adolescents is how siblings are getting along (McHale
and Crouter, 1996). By leading to increased parental stress and even depression, sibling conflict may
compromise the parenting of many otherwise positive and competent parents.
In addition to providing further insight into parenting, incorporation of sibling dynamics into
parenting research is directly relevant to over 80% of U.S. children who have a sibling. In fact, in 2010
more children in the United States were growing up with a sibling than with a father in the home
(McHale, Updegraff, and Whiteman, 2012). For this majority of children with siblings, the sibling’s
characteristics and the quality of the sibling relationships are non-trivial influences on children’s
long-term developmental outcomes and trajectories in domains such as mental health, academic
and career success, and peer and romantic relationships. Although much less well studied, sibling
relationships factors frequently predict unique variability in adjustment after accounting for other
factors such as parenting, parent, and sibling adjustment, peer relationships, and/or genetic factors;
and sibling effects are robust across ethnic and cultural groups examined to date (Feinberg, Solmeyer,
Hostetler, et al., 2012; Feinberg, Solmeyer, and McHale, 2012; Updegraff, McHale, Killoren, and
Rodríguez, 2011).
The influence of sibling relationships starts very early and persists over long time periods; for
example, studies show that sibling warmth and negativity as early as the preschool years influence
children’s adjustment and maladjustment at least into pre-adolescence (Dunn, Slomkowski, Bcardsall,
and Rende, 1994); and sibling relationships in childhood predict internalizing problems 30 years later
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Mark E. Feinberg et al.
(Waldinger,Vaillant, and Orav, 2007). The importance of sibling relationships may also be due to the
duration of the bond—sibships are often the longest lasting relationships individuals experience, and
thus carry influence across the lifespan.The salience of sibling relationships for well-being continues:
The quality of sibling relationships is one of the most important long-term predictors of mental
health in old age (Vaillant and Vaillant, 1990).
The salience of siblings for each other’s development is likely due to several factors. First, siblings
spend more out-of-school time with each other on average than with parents or friends (McHale
and Crouter, 1996; Updegraff, McHale, Whiteman, Thayer, and Delgado, 2005). Second, the sibling
context allows children—from the earliest months of life—to learn about, experiment with, and
refine a repertoire of relational behaviors with a family member who has a more similar status and
role than parents (i.e., horizontal relations rather than vertical relations). Third, shared time with sib-
lings is often emotionally intense as many sibling relationships are composed of high levels of both
affection/support and hostility/aggression.
It is likely that these factors help explain the influence that siblings and their relationships have on
each other’s development and lifelong adjustment. For example, in early childhood, those children
with a sibling—especially of a roughly similar age range—demonstrate relatively more advanced
competencies and cognitions related to theory of mind and executive functioning—and the more
siblings the better (McAlister and Peterson, 2006; McAlister and Peterson, 2013). Warmth and affec-
tion between siblings have unique positive implications for development, as demonstrated in three
studies in different Western countries examining links between warm sibling relationships and proso-
cial behavior, disruptive behavior, and/or internalizing problems—demonstrated cross-sectionally
(Padilla-Walker, Harper, and Jensen, 2010); controlling for parent–youth relationship qualities and
sibling negativity (Pike, Coldwell, and Dunn, 2005); and controlling for support received from par-
ents and friends (Branje, van Lieshout, van Aken, and Haselager, 2004). In addition to promoting cog-
nitive, social, and mental health development, warm sibling relationships can also serve as a unique
protective shield, buffering the negative impacts of stressful life events and conditions—as Gass,
Jenkins, and Dunn (2007) found in predicting internalizing problems while controlling for prior
adjustment and parent–child relationships.
However, sibling relationships are not always beneficial and promotive. Siblings can serve as part-
ners in crime, and a sibling’s delinquent, antisocial, and health-risking behaviors, such as substance
use, may be contagious (Feinberg, Solmeyer, and McHale, 2012). Furthermore, elevated levels of
sibling conflict and violence predict poorer developmental outcomes across a broad range of mental
health, social, and academic competencies and life domains. Sibling conflicts—which have been
observed to occur many times an hour (Berndt and Bulleit, 1985; Dunn and Munn, 1986)—can
be stressful for parents, leading to problems like depression and interparental conflict—and thereby
compromising sensitive, warm, and consistent parenting (Feinberg, Solmeyer, and McHale, 2012)
Perhaps the greatest common denominator across sibling investigations over the past decades
has been the complaint that scholars, service providers, and policymakers have neglected the large
and critical role that sibling relationships play in children’s development and lifelong well-being,
patterns of family stress and conflict, and parenting self-efficacy and competence. For example, the
four major family research journals together published an annual average of only about 10 articles
focused on sibling relationships over the two decade period 1990–2011—with almost two-thirds
of those reports coming from one journal (McHale et al., 2012). The lack of research and attention
to sibling relationships generally, and parenting of siblings in particular, is in stark contrast to the
substantial influence of sibling relationships on children’s long-term development. Apart from other
sibling dynamics, sibling conflict and aggression should be a general source of concern given that, on
average, the sibling relationships frequently involves aggression and violence; according to the only
representative sample with such data, about one-third of all children and adolescents (and 45% of
children ages 2–10) were victims of sibling aggression (physical, property, or psychological) in the
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previous year (Tucker, Finkelhor, Shattuck, and Turner, 2013). High levels of sibling aggression and
sibling rivalry may be facilitated by societal and family tolerance of physical fighting and conflict
among siblings; in non-Western societies, prohibitions against sibling aggression are associated with
lower levels of such conflict, although some societies sanction older-siblings’ physical punishment of
younger siblings as part of the older siblings’ caregiving role (Weisner, 1993).
To prompt increased research on and understanding of parenting in the context of more than one
child, we focus here on the insights the field has generated to date regarding: (1) the influence of
parenting toward individual children on sibling relationships; (2) parenting directed toward siblings,
and the consequent impact on children’s development; and (3) the influence of sibling relationships
on parents and their parenting.Together, these topics capture sibling-related family systems dynamics.
Historical Considerations of Parenting Siblings

Ironically, given the general neglect of the salience of sibling relationships, the founding moral docu-
ment in Western civilization—the Bible—over and over again depicted sibling rivalry as the driving
force behind the course of individual lives and even nations. The fates of Cain and Abel, Jacob and
Esau, and Joseph and his family all turn on life-threatening conflicts between siblings. In each case,
sibling rivalry over parental affection and rewards were the driving force behind the conflicts (that is,
if we can put their God in the role of a parental figure in the Cain and Abel story). The increasing
ability of siblings to repair conflicts across these stories is followed by the more optimistic story of
Moses, whose sister and brother save Moses’ life and facilitate his leadership of the Jewish rebellion
and exodus.
The first application of empirical research methods to the topic of sibling relationships dates to
the nineteenth century: Galton held that the predominance of firstborns in science and other fields
was a result of their greater ambitions and leadership ability derived from their prerogatives and
experience as the older sibling in the family. Birth order effects have fascinated scholars and the pub-
lic since, but together this research suggests that simple birth-order effects on most personality traits
and developmental outcomes in Western societies are small—if present at all (Rohrer, Egloff, and
Schmukle, 2015) rather, children’s everyday experiences in their sibling relationships better account
for “sibling influences” (Buhrmester and Furman, 1990).
In addition to birth order, researchers beginning in the 1950s examined the effects of other
“structural” sibling characteristics: For example, Brim (1958) and Koch (1960) initiated the examina-
tion of how the gender constellation of sibling dyads may influence the affective quality of the sibling
relationships, social learning processes in the sibling pair, development of stereotypically gendered
interests and activities, and social and romantic competence. Again, findings were not systematic and
thus directed attention from structural factors to the social processes underlying sibling influences.
In addition to birth order and gender constellation, research beginning in the 1960s examined sib-
ship size in an effort to understand how a larger number of siblings in a family may “dilute” parents’
personal and/or financial resources that can be devoted to any single child, and thereby diminish
children’s achievement in school and career (Blake, 1981; Blau and Duncan, 1966). However, the
theorized mediating processes—perhaps most importantly family relationships—have not been care-
fully studied.
In contrast to this work on structural characteristics, Adler’s theoretical work in the first half of the
twentieth century (Ansbacher and Ansbacher, 1956) focused on the emotional dynamics between
siblings in the family context. His theoretical work still represents the strongest statement of the
centrality of sibling relationships for individual development and well-being in the field of psychol-
ogy. Adler’s theory put siblings at the center of development: He viewed sibling rivalry—shaped
partly by birth order, but more strongly by individual’s defense against feelings of inferiority—
for resources, such as parental attention and affection, as a critical driver of family dynamics and
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children’s psychological and personality development. Confronted by the strain of persistent sibling
rivalry for parental recognition, siblings become enmeshed in social comparisons and struggles for
power. As Schachter later hypothesized and studied, sibling pairs can learn to develop separate family
“niches” to avoid direct conflict (Schachter, Shore, Feldman-Rotman, Marquis, and Campbell, 1976).
Nonetheless, Adler’s sibling-focused approach is typically given perfunctory review in introductory
psychology classes, and the issue of sibling dynamics typically then forgotten throughout psycholo-
gists’ clinical or research careers.
In the 1970s, as society moved to de-stigmatize mental and physical “handicaps”—and instead
view children and adults with disabilities as requiring accommodation and support to engage more
fully in their families and in the larger society—researchers began examining individual development
and sibling relationships when one sibling has a physical, psychiatric, or developmental disability.This
work examined a range of issues including the ways in which siblings were called on to help with
the care of their sister or brother, the quality of the sibling relationships, and the consequences for
youth development of having a disabled sibling (Farber, 1963).
Focused and ongoing lines of research examining the quality and dynamics of sibling relation-
ships emerged in the late 1970s and 1980s. Much of this work targeted childhood and adolescence.
Focused on very young children, Dunn’s sibling research, beginning in the1980s, represents one of
the earliest and most prominent lines of study (Dunn, 1983; Dunn and Kendrick, 1980). With care-
ful observations of family interaction, Dunn and colleagues broke new ground in describing the
ways that young sibling pairs interacted with each other, how mothers behaved with the children,
and the ways that these family dynamics influenced the development of children’s interpersonal and
social-cognitive abilities (Dunn, Brown, and Beardsall, 1991). Her work highlighted the important
and unique ways that early sibling relationships provide opportunities for social development from
infancy onward, about triadic dynamics involving siblings and their mothers, such as competition
for maternal affection and attention, striving for fairness, and complex cooperation and conflict
processes. Dunn and her colleagues also examined how dimensions of the parent–sibling triad—
including but not limited to parenting behaviors—were linked to later development. Additionally,
she investigated how the quality of the pre-existing relationships between the mother and firstborn
child influenced the development of sibling and triadic relationships after the birth of the next child
(a topic to which we will return) with consequences for developmental outcomes such as social and
emotional competence and sibling relationship qualities. A noteworthy exception to researchers’
general focus on childhood and adolescence is the life-course-oriented work by Cicirelli, who also
examined sibling relationships in early and later adulthood (Cicirelli, 1980; Cicirelli, 1995).
The topic of sibling differentiation (e.g., niche picking) was revived in the 1980s. This interest
followed from surprising behavioral genetics findings that pointed to the importance of non-genetic,
environmental influences that led to divergent sibling outcomes (Plomin and Daniels, 1987; Rowe
and Plomin, 1981).These findings countered scholars’ general assumptions that similar home, school,
and community environments should generally lead to similar sibling outcomes. Researchers became
increasingly interested in examining how parenting toward siblings (e.g., favoritism, differential treat-
ment) as well as sibling relationship experiences, another component of the nonshared family envi-
ronment, could be responsible for the ways siblings turned out differently. Although researchers have
documented how parental practices—especially parents’ differential treatment of siblings (PDT)—
lead in many cases to sibling differentiation, the magnitude of PDT effects are not large enough to
account for more than a small portion of sibling differentiation (Reiss, Hetherington, Plomin, and
Howe, 1995; Turkheimer and Waldron, 2000).
The Behavior genetic (BG) research also led to the development of large sibling datasets given the
reliance of most BG research on sibling designs with large enough samples to reliably assess differ-
ences in sibling similarity (typically, intraclass correlations) across types of siblings, including monozy-
gotic (MZ) and dizygotic (DZ) twins, and full biological, step-sibling, and adoptive sibling pairs.This
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work brought into question study-design assumptions about sibling development and experiences,
such as the assumption that identical and fraternal twins have equivalent parenting and family experi-
ences; that is, that MZ and DZ twins experience similar kinds of common and differentiated micro-
environments (Kendler, Neale, Kessler, and Heath, 1993). Furthermore, the accumulation of sibling
samples for BG analysis allowed family and developmental scholars to address questions surrounding
sibling relationships and family system dynamics with larger samples than they could amass them-
selves (Feinberg and Hetherington, 2001; Feinberg and Hetherington, 2000; Feinberg, Neiderhiser,
Reiss, Hetherington, and Simmens, 2000).
As research on siblings has continued to evolve, some family scholars have begun applying existing
empirically based knowledge to programs designed to improve parenting of siblings as well as directly
enhance sibling relationships. Although only a handful of high-quality, empirical evaluations of such
programs exist (see Practical Considerations, below), results have been promising and suggest that the
field is capable of developing robust tools to address what has long-been—to use an analogy from
modern astrophysics—the neglected, somewhat invisible, but highly salient “dark energy” of family life.
Central Issues in Parenting Siblings

In this chapter, our discussion of the parenting of siblings is informed by a general framework of
the constituent dimensions of parenting developed by Parke and Buriel (1998). This framework
categorizes parenting behaviors into three domains. The first domain, the focus of most research on
parenting, consists of the actual interactions that parents have with children, including the qualities
of those interactions. Most social learning theories, which implicitly inform considerable parental
socialization research, focus on processes such as modeling social behaviors and reinforcing behaviors
of children. Parenting behaviors in this domain are often assessed in terms of dimensions that have
been shown to be predictive of future child development and well-being, such as warmth, sensitivity,
hostility, and control. A second domain consists of the ways that parents actively and directly try to
teach children, such as through instruction, coaching, or advice giving. Finally, parents organize chil-
dren’s experiences; this domain is referred to as orchestration or engineering children’s experiences.
For parenting of siblings, such orchestration could include attempts to engage siblings in similar and
shared versus different activities and settings and attempts to influence the choice and social con-
texts of sibling’s activities together when they are not with parents. Orchestration also influences the
situations and contexts in which hands-on, direct parenting interactions take place—which can be
assessed with the framework of family time use (i.e., considering the activities parents engage in with
children as well as where, for how long, and with which other people present).
All three domains of parenting can come into play in the ways parents shape a single aspect
of children’s development. For example, children’s conflict resolution capacities can be influenced
directly through parent modeling in the context of parent–sibling interactions, through coaching and
advising the siblings, or through planning siblings’ activities and daily routines, such as family meals
and shared leisure activities or enrolling siblings together in activities such as team sports. Although
we do not articulate all the possibilities here, it is a worthwhile exercise to consider each of the three
categories of parenting when contemplating, for example, the ways that each theoretical framework
described below conceptualizes how parents promote their children’s development.
We also focus on several pathways between parenting and sibling relationships. First, we are inter-
ested in “parental socialization,” that is parenting behaviors directed toward and/or that influence
sibling relationships, which consequently affect each child: parentingsibling relationshipschild.
For example, higher levels of parental negativity and conflict are associated with higher levels of sib-
ling conflict (Kim, McHale, Osgood, and Crouter, 2006;Volling and Belsky, 1992), which is in turn
linked to diminished levels of children’s emotional well-being, relational competence, self-regulation,
and academic and occupational attainment (Feinberg, Solmeyer, and McHale, 2012).
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Second, we are interested in how sibling relationships affect parents and parenting; that is, sibling
relationshipsparenting. A handful of studies has found that sibling relationship qualities—especially
rivalry and conflict—are linked to parental well-being (i.e., depression) and parenting competence
(Brody, Kim, Murry, and Brown, 2003; Dishion, Nelson, and Bullock, 2004; Patterson, Dishion, and
Bank, 1984). Moreover, siblings can actively collude to counter parents’ goals (see below).
A third pathway highlights the ways that parenting influences each child’s personality and adjust-
ment, with consequent influence on the sibling relationship. For example, children’s individual
characteristics such as their conduct problems and social competencies—which are susceptible to
influence by parents over development—may lead to more conflictual or more positive sibling rela-
tionships (Patterson, 1984).This pathway can be expressed as: parentingchildsibling relationships.
Given its main focus on the development of individual children, however, we pay most attention to
the first two pathways. Together, these paths suggest a conceptual model of family systems processes
in parenting of siblings that describes the scope of our interest here, depicted in Figure 7.1.
The three domains of parenting we address may all come into play around certain sibling relation-
ship dynamics. For example, one of the largest areas of research on sibling relationships has concerned
description and analysis of parent differential treatment (PDT), the ways and extent to which parents
treat their children differently—or more pejoratively, parental favoritism.
As we elaborate below, scholars have found that the extent of PDT is linked with more nega-
tive and less positive sibling relationships, and that, as expected, the less favored sibling often
demonstrates lower well-being (Shanahan, McHale, Crouter, and Osgood, 2008). As an example,
consider how PDT can be shaped through the three dimensions of parenting and two pathways
described: First, parents can demonstrate—or children can interpret—PDT through their direct
interactions with children, for example, when a parent shouts at one child more than the other.
A parent may also spend more time providing instruction and support to one sibling—which
could be due to, or perceived as due to, a parent behaving in a more positive, helpful way to one
child or as based on a parent’s perception that one child is less capable and needs more help than
the other. Parents can orchestrate children’s experiences in ways that are deemed to favor one
child, such as providing more of a family’s resources to support that child activities (e.g., sports)
Figure. Parenng, sibling relaons, and child adjustment pathways

Pathway 1: ParenngSibling relaonschild adjustment
Pathway 2: Sibling relaonsParenng
Pathway 3: ParenngChild adjustmentSibling relaons
Figure 7.1 Parenting, sibling relations, and child adjustment pathways
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Parenting Siblings
or needs (e.g., health care). Furthermore, PDT can be involved in both parent-socialization and
child effects pathways: PDT can lead to more rivalry and conflict in sibling relationships; at the
same time it is possible that the stress a parent experiences from exposure to frequent sibling
conflict leads to compromised emotional regulation and angry outbursts in which one child is
blamed for the conflicts (e.g., the older child should have been behaving his age; the younger
child should stop instigating and irritating the older one; the brother should stop being physical
with his sister). Together, these parenting domains and directional pathways of influence serve
as a framework for organizing the range of theorized mechanisms that can inform research on
parenting of siblings.
Theory in Parenting Siblings

Although there has been relatively limited theoretical development within the study of the par-
enting of siblings per se, sibling scholars have made use of existing developmental and family
theories to guide such research. As we noted at the outset, however, theories focused on parent-
ing—including those that capture influences on parenting (Belsky, 1984)—describe what parents
do (Darling and Steinberg, 1993; Parke and Buriel, 1998) and their effects on individual children,
and thus require re-assessment when applied to the parenting of siblings. That is, most theories
around parenting have not been tested in ways that capture the most common family context of
parenting siblings.
Attachment Security
The critical building block of attachment security in early childhood develops through direct
experience with reliable parental figures. Although the attachment security construct was largely
developed and studied in the context of parent–child relationships, scholars have theorized that
siblings may serve as secondary attachment figures for each other—across the life course (Ains-
worth, 1989). A secondary attachment figure framework may be useful for understanding sibling
relationships as they develop over time, particularly relationships in families or cultures where
older sibling caregiving of younger children is prominent. Attachment security may also pro-
vide a useful lens for understanding variability in sibling rivalry and conflict in that insecurely
attached children may feel more threatened by a sibling competitor for parental affection (Teti
and Ablard, 1989).
Research in the sibling context or with sibling designs has contributed to our understanding of
attachment security, demonstrating how including siblings into parenting and family research can
lead to new insights.Thus, several studies point to the conclusion that, unlike temperamental reactiv-
ity, personality, intelligence, and many other child characteristics, children’s attachment security is not
directly influenced by children’s genetic factors (although genetic factors may moderate the influ-
ence of parenting on attachment security) (Bakermans-Kranenburg and van IJzendoorn, 2007; Bok-
horst, Bakermans-kranenburg, Fonagy, and Schuengel, 2003; van IJzendoorn et al., 2000). Instead,
such attachment security with parents is influenced by “environmental” factors, such as parents, peers,
school, and neighborhood. Further explorations of environmental influences on attachment security
suggest that these influences primarily lead siblings to be similar (shared environmental influence)
rather than different (Caspers,Yucuis,Troutman, Arndt, and Langbehn, 2007; Fearon et al., 2006).The
implication of this research is that attachment security is primarily driven by certain dimensions of
parenting, such as sensitive responding, which are manifest (or at least exert influence) in a somewhat
consistent manner across siblings (although see Bakermans-Kranenburg, van IJzendoorn, Bokhorst,
and Schuengel, 2004).
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Social Comparison
A social psychological framework for understanding the effects of parenting on sibling relationships
is social comparison theory, generated by Festinger in the 1950s. Festinger proposed that individuals’
self-esteem is influenced by ongoing assessment of one’s own capabilities or attributes in comparison
to that of others—especially others who are perceived as like oneself (Festinger, 1954; Suls, Martin,
and Wheeler, 2002). This theory bears similarities to Adler’s focus on sibling competition as a source
of feelings of inferiority and superiority. In social comparison theory, upward and downward com-
parisons are focused on others who are higher or lower, respectively, in status, skills, or other salient
attributes. Upward comparisons are often associated with low self-esteem, but can also drive moti-
vation to improve and thus lead to greater gains in skills, status, and ultimately self-esteem (and the
reverse for downward comparison). Upward and downward social comparison have clear relevance
for siblings given the importance of birth order as a marker of status and determinant of capacity or
skill in childhood relationships although this aspect of the theory has not been much deployed in
the sibling context.
Schachter, building on Adlerian notions of sibling rivalry and the links to esteem, developed
the construct of sibling de-identification as a way that some siblings manage rivalry over sources of
self-esteem, such as parental attention and affection (Schachter, Gilutz, Shore, and Adler, 1978). By
developing alternative areas of interest and competence—and thus de-identifying with each other—
siblings reduce social comparison with each other and build sources of esteem and parental recogni-
tion in non-overlapping areas. In this framework, siblings are able to “bask” in the reflected glory
of each other’s accomplishments, and thus sibling pairs who de-identify and reduce their similarity
may not only reduce rivalry but also achieve higher levels of mutual support and affection (Feinberg
et al., 2000; Schachter et al., 1978). Feinberg proposed the use in research of a broader term—sibling
differentiation—to incorporate processes through which parents, extended family, teachers, and oth-
ers fostered the individuation of siblings. Note that PDT and parenting-influenced differentiation
are not the same thing, as PDT has typically referred in the research literature to better versus worse
parental treatment rather than parenting that fosters differentiation of sibling identities and abilities
without an implication of better and worse.
Social Learning Theory

Social learning theory is a general framework explaining the learning of behavior through either
observation of or reinforcement in interactions with others (Bandura, 1977).Young children are keen
observers of parents and older siblings and learn many positive and negative relational behaviors
from such observation, some of which they deploy in the sibling relationship context. Siblings also
actively shape their own relationships through their social exchanges, reciprocally reinforcing posi-
tive or negative behaviors (Bullock and Dishion, 2002) and by observing and imitating one another.
The work of Patterson and colleagues offers a social learning framework for understanding some
types of sibling conflict. Patterson (1982) observed certain types of family conflicts through the lens
of behavioral reinforcement, crystallized in the notion of coercive processes. The central idea is that
hostile family conflicts can represent struggles between individuals to achieve conflicting goals, with
each relationship partner displaying increasingly aversive and hostile expressions to overcome the
resistance of the other. If a parent “gives in” allowing the child to “win” a conflict, such positive rein-
forcement strengthens the child’s tendency to use the same tactic in the future. Coercive processes in
the parent–child relationships can lead children to use similar strategies with siblings. Such conflictual
and coercive family interaction patterns can become a “training ground” for the child’s development
of a generalized aggressive and coercive interpersonal style (Patterson, 1984, 1982). Patterson found
that a particularly detrimental combination consisted of disruptions in parental discipline alongside
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the child’s engagement in conflicts with family members. Because the sibling relationship is a more
equal, horizontal relationship than the vertical child-parent relationship, it is possible that sibling
coercion has unique implications for other egalitarian relationships such as future peer and roman-
tic relationships (Natsuaki, Ge, Reiss, and Neiderhiser, 2009). Although the finding was relatively
neglected, Patterson identified the sibling relationship as playing a pivotal role in the development of
antisocial behavior problems (Patterson et al., 1984).
Family Systems Theory

Finally, family systems theory is an overarching perspective that encompasses processes targeted by
several of the above theories, and provides a general framework for many sibling researchers. Fun-
damentally, family systems theory holds that all individuals and relationships in a family are part
of an integrated system in which individual components are responsive to and reciprocally influ-
ence others. For example, an ecological systems framework (Cox and Paley, 2003) holds that sibling
relationships reciprocally influence and are influenced by family subsystems including parent–child
relationships and couple/marital relationships. This general framework is supported by research doc-
umenting links between the quality of sibling and parent–child relationship (Brody, Stoneman, and
McCoy, 1994; Brody, et al., 1992; Furman and Giberson, 1995; Stocker and McHale, 1992), and a
smaller set of studies links sibling and couple/marital relationships (Cummings and Smith, 1993;
Deal, 1996; Brody, Stoneman, and MacKinnon, 1986; McHale, Crouter, McGuire, and Updegraff,
1995; Stocker and Youngblade, 1999). Some studies have gone beyond correlational data to examine
longitudinal paths, allowing for stronger inferences about direction of effect (Bank, Burraston, and
Snyder, 2004; Bank, Patterson, and Reid, 1996; Brody et al., 2003; Feinberg, McHale, Crouter, and
Cumsille, 2003; Lam, Solmeyer, and McHale, 2012).
Some versions of family systems theory posit that family dynamics tend toward an equilibrium—
that is, disruptions in individual behavior or the usual pattern of relationships triggers feedback
mechanisms and actions that tend to return the system to the prior pattern of functioning (Minuchin,
1985).This principle highlights the idea that families can be viewed as resisting changes at individual
and relational levels that challenge ongoing, customary processes embedded in a network of dynam-
ics. Although typically discussed in the context of clinical intervention, this principle may also be
applied to parenting behaviors intended to modify individual children’s adjustment or the quality
of sibling relationships. For example, a parent who attempts to improve a child’s self-esteem, as by
increased warmth and attention, may trigger a reaction from a sibling striving to maintain a position
of equal or favored status.
Classical and Modern Research in Parenting Siblings

In presenting the main themes and findings of sibling research in this section, we adopt a life course
perspective and describe the research from the birth of the second child (transition to siblinghood)
through childhood and adolescence to parenting issues involving adult siblings. We include birth
order and gender-composition issues where relevant, and provide brief overviews of areas of family
context research that have been the focus of some investigation: the cultural contexts of parenting
siblings and parenting when one sibling has a disability.
Parenting at the Transition to Siblinghood

As noted, most children grow up with siblings, making the transition to parenthood of siblings a
normative event in the lives of mothers and fathers, and the development of sibling relationships a
normative event for children. Indeed, the ubiquity and significance of this family transition is evident
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in the popular press, where “how to” guides for new parents often include chapters on managing
parents’ own transition experiences as well as their children’s transition to becoming siblings. In a
review of advice to parents in the popular press literature, Kramer and Ramsburg (2002) identified
47 books and book chapters that included a focus on children’s transition to having a sibling. Nor
is the popular press literature limited to parenting advice: Our recent search on Amazon.com found
over 100 books written for children, published since 2000, on how to have a positive sibling rela-
tionship. The most common topic by far was helping children across the transition to siblinghood.
Consistent with the relative neglect of sibling relationships in the research literature, popular press
publications on the transition to siblinghood appear to outweigh the empirical literature on this
topic—raising concerns that advice tendered to parents lacks an evidence base. Kramer and Rams-
burg (2002) identified seven topics of parental concern evident in popular press accounts: (1) optimal
timing of having a second child, (2) preparing children for the sibling’s birth; (3) managing children’s
feelings of jealousy or displacement, (4) children’s regressive behavior following the siblings’ birth,
(5) managing children’s negative behaviors toward the sibling, (6) involving children in care for their
sibling, and (7) promoting positive sibling relationships.
The advice provided to parents in these popular press outlets and, indeed, the limited empirical
literature on parenting around the transition to siblinghood can be viewed in terms of the three
domains of parenting we described, namely parents’ behaviors in their direct, interactive relationships
with their children, their coaching, and their orchestration efforts. Beginning with parental interac-
tion behaviors, parental warmth and involvement, both before and after the sibling’s birth have been
linked to more positive reactions to a new sibling and to child adjustment more generally (Dunn
and Kendrick, 1982; Gottlieb and Mendelson, 1990; Volling and Belsky, 1992). One early study
emphasized the significance of father involvement with the older child (Legg, Sherick, and Wadland,
1974), and most research on the sibling transition documents fathers’ coparenting role as active and
cooperative partners in dealing with the transition to a second child (Kolak and Volling, 2013; Song
and Volling, 2015)—a family dynamic not unlike coparenting across the first transition to parenthood
(Feinberg, 2003).
Beyond relationship quality, parents’ direct instruction may be particularly effective during the
sibling transition. Another early study found that the children of mothers who talked to them prior
to the siblings’ birth about their baby sister’s or brother’s feelings and well-being exhibited more
positive and fewer negative reactions across the transition to siblinghood (Dunn, Kendrick, and
MacNamee, 1981). As we elaborate in our discussion of childhood-aged siblings, parents also can
coach their children in social problem solving and prosocial play behavior as a means of promoting
positive sibling relationships (Feinberg, Sakuma, Hostetler, and McHale, 2013; Kramer and Radey,
1997). For example, praising children for their efforts and supervising their joint involvement appears
to promote positive engagement by preschool-aged children with their new siblings (Kramer and
Washo, 1990). Coaching children’s involvement in sibling care also may have positive implications for
the sibling relationship, including by promoting children’s social understanding (Stewart and Marvin,
1984). Finally, parents may consider preparing their children for becoming a sibling through direct
instruction by involving their children in sibling preparation classes. A review of community- and
health care-based sibling preparation classes, however, found little evidence of the effectiveness of
these interventions (Beyers-Carlson and Volling, 2017).
Finally, parents can orchestrate more positive reactions to a sibling by maintaining the older child’s
routines such as bedtime, meal, and daycare schedules, and minimizing other simultaneous transi-
tions (e.g., move to a new bedroom or home) around the time of the transition (Legg et al., 1974).
Preparing children for the siblings’ birth with information about who will care for them when their
parents are at the hospital and arranging hospital visits with the mother and new sister or brother also
was described by mothers as having positive implications (Legg et al., 1974). One study found that
support from a close friend during the transition was linked to more positive adjustment by young
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children who had experienced the birth of a sibling, suggesting that developing extrafamilial sources
of friendship and esteem may be another important focus of parents’ efforts to orchestrate the older
child’s daily routine (Kramer and Gottman, 1992). As we elaborate below, parents also can support
their children’s adjustment by their timing of the sibling’s birth.
Kramer and Ramsburg’s (2002) conclusion about the mismatch between popular interest and
science-based knowledge was echoed in Volling’s (2012) review of the literature on changes in first-
borns’ adjustment following a sibling’s birth. The authors of both reviews noted that prevailing ideas
about the transition to siblinghood as a period of family crises and stress are grounded largely in
psychodynamic theories and have limited scientific support. Highlighted in this theoretical frame-
work are issues of sibling rivalry and jealousy that stem from a firstborn’s “dethronement” following
the birth of a sibling (Adler, 1959). Consistent with this perspective, the transition to siblinghood
has most often been described as a stressful and disruptive life event, likely to give rise to adjustment
problems in children and their families (Volling, 2012).Yet,Volling’s review of the empirical literature
yielded a quite different conclusion, namely that there is substantial variability in children’s responses
to becoming a sibling, including in children’s conduct problems, emotional well-being, learning and
achievement, and health behaviors (e.g., sleeping and eating, where there are concerns about regres-
sion). Indeed, in a report of a longitudinal study of the sibling transition,Volling et al. (2017) identi-
fied distinct trajectories of change characterized by patterns of emotional and behavioral problems
and adaptations.
Moving away from a psychodynamic perspective that posits universalistic and biologically embed-
ded responses, and adopting a developmental ecological perspective,Volling highlighted the signifi-
cance of personal, social, and contextual factors in children’s adjustment to the sibling transition.This
is a welcome orientation for intervention-focused scholars, as these factors are generally somewhat
malleable. For instance, children who are younger at the time of a sibling’s birth and those with
smaller age-spacing between them and their older siblings also may respond more poorly (Baydar,
Greek, and Brooks-Gunn, 1997; Dunn and Kendrick, 1980; Kramer and Gottman, 1992; Teti, Sakin,
Kucera, and Corns, 1996). Rather than simply better or poorer reactions, there is also some evidence
that younger and older children exhibit different kinds of negative reactions to their sibling’s birth
(Teti et al., 1996). Findings regarding the role of family dynamics in children’s adjustment are more
consistent than studies of child characteristics in showing a diminution of positive interactions with
mothers and an increase in maternal control (Baydar et al., 1997). Father involvement and marital
and coparenting relationship quality also may be challenged by the birth of a sibling, but maintain-
ing positive family dynamics in these domains has significant implications for children’s adjustment
and for the quality of the developing sibling relationship (Kolak and Volling, 2013; Song and Volling,
2015). Child temperament characteristics also play a role.Volling et al. (2017) found that higher nega-
tivity and lower positivity in sibling relationships at 1 year following the younger sibling’s birth were
predicted by the older sibling’s emotion reactivity, attention problems, and aggression.
It is important for parents to recognize, however, that children’s reactions are not monolithic:
Instead, the same children may exhibit both positive and negative responses, which can change
over time. For example, one study based on a nationally representative sample revealed that children
who had experienced the birth of a sibling showed greater increases in verbal development, but also
greater increases in peer problems compared to those who did not become siblings (Baydar et al.,
1997). Parents and policymakers should also attend to the wider context, as some research suggests
that children from single-parent and economically disadvantaged families are at greater risk for
adjustment and learning problems following the birth of a sibling (Baydar et al., 1997).
Beyond these domains of parenting, the transition to siblinghood may also be influenced by the
new sibling’s temperament and capacities. Researchers have developed new assessment methods
over the past 20 years that have pushed back the age at which infants are able to track and influence
social relationships, including triadic family relationships, to the first months of life. For example,
229
Fivaz-Depeursinge and colleagues developed a triadic observation paradigm for infants and two
parents, which included tracking family members’ eye gaze and head and body orientations (Fivaz-
Depeursinge, 2008).Their research found individual differences in infants’ triadic engagement ability
(operationalized as the frequency of rapid multishift gaze transitions between parents) by 3 and 4
months of age that were linked with coparenting dynamics (Fivaz-Depeursinge, Favez, Lavanchy, De
Noni, and Frascarolo, 2005; McHale, Fivaz-Depeursinge, Dickstein, Robertson, and Daley, 2008).We
can extrapolate from these findings that infants as early as 3 or 4 months are participating in and even
influencing triadic exchanges, including parent–sibling interactions.
Also important to the sibling transition is a developmental transition that occurs in the second
half of the first year, according to Ziv and Sommerville (2016), in which infants begin to register
violations of the fair distribution of resources. This capacity in the first year of life implies that
mutual sibling dynamics with respect to fairness may begin developing during the first year of the
younger sibling’s life. The presence of siblings predicted the degree of an infant’s concern over fair-
ness after this developmental transition, suggesting that a potentially competitive context at home
affects young children’s general sensitivity to fair and unfair situations.
This developmental research helps us understand the capacities of young children that underlie
findings in the work of Dunn (see below) who described children as young as 18 months as “vigilant”
observers of how mothers treat them versus their older sibling (Dunn, 1983). These capacities and
interests in fairness may also link early parent–child attachment security with sibling relationships:
In a laboratory study, Teti and colleagues examined whether children’s individual secure attachments
with their mother were associated with more positive observed sibling interaction (Teti and Ablard,
1989). The results supported the hypothesis that securely attached children may be less threatened
by and respond more positively to their siblings. Notably, the mother’s presence played a role as well:
The infant’s attachment security predicted his/her positive behaviors toward the older sibling in the
presence of the mother, whereas the older sibling’s attachment security, perhaps by now internalized,
predicted his/her positive behaviors toward the infant in the mother’s absence.
Parenting Siblings During Childhood and Adolescence
Developmental Trajectories
The early childhood developmental period is one of rapid change in siblings’ cognitive, self-regulatory,
and social capacities. Perhaps such rapid change accounts for Dunn and Plomin’s finding of little
stability in parenting from child age 2–3 years (Dunn and Plomin, 1986).To the extent that parenting
is a key influence, we may also expect substantial change in sibling relationships during this period.
However, Dunn and Plomin found that a degree of consistency in parenting across siblings emerged
when each child in a sibling dyad was 3 years old.These results suggest a great deal of fluctuation and
variability in parenting in early childhood, with parent- or family-driven consistency in parenting
emerging as children develop a degree of self-regulatory and verbal communication capacity in the
third year of life. Researchers have also found fairly strong rank-order stability in sibling relation-
ships qualities such as warmth and negativity beginning in early childhood and extending through
adolescence (Dunn, 1983; Dunn, Slomkowski, Bcardsall, et al., 1994;Volling, 2003). In particular, sta-
bility is relatively strong for older siblings’ feelings and behavior about their younger siblings (Dunn,
Slomkowski, Bcardsall, et al., 1994; Howe, Fiorentino, and Gariépy, 2003; McGuire, McHale, and
Updegraff, 1996), including displays of aggression (Martin and Ross, 1995;Volling, 2003).
Despite a fair degree of rank-order stability, however, the characteristics of sibling dynamics that
parents are called on to manage change from middle childhood through adolescence. One longer-
term longitudinal study of sibling relationship trajectories focused on European American siblings,
beginning when the younger siblings in each dyad were about 9 years old and following families for
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Parenting Siblings
up to 10 years, until older siblings were about 17 years of age (Kim et al., 2006). This study showed
that sibling conflict increased during middle childhood and peaked for both siblings at firstborns’
transition to adolescence and then declined. This pattern may suggest that firstborns’ transition to
adolescence is a period of perturbation for the family as a whole. In contrast to the pattern for
conflict, analyses of the development of sibling intimacy revealed effects of sibling gender constel-
lation: Among same-sex siblings, intimacy was generally constant across the study period, although
sister-sister pairs reported significantly more intimacy than brother-brother pairs. Among mixed-sex
dyads, however, a U-shaped pattern of change emerged such that intimacy decreased slightly from
middle childhood through early adolescence, but then increased substantially across adolescence.The
authors suggested that the marked rise of brother-sister intimacy in mid-adolescence may be due in
part to a greater involvement and interest in the opposite sex that develops during this period (Kim
et al., 2006).
Findings that the onset of adolescence marked changes in sibling relationships may not be sur-
prising. Adolescence is a period of dramatic change for both youth and their parents. Coupled with
biological, physiological, and cognitive development, youth undergo rapid transformations in their
social relationships (Brown and Larson, 2009; East, 2009; Laursen and Collins, 2009). Navigating
these transitions is challenging for both youth and parents alike. Indeed, parents rate adolescence as
the most difficult period of rearing offspring (Buchanan et al., 1990). Against this background, it is
notable that the challenges presented to parents by sibling rivalry and conflict appear to decline fol-
lowing the older siblings’ transition to adolescence. Accordingly, family scholars and interventionists
may consider how parents’ could actively leverage an improving sibling relationship during adoles-
cence to promote youth well-being.
Parenting Siblings in Childhood and Adolescence

As at the transition to siblinghood, warm, sensitive, attentive, and supportive parenting of children
is related to more positive and cohesive sibling relationships in middle childhood and adolescence
(Kim et al., 2006; Teti and Ablard, 1989), and negative, harsh, or disengaged parenting, to more dif-
ficult, negative, and conflictual sibling relationships (Brody, Stoneman, and McCoy, 1994; Gass et al.,
2007; Houston, Pfefferbaum, Sherman, Melson, and Brand, 2013; Jenkins, 1992; Kim et al., 2006; Pike
et al., 2005). Grounded in a family systems perspective, evidence also supports the notion that nega-
tive feedback loops may exist among problematic family relationships, including sibling relationships,
and children’s adjustment problems. For example, in one study, hostile sibling conflict and rejecting
parenting predicted—both independently and jointly—6-year-old children’s externalizing problems
as reported by mothers and teachers (Bryant and Crockenberg, 1980). As children’s difficult tempera-
ment and behavior elicits higher levels of conflict with siblings (Brody, Stoneman, and Burke, 1987;
Brody et al., 1994; Lytton, 1990) as well as compromised parenting (Lytton, 1990), we might expect
that higher levels of child externalizing would both be a consequence of and then exacerbate hostile
sibling conflict and negative parenting.
Across development, research has found positive evidence for parents’ efforts to reduce sibling
conflict and rivalry by establishing social norms, fostering problem solving, and discussions of per-
spective taking (Dunn and Munn, 1986; Felson and Russo, 1988; Ihinger, 1975; Kendrick and Dunn,
1983; Perlman and Ross, 1997; Ross, Martin, Perlman, Smith, et al., 1996). The best opportunities
for parents to influence sibling relationships (and consequently children’s development) may come
in early and middle childhood as basic prosocial capacities are rapidly developing. Several scholars
have noted that young children’s social cognitive abilities—such as perspective taking, articulation
of internal states and emotions, and conflict resolution capacities—are shaped in early family inter-
actions, particularly those with their siblings (Dunn, 1983). Moreover, some have suggested that
young children display such understandings within early family interactions before being able to
231
demonstrate such understanding within formal assessment paradigms (Carpendale and Lewis, 2006;
Rosnay and Hughes, 2006). In the sibling-focused literature, parents’ discussions and references to
internal states, such as emotions, intentions, and goals, have been conceptualized as a critical social-
izing process in the early development of sibling relationships (Dunn and Brown, 1991).
Dunn and colleagues in the early 1980s utilized detailed observations of family interaction to
describe the ways that young sibling pairs interacted with each other, how mothers behaved with
the children, and the ways that these family dynamics influenced the development of children’s
interpersonal and social-cognitive abilities (Dunn et al., 1991). Much of this work concerned vari-
ous parenting behaviors, including discussion of internal states. Although internal-state referencing
by parents is often considered as taking place during or after a conflict, (Dunn, 1988a; Dunn, 1988b)
noted that internal-state referencing may also occur as a form of anticipatory management—talking
about problems before they arise—as parents coach their children’s views of their sibling and sibling
relationship.
Dunn’s work demonstrated links between internal-state discussion and sibling relationships: Dunn
and Kendrick (1982) found that mother’s discussion of the younger sibling’s needs and feelings with
the older sibling predicted the older sibling’s friendliness to the younger sibling over the next year.
If introduced and reinforced by parents, children may incorporate such internal-state discourse into
sibling and peer interactions. Children’s own use of such discourse with siblings and peers, in the
absence of parents, is positively related to cooperative sibling and peer interactions (Brown, Donelan-
McCall, and Dunn, 1996; Howe, 1991).
However, internal-state referencing has been linked to positive sibling relationships, and to some
negative outcomes. For example, Dunn and Munn (1986) found that mothers’ (and older siblings’)
references to social rules and feelings when younger siblings were only 18 months old predicted, 6
months later, the younger siblings’ use of “relatively mature behavior in sibling interactions such as
conciliation, teasing, reference to social rules and justification for prohibition”—as well as, unexpect-
edly, hitting. Howe and Ross (1990) reported that maternal references about the younger child’s
internal states to the older sibling were associated with friendly sibling relationships, but the older
sibling’s references to the mother about the younger sibling’s internal states were associated with both
more sibling play as well as more conflictual sibling behavior. One interpretation of these results is
that discussion of internal states helps siblings to have more positive relationships, which leads to
increased engagement and interaction; an increase in conflict incidents may arise as a byproduct of
the amount of increased time and engaged sibling interaction.
As part of a broader examination of parenting influences, McHale, Updegraff, Jackson Newsom,
Tucker, and Crouter (2000) posited that, while spending time with sibling dyads, parents may
model effective strategies for getting along, mitigate conflicts before they arise or escalate, and
ultimately facilitate family cohesion and sibling harmony. Consistent with these expectations, they
found that parents’ temporal involvement with siblings was associated with more positive sibling
relationship qualities. Parents’ involvement was often divided on gendered lines. With the excep-
tion of brother-brother dyads, mothers spent more time in the company of sibling dyads than did
fathers. This difference may reflect the responsibility that fathers feel to socialize sons (Harris and
Morgan, 1991).
Youth inability to get along with their siblings represents parents’ most frequently reported child
management problem (Ross, Martin, Perlman, and Smith, 1996) and source of their own conflict with their
children (McHale and Crouter, 1996). As such, parents’ efforts to manage and potentially improve the
quality of youth sibling relationships may represent a critical pathway to improving family cohesion
and support. Parents may influence sibling relationships through coaching, advice, and instruction;
and we include in this dimension the distinct parental strategies for intervening in siblings’ con-
flict. Although some intervention strategies may not take advantage of sibling conflict as a teaching
opportunity, some strategies clearly are intended in that manner.
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Parenting Siblings
Consistent with the negative implications of an authoritarian parenting style found in the gen-
eral parenting literature (Parke and Buriel, 1998), authoritarian-type parental responses to sibling
conflict—such as dictating a solution to the conflict at hand, or administering a negative conse-
quence to the children—have been linked with less intimate and more negative sibling relationships
(Brody et al., 1987; Felson and Russo, 1988; McHale et al., 2002). What is yet unclear is whether
an authoritarian response to sibling conflict is detrimental due to the parents’ emotionally laden
response (e.g., angry, aggressive) versus the actual parental intervention (e.g., adjudicating the con-
flict on the spot, administering a negative consequence). Moreover, managing sibling relationships
may require different rearing strategies across development. For example, it is possible that higher
levels of structuring and intervention in sibling disputes is more effective in childhood than in
adolescence, when youth developing cognitive abilities and greater desire for autonomy may make
such parental strategies counter-effective.
McHale, Updegraff, Tucker, and Crouter (2000) examined three different parental strategies for
responding to sibling conflict during mid-adolescence: (1) intervention (e.g., directly step into the
conflict, punish siblings for the conflict); (2) coaching (e.g., aiding perspective taking, providing
advice); and (3) non-involvement (e.g., ignore the problem, let the siblings work out the issue).
Consistent with findings from earlier research (Felson and Russo, 1988), parents’ direct interven-
tions into sibling conflicts were negatively related to sibling intimacy and positively related to sibling
negativity. Together, such findings counter a perspective that, at least by adolescence, siblings fight to
attract parental attention, and thus, that parental intervention serves only to promote sibling conflict
(Dreikurs, 1964a, 1964b).
One reason that parent intervention in sibling interaction may be associated with negative sibling
relationships (at least cross-sectionally) may have to do with the reasons for parent intervention. For
example, parent engagement in sibling interaction may come as a result of a parent attempting to
manage frequent or intense sibling conflict, compensate for conflict resolution deficits in the chil-
dren, or assuage the parent’s own high level anxiety about family conflict. Parental engagement for
these reasons may prove to predict greater conflict over time (Howe et al., 2003) not because the
parental intervention strategy itself has a causal impact on sibling conflict, but because these factors
may independently lead to greater sibling conflict. In other words, parental intervention may serve
as a marker of difficulties that will lead to increased sibling conflict over time. At the end of the
day, experimental trials remain the best way to tease out causal influence from selection and other
confounds.
An important issue is how parenting strategies may be more or less effective depending on the
characteristics of the children and their sibling relationships. That is, a parenting strategy such as
non-involvement may be beneficial for siblings with warm relationships and who individually have
self-regulation and problem-solving skills,We are aware of only one study (Recchia and Howe, 2009)
that examined the match between parenting and sibling relationship qualities: In that study, directive
parental intervention with high-conflict sibling pairs, as well as non-directive intervention with low-
conflict pairs, predicted more cooperative sibling relationships 2 years later. However, where there
was a mismatch between sibling relationships and parenting—such as non-directive intervention
with high-conflict siblings—siblings’ cooperation declined.
Finally, there is much yet to be learned about the factors that influence the strategies parents
utilize in parenting siblings. For example, McHale, Updegraff, Tucker, et al. (2000) explored the ways
that parents’ values and beliefs influenced their decisions around intervening in sibling interactions.
Parents’ who valued fostering autonomy in their children were less likely to intervene in sibling con-
flicts. Future research into the roots of parents’ strategies for influencing sibling relationships could
be linked to parents’ broader experiences and understanding of what will promote their children’s
success in life; for example, values around conformity and autonomy may stem in part from parents’
roles at work related to following directives versus autonomous decision-making (Kohn, 1976).
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Family Systems Processes: Parents’ Differential Treatment of Siblings

In line with a family systems orientation, parents shape their children’s relational and individual
adjustment through differences in their treatment of and relationships with each child. (As we men-
tioned above, PDT can be expressed through various dimensions of parenting—including direct
interaction, instruction, and orchestration.) Although parents in egalitarian Western societies typically
strive to be even-handed in their parenting, research shows that parents often treat siblings differently
for a variety of reasons—including the children’s temperament or needs, parents’ emotional connec-
tion with each child, or simply sibling gender and age differences. For example, one study found that
in early childhood, younger children were just as likely as their older sibling to be physically aggres-
sive, tease, or start a quarrel (Dunn and Munn, 1986).Yet mothers were observed to be twice as likely
to issue prohibitions toward the older sibling and distract the younger than vice versa.
A body of research across childhood and adolescence highlights that parents’ differential treatment
(PDT) of offspring in both childhood and adolescence is generally related to poorer sibling relation-
ship qualities (Brody, Stoneman, and McCoy, 1992; Kowal and Kramer, 1997; Shanahan et al., 2008)
and individual maladjustment (Feinberg and Hetherington, 2001; Richmond, Stocker, and Rienks,
2005; Scholte, Engels, de Kemp, Harakeh, and Overbeek, 2007). A meta-analysis found that PDT was
significantly linked with both internalizing and externalizing problems among siblings, although the
effect size was small (Buist, Deković, and Prinzie, 2013).
The small effect size found in the Buist et al. (2013) meta-analysis may be the result of larger PDT
effects in some families and the absence of such effects in other families. For example, most research
on PDT is rooted in Adlerian (Ansbacher and Ansbacher, 1956) and social comparison (Festinger,
1954) perspectives, which suggest that youth self-esteem is especially sensitive to differences between
their own and their siblings’ relationships with parents. This theoretical framework may explain why
the association between differential treatment and adjustment is weak for children whose parents
exhibit warm and supportive parenting, even when their siblings receive even warmer and more
positive treatment (Feinberg and Hetherington, 2001).
A second moderator of PDT effects appears to be children’s interpretation of differential par-
enting as fair or not (Kowal and Kramer, 1997; Kowal, Kramer, Krull, and Crick, 2002; McHale,
Updegraff, Jackson Newsom, et al., 2000).Youth who perceive differential parenting as justified based
on explanations, such as the sibling’s different needs or behavior, are less susceptible to the negative
impacts of PDT. In one study, youth perceptions about the fairness of parents’ differential treatment
moderated the association between PDT and children’s adjustment via jealousy; the indirect pathway
from PDT to adjustment through jealousy was only significant when children perceived the differen-
tial parenting as moderately or highly unfair (Loeser, Whiteman, and McHale, 2016). These findings
suggest that it is critical for parents to communicate with their children about the reasons for discrep-
ancies in treatment, as well as for youth to express their concerns about potential differences. With
adolescents, such discussions may be especially appropriate and effective as their increasing cognitive
skills allow for more nuanced understanding of complicated issues and greater perspective taking.
As developmental changes in cognition and perspective taking are associated with youth increased
utilization of comparisons for self-evaluation (Eccles, Midgley, and Adler, 1984; Ruble, Boggiano,
Feldman, and Loebl, 1980), one might expect the implications of PDT would be especially salient
during adolescence. However, the Buist et al. (2013) meta-analysis found that developmental period
moderated the findings for internalizing such that the influence of PDT was larger for children’s
than adolescents’ internalizing. It may be that as adolescents invest more time and emotion into peer
relationships and withdraw their engagement from the family (Steinberg and Monahan, 2007), that
the salience of PDT for well-being diminishes. A developmental exploration of these issues might
examine developmental changes in social cognition and time spent with the family to examine
whether these factors influence the salience of PDT over development.
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Parenting Siblings
In addition to development and age, gender differences may moderate the salience of differential
treatment. Maccoby (1998) suggested that girls become more relationship oriented during adoles-
cence and engage in social comparisons (at least in terms of relationships) more often than boys.
Consistent with this idea, gender and dyad gender constellation moderation have also been found in
associations between PDT and adjustment, with girls and same-gender dyads documenting stronger
linkages between PDT and adjustment (McHale, Updegraff, Tucker, et al., 2000; Shanahan et al.,
2008; Tamrouti-Makkink, Dubas, Gerris, and van Aken, 2004).
Most research on parents’ differential treatment focuses on differences in maternal (and less often
paternal) affection and conflict. Yet, Tucker and colleagues (2003) found that PDT was evident in
other domains of parenting. For example, the majority of parents (mothers and fathers) in their
study allocated more privileges to firstborns. Although a majority of parents allocated chores equally,
when differential treatment was displayed, firstborns were almost three times more likely to be
assigned more chores than secondborns. Gender differences emerged with respect to parents’ tem-
poral involvement with adolescent siblings. Although a majority of mothers and fathers reported
spending equal amounts of time with both of their offspring, for about one-quarter of the sample, a
complementary pattern of shared time emerged. For these families, mothers reported spending more
time with one child, and fathers reported spending more time with the other. About 75% of these
families included mixed-gender siblings, suggesting that parents may be taking responsibility for
socializing offspring of the same-gender (i.e., mothers and daughters, fathers, and sons). This pattern
may be especially likely during adolescence, as anthropological work highlights that, across cultures,
gender role expectations become more pronounced as parents attempt to prepare their adolescent
offspring for adult roles (Whiting and Edwards, 1988).
Although the connections between PDT and youth individual and relational adjustment have
been well established, the mechanisms connecting them are often implied as opposed to tested. For
example, consistent with social comparison principles that upward comparisons (i.e., comparisons
with those who are viewed as better off) are associated with challenges to one’s self-worth, perceived
disfavored treatment from parents is linked to maladjustment in adolescents (Feinberg and Hether-
ington, 2001; Richmond et al., 2005; Scholte et al., 2007). However, sibling jealousy may mediate the
association between disfavored treatment and youth adjustment. Loeser et al. (2016) found that the
direct links between PDT and youth depression, self-worth, and risky behaviors operated indirectly
through siblings’ self-reported jealousy. That is, PDT was related to greater jealousy, which in turn,
was related to youth adjustment.
Although research on the implications of within-family differences in parenting is well established,
challenges remain. First, most studies on PDT utilize a vertical or top-down perspective regarding
parenting and parent–offspring relationships. That is, most work assumes that parents enact differen-
tial treatment toward their offspring and are not reacting to potential differences between siblings.Yet,
research and theory demonstrates that with age, youth become more capable and skilled at evoking
specific types of treatment from parents (Scarr and McCartney, 1983). As such, the direction of effects
(i.e., parent to child) may be reciprocal, especially during adolescence (but see Lam et al., 2012).
Additionally, most research on differential treatment (and siblings more generally) focuses on
a single dyad. U.S. census (2015) data, however, indicate that about 50% of families with multiple
children have more three or more offspring. Although practical challenges may exist for collecting
data from all members of a family, methodological advances make the analysis of data from multiple
family members less problematic. Work from Jenkins and colleagues (Browne, Meunier, O’Connor,
and Jenkins, 2012; Jenkins, Rasbash, and O’Connor, 2003; Meunier et al., 2012) highlights how
multi-level modeling strategies can be adapted to analyze the implications of parental differential
treatment for all siblings in a family. One study utilizing several children per family found that parent
agreeable personality was inversely related with the extent of differential negativity, whereas open-
ness to experience was linked with greater differences in parenting negativity (Browne et al., 2012).
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Family Systems Influences: Parent and Relationship Characteristics

Clearly, parents’ traits and behaviors influence children in many ways when they are not intention-
ally engaged in “parenting.” For example, maternal depression has long been known as a detrimen-
tal influence on children (Dix, Moed, and Anderson, 2014), and maternal mood has been found
to influence sibling relationship qualities (Dunn, Slomkowski, Bcardsall, et al., 1994). Moreover, a
father’s tendency to drink and become drunk is an influence on both less and more severe sibling
violence (Eriksen and Jensen, 2009; Feinberg, 2003). Sibling relationships can serve to mediate the
negative influence of such parent or family risk factors, including structural risk factors, such as single
parenthood, on children’s development (East and Khoo, 2005). We include research on parent and
family relationship influences on siblings as it is possible that parents could modulate exposure of
children to some characteristics, counterbalance them with positive experiences or supports, or be
motivated to alter some characteristics and behaviors.
Some research points to interparental conflict as a detrimental influence on sibling relation-
ships. For example, in one study, interparental conflict during middle childhood predicted young
adolescent sibling relationships, even accounting for children’s temperament, parental warmth, and
differential parental negativity (see below for further discussion on differential parenting). In a sec-
ond study with data from 3,681 sibling pairs, interparental affection and hostility predicted change
in sibling relationship quality over 4 years (Dunn, Deater-Deckard, Pickering, Golding, and ALSPAC
Study Team, 1999). Interparental relationships demonstrated both direct and indirect pathways to sib-
ling relationship quality in that study, with the latter operating via parent–child relationships. Notably,
the authors did not find that interparental conflict was related to either parent–child negativity or
sibling relationship quality among step-families.
Interparental conflict may affect sibling relationships through several mechanisms. First, within a
social learning framework such conflict likely provides a behavioral model for siblings, who may then
internalize expectations for future relationships to have high levels of conflict as well. Furthermore,
interparental conflict can be highly negatively arousing for children (Cummings and Smith, 1993;
De Arth-Pendley and Cummings, 2002) and generate feelings of anxiety (that interparental conflict
will “spill over” and lead to harsh parenting; (Erel and Burman, 1995) or emotional insecurity (due
to perceived threats to family stability and safety; (Davies et al., 2002). These feelings of threat, anxi-
ety, and insecurity may lead to increased levels of rivalry, competition, and conflict among siblings.
A family systems orientation also sensitizes researchers to the variations in relationship quality
across family relationships. One source of this variability is simply that children are born sequen-
tially (apart from twins), and this allows parents opportunities to learn from their experiences with
one child and apply this learning with others. Consistent with axioms like “practice makes perfect,”
experience with parenting should promote greater familiarity with parental roles and potentially
improve parental efficacy. The role of experience in parenting has long been recognized. Schachter
(1959), for example, characterized parents of firstborns as insecure and ill informed; in contrast, he
identified parents of laterborns as more relaxed, knowledgeable, and confident. Perhaps reflecting
parents’ greater knowledge and confidence, Tessler (1980) found that, controlling for family size and
other potential confounding factors, children from later ordinal birth positions were less likely to visit
medical offices and see physicians than children from earlier ordinal birth positions.
Despite this early work and the commonsense notion that parenting experience matters, little
scientific work has explicitly explored how parenting behaviors actually vary across children as a
result of birth order. Perhaps the role of experience is assumed or the traditional design of obtaining
from one-parent (usually a mother) and one child prevented its study, but some work highlights how
parental experience shapes subsequent expectations and rearing strategies.
We first note that an investigation of maternal parenting and infant behaviors when the child
was 5 months old did not find mother or infant behavior to differ on average across firstborn and
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secondborn siblings; further, maternal behaviors were uncorrelated across siblings (Bornstein, Put-
nick, and Suwalsky, 2016). However, studies with older children have found differences across earlier
and laterborn siblings. Mothers’ knowledge of child development when children were 2 years old
increased from first- to secondborn (Bornstein, Cote, Haynes, Hahn, and Park, 2010). In compar-
ing parents’ expectations about their youth’s impending adolescent years, Whiteman and Buchanan
(2002) found that experienced mothers (i.e., those who had parented an adolescent previously) were
less likely to expect stereotypically negative behaviors from their laterborn offspring compared to
parents who had not yet had experience with adolescent offspring. More importantly, they found
that the nature of mothers’ experiences with earlier-born children predicted similar expectations
for laterborns: Those with more positive experiences with earlier-borns expected fewer problems
and more prosocial behaviors from laterborns. In contrast, those with poorer earlier experiences had
more negative expectations for laterborns. This latter pattern highlights that not all of what parents
learn from prior experience is positive. (East, 1998), for example, found that parents questioned their
efficacy and lowered their expectations for laterborn children’s behaviors following a teenage daugh-
ter’s pregnancy and subsequent childbearing.
In addition to influencing expectations, experience with earlier-born children can also shape par-
ents’ behaviors and rearing strategies with laterborns. For example, using longitudinal and within-
family data, Whiteman, McHale, and Crouter (2003) discovered that parents had greater knowledge
about their younger children’s everyday activities and less frequent conflict with younger children as
compared to their older siblings when examined at the same age (i.e., when both children were 13
or 15 years). Using longitudinal data from the same project, Wray-Lake, Crouter, and McHale (2010)
found that younger siblings were granted more autonomy in their relationships with parents as com-
pared to older siblings when measured at the same age in adolescence. Perhaps rearing an earlier-born
child provides parents with a greater range of strategies that lead to more effective parenting. In infancy
and early childhood, skills could include how to handle dinner and bedtime routines. In middle child-
hood and adolescence, parents may expand their ability to elicit key information about their children’s
days, improve their conflict resolution strategies, and learn which battles to fight and which to flee.
Ultimately, findings like these highlight how families work as systems, with experiences of one
child reverberating throughout the entire system and shaping the experiences of others. It is critical
that future work on parenting (and not just parenting siblings) investigate how rearing strategies vary
not just across families but also within them. Family processes such as differential parental treatment,
learning from experience and emotion spillover will only be apparent when incorporating data from
across the family system.
Family Systems: Sibling Effects

Given parents’ own views of sibling conflict as one of the most stressful aspects of family life, it is sur-
prising that more research has not more fully explored “sibling effects,” the ways that sibling dynam-
ics can compromise parenting quality. For example, in the face of high levels of sibling conflict, one
might expect parents to withdraw and disengage, just as some parents do when faced with a single
difficult child (Howe, Aquan Assee, and Bukowski, 2001). This work would extend research on child
effects—the way a single child’s characteristics and behaviors influence parenting (Bell, 1968). For
example, one study traced child effects from the older sibling to the parent and then to the younger
sibling: Older siblings’ academic and social competence led to increased maternal self-esteem and
decreased depression, which in turn was linked to more positive parenting toward the younger
sibling—with beneficial results for the younger sibling’s emotional and behavior adjustment (Brody
et al., 2003). However, the dynamics of the sibling relationship per se can also impact parenting.
A unique aspect of sibling dynamics that may influence parenting is collusion against parental
authority (Patterson, 1984). A relatively sizable literature demonstrates that siblings can influence
237
each other’s engagement in problem behaviors such as delinquency, crime, and substance use (Bank
et al., 2004; Criss and Shaw, 2005; Low, Shortt, and Snyder, 2012; Stormshak, Comeau, and Shepard,
2004). Indeed, an important route through which youth find opportunities to try cigarettes, alcohol,
or illicit drugs is through the provisions, friends, and activities of siblings (Rowe and Gulley, 1992;
Samek, McGue, Keyes, and Iacono, 2015; Whiteman, Jensen, Mustillo, and Maggs, 2016; Windle,
2000). Additionally, dynamics within the sibling relationship can reinforce such antisocial or risky
behaviors. In a process termed “deviance training,” childhood or adolescent friends reinforce each
other’s tendencies toward antisocial behavior by positively reinforcing (often through shared laugh-
ter) each other’s comments and jokes that have an antisocial, anti-authority theme (Bullock and
Dishion, 2002).The result can be an increase in delinquent and antisocial behavior over time. Siblings
can also engage in deviance training by reinforcing each other’s anti-authority commentary and
behaviors, and this too influences youth development (Bullock and Dishion, 2002). Sibling deviance
training can also take the form of colluding together against parental authority—both covertly (e.g.,
cooperating and planning ways to break rules) and overtly (e.g., one sibling lies about or covers up
the other’s misbehavior). To date, little research has examined how parents can effectively respond to
sibling deviance training, disrupt the negative collusion, and foster more positive sibling dynamics.
Overall, results from the few studies on the topic suggest that across the course of childhood and
adolescence parents may need to utilize different strategies for supporting their offspring’s sibling
relationships. Although adolescents’ time spent with parents and siblings declines throughout ado-
lescence (Larson and Richards, 1991), maintaining family time in both childhood and adolescence
appears critical for relational harmony. Given adolescents’ drive for autonomy, parents may also ben-
efit from allowing adolescent-aged siblings to work out their differences independently as opposed
to directly intervening in their conflicts.Yet, it is critical that future research explore these possibilities
in greater detail, as many questions remain unanswered.
An attractive idea proposed by some sibling researchers is that siblings may compensate with sup-
port and warmth with each other when faced with difficulties in other areas, such as interparental
conflict or negative parenting (Dunn, Slomkowski, and Beardsall, 1994). There is some, but limited,
evidence of this sibling compensation hypothesis, however (Brody, Stoneman, and MacKinnon, 1986;
Brody et al., 1992; Kim et al., 2006; Stocker, Dunn, and Plomin, 1989). Compensation may be a
phenomenon that takes place only in some contexts, such as among families in relatively high risk
contexts, or where siblings demonstrate individual or joint signs of resilience (e.g., temperament,
conflict resolution skills). This is an area worth further examination as understanding when and how
sibling compensation occurs naturally may help program developers create ways to encourage such
compensation processes.
Sibling Relationships Across Adulthood

Sibling relationships are distinct from other close relationships in their potential lifelong scope, and
this unique characteristic has implications for the nature of sibling relationships in adulthood and the
role of parents in those sibling dynamics. Unlike parent–child relationships that often end by midlife
at the death of parents, romantic relationships that usually commence in young adulthood and may
end through separation or divorce, and friendships that are entered and exited by choice, sibling rela-
tionships are non-voluntary. Even siblings who choose to have little contact after leaving the home of
their family of origin remain siblings, retaining a shared family history and experiences. And indeed,
the limited data on sibling relationships across adulthood suggest that most siblings remain close
throughout their lives, with frequent contact and positive regard, and that they exchange support and
help including childcare, chores, and advice (Cicirelli, 1995; Spitze and Trent, 2006). Sibling relation-
ships may even improve in terms of reduced conflict and greater cohesion across early adulthood:
After siblings move out of their parents’ homes and establish their own alternative bases of security
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Parenting Siblings
(family, work), the conditions leading to sibling rivalry and conflict may weaken (Jensen, Whiteman,
Fingerman, and Birditt, 2013). One longitudinal study revealed greater declines in sibling conflict
and increases in intimacy when older siblings moved out of the home after high school graduation
as compared to families with older siblings who continued to live at home (Whiteman, McHale, and
Crouter, 2011).
Siblings’ personal characteristics and life experiences, however, shape their later relationship
experiences, and this suggests that parents’ early socialization efforts may have long-term influence.
Maintaining communication is important, however, work by Lindell, Campione-Barr, and Killoren
(2015) identified social media communication as a factor promoting sibling closeness among college
students. Highlighting the role of cultural socialization, Killoren, Alfaro, Lindell, and Streit (2014)
found that Mexican-origin college students’ familism values—values that emphasize the significance
of family relationships and responsibilities—served as a protective factor, promoting high levels of
contact among sibling dyads with low levels of intimacy. Below, we elaborate on the role of culture
in parental socialization when we consider the larger contexts of sibling relationships.
Longitudinal data on sibling relationships in adulthood are generally lacking, but cross-sectional
data from a large national data set provides insights into age differences in sibling contact across adult-
hood, suggesting that contact is lower in young and middle adulthood than later in life (White, 2001).
Siblings’ marital status and gender influence levels of contact, but geographical distance between
siblings appears to be the strongest correlate of sibling contact (Spitze and Trent, 2016).White (2001)
also reported that declines in contact leveled off in middle adulthood when, presumably, responsibili-
ties to the family of procreation decrease. Although Spitze and Trent (2016) found that the frequency
of visits and the provision of social support declined, sibling closeness in terms of reports of how well
siblings get along, and even some forms of contact (i.e., telephone calls), remained common and did
not decline in old age.
The research on parents’ role in adult sibling relationships is quite limited. What can be gleaned
from this literature is that parent–child dyadic relationships in childhood set the stage for adult sibling
relationships. For example, young adults’ states of mind regarding their early attachment relation-
ships with parents, specifically dismissive and preoccupied orientations, were linked to observed and
self-reported lower levels of warmth and higher levels of conflict and negativity (Fortuna, Roisman,
Haydon, Groh, and Holland, 2011). Furthermore, young adults’ empathy and perspective taking
competencies—shown to be linked to parenting as early as the transition to siblinghood period
(Dunn and Kendrick, 1981)—were associated with positive sibling engagement. Additionally, over-
all family communication style has been linked to sibling relationships quality in young adulthood
(Schrodt and Phillips, 2016).
Most research on parents’ role in adult sibling relationships, especially in midlife, focuses on par-
ents (most often mothers’) differential treatment of siblings. As in childhood and adolescence, per-
ceived favoritism and differential treatment—both current and retrospective reports of childhood
experiences—are linked to poorer sibling relationships from young adulthood (Jensen et al., 2013;
Siennick, 2013) to middle age (Suitor et al., 2009). Research in this area, however, has identified
important moderators and mediators of differential treatment-adjustment linkages: Consistent with
findings at earlier developmental periods, factors including sibling acknowledgment and confirma-
tion of differential treatment and shared family identity (Phillips and Schrodt, 2015a, 2015b), as well
as perceptions that differential treatment is justified or fair (Boll, Ferring, and Filipp, 2005) appear to
mitigate the negative effects of differential treatment on adult sibling relationships.
In a departure from research on childhood sibling-related family dynamics, an important element
of siblings’ differential experiences with parents in adulthood is differences in the caregiving and
other assistance that adult siblings provide for parents. Responsibility for elderly parents is most often
unequally shared by siblings (Cicirelli, 1992), with daughters and offspring who live in closer prox-
imity more likely to take on caregiving roles (Stuifbergen, van Delden, and Dykstra, 2008). However,
239
siblings may also negotiate care-based on perceived competencies and resources, availability, and
quality of their relationships with the parent (Roff, Martin, Jennings, Parker, and Harmon, 2007).
Feelings of caregiving burden (Ngangana, Davis, Burns, McGee, and Montgomery, 2016) and per-
ceptions that the distribution of care among siblings is unequal and unfair (Ingersoll-Dayton, Neal,
Ha, and Hammer, 2003) have been linked to poorer sibling relationships. Parents’ influences on sib-
ling relationships do not necessarily end with their death. Although a parent’s death may bring some
siblings closer together, earlier family experiences, including parents’ differential treatment can push
others apart (Greif and Woolley, 2015). Based on their qualitative interviews, these clinical researchers
suggested that clear end-of-life plans that are discussed and explained to offspring in advance of death
may be the most positive legacy parents can provide to support their children’s sibling relationships
into the future.
The Cultural Contexts of Sibling Relationships

Parents’ opportunities and decisions about where to live and bring up their children may be the most
profound and enduring of parental influences on children generally, including parents’ influences
on sibling relationships (Weisner, 1993). The settings of children’s lives are defined by resources and
demands of the larger context and its interconnected cultural values and practices, which together
imbue meaning into parents’ and children’s daily activities, routines, and social exchanges. From
cross-cultural research on families we gain insights into the wide variations in siblings’ roles and
relationships and associated family dynamics, including Western biases that privilege mother-child
and marital bonds, biases that may help to explain the limited attention to sibling relationships in our
research literature (Updegraff et al., 2011). Attention to the cultural contexts of sibling relationships,
however, highlights the ubiquity of siblings in the lives of children throughout history and around
the world (Weisner, 1993). Indeed, as we have noted, more U.S. children grow up living in a home
with a sibling than with a father. Furthermore, most parenting is undertaken in the context of sib-
ships (McHale et al., 2012).
One way that parents orchestrate their children’s sibling relationships is by determining when
and how many offspring they will rear—patterns that vary across time and place. Sibship size in
Western cultures, for example, declined dramatically during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.
One historian of Anglo culture connects the secular change from communal orientations, such as
familism values to the individualistic values of White majority Western society, to the decline in sib-
ship size (Davidoff, 2012). In the United States today, sibship size varies across cultural groups, such
that those of Latinos are larger on average than the sibships of African, Asian, or European American
families (McHale et al., 2012); the degree to which sibship size varies between cultures in step with
familism values is an open question as social, religious, and economic factors also play a role. Sibship
size may have implications for siblings’ involvement with one another—for instance, adolescent-age
siblings in Mexican-origin families in the United States spend more time together each day than
do those in European American families (Updegraff et al., 2005), and adult siblings from immigrant
minority families living in the Netherlands—who have larger sibships sizes, on average, than native
Dutch families—have more contact with their siblings than native Dutch siblings (Voorpostel and
Schans, 2011). Parents’ cultural values transmitted to children also make a difference: Research with
Mexican-origin families shows that adolescent siblings spend more time together when familism
values—which stress the significance of family bonds and responsibilities—are stronger (Updegraff
et al., 2005).
In addition to their centrality in everyday life, research on the cultural contexts of family life
highlights the significance of siblings’ roles in their families and thereby, their significant influences
on one another’s development and well-being and larger family dynamics.This work shows that sib-
lings’ family roles differ considerably across place. Although majority Western cultural values promote
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egalitarian norms (Parsons, 1972), within other cultural groups around the world, siblings’ family
roles are distinguished in terms of responsibilities and privileges, most often as a function of gender
and birth order. Frequently, sibling caregiving comes within the purview of older sisters, and inherit-
ance and authority lies in the hands of eldest brothers (Hafford, 2010). Hafford reported that sibling
caregiving was historically the norm in the United States as well, and still is common in urban
settings and among U.S. minority and immigrant groups in which parental resources, including
language and other host culture knowledge, are limited (Reynolds and Faulstich, 2008; Valenzuela,
1999). In turning to offspring for caregiving and other distinctive family roles, parents implicitly
socialize their children’s identity with values regarding family solidarity in general as well as their
sibling relationships.
For instance, in cultures in which parents grant high-status and privilege to firstborn sons as the
family head, the eldest brother is treated with deference and respect by his siblings, but has cor-
responding responsibilities for them throughout life (Sung and Lee, 2013). In such family contexts,
Western patterns of everyday sibling conflict and rivalry are not typically present. Likewise, assigning
caregiving roles to older sisters is thought to promote close, lifelong sibling bonds (Hafford, 2010).
In a larger context of family solidarity, the emotional ambivalence deemed characteristic of sibling
relationships in majority Western families (Bryant and Crockenberg, 1980) may not be evident. Con-
sistent with this idea, Updegraff et al. (2011) reviewed studies of adolescent sibling relationships in
African, European, and Mexican American families that classified sibling relationships by their levels
of positivity and negativity. Although a high-conflict/high closeness, or ambivalent, type of relation-
ship was evident among European American families, this type did not emerge in analyses of African
and Mexican American families. In these ways, the larger cultural context provides norms about
family roles and relationships that have implications for sibling relationships, and parents influence
the course of sibling relationships by promoting these cultural norms.
Research on culture and ethnic variability in parenting and sibling relationships must recognize
that there may be demographic and socioeconomic factors which could be confounded with cul-
tural differences. For example, one study found higher levels of PDT among lower-income families,
families with higher levels of marital dissatisfaction, and single-parent families (Jenkins et al., 2003).
These results suggest that PDT may be exacerbated in part by stress. For example, it may be that
socioeconomic stress undermines a parent’s ability to self-regulate in the service of a goal toward
equal treatment of siblings—a hypothesis supported by another finding from the same study: the
influence of children’s temperament on differential negativity was greatest among low SES families.
Thus, culture and ethnicity must be understood within a context of resources and stressors on fami-
lies that may be due to economic or institutional factors.
Much can be learned about sibling relationships through cross-cultural comparisons, but the
substantial variation within cultural groups also can be tapped to provide additional insights into
how the cultural practices and values that parents transmit to their children have implications for
sibling dynamics (Updegraff et al., 2011). For example, using an ethnic homogeneous design aimed
at identifying factors that explained differences among the sibling relationships of Mexican Ameri-
can adolescent dyads, Killoren, Thayer, and Updegraff (2008) showed that, in families with stronger
familism values, siblings exhibited more effective conflict resolution. Studying the same sample,
McHale, Updegraff, Shanahan, Crouter, and Killoren (2005) found that parents’ differential treat-
ment of siblings was more sex-typed (e.g., brothers granted more privileges and sisters assigned more
chores) when parents where more attuned to Mexican and less attuned to Anglo culture. Cultural
orientations not only can explain differences in sibling dynamics, but also have implications for how
those dynamics are linked to youth individual adjustment. For example, although parents’ differen-
tial treatment was linked to negative adjustment among Mexican American youth who endorsed
weak familism values (as in Western majority samples), this link was nonsignificant for youth who
held stronger familism values, possibly because youth were less focused on individualistic, and more
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focused on communal needs and interests (McHale et al., 2005). In other words, the same parenting
behaviors may have different effects on youth and their sibling relationships depending on the cul-
tural beliefs and values that characterize a family. As another example, Solmeyer and McHale (2017)
found that African American parents’ cultural socialization efforts aimed at promoting adolescents’
identification and appreciation for African American culture mitigated the negative implications of
differential treatment. Although some parenting behaviors invariably lead to more positive or nega-
tive sibling relationship outcomes, parent educators and parents themselves should be attuned to how
larger sociocultural contexts of family life imbue meaning into parental practices and socialization
efforts and thereby their implications for how siblings get along.
Siblings With Disabilities

In 2010, almost 20% of the U.S. population (about 56.7 million individuals) had a disability, includ-
ing physical, cognitive, sensory, and/or emotional challenges—and rates of disability are increasing
(Brault, 2012). These data suggest that having a sibling with a disability is a not uncommon experi-
ence. With respect to autism spectrum disorder (ASD) alone, the period from 1997 to 2008 saw
an increase of almost 300% in the number of children growing up with a sibling with ASD (Boyle
et al., 2011).The lifelong nature of sibling relationships means that the health and well-being of their
siblings remains a concern throughout the lives of sisters and brothers. Parents’ role in promoting
positive sibling relationships and family dynamics may therefore be of special importance in these
families.
The relatively limited literature on the relationships of sibling dyads in which one has a disabil-
ity suggests that these relationships are generally positive—indeed, these relationships may involve
less conflict than those of typically developing siblings—but, there also tends to be less warmth and
involvement (Heller and Arnold, 2010; Kaminsky and Dewey, 2001; Pollard, Barry, Freedman, and
Kotchick, 2013). As in the case of typically developing siblings, some, mostly cross-sectional research,
suggests that sibling contact and positive exchanges decline from adolescence through middle adult-
hood (Hodapp and Urbano, 2007; Orsmond and Seltzer, 2007), but in middle adulthood, warmth
may increase (Orsmond and Seltzer, 2007). Findings vary across studies, however, and within studies
there is also substantial variation in sibling dynamics. This variability has led investigators to identify
individual and family factors that are linked to more positive sibling relationship outcomes.
Findings from this small body of work are consistent with the research on typically develop-
ing siblings in suggesting that parents indirectly influence sibling relationships through their own
interactional behaviors: warmth and support in parent–child and marital relationships, for example,
are linked to positivity and involvement among siblings and better adjustment among non-disabled
siblings (Orsmond, Kuo, and Seltzer, 2009; Rivers and Stoneman, 2003). The larger context of fam-
ily life and parents’ own well-being—including parents’ stressors, supports, and mental health—also
influence sibling relationships (Orsmond and Seltzer, 2009).
Family experiences that may distinguish individuals with typically developing versus disabled sib-
lings include the possibility of greater family responsibilities, such as when parents allocate sibling car-
egiving tasks (Burke, Fish, and Lawton, 2015; Coyle, Kramer, and Mutchler, 2014; Floyd, Costigan, and
Richardson, 2016). Additionally, siblings often have concerns and questions about their role in their
sister’s or brother’s care later in life when parents no longer can do so (Burke et al., 2015; Coyle et al.,
2014; Floyd et al., 2016). Related to their increased family responsibilities, parents’ differential treat-
ment also is more pronounced in these families as parents work to manage their child’s special needs
(McHale and Pawletko, 1992), and siblings who are dissatisfied with their parents’ differential treatment
exhibit poorer adjustment (Rivers and Stoneman, 2008). Finally, in adolescence, in particular, perceived
stigma associated with having a disabled family member may be a concern for some youth, along with
issues of identity that may arise as youth try to discern ways in which they are alike and different from
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Parenting Siblings
their sibling; these concerns may extend to concerns about whether their own offspring are likely
to manifest the disabling condition (Milačić-Vidojević, Gligorović, and Dragojević, 2014; Milevsky,
Schlechter, and Machlev, 2011; Petalas et al., 2012). Some research suggests that greater knowledge
of their siblings’ condition is linked to more positive sibling relationships and well-being (Milačić-
Vidojević et al., 2014); if information and knowledge influences sibling relationships (rather than the
reverse), this finding implies that parental communications may be particularly important in helping
typically developing youth understand and, in turn, cope with their siblings’ challenges and needs.
Some parents may have access to interventions specially designed for typically developing child
and young adolescent age siblings whose siblings have disabilities such as the Sibshops (Meyer,Vadasy,
and Lassen, 1994) and SibworkS (Roberts, Ejova, Giallo, Strohm, and Lillie, 2016) programs. These
interventions vary in their foci but are often designed to be a source of social support, build children’s
knowledge of their siblings’ disability condition, and provide advice about handling sibling-related
challenges, including from peers in similar circumstances. Although there is some evidence that such
programs have positive effects, including on children’s well-being and sibling relationship quality,
systematic evaluations are rare and findings are inconsistent (Tudor and Lerner, 2015).
In the face of parental concerns about the well-being and adjustment of typically developing
youth who are growing up with a sibling with a disability, adult siblings report that they have ben-
efited from the relationship such as in their awareness of others’ needs and its impetus into satisfying
human service careers (Hodapp, Urbano, and Burke, 2010; Pompeo, 2009). Furthermore, many adult
siblings expect to, and eventually assume some responsibilities for their siblings when parents are no
longer able to do so (Heller and Arnold, 2010). Siblings who are anticipating caregiving roles express
concern about the future and those who undertake these responsibilities may face economic chal-
lenges and difficulties navigating support systems (Bigby, Webber, and Bowers, 2015; Burke et al.,
2015; Sonik, Parish, and Rosenthal, 2016). Thus, parents may help promote their children’s sibling
relationship over the long term by planning for the disabled child’s future and providing typically
developing siblings with the knowledge they have gleaned from their own experiences in caring for
and obtaining supports for their child with special needs.
Practical Information in Parenting Siblings

As we were writing this chapter, a journalist called one of us to ask about recommendations we could
make for parents on how to intervene and stop sibling bullying. Not only were there few evidence-
based recommendations we could make about parenting strategies specific to siblings, but it also
became evident that we have little to no data on the prevalence of sibling bullying: Although we have
some data on levels of conflict and aggression in sibling relationships across samples, we have little
understanding of the proportion of families in which asymmetric and marked sibling bullying occurs
versus reciprocal aggression. Furthermore, we have not defined the threshold at which we would we
place a sibling dyad in the category of a bullying relationship rather than lower-level sibling bicker-
ing or conflict. The lack of data, understanding, and recommendations that we can offer the general
public is embarrassing—particularly given the high degree to which sibling conflict and especially
victimization can affect siblings’ lifelong development and adjustment.
More generally, very few systematic efforts have been made to develop and assess strategies for
assisting parents to manage and enhance sibling relationships. We review the prominent exceptions
below, but first we caution that simply focusing on eliminating sibling conflict altogether should not
become a central goal of preventive or clinical interventions. Children can learn valuable negotiation
and perspective-taking skills in conflictual interactions with siblings (Dunn and Munn, 1986; Foote
and Holmes-Lonergan, 2003), and thus a broader goal would be to help parents reduce unregulated,
hostile, and harmful sibling conflict, and foster social competencies, such as the ability to problem
solve rather than simply avoid disagreements.
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Several small-scale intervention studies aimed at testing the view that parents should allow siblings
to resolve their disagreements, rather than intervening prematurely, were carried out in the 1970s.
The results suggested that training parents to stay out of middle childhood-aged sibling conflicts can
lead to a decrease in such conflict (Kelly and Main, 1979; Leitenberg, Burchard, Burchard, Fuller, and
Lysaght, 1977; Levi, Buskila, and Gerzi, 1977). However, these studies were generally very small, and
it is hard to draw firm conclusions from them; moreover, later research, indicates that parent inter-
vention strategies may be more or less effective depending on developmental stage and pre-existing
sibling characteristics including level of conflict.
Family scholars have developed a range of systematic programs and strategies designed to support
parenting of individual children, and many have been evaluated with experimental (i.e., randomized
trial) or quasi-experimental designs. In contrast, only a few such programs have been developed and
tested to assist parents with managing sibling relationships. For example, a brief program developed by
Ross et al. for parents of siblings in middle childhood was aimed at teaching parents to help their chil-
dren engage in constructive approaches to sibling conflicts rather than resorting to expressions of anger
and aggression (Siddiqui and Ross, 2004). In this brief intervention, mothers received 90 minutes of con-
flict mediation training, focused on how to help guide siblings through the process of developing their
own resolutions to conflicts, with the ultimate goal of allowing siblings to resolve problems on their own.
A short-term evaluation revealed that siblings of parents in the mediation condition showed less conflict
and were better able to compromise, and that younger siblings took a more active role in the conflict
resolution process compared to a control group (Siddiqui and Ross, 2004; Smith and Ross, 2007).
A few other sibling-focused programs have been developed and evaluated. These have combined
a focus on supporting parents’ management of sibling relationships as well as helping siblings improve
their relationship directly. For example, Bank and Snyder (2004) developed a sibling dyad-focused
program for middle childhood-aged siblings at elevated risk for conduct problems that was intended
to be an adjunct to parent management training (PMT). Grounded in a social and operant learn-
ing approach, the sibling component consisted of eight sessions focused on fostering each sibling’s
dyadic relationship skills to reduce conflict and aggression. In addition to the standard PMT program,
parents were provided with information about what was taught in each sibling session and coached
in how to support and reinforce the targeted child behaviors. In a three-arm trial, Bank compared
the PMT + sibling program to PMT alone and to a control condition. The children in both of the
intervention conditions demonstrated less growth in parent-reported antisocial behavior compared
to the control group. However, teacher reports demonstrated advantages of the PMT + sibling
condition over the other two, with the PMT + sibling participants demonstrating lower levels of
antisocial behavior and deviant peer association as well as more academic progress and more positive
peer associations than children in the other two conditions. Playground observations indicated the
PMT + sibling group had lower rates of negative peer interaction and social isolation than the other
two groups (Lew Bank, personal communication).
Kramer’s More Fun with Sisters and Brothers program (MFWSB; Kennedy and Kramer, 2008) was
developed as a universal social skills training program for sibling pairs between 4 and 8 years of age.
The goal of MFWSB is to promote prosocial behaviors toward siblings and reduce conflict by teach-
ing children emotion regulation and social relationship skills. MFWSB was grounded in research on
peer relationships, which suggests that children who are better able to regulate their negative emo-
tions and take another’s perspective are able to respond effectively to a variety of social situations and
have more positive outcomes. In MFWSB, sibling pairs attend small group sessions where they learn
skills such as social problem solving, identifying emotions, and how to respond in a prosocial manner
to a sibling’s invitation to play. Parents were able to observe these training sessions through a video
monitoring system and were instructed in how to promote and reinforce positive sibling interactions
at home. The program demonstrated modest effects for increasing sibling warmth and reducing par-
ents’ need to intervene around children’s emotionality, high activity levels, and misbehavior.
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Finally, we (MF and SM) developed a sibling-focused intervention with a parent component (Fein-
berg, Solmeyer, Hostetler, et al.). The program was based on our conceptual model of how sibling
relationships lead through multiple family, school, and peer pathways to problems in emotional and
behavioral adjustment including risky and antisocial behaviors (Feinberg, Solmeyer, and McHale, 2012).
Siblings Are Special (SIBS) is a universal prevention program for fifth graders, their younger siblings, and
parents, aimed at reducing siblings’ risk for negative adjustment and substance use. Small groups of up
to four sibling pairs attended 12 weekly after-school group sessions. Some skills introduced to children
are similar to those used in other child focused, non-sibling programs—the development of SIBS was
guided by social-emotional programs such as PATHS (Greenberg, Kusche, Cook, and Quamma, 1995)
and the Fast Track social skills training curriculum (Bierman and Greenberg, 1996).
Parents joined the sibling groups for an additional three “family nights.” The family nights con-
sisted of a first period in which children met separately from parents; during this time, facilitators
provided parents with guidance and discussion around parenting of siblings—specifically, enhancing
positive guidance and involvement and discouraging authoritarian control. During the second part
of the family nights, siblings joined their parents, presented material on what they had been learning,
and engaged in family activities designed to foster both parenting and sibling skill practice.
In a randomized trial of the program, we recruited 174 sibling dyads and their parents from pub-
lic schools in central Pennsylvania. The primarily European American sample was not screened or
selected on the basis of child, sibling dyad, or family risk status.The results indicated that the program
had some impact (effect sizes were about d = .3) on targeted parenting strategies for managing sibling
relationships as well as on the positive dimension of sibling relationships. Findings also demonstrated
that children exhibited increased self-control, social competence, and academic performance (by
teacher report). Finally, program exposure was also associated with reduced maternal depression and
child internalizing problems.
However, no effects of SIBS were found for the negative dimensions of sibling conflict, sibling
collusion, or children’s externalizing problems. It is possible that sustained positivity in the sibling
relationship would, over time, lead to reduced negativity and conflict. It is also possible that altering
negative aspects of sibling relationships through a group-format program and limited sessions with
parents may not have provided sufficiently intensive intervention.
Updegraff and colleagues (2012) conducted a pilot trial of SIBS with 54 Mexican American
families. Given that family cohesiveness (referred to as familismo or familism in this cultural group)
is a strong value in Mexican culture, the investigators expected that family members would be moti-
vated to adopt the program’s strategies and skills, with positive effects on siblings and their families.
Results indicated that the program had moderate-sized effects (ds = .40 to .64) on the authoritarian
parenting of siblings as well as the positive and negative dimensions of both sibling relationships and
parent–child relationship quality.
Notably, in both trials of SIBS, recruitment rates, session attendance, and parent satisfaction were
high (Feinberg, Solmeyer, Hostetler, et al., 2012; Updegraff et al., 2014). These implementation process
results suggest that, in contrast to the low levels of engagement in parenting programs generally, sibling-
focused programs may meet parents’ perceived need for support and guidance, and through their focus
on improving sibling relationships, a non-stigmatized source of family stress, improve engagement. More
generally, given the results from all four of the programs described here, interventions that incorporate a
focus on enhancing the parenting of siblings may be a promising approach to promoting positive indi-
vidual and relationship functioning across development, from preschool through adolescence.
Future Directions in Research on Parenting Siblings

There are ample opportunities for important and even foundational research on parenting in the
context of sibling relationships. Areas we identified include a better descriptive understanding of
245
parent’ attitudes, cognitions, goals, strategies, and behaviors toward their children’s sibling relation-
ships, from their earliest days and across development into adulthood. It is also important for the next
wave of research to move away from a focus on a uni-directional socialization pathway from par-
enting to sibling relationships, but, adopting a systems perspective, work to understand the multiple
intersecting relationships in the family. It is likely that parenting of siblings and siblings’ relationships
develop in a dynamic, mutually interacting process—suggesting that, as a beginning step, researchers
attend to reciprocal effects linking sibling dynamics to parenting.
It is also possible for researchers to draw on modern evolutionary theories of family behavior
across humans and other species. For example, parent–offspring conflict theory centers on under-
standing both parent and child strategies for gaining and sharing resources through a understanding
of reproductive fitness, genetic relatedness, and resource dynamics between parents and children
(Schlomer, Del Giudice, and Ellis, 2011). The irony is that, although this theory addresses central
issues in the study of parenting siblings (i.e., parent and sibling competition and sharing) and has been
applied in anthropologically oriented work, it has not been systematically applied to the empirical
study of siblings and families within the field of family psychology.
Moreover, parenting of siblings is not a solo activity; the vast majority of parents, especially during
the formative early childhood period, have one or more coparents involved such as another parent,
grandparent, or other extended family or adult. Thus, just as the field of coparenting research has
helped us understand how parenting occurs and influences children in the context of more than one
parent, a similar coparental approach to parenting of siblings will likely prove productive. Families
with different structures—whether intergenerational, joint custody in two households, step-families
extended families—provide contexts from which to draw insights into how the tasks of rearing sib-
lings are managed. Research focusing on parenting siblings in high-risk, transient situations—such as
foster care or homelessness may help us provide maximal support to children’s sibling bonds in these
challenging circumstances.
The risk in expanding our scope is that the basic study of one parent’s parenting of only two
siblings begins with a complex phenomenon. Introducing each additional individual family member
to the scope of research not only increases the number of respondents or targets to observe, but also
increases the number of relationships exponentially, necessitating, for some kinds of analyses, greater
power—that is, a larger sample size—to accommodate the increase in parameters. (Although sib-
ling researchers can also take advantage of the increase in power that comes about in some analytic
models when dependent variables are measured for each child in the family, even accounting for
dependency.) Thus, the complexity of our conceptual thinking, analytic methods, and/or resources
may constrain the kinds of questions we may ask.
Additionally, we seek an inclusive, rich understanding of the way parenting of siblings occurs
in families across different household structures, neighborhoods, ethnic groups, cultures, financial
resources, and a variety of challenges—such as meeting the needs of a child with a disability. There
is much we can learn from families in different places and situations that can be helpful in other
contexts. For example, by studying sibling caregiving in non-Western cultures, we may come to an
understanding that allows us to foster mutual sibling caring in our own individualistic culture.
In such investigations, there is a role for both descriptive and hypothesis-driven inquiry. In
descriptive work with non-European-American cultures, maintaining an open attitude of explora-
tion through, for example, ethnographic and qualitative work is very helpful. And quantitative meth-
ods that can account for more than two siblings at a time—such as multilevel approaches employed
by Jenkins (Jenkins, Rasbash, Leckie, Gass, and Dunn, 2012; Jenkins, Dunn, O’Connor, Rasbash, and
Behnke, 2005)—will be more critical to incorporate. In the area of hypothesis-driven research, the
field continues to evolve slowly in terms of conceptual and theoretical models that are proposed
and then examined in a coherent line of research, moving from correlational to longitudinal to
experimental designs. An exemplar of a theoretical approach engaged with empirical data is Reiss’
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Parenting Siblings
The Relationship Code (Reiss and Hetherington, 2009). Although neglected in the sibling literature,
this work is a rare example of hypothesis-driven family process inquiry; moreover, the large-scale
study that informs the work is focused on parenting of siblings. Reiss’ work traces how the distinc-
tion between genetic and environmental influences illuminates our understanding of the pathways
we have considered in this chapter: parenting, sibling relations, and children’s adjustment.
Conclusions
We end with not the usual complaint of neglect by sibling-focused research, but with a vision of
a growing interest in understanding how parents shape and are shaped by sibling relationships—
one of the few large but still largely unknown influences on the health, happiness, and well-being
of children and their parents. The existing body of research on parenting siblings points to the
substantial influence that parents can have on sibling relationships—both directly through parent-
ing siblings (fostering warmth and understanding, resolving conflict, orchestrating time use, etc.) as
well as indirectly, through parenting directed at each child separately. As sibling relationships have
greater influence on children’s development and lifelong adjustment than generally acknowledged,
fostering positive sibling relations represents an important new area by which parents can promote
children’s long-term well-being. Scholars should also continue to examine the reciprocal “sibling-
effects” pathway: Sibling conflict is recognized by almost all Western parents of more than one child
as a significant parenting challenge. The impact of sibling conflict and other sibling dynamics—such
as collusion against parental authority—on parents and parenting are areas where we have little
research-based knowledge to date.
Indeed, the field of parenting siblings is still in an early stage. We lack basic information on the
epidemiology of sibling violence, for example, despite the fact that the sibling relationship is the
locus of most family aggression for the majority of families with more than one child. Consequently,
our ability to recommend strategies for parents’ preventing and managing such violence (and non-
physical bullying) is quite limited. And while we have accumulated information about links between
parenting siblings, sibling relationships, and the development of specific adjustment problems such
as substance use, teen pregnancy, depression, and physical aggression, we know little about the spe-
cific and differential mechanisms by which parent–sibling interactions and relationships lead to (or
prevent) these problems. By pursuing and supporting further research into such interpersonal and
intrapersonal mechanisms, we will better understand better the parent–sibling emotional, cognitive,
and behavioral processes that parenting interventions should target.
It is also critical for family scientists to expand upon theories and research paradigms that study
parenting as isolated dyadic interactions. As Irish (1964) pointed out over a half-century ago, the
ubiquity of siblings in families across the world necessitates the contextualizing of parenting in triadic
and larger family systems processes. Further, by including siblings in research on parenting and fam-
ily studies, scholars also open up avenues through which often discussed but difficult to empirically
demonstrate systemic effects, like relational spillover, learning from experience (i.e., parental practice
effects), family coalitions, and compensation versus congruence across family dyads, can be observed.
In these and other ways, by incorporating sibling dynamics into our theories and research, we will
gain both a more nuanced and a more holistic view of family systems processes, including parenting.
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8
PARENTING GIRLS AND BOYS
Introduction
One of the first studies to examine how parents treat girls and boys differently was described in Pat-
terns of Child Rearing (Sears, Maccoby, and Levin, 1957). The authors discussed how parents made
distinctions in rearing their girls and boys in the domains of aggression and dependency. For example,
they noted that parents withdrew love from girls in response to their aggressive behaviors, whereas
they did not for boys. They argued that relatively higher rates of aggression in boys and dependency
in girls were a result of parents rewarding behaviors associated with the child’s gender and punishing
the behaviors deemed inappropriate for their gender.
This early work was the precursor to a robust body of research within developmental science
that has focused on how parents socialize girls and boys differently and in accordance with their
respective gender stereotypes. A 2011 analysis of published articles in the journal Sex Roles empiri-
cally documented how studies on gender socialization dominated the field of gender development
research in the 1960s and 1970s (Zosuls, Miller, Ruble, Martin, and Fabes, 2011). Most research
on gender development during that period concentrated on parents’ socialization of girls and boys
through different expectations and attitudes; this focus on differential treatment, however, was ulti-
mately limited (Zosuls et al., 2011). Although empirical studies documented examples of differential
treatment by parents, study findings were inconsistent within the literature. The inconsistencies
and discrepancies across studies led researchers to increase their attention to critical moderators
and individual differences across children, parents, and families in explaining the role of parents in
gender development, including an increased focus on the importance of cultural diversity (Zosuls
et al., 2011).
This chapter reviews research on how parents rear their daughters and sons, at times similarly and
at times differently.This chapter is meant to complement, rather than replace, previous reviews.Thus,
we first address the importance of diversity across individual children and their parents and across
cultures. Second, we briefly outline some theoretical frameworks that guide research on how parents
influence their children’s gender development.Third, we describe recent research on the critical ways
that parents influence the differential development of their daughters and sons (1) by enhancing the
importance of gender as a social category and (2) by socializing girls and boys differently. Fourth, we
discuss research on parenting gender diverse and gender nonconforming children. Fifth, we describe
research on how parents help their children cope with gender bias and discrimination. We conclude
the chapter with suggestions and recommendations for future directions of research.
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Parenting Girls and Boys
Individual Diversity and Cultural Contexts of Gender

Although gender is associated with biological sex (the categories of male and female determined by
chromosomes, hormones, and genitalia), gender actually refers to the “meanings that societies and
individuals ascribe to male and female categories” (Wood and Eagly, 2002, p. 699). As such, gender
is inherently socially constructed, and thus there is diversity in the ways that parents interact with
girls and boys across cultures. These differences in cultural contexts can be the function of historical
trends, religious beliefs, and societal traditions. These differences can also be the function of institu-
tionalized biases that indirectly influence how parents shape gender development; one example high-
lighted here is the difference in parental leave policies for mothers and fathers in different countries.
Importantly, there is also diversity within cultures because of the individual diversity of girls and boys
and the diversity of parents and families. This type of individual diversity, because it is so critical to
later discussions, is described first.
Diversity of Girls and Boys

In discussions of parenting girls and boys, it is important to first recognize that gender is a multidi-
mensional construct that includes psychological, social, and behavioral components (WHO, 2014).
As such, there is enormous individual diversity within gender categories. Two core ways in which
individuals differ within their gender category is by sexual orientation and gender identity (collectively,
SOGI; Temkin, Belford, McDaniel, Stratford, and Parris, 2017).
Specifically, gender identity refers to how an individual perceives their own gender, which may or
may not fall within a male or female binary category. Those individuals who do not fall within the
traditional gender binary can be referred to as gender nonconforming, gender expansive, gender-
queer, or gender diverse (to name a few). Even among girls and boys who identify within the gender
binary and with their sex assigned at birth, many may express themselves in gender-nonconforming
ways in their appearance, behavioral styles, and activities; previous research has shown that 23% of
boys and 39% of girls exhibited 10 or more behaviors that are considered nonconforming for their
gender (Sandberg, Meyer-Bahlburg, Ehrhardt, and Yager, 1993).
Individuals who do not identify with the sex category they were assigned at birth often identify
themselves with the label transgender (in comparison to the label cisgender, referring to individuals
who identify with the same-sex assigned at birth). Although it is difficult to determine the exact
percentage, by middle school approximately 1.3% of youth identify as transgender (Shields et al.,
2013), and by adulthood approximately 2.4% of individuals identify as transgender (Tate, Ledbetter,
and Youssef, 2013). Finally, individuals differ in their sexual orientation, with 2.1% of youth by mid-
dle school identifying as bisexual, 1.7% identifying as lesbian or gay, and 12.1% being unsure (Shields
et al., 2013). By the time they are adults, 3.5% of the population identify as lesbian, gay, or bisexual
(Gates, 2011a).
These SOGI-based differences impact how parents interact with their daughters and sons
(D’Augelli, Grossman, and Starks, 2008; Savin-Williams, 2001). For example, parents of sons who
are gender nonconforming may try to more heavily reinforce masculine gender stereotypes than
parents of more gender-conforming sons. Furthermore, parents are often more accepting of gen-
der nonconformity in daughters than in sons (see Egan and Perry, 2001). As described later in the
chapter, parents’ reactions to the sexual orientation, gender identity, and gender conformity of their
children can have serious implications for child development. It is also important to recognize that
the vast majority of research on girls’ and boys’ development presumes that the children in the study
are cisgender and relatively gender-conforming, yet does not actually assess SOGI status. Thus, our
extant knowledge of gender development is ultimately limited until we better examine the diversity
of the children included in the research.
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Diversity of Parents
In addition to individual diversity of gender categories for children and adolescents, there is diversity
of parents within families. Parents may consist of mothers and fathers in the same household or in
separate households (separated either because of divorce, dissolution of the relationship, or because
they never lived in the same household). After divorce, 81% of custodial parents are mothers and 18%
are fathers (Cancian, Meyer, Brown, and Cook, 2014).The gender of the parent or parents within the
home is an important consideration in the examination of how parents shape the development of
girls and boys. Relatedly, families may consist of two mothers or two fathers. The number of house-
holds in which there is at least one sexual minority parent has been growing, with between 2.0 and
3.7 million children under age 18 in the United States have lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender
parents (LGBT; Gates, 2011b).
Parents are also not the only ones “doing the parenting”: Approximately 3% of families are multi-
generational households (Jung and Yang, 2016), in which grandparents also play a parenting role
(Profe and Wild, 2017). Parents and grandparents, because of generational differences, may hold dif-
ferent gender stereotypes and ideals that impact their interactions with girls and boys.Taken together,
this means that researchers must attend to the gender composition and diversity of the children
within a family, and to gender composition and diversity of the parents.
Cultural Diversity
Most work focusing on parenting girls and boys has been conducted with White parents from Western
cultures.Yet, it is important to attend to the role of culture in shaping parenting and child development,
as there are significant differences across cultures in how parents engage with their daughters and sons.
For example, in many parts of the world, parents exhibit strong preferences for sons over daughters (The
Economist, 2010). Often this reflects the sons’ roles as future financial providers for the family. Because
of this, in some low-income countries in which compulsory education is not required of all children,
parents often have sent only their sons to school (UNESCO, 2010).This decision obviously leads to dif-
ferent developmental outcomes for girls and boys. In Bangladesh, for example, literacy is twice as high
in boys than girls (48% versus 24%, respectively; see Stewart, Bond, Abdullah, and Ma, 2000).
Across cultures, there are also differences in the impact of parenting behaviors across daughters
and sons. For example, in Islamic cultures, there is closer monitoring of girls than boys, and boys are
given more unrestricted access to peers than girls (Stewart et al., 2000). In a study with Bangladeshi
youth, girls who reported their parents’ close supervision of them perceived their parents to be
warmer, whereas boys who reported parents’ close supervision perceived their parents as more domi-
nating (Stewart et al., 2000). These different perceptions had different implications for psychological
outcomes. Additionally, in Pakistan, parental autonomy granting was important and positive for boys’
outcomes, but unrelated to girls’ outcomes (Stewart et al., 2000). In other words, there is cultural
diversity in how parents treat girls and boys and cultural diversity in the impact of that differential
parenting on children.
Even within Western samples of families, it is critical to examine parenting and child development
through the lens of intersectionality, such that attention is paid to the overlapping—or intersecting—
social identities to which all individuals simultaneously belong (such as ethnicity, social class, sexual
orientation, and gender). Children and their parents’ culture, ethnicity, and gender intersect in complex
ways. First, parents’ specific cultural background (often articulated by ethnicity or nationality) influ-
ences how parents rear their daughters and sons. For example, previous research has shown that Latino
families are typically more traditional in socializing gender roles than European American families
(Azmitia and Brown, 2000; Baca Zinn and Wells, 2000; Hondagneu-Sotelo, 1994; Valenzuela, 1999).
Women are typically viewed as the people who maintain relational ties with families and preserve the
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ethnic traditions and integrity of the culture (Gil and Vazquez, 1996; Phinney, 1990). Thus, girls are
often expected to remain close to the home and family, whereas boys are expected to gain independ-
ence and autonomy (Raffaelli and Ontai, 2004; Suárez-Orozco and Qin, 2006). Perhaps based in con-
cerns about protecting their daughter’s virginity, girls often have more restrictions and are more closely
monitored than are their brothers (Raffaelli and Ontai, 2004; Suárez-Orozco and Qin, 2006). Boys,
in contrast, are given more freedom, mobility, and privileges than are girls (Domenech, Rodriguez,
Donovich, and Crowley, 2009; Love and Buriel, 2007; Suárez-Orozco and Qin, 2006). In addition,
girls are often given more chores and responsibilities than their brothers (Raffaelli and Ontai, 2004).
One example is that Mexican American parents are more likely to choose their daughters than their
sons to translate for them (i.e., language brokering); the greater language brokering, however, typically
involves tasks that can be completed within the home, such as filling out paperwork (Love and Buriel,
2007;Valenzuela, 1999). Not surprisingly, although both girls and boys respect and value their families
(Valenzuela and Dornbusch, 1994), girls are socialized to be even more connected to their families
than boys (Raffaelli and Ontai, 2004).
Second, gender and ethnicity intersect when the child’s gender impacts how parents in ethnically
marginalized groups discuss racism, culture, and discrimination with their children. For example,
African American parents deliver more messages to boys than to girls about preparation for bias and
about the realities of ethnic barriers in society (Bowman and Howard, 1985; McHale et al., 2006;
Rowley et al., 2014). In contrast, parents of girls deliver more messages designed to promote cultural
socialization or to promote cultural pride than parents of boys. These gender differences, with an
increased focus on possible discrimination for sons, are likely reflective of a very real fear for their
sons’ physical safety. Ultimately, because of the social construction of gender, gender development
cannot be studied in isolation from culture.
Gendered Parenting Across Cultures: Impacts of Parental Leave Policies

Because the gender of the parent is important in understanding how parents rear girls and boys, it is
important to consider how mothers and fathers divide the labor of parenting. There has traditionally
been, and largely continues to be, a gendered asymmetry in parental labor and childcare. For exam-
ple, in U.S. American heterosexual two-parent households, 70% of families have both an employed
mother and father. Despite equal hours in outside employment, mothers spend approximately twice
the amount of time on childcare and housework as do fathers (Parker and Livingston, 2016). Addi-
tionally, mothers spend more time performing low-control childcare tasks, such as diaper changing
and bathing, relative to fathers, who spend more of their time on high-control tasks such as playing
(Drago, 2011). Indeed, this asymmetry is why most developmental research has focused on the role
of mothers as the primary caregivers of children.
Yet, this gendered division of parental labor is heavily influenced by cultural norms, and can be
exacerbated and institutionalized by a country’s specific parental leave policies. Currently, among the
35 Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) countries, parental leave
policies vary widely: They range from allowing parents 12 weeks to 3 years off work following the
birth of a child, and replace 0% to 100% of their wages while off (Kamerman, 2000; OECD, 2016a).
Scandinavia leads the rest of the world in both the length and generosity of its parental leaves, with
leaves lasting approximately 1 year or more and most countries replacing at least 75% of wages
(OECD, 2016b; Ray, Gornick, and Schmitt, 2010). Parents in Spain and Germany can take up to
3 years off to stay home with their children (Kamerman, 2000). Unfortunately, the United States has
the worst parental leave policy in the world: it is the shortest, at only 12 weeks (matched only by
Mexico); it replaces no wages (whereas Mexico replaces the full wages during leave); and it is the only
OECD country that does not guarantee paid leave to all new parents (Deahl, 2016; Kamerman, 2000).
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These policies are relevant to understanding the parenting of girls and boys, because they often
foster a gendered division of parental labor. Currently, 25 of the OECD countries offer either paid
paternity leave or reserve portions of their paid parental leave for the father (OECD, 2016c), but the
amount of leave fathers are given is vastly disproportionate to the leave time given to mothers. On
average in the OECD, mothers receive five times longer leaves than do fathers. Furthermore, fathers
are more likely than mothers to return to work early, without utilizing either the full length or any
of their leave time (Evans, 2007). For example, in 2003, Swedish fathers utilized only 17% of their
time off (Plantin, 2007), and only 2% of Japanese fathers (Nakazato and Nishimura, 2016) and 10%
of Luxembourg fathers (Zhelyazkova, Loutsch, and Valentova, 2016) took advantage of their parental
leave. If fathers are not taking time off to care for their infants at the same rate mothers are, there will
continue to be a gendered asymmetry in parental labor.
Some European countries have tried to remedy this asymmetry by incentivizing fathers to stay
home (Evans, 2007). Croatia offers an additional 2 months of paid leave if both parents stay home,
and France increases the percentage of wages replaced if both parents take leave (Kowalski, Blum,
and Moss, 2016). In 2007, Germany passed a reform that allowed 2 “daddy months” at 67% wage
replacement in the hopes of increasing paternal involvement in the months immediately following
birth, and paternal uptake of benefits increased from 3.5% to 32% from 2006 to 2013 (Blum, Erler,
and Reimer, 2016). Austria offers couples an additional 1,000 Euros if they split their leave time
equally, and estimates of paternal leave uptake have risen from approximately 1% in 1990 to 29% in
2015 (Rille-Pfeiffer and Dearing, 2016). Thus, the mere presence of paternal leave does not neces-
sarily translate to higher rates of father involvement, but it is possible to encourage fathers to stay at
home through the use of either time or monetary incentives.
Equalizing parental leave policies, and thus reducing gender asymmetry in parental labor, is impor-
tant for child development. Heymann and colleagues (2013) found that longer parental leave was
associated with higher rates of childcare by fathers that continued even after leave ended. Similarly,
Nepomnyaschy and Waldfogel (2007) found that fathers who spent more than 2 weeks at home
immediately following the birth of their child engaged in more childcare activities including diaper
changing, feeding, dressing, and bathing 9 months later relative to fathers who took fewer than 2 weeks
off. Studies have also found an association between paternal involvement and how securely attached
infants are to their fathers—especially if paternal sensitivity is low—with more involved fathers hav-
ing more securely attached infants (Brown, Mangelsdorf, and Neff, 2012; Caldera, 2004).These studies
support the theoretical and empirical work of Bronfenbrenner, who argued for the importance of the
ecology of the child in shaping development, and who specifically noted that national work policies
that affect families intimately affect children as well (e.g., Bronfenbrenner, 1974).
Theoretical Frameworks for Parental Influences on Gender

There are multiple theoretical justifications for why and how parents influence their girls and boys
differently. From the beginning, parents influence the development of girls and boys by facilitating
children’s active creation of gender stereotypes and schemas. Children’s own gender schemas then
drive their beliefs about themselves, attitudes about others, and behavior (see Martin, Ruble, and Szk-
rybalo, 2002). Developmental intergroup theory (Bigler and Liben, 2007) argues that contexts that
increase the physical and psychological salience of gender increase children’s attention to gender as
an important human category. When children are more attuned to a particular social category—and
this attention is directed toward any social group that adults use to sort, label, or categorize—they are
more likely to develop stereotypes about that category. Thus, when parents increase the salience of
gender in their everyday behaviors, they are inadvertently increasing children’s attention to gender,
and thus increasing the strength of their developing gender stereotypes.
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Furthermore, once children recognize their own gender category (a milestone reached within
the first 2 years of life; Martin and Ruble, 2010), gender schema theory argues that they become
motivated to be prototypical members of that group, as being prototypical helps with both self-def-
inition and cognitive consistency. To become prototypical, children seek out same gender-consistent
information and ignore other gender-consistent information (Martin et al., 2002). One way children
seek out same gender-consistent information, according to social cognitive theory, is by modeling
relevant others (Bussey and Bandura, 1999). When children attend to same-gender models (i.e., girls
to mothers and boys to fathers), and those models engage in gender stereotype-consistent behaviors,
children’s own behaviors and attitudes become stereotype-consistent.
Social cognitive theory (Bussey and Bandura, 1999) also asserts that parents provide direct instruc-
tion to sons and daughters and help construct specific environments that further promote gender-
consistent development, including purchasing gender-specific toys and allowing greater access to
same-gender peers (e.g., via birthday parties and sleepovers). The role of parents as direct instructors
of gender norms and providers of gender-specific opportunities is well articulated in the work of
McHale, Crouter, and Whiteman (2003), who draw from Parke and colleagues (Parke and Buriel,
1998). These environments, opportunities, and direct instruction, combined with children’s motiva-
tion to be typical members of their gender category, contribute to children’s growing knowledge and
valuing of gender-consistent information.
Using Gender as a Category

As highlighted in developmental intergroup theory (Bigler and Liben, 2007), stereotyping and preju-
dice are more likely to occur when social categories are made salient. Parents commonly increase the
salience of their children’s gender from birth.They increase gender salience by assigning of gendered
first names, hairstyles, clothing fashions, bedroom decorations, colors, and toy purchases (Leaper,
2015). For example, by 5 months, girls are more likely to be dressed in pink and boys in blue clothing,
and boys are more likely to have blue walls, bedding, and curtains (Pomerleau, Bolduc, Malcuit and
Cossette, 1990).These distinctions, while subtle, direct children’s attention to gender as a category. As
described above, this focused attention to gender, and children’s belief that gender must determine
other traits as well, results in an increase in children’s gender stereotypes (Bigler, 1995; Bigler and
Liben, 2007).
Different Socialization of Girls and Boys

Beyond establishing gender as a uniquely important category, thus ensuring children will actively
create their own strong gender stereotypes, parents also socialize girls and boys differently. At times
implicitly and at times explicitly, parents treat sons and daughters differently in such domains as emo-
tion and aggression, self and body esteem, language, academic concepts, play, and household expecta-
tions. By treating children differently according to gender, parents increase the likelihood that girls
and boys will have different developmental trajectories.
Emotion and Aggression

It is widely believed that women are more emotional than men (Plant, Hyde, Keltner, and Devine,
2000). Even preschool children believe the stereotype that girls are relatively more likely to be fearful,
sad, and happy, whereas boys are more likely to be angry (Birnbaum and Croll, 1984). Meta-analytic
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research, however, shows very few actual differences in emotionality between infant girls and boys
(Else-Quest, Hyde, Goldsmith, and Van Hulle, 2006). Specifically, there are no gender differences in
emotionality, sadness, or anger, and only a small difference favoring girls in fearfulness (Else-Quest
et al., 2006). Meta-analytically, boys are shown to be more aggressive than girls, with a moderate
effect size, and particularly for physical aggression (Hyde, 2005). Even in adulthood, men’s and wom-
en’s actual emotional reactions to individual situations do not differ (Barrett, Robin, Pietromonaco,
and Eyssell, 1998). Despite this similarity, women do describe themselves as more emotional than
men, identifying as more empathetic, and report being more intensely and openly affective (Barrett
et al., 1998; Brackett, Mayer, and Warner, 2004; Goldshmidt and Weller, 2000; Mestre, Samper, Frias,
and Tur, 2009).
Because there is no actual gender gap in emotionality in infancy, but a self-perceived gender
gap develops over time, researchers have examined whether girls’ increasing perceived emotionality
relative to boys is due to stereotype-consistent socialization. Specifically, researchers have exam-
ined whether parents contribute to increasing emotional expressiveness among girls, as parents pro-
vide both explicit socialization about emotions and serve as emotive models for their children.
Parent–child discussions about emotions help young children articulate their emotions later (Dunn,
Bretherton, and Munn, 1987). Thus, discussions about emotions may help children develop greater
emotional awareness and acceptance, and if directed more toward girls than boys, would partially
explain girls’ greater willingness to express emotions.
Considering the gender difference in emotionality between adult women and men, it is not
surprising that mothers use more emotion language and show greater sensitivity to their children’s
emotions than fathers (Aznar and Tenenbaum, 2015; Fivush, Brotman, Buckner, and Goodman, 2000;
Garside and Klimes-Dougan, 2002; Hallers-Haalboom et al., 2014; van der Pol et al., 2015; cf. Adams,
Kuebli, Boyle, and Fivush, 1995). Even among studies that found no overall difference between
mothers and fathers in the amount of emotion words they used, sons used emotion words more with
their mothers than with their fathers (Roger, Rinaldi, and Howe, 2012).
Beyond differences in mothers’ and fathers’ emotional expression, parents discuss emotion more,
and use a greater variety of emotion words, with their daughters than with their sons (Adams
et al., 1995; Aznar and Tenenbaum, 2015; Kuebli, Butler, and Fivush, 1995; Kuebli and Fivush, 1992;
Maccoby, 1998; Mascaro, Rentscher, Hackett, Mehl, and Rilling, 2017; cf. Ersay, 2014). In addition,
Mandara and colleagues (2012) found that mothers were more encouraging, warm, and empathetic
with daughters than with sons, and Lambie and Lindberg (2016) found that mothers validated their
daughters’ emotions more than they did their sons’.
Not only do parents discuss and validate emotions more overall with daughters than sons, the
discussions are gender-differentiated according to the type of emotion. For example, parents discuss
negative emotions, especially sadness, more with daughters than sons (Adams et al., 1995; Fivush, 1991;
Kuebli and Fivush, 1992; Kuebli et al., 1995; Mascaro et al., 2017). They are also more likely to pay
attention to their daughters’ submissive, and thus stereotypically feminine, emotions (e.g., sadness, anx-
iety) relative to their sons (Chaplin, Cole, and Zahn-Waxler, 2005; Fivush, 1991). Furthermore, fathers
reward girls’ expression of sadness, but punish boys’ expression of sadness; mothers, instead of punish-
ing, try to distract sons more than daughters when they express sadness (Fabes and Martin, 1991).
There is, however, an exception to this tendency to discuss emotion more with daughters than
sons. Parents are overwhelmingly more likely to discuss anger and accept aggression with their sons
than with their daughters (Archer, 2004; Block, 1983; Eisenberg, Cumberland, and Spinard, 1998;
Fivush, 1991; Hastings and Rubin, 1999; Letendre, 2007; Maccoby, 1998; Morris, Silk, Steinberg,
Myers, and Robinson, 2007). This may be because anger is a stereotypically masculine emotion
(Archer, 2004; Hastings and Rubin, 1999; Letendre, 2007). Indeed, when parents read stories to their
children that had androgynous characters displaying happiness, anger, sadness, and fear, parents tend
to label characters as male when they display anger and as female when they display happiness or
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fear (van der Pol et al., 2015). Furthermore, in general, parents view aggression as more normative
in their sons than in their daughters (Letendre, 2007; Maccoby, 1998). In a longitudinal study, Hast-
ings and Rubin (1999) found that, although mothers were unhappy with aggression in their sons,
they were surprised and puzzled if their daughters developed aggressive tendencies. Parents were also
more accepting of anger and retaliation in their sons, and in turn, boys expected fewer negative con-
sequences in response to their anger than girls (Eisenberg et al., 1998; Fivush, 1991; Maccoby, 1998).
Parents also seem to model anger more to sons than daughters. For example, mothers of sons
report expressing fewer positive emotions and more anger toward their sons than their daughters
(Garner, Robertson, and Smith, 1997). Parents also tend to use more physical control (e.g., spanking,
holding, grabbing) with boys than with girls (Endendijk et al., 2017; Kochanska, Barry, Stellern, and
O’Bleness, 2009). In sum, whether directly or indirectly, parents overwhelmingly are more accepting
of anger and aggression in their sons than in their daughters.
Not only are there gender differences in parents’ discussions and reactions to different emotions
in sons and daughters, but parents also differ in how they teach their sons and daughters to respond
to emotion. First, parents may react differently to their children’s emotional responses based on their
social acceptability. Cassano and Zeman (2010) found that parents respond more supportively when
their children’s emotional reactions are normative for their gender compared to when the reactions
violate gender norms, and this is especially true for father-son dyads. Furthermore, parents encourage
their sons to use active/instrumental coping strategies (i.e., problem focused; Eisenberg et al., 1998;
Morris et al., 2007), whereas they encourage their daughters to be more relationship focused and
discuss emotions in a social interaction context (Fivush, 1991; Morris et al., 2007).
These differences in how parents react to emotion in their children are not without predictable
consequences. Girls initiate more emotion conversation and use a greater volume and variety of emo-
tion words (Adams et al., 1995; Aznar and Tenenbaum, 2015; Kuebli et al., 1995; Maccoby, 1998). Girls
are also typically better at emotion regulation (Morris et al., 2007) and have higher levels of emotional
awareness (Lambie and Lindberg, 2016). It is possible that such differences are biological, but parents’
behavior is predictive of their children’s. Chaplin and colleagues (2005) found that parental attention
to submissive emotions in preschool predicted expression of submissive emotions at school age, and
as would be expected, girls in turn expressed more submissive emotions than boys. In contrast, across
development, boys decrease in their likelihood of expressing sadness (Fuchs and Thelen, 1988).
The majority of research on emotional socialization of girls and boys has been conducted with
European American,Western, middle-class samples, and it is possible that these patterns differ among
other ethnicities and cultures. For example, African American mothers are more likely to perceive
negative social consequences for displays of negative emotion and be less supportive of their sons’
negative emotions, than are European American mothers (Brown, Craig, and Halberstadt, 2015;
Nelson, Leerkes, O’Brien, Calkins, and Marcovitch, 2012). This evaluation of negative emotions is
likely a reflection of African American mothers’ awareness of cultural stereotypes and discrimina-
tion, and the subsequent concerns about the safety of their African American sons if they express
negative emotions. Similarly, European American parents show more physical affection and verbalize
emotion more than Asian American parents, regardless of the gender of the child (Le, Berenbaum,
and Raghavan, 2002). Thus, it is important to consider how differences due to cultural norms and
differing social presses impact the gendered socialization of emotions.
In summary, although few differences in emotionality exist in infancy, gender differences emerge
across development. Aligned with those differences, parents seem to play an important role in the
socialization of emotion in their children. They tend to talk more about emotions with their daugh-
ters, especially negative and submissive emotions. In contrast, parents talk more about anger with
their sons, and are more accepting of aggressive behaviors from and toward their sons compared
to daughters. These differences in socialization, whether explicit or indirect, predict children’s later
emotional expression.
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Self and Body Esteem

Self-esteem as a global construct refers to the overall evaluative “regard that one has for the self as a
person” (Harter, 1993, p. 88). In addition to examining global self-esteem, researchers also study self-
esteem within specific domains, such as academics, social relationships, athletic abilities, and physical
appearance. In general, having a positive self-esteem is associated with positive adjustment and psy-
chological well-being (Kling, Hyde, Showers, and Buswell, 1999). Meta-analyses point to complex
gender differences in self-esteem (Kling et al., 1999). Specifically, there is a quadratic age effect: prior
to age 10, there are no gender differences; as children enter adolescence, boys have more positive
self-esteem than girls, and the gap grows throughout the teens; by adulthood, the gender gap declines
(Kling et al., 1999). At its greatest, however, the gender gap would be classified as a small effect size,
and only within European, Latino, and Asian ethnic groups. Furthermore, in the past decade, already
small gender differences have further diminished (Zuckerman, Li, and Hall, 2016).
There are also some specific gender differences across domain-specific self-esteem. In a meta-
analysis of the different domains of self-esteem (Gentile, Grabe, Dolan-Pascoe, Twenge, and Wells,
2009), boys were found to have a more positive athletic self-esteem (i.e., they were more positive
about their athletic abilities), and girls were found to have more positive behavioral conduct and
moral-ethical self-esteem (i.e., they were more positive about their behavior and ethics). There were
no differences in academic self-esteem, family relationship self-esteem, or social acceptance self-
esteem (Gentile et al., 2009).
There are also significant gender differences in appearance or physical body esteem (Gentile et al.,
2009). Satisfaction with the body, or body esteem, decreases for girls during adolescence, whereas it
is more stable for boys (Hargreaves and Tiggemann, 2002; Harter, 1990, 1993). Although the gender
difference on body esteem is largest during early adolescence (Gentile, et al., 2009), this body dissatis-
faction among girls persists through adulthood (Forbes, Adams-Curtis, Rade, and Jaberg, 2001;Tigge-
mann and Rothblum, 1997). The greater body dissatisfaction among girls and women is primarily a
reflection of Western feminine gender norms that prioritize girls’ appearance over other traits, such
as intelligence (Fredrickson and Roberts, 1997; Mahalik et al., 2005). Because of this primary focus
on the appearance of girls, although both girls and boys can show concerns about their appearance,
girls are typically more appearance-focused than boys (Dunn, Lewis, and Patrick, 2010; Jones and
Crawford, 2006). Not surprisingly, because ideal bodies are impossible to attain, girls’ greater focus on
appearance can lead to greater dissatisfaction with their body (i.e., lower body esteem).
Considerable research has examined whether parents play a role in fostering positive global
self-esteem among their children. Because of the gender difference in global self-esteem and body
esteem, much of that work has examined whether parents differentially influence the self-esteem
of their daughters and sons. This work has focused less on explicit socialization (compared to, for
example, research on emotion that largely examines how parents talk to girls and boys about their
emotions). Instead, this area of research has primarily focused on how general parenting styles, such as
monitoring, warmth, and psychological control, differentially shape the self-esteem of girls and boys.
What predicts positive self-esteem among children? Most studies find that parental support and
warmth, particularly when combined with authoritative monitoring, promote positive self-esteem,
regardless of the gender of child. Indeed, many studies showing links between self-esteem and parental
support, warmth, or monitoring find similar patterns for both girls and boys (Bean, Bush, McKenry,
and Wilson, 2003; Bush, Supple, and Lash, 2004; Bush, Peterson, Cobas, and Supple, 2002; Cotterell,
1992; Gecas and Schwalbe, 1986; Hoffman, Ushpiz, and Levy-Shiff, 1988; Li, Albert, and Dwelle,
2014; Plunkett, Henry, Robinson, Behnke, and Falcon, 2007; Tafarodi, Wild, and Ho, 2010). Some
research (Burnett and Demnar, 1996) suggests that closeness with mothers is more closely related
to positive self-esteem for children than closeness to fathers (although paternal attachment may be
particularly meaningful for boys; Pan, Zhang, Liu, Ran, and Teng, 2016). Conversely, psychological
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control and punitiveness have been associated with decreases in self-esteem, regardless of the gender
of the child (Abd-El-Fattah and Fakhroo, 2012; Bean et al. 2003; Bush et al., 2002; Cai, Hardy, Olsen,
Nelson, and Yamawaki, 2013). When looking beyond self-esteem, other work finds similar patterns
for related constructs. For example, work with Bangladeshi adolescents found that perceptions of
parents as dominating were associated with self-derogatory ideation for both girls and boys (Stewart
et al., 2000), and rigid parenting predicted an increase in depressive symptoms comparably among
European and African American early adolescent girls and boys (Weed, Morales, and Harjes, 2013).
Other research, however, finds that the links between the parenting relationship and self-esteem
are more pronounced among girls relative to boys (Plunkett, et al., 2007; Stewart et al., 2000). For
example, in a sample of fifth through eighth graders, higher levels of perceived parental criticism
predicted lower self-esteem, but only among the girls (Felson and Zielinski, 1989). Similarly, maternal
rejection is more negatively associated with self-esteem for Korean adolescent girls compared to boys
(Park, Kim, and Park, 2016). More pointedly, perceiving parents to prefer one gender over the other
also leads to declines in self-esteem, but only among girls (Siah, 2015). Beyond self-esteem per se, a
lack of emotional closeness to parents predicts more depressive symptoms among early adolescents,
but only for girls and not the boys (Lewis et al., 2015). In contrast to girls, whose self-esteem may
be more influenced by parental closeness and warmth, some evidence suggests that boys’ self-esteem
may be more influenced by perceptions of how controlling versus autonomy granting their parents
are (Bush et al., 2004; Gecas and Schwalbe, 1986). Specifically, boys, but not girls, who were given
more autonomy had more positive self-esteem than boys who felt more controlled by their parents,
perhaps a reflection of greater societal value placed on boys’ independent agency relative to girls
(Bush et al., 2004; Gecas and Schwalbe, 1986).
The research on how parents differentially influence the body esteem of girls and boys has been
more limited than that on global self-esteem. The quality of the relationship with their parents
plays an important role in predicting girls,’ but not boys,’ satisfaction with their body. For example,
young adolescent girls’ dieting behaviors and body esteem are predicted by their perceptions of their
relationships with their parents (e.g., conflict and warmth), both longitudinally and concurrently
(Archibald, Graber, and Brooks-Gunn, 1999). Other work finds that maternal control negatively
predicts body esteem for girls, but is unrelated to the body esteem of boys (Sira and White, 2010).
This disparity may be due to the different types of feedback girls receive about their bodies
and the importance of their appearance. Specifically, girls report receiving more appearance-related
feedback from their parents than do boys; this feedback, in turn, negatively predicts the body esteem
of girls, whereas it is unrelated to the body esteem of boys (Schwartz, Phares, Tantleff-Dunn, and
Thompson, 1999). Indeed, pressure from family and friends may drive the gender difference in body
esteem. When appearance-based pressure from family and friends was accounted for, there was no
difference in girls’ and boys’ body esteem (Ata, Ludden, and Lally, 2007).
Other research that has focused more closely on boys’ body esteem indicates that boys are not
immune from parental influences on their body esteem.When researchers include relationships with
both mothers and fathers, parents who match the gender of the child may be more influential.
Namely, among sixth and seventh grade students, mothers’ acceptance positively affects girls’ body
and self-esteem, but not boys’; in contrast, fathers’ acceptance positively affects boys’ body and self-
esteem, but not girls’ (Ohannessian, Lerner, Lerner, and von Eye, 1998). Thus, it may be the parent
who is more physically similar to the child who is most influential in promoting the child’s positive
attitudes about their physical appearance.
Taken together, the research on self and body esteem suggests that positive parenting charac-
teristics (e.g., warmth and monitoring) are equally positive for girls and boys. When differences
do emerge, girls may be more sensitive to parental closeness and warmth, whereas boys may be
more sensitive to how much autonomy they are granted by parents. Girls’ body esteem seems to be
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distinctly influenced by the parental relationship, although this relationship may be primarily due to
girls’ greater feedback and pressure to focus on their appearance.
Language
Children primarily learn language through exposure and observation of others (Chomsky, 1986;
Kuhl, 2004). As parents are often the primary source of contact for infants and toddlers, they play an
important role in children’s language acquisition and development. Indeed, children whose parents
talk to them more often have more advanced language development (e.g., Huttenlocher, Haight,
Bryk, Seltzer, and Lyons, 1991; Tomasello, Mannle, and Kruger, 1986). Because there are gender
differences in language development from an early age, considerable research has focused on how
parents might contribute to this difference.
Research consistently finds that, on average, girls acquire language more quickly than boys (Born-
stein, Hahn, and Haynes, 2004; Fenson et al., 1994; Hyde, 2005; Merz et al., 2015; Skeat et al., 2010;
Zambrana,Ystrom, and Pons, 2012).They have larger vocabularies, learn to combine words faster, and
score higher on measures of language comprehension. Boys are more likely to have speech impedi-
ments (Hammer, Farkas, and Maczuga, 2010; Whitehouse, 2010), and parents of boys are more likely
to seek help/advice for their child’s language development or place them in speech therapy (Depart-
ment of Health, 2004; Skeat, Eadie, Ukoumunne, and Reilly, 2010). There are also differences in the
types of language used by girls and boys. On average, girls have been found to use more affiliative
speech than boys, who in turn, tend to use more assertive speech (Cook, Fritz, McCornack, and
Visperas, 1985; Leaper and Smith, 2004). Some suggest that girls’ earlier language acquisition indicates
differential capacities for language between girls and boys (Huttenlocher et al., 1991). However, many
of these studies note small effect sizes (Hyde, 2005), and Fenson and colleagues (1994) stated that the
within-group differences of the two genders are often much larger than between-group differences.
In examining the role of parents in fostering this gender difference in language development,
researchers have investigated possible differences in the language use of mothers and fathers. Among
European American, Western, middle-class samples, meta-analytic research has shown that mothers
are more talkative than fathers with their children (Leaper, Anderson, and Sanders, 1998).Yet, similar
differences were not found among a sample of low-income parents (Rowe, Coker, and Pan, 2004).
Across both types of samples, however, fathers are more cognitively demanding in their conversa-
tions with children than mothers. Fathers asked more “wh-” questions and posed more requests for
additional information and clarification than did mothers (Leaper et al., 1998; Rowe et al., 2004).
These cognitively demanding conversational patterns can lead to greater conversational challenges
for children when talking to their fathers compared to their mothers (Rowe et al., 2004).
Other studies have looked not just at how much mothers and fathers talk to their children overall,
but at how much they talk to sons versus daughters. The majority of studies, supported by a meta-
analysis, suggest that parents are more talkative with daughters than sons (Brachfeld-Child, Simpson,
and Izenson, 1988; Leaper et al., 1998; Vandermaas-Peeler, Sassine, Price, and Brilhart, 2012). For
example, when reading with their children, fathers offer more explanations to daughters than to sons
and give twice as much guidance (e.g., asking questions) to daughters than sons (Vandermaas-Peeler
et al., 2012). Mothers use more verbal encouragement toward daughters than sons (Karrass, Braun-
gart-Rieker, Mullins, and Lefever, 2002). In studies of parent-child interactions while reading books,
mothers talk more with newborn daughters than sons, although this effect seems to diminish with
age (Johnson, Caskey, Rand,Tucker, and Vohr, 2014; see also Gilkerson, Richards, and Topping; 2017)
Parents have also been shown to use verbal direction more with girls than boys. In one study, while
instructing their 8-month-old infants to put a cube into a cup, parents used more imperatives (e.g.,
instruction), negatives (e.g., preventing an action), and exhortations (e.g., “come on”) with daughters
than sons (Brachfeld-Child et al., 1988). Furthermore, during discussions about past events, parents
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prompted girls (e.g., “What did you guys talk about?”) almost twice as often as boys (Ely, Gleason,
and McCabe, 1996). Of course, not all studies find a verbal preference for girls over boys (see Hut-
tenlocher et al., 1991), and it is likely that there are important moderating factors. The disparities
suggest that the overall speech directed toward daughters and sons may not uniformly differ for all
groups of children, but that differences may exist in specific contexts.
It is clear, based on the extant literature, that parents speak more frequently to their children about
stereotype-consistent topics than non-stereotype-consistent ones. Specifically, parents use more lan-
guage with daughters in the context of discussing emotion and social situations, and use more
language with sons in discussions of math and science. For example, when discussing emotion (per-
ceived as more feminine than masculine, as described above), parents are much more voluble with
their daughters than with their sons (Aznar and Tenenbaum, 2015; Fivush et al., 2000; Kuebli and
Fivush, 1992; Kuebli et al., 1995). In addition, in a study in which mothers talked with their young
children about their day at preschool, mother-daughter dyads spent more time talking about other
people than did mother-son dyads (Flannagan, Baker-Ward, and Graham, 1995). In contrast, parents
used more words related to numbers (Chang, Sandhofer, and Brown, 2011) and science concepts
(Crowley, Callanan, Tenenbaum, and Allen, 2001; Tenenbaum, Snow, Roach, and Kurland, 2005) in
conversations with sons compared to daughters, described in more detail below.
Taken together, mothers tend to talk more than fathers to their children, and parents tend to talk
to daughters more than sons. These differences, however, seem to vary by contexts and topics of
conversation. Not surprisingly, parents talk more to their children about gender-stereotypical topics
(e.g., girls and emotions, and boys and science), which partially explains why children develop greater
vocabulary and understanding for those topics (e.g., Aznar and Tenenbaum, 2015).
Academic Concepts
Considerable research has examined gender differences in math and science performance, ability, and
choices. Although girls now earn higher grades in math and science courses through the end of high
school than boys (Hill, Corbett, and St. Rose, 2010; NCES, 2013) and show similar scores on math
standardized tests (Else-Quest et al., 2006; Hyde, Lindberg, Linn, Ellis, and Williams, 2008), girls are
still underrepresented relative to boys in the higher levels of certain domains of STEM education. For
example, in college, although 57% of all bachelor’s degrees recently went to women in the United
States, only 43% of mathematics degrees, 20% of physics degrees, 16% of computer and information
sciences degrees, and 18% of engineering degrees went to women (NCES, 2013).
Although there do not appear to be gender differences in STEM capabilities, differences in
STEM degrees and occupations are, in part, a reflection of children’s and adolescents’ beliefs about
their STEM abilities. Research relying on both explicit and implicit measures have found that both
girls and boys as young as 6 believe that boys like math more than girls (Cvencek, Meltzoff, and
Greenwald, 2011). They also stereotype males as better than females in math (Muzzatti and Agnoli,
2007; Steffens, Jelenec, and Noack, 2010), physics (Kessels, 2005), and computer science (Mercier,
Barron, and O’Connor, 2006).These gender stereotypes are reflected in children’s own self-concepts
as well. Specifically, boys implicitly associate me and math more than girls do (Cvencek et al., 2011;
Steffens et al., 2010). Importantly, the more girls endorse the implicit stereotype that boys are better
at math (which they endorse by about age 9), the more their own academic self-concept shifts away
from math and toward languages (Steffens et al., 2010; Steffens and Jelenec, 2011).
Parents play a role in shaping children’s beliefs that STEM concepts are more appropriate for boys
than girls and in fostering boys’ greater interest in STEM fields. Parents themselves hold stereotypes
about girls’ and boys’ STEM abilities and interests. For example, parents perceive boys to be more
logical, to like math and computers more, to be more independent in math, to need math more, and
to have higher math achievement than girls (Andre, Whigham, Hendrickson, and Chambers, 1999).
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Parents also believe that science is less interesting and more difficult for daughters than sons, despite
children’s own reports of their self-efficacy and interest in science showing no gender differences
(Tenenbaum and Leaper, 2003). Beyond assumptions about interest and abilities, when children are
successful in math, parents are more likely to attribute their sons’ success to ability, whereas they
attribute their daughters’ success to extra effort (Yee and Eccles, 1988).
These beliefs are important, because parents’ beliefs that girls are not as good as boys at math pre-
dict their actual behaviors toward their children. Parents’ stereotypical expectations and beliefs about
math result in different levels of encouragement and support behaviors for boys versus girls (e.g.,
offering help with homework, buying additional supplies), and a greater likelihood of intrusively
monitoring their daughters’ homework, providing daughters’ unsolicited help, and reminding their
daughters more often than sons to do their math homework (Bhanot and Jovanovic, 2005). In turn,
girls perceive these behaviors as reflective of their poor abilities in math, which serves to reinforce
the stereotype (Bhanot and Jovanovic, 2005).
Parental stereotypes and expectations can be even more important than actual academic experi-
ences. Parents’ beliefs about their children’s abilities and interests affect their children’s self-perceptions;
these self-perceptions, in turn, affect children’s actual performance (Gunderson, Ramirez, Levine, and
Beilock, 2012; Jacobs, Vernon, and Eccles, 2005). Adults’ beliefs about children’s abilities and inter-
ests in science predict children’s science self-efficacy, persistence, and competency (Tenenbaum and
Leaper, 2003). Parents’ expectations and encouragement about computer science are stronger pre-
dictors than children’s own computer-based activities in predicting children’s computer self-efficacy
(Vekiri and Chronaki, 2008).
Parents also impact their children’s academic lives through more explicitly differential treatment
as well (Gunderson et al., 2012). Parents steer children’s occupational choices in stereotypical direc-
tions (Chhin, Bleeker, and Jacobs, 2008; Whiston and Keller, 2004). More proximally, parents of sons
discuss math and science concepts more frequently and in more detail with their children than do
parents of daughters. At a science museum, for example, parents were three times more likely to
explain science exhibits to sons than daughters (Crowley et al., 2001); during a physics task, fathers
of sons used more cognitively demanding and interesting talk (e.g., by asking for causal explanations
and using conceptual descriptions) than did fathers of daughters (Tenenbaum and Leaper, 2003); and
mothers talked more about scientific processes with sons than with daughters (Tenenbaum et al.,
2005). In an analysis of parents’ naturalistic language use with their 2-year old children, mothers
spoke about numbers twice as often to boys as to girls and were three times more likely to use car-
dinal numbers when talking to boys than girls (Chang et al., 2011).
Even more overtly, some adolescent girls report hearing discouraging comments about their
STEM abilities from their parents. Specifically, 15% of girls reported hearing negative comments
from their fathers, and 12% reported hearing similar comments from their mothers (Leaper and
Brown, 2008). These comments, in turn, predict girls’ more negative attitudes about their math and
science abilities, over and above their actual grades (Brown and Leaper, 2010).
Taken together, this differential treatment by parents provides sons with considerably more back-
ground knowledge, comfort, and support in math and science than daughters, impacting their self-
efficacy and interest in these academic domains independent of their own academic experiences.
In turn, the differences in self-efficacy and interest seem to be a key factor in predicting academic
choices, and thus occupational trajectories, among girls and boys.
Play
One of the most gender-differentiated behaviors in childhood is play style and toy choice (O’Brien
and Huston, 1985), and parents are important contributors to this difference. Indeed, a meta-analysis
assessing parents’ differential socialization of girls and boys found that the primary way that parents
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differ in how they treat their daughters and sons is through the encouragement of sex-typed play and
activities (Lytton and Romney, 1991). Parents promote children’s gender-typed toy play by provid-
ing greater access to gender-typed toys than cross-typed toys and by positively reinforcing play with
gender-typed toys and punishing play with cross-typed toys.
Parents endorse gender stereotypes about the appropriateness of gender-specific toys for girls and
boys. For instance, parents believe that toys such as dolls, make-up, and tea sets are feminine toys and
thus are more appropriate for girls than boys, and toys such as trucks and tools are masculine and thus
more appropriate for boys than girls (Campenni, 1999; Fisher-Thompson, 1990; Wood, Desmarais
and Gugula, 2002). Even before the child is born, parents believe that their child will like gender-
specific toys. This means that parents hold stereotypical beliefs about toy play before their children
actually express any gender-typed interests (Peretti and Sydney, 1984). Furthermore, children are
aware of their parents’ gender stereotypes about the appropriateness of gender-specific toys for girls
and boys, reporting that gender-typed play would be seen as “good” or “doesn’t matter” by both their
parents, but that cross-typed play would be seen as “bad” by their fathers (Raag and Rackliff, 1998).
Because parents hold stereotypical beliefs about gender-specific toys, and parents control chil-
dren’s early environments and access to toys, it is not surprising that children have greater access to
gender-specific toys. For example, children’s rooms are predominantly furnished with gender-typed
toys and objects (O’Brien and Huston, 1985; Pomerleau et al., 1990; Rheingold and Cook, 1975).
Children are also more likely to receive gender-typed toys as gifts from their parents than cross-typed
toys, regardless of what types of toys they requested (Etaugh and Liss, 1992). Because parents control
access to toys, they can socialize children to prefer gender-typed toys by simply granting greater
access to those types of toys than more cross-typed toys.
There is asymmetry, however, in parents’ stereotypic beliefs about toy play and their providing
their children greater access to gender-typed toys. Specifically, parents typically believe that it is
appropriate for girls and boys to play with masculine toys (such as trucks), but only girls can play with
feminine toys (such as dolls; Campenni, 1999; Wood et al., 2002). In addition, when buying toys for
children, adults are more likely to buy a gender-typed toy than a cross-typed toy, and they are even
more likely to do so for a boy than for a girl (Fisher-Thompson, 1993). Relatedly, boys are less likely
than girls to receive cross-typed toys as gifts, even when boys request them (Robinson and Morris,
1986). This asymmetry parallels the belief that masculine traits are desirable for both girls and boys,
but feminine traits are only desirable for girls. Thus, both girls and boys have limited access to cross-
typed toys, but boys are especially unlikely to have access to these toys.
Not only are boys more restricted in their access to gender-typed toys than girls, but fathers
are more likely than mothers to be the primary enforcer of gender-typed play. In general, fathers
hold more rigid gender role beliefs and enforce more sex-typed behaviors than mothers (Brad-
ley and Gobbart, 1989; Langlois and Downs, 1980; Leaper and Friedman, 2007). Although both
mothers and fathers encourage sex-typed play among their children, meta-analyses indicate that the
effects are stronger for fathers (Leaper and Friedman, 2007; Lytton and Romney, 1991). For example,
fathers are more likely than mothers to present their children with gender-typed toys than neutral
or cross-typed toys during an observed play session (Bradley and Gobbart, 1989). Fathers are espe-
cially important in socializing their children’s gendered play behaviors, because the time they spend
with their children is predominately spent in play, compared to mothers’ primary focus on caregiv-
ing activities (Lamb, 1997). Perhaps not surprisingly given this previous research, children from
households without a father present are less gender-typed in their toy choices than children from
households with both a father and mother (Brenes, Eisenberg, and Helmstadter, 1985; Hupp, Smith,
Coleman, and Brunell, 2010).
Additionally, fathers spend more time playing with their children than do mothers, and they also
spend more time in physical play than do mothers (Crawley and Sherrod, 1984). Specifically, fathers,
more so than mothers, frequently engage in rough-and-tumble play with their children (Crawley
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and Sherrod, 1984). Furthermore, both girls and boys enjoy rough-and-tumble play, but fathers are
more likely to engage in rough-and-tumble play with their sons rather than their daughters (Jacklin,
DiPietro, and Maccoby, 1984). Boys are then more likely to engage in rough-and-tumble play with
their peers (DiPietro, 1981).Thus, fathers play an important role in the socialization of children’s play.
In addition to providing differential access to gender-typed toys, parents also positively reinforce
children when they play with gender-typed toys and punish children when they play with cross-typed
toys. Langlois and Downs (1980) reported that mothers and fathers reward children for playing with
gender-typed toys and punish children for playing with cross-typed toys. However, the reinforcement
of gender-typed toy play is more likely to be subtle than overt. Researchers who brought parent–
toddler pairs into the laboratory asked the parents to open a series of boxes and play with whatever
toys were in them (Caldera, Huston, and O’Brien, 1989). Some boxes contained masculine toys (e.g.,
trucks and wooden blocks), and some boxes contained feminine toys (e.g., dolls and a kitchen set).
Parents, especially fathers, were noticeably more excited when they opened a box containing a toy
that was consistent with their child’s gender than when it was cross-gendered. One father of a daugh-
ter, upon opening a box with a truck in it, said, “Oh, they must have boys in this study.” He promptly
closed the truck box and went back to playing with the dolls from the previous box. He never gave his
daughter a chance to play with the truck. Eight parents were excluded from the analyses because they
did not play with the cross-typed toys long enough to be analyzed. Again, fathers seem to encourage
gender-typed toy play more than mothers (Langlois and Downs, 1980; Leaper, 2000).
Parents socialize children to play with gender-typed toys by providing greater access to those toys,
by reinforcing gender-typed toy choices and play (and punishing cross-typed play), and by mod-
eling gender-typed play behaviors. Although prior research has primarily focused on heterosexual,
European American, Western parents, new research examines how more diverse families socialize
children’s gender-typed toy play. For example, research with children from different ethnic groups
(e.g., Mexican, African American, and Dominican) has shown that ethnically diverse children and
parents show more similarities than differences in their levels of gender-typed play (Halim, Ruble,
Tamis-LeMonda, and Shrout, 2013; Leavell, Tamis-LeMonda, Ruble, Zosuls, and Cabrera, 2012).
There appear to be differences, however, among families of differing sexual orientation. Specifically,
Goldberg, Kashy, and Smith (2012) found that children of gay or lesbian parents were less likely to
engage in gender-typed toy play than children of heterosexual parents. Future research is needed to
examine whether this lower level of gender-typed toy play is due to differences in the gender stereo-
types of parents, differences in the degree to which parents differentially reinforce gender-typed play,
or differences in the available models of gender-stereotypical behavior.
Household Expectations
Finally, parents are directly socializing their daughters and sons differently by having different house-
hold expectations for them based on gender. Despite the entrance of women into the workforce in
higher numbers than ever before, one of the biggest gender differences in adulthood is the division
of household labor. Despite equal hours in outside employment, mothers spend approximately twice
the amount of time on childcare and housework as do fathers (Parker and Livingston, 2016).
This gender difference in adulthood parallels developmental research that examines the division
of household chores assigned to girls and boys. Across a range of socio-politically and culturally
diverse high-income countries (e.g., Israel, Spain, Germany, United Kingdom) and low- and middle-
income countries (e.g., Bangladesh, Vietnam, Serbia), girls are consistently more likely than boys to
work inside the home doing household chores, childcare, and elder care (Bruckauf and Rees, 2017;
Bonke, 2010; Evans, 2010; Putnick and Bornstein, 2016; Webbink, Smits, and De Jong, 2012). Girls
are also substantially more likely to do excessive household chores (defined as more than 28 hours in
a week) than boys (Allais, 2009; Putnick and Bornstein, 2016).
272
The gender of the child often supersedes any differences in parental household expectations that
might be due to birth order or age. Namely, older siblings tend to do more housework than younger
siblings (Tucker, McHale, and Crouter, 2003); the sole exception is in older brother-younger sister dyads,
in which the sister still does more housework than her brother (McHale and Crouter, 2003). Other
research, using a sample of African American adolescent sibling dyads with single mothers, found that
girls were given more chores than boys, regardless of their age (Mandara,Varner, and Richman, 2010).
When researchers examine the specific types of household expectations, however, findings suggest
that parents are actually differentiating in the types of chores assigned to daughters and sons.That dif-
ferentiation aligns with their perceptions of the gendered norms of children’s chores. Overall, studies
show that adults perceive domestic chores as the most feminine, followed by self-care (e.g., cleaning
their room); helping with siblings is perceived as gender neutral; technical (e.g., home repair) and
outside chores are perceived as masculine (Kulik, 2006). This division is consistent with the chores
that kindergarten, third grade, sixth grade, and eighth-grade children indicate being assigned at home
(Etaugh and Liss, 1992). Girls report being given more chores overall than boys and are more likely to
be given kitchen-related chores or babysit; boys are more likely to either take out the trash or have no
chores at all (Etaugh and Liss, 1992). Similar patterns occur in international samples. For example, in
the international sample of low- and middle-income countries, although there is considerable vari-
ability across countries, on average, girls are more likely than boys to do household chores, whereas
boys are more likely to engage in family farm or business work (Putnick and Bornstein, 2016).
The division of household labor seems to be stronger in families that may have culturally more
traditional gender roles. For example, in more Mexican-oriented families, girls in girl-boy sibling
dyads are assigned more household tasks and given fewer privileges (e.g., going to friend’s house,
staying out late) than boys; this pattern is not apparent in more Anglo-oriented families (McHale,
Updegraff, Shanahan, Crouter, and Killoren, 2005). This pattern is supported by Latina early adoles-
cent girls’ qualitative reports of gender bias, where they frequently note that their parents assign them
more household chores and place greater restrictions on them than their brothers (Brown, Alabi,
Hyunh, and Masten, 2011). For example, one eighth-grade Latina girl noted, “Like when me and
my brother want to go next door. My mom said yes to my brother and to me she said come back
at 8:00.” European American and African American girls do not report similar types of gender bias
from parents (Brown et al., 2011).
Ultimately, it may be parents’ own gendered division of household work that is most influential
for children’s later gender attitudes and behaviors. In a 31-year longitudinal study, results indicated
that individuals whose mothers held more egalitarian gender attitudes when they were young chil-
dren held more egalitarian attitudes, particularly about the ideal division of household labor, at age
18 (Cunningham, 2001a). When those children were in their 30s, boys whose fathers participated in
more “feminine” household tasks did the same as adults, and girls whose mothers worked more out-
side the home participated in fewer “feminine” household tasks as adults (Cunningham, 2001b). In
other words, it was parents who engaged in more counter-stereotypical behaviors within the family
that reared adult children who engaged in more counter-stereotypical behaviors as adults. However,
considering the widespread gendered division of labor, which is further reinforced by workplace
leave policies that make it easier for mothers to engage in more early childcare than fathers (Hey-
mann et al., 2013), it is logistically difficult to not replicate stereotypical patterns of behavior.
Parenting LGBTQ and Gender Diverse Children

Parents implicitly and explicitly treat their sons and daughters differently on average.There is consid-
erable diversity, however, within gender groups that also influences how parents interact with their
children. Even cisgender, heterosexual children and adolescents differ in the degree to which they
conform to gender norms.
273
By age 11, children across ethnic groups report feeling pressure from their parents to conform
to gender stereotypes (Corby, Hodges, and Perry, 2007; Egan and Perry, 2001). In addition, the
degree of children’s gender nonconformity is related to their risk of parental verbal, psychologi-
cal, and physical abuse (Grossman, D’Augelli, Howell, and Hubbard, 2005). However, an increasing
number of parents in many Western, industrialized societies are accepting of transgender and other
gender-nonconforming children (Becker and Todd, 2015).When parents are more accepting of their
gender-nonconforming or transgender children, their children report more positive psychological
outcomes and less distress about their gender identity (Simons, Schrager, Clark, Belzer, and Olson,
2013; Toomey, Ryan, Diaz, Card, and Russell, 2010).
Although parents’ differential treatment of their sons versus daughters can shape their children’s inter-
ests and abilities (as described above), this treatment is not, by in large, negative in valence. For example,
the most negative behavior within the gender development literature is fathers punishing their sons for
playing with cross-typed, or feminine, toys. Many argue that this punishing behavior is motivated by
parents wanting to ensure their children, especially their sons, are not gay (D’Augelli et al., 2005). This
negative attitude, and the anticipated negative reactions, may be the reason that most LGBTQ (Lesbian,
Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer) individuals first disclose their sexual orientation to their friends and
peers before their parents (D’Augelli and Hershberger, 1993; Savin-Williams and Ream, 2003).
This concern about negative parental reactions is not unwarranted. More than half of adolescents
perceive their parents to initially react with some degree of negativity when they disclose their sexual
orientation to them (D’Augelli and Hershberger, 1993). One-quarter of adolescents report that their
parents were extremely rejecting of them (D’Augelli et al., 2008; Savin-Williams, 2001). In addition to
verbal threats, some parents perpetrate physical violence against their children, most frequently their sons.
Fortunately, many adolescents perceived their parents to be less rejecting over time. There are,
however, differences in gradual acceptance between mothers and fathers. In a sample of Israeli ado-
lescents, approximately 10% perceived their parents to be moderately rejecting when they disclosed
their sexual orientation, whereas 15% perceived their parents to be fully or almost fully rejecting at
the time of disclosure (Samarova, Shilo, and Diamond, 2014). Of the parents who were perceived as
moderately rejecting at the time of disclosure, 64% of mothers were perceived by their adolescents
to be more accepting over time. In contrast, only 16% of fathers were perceived to be more accept-
ing over time. Of the parents who were perceived to be more harshly rejecting, a slight majority of
parents (55% of mothers and 61% of fathers) were perceived by the adolescents to remain rejecting.
For LGBTQ youth, the negative treatment from parents can be extreme and lead to serious,
life-threatening consequences (D’Augelli et al., 2005). Specifically, LGB youth whose parents dis-
couraged gender-atypical behaviors and labeled them as lesbian or gay while growing up were more
likely to attempt suicide than LGB youth with more accepting parents. This negative treatment can
include being called “sissy” or “tomboy” by their families. As D’Augelli and colleagues (2005) poign-
antly stated, “Because parents are of the utmost importance to youth during adolescence, years of
disappointing parents as a result of gender atypicality or identification as LGB can cause strong emo-
tional responses . . . With parental approval uncertain, LGB youth may feel increasingly isolated . . .
with no place to turn” (p. 658).
Taken together, the research on children across a range of SOGI status highlights the important
role of parents in development. Although parents often react negatively toward their gender noncon-
forming or LGBTQ children, their acceptance of their children’s gender expression, gender identity,
and sexual orientation is critical for their psychological, emotional, and physical well-being.
Helping Children Cope With Gender Bias

The majority of this chapter describes ways in which parents contribute to gender differences.
Parents can also provide support in the face of gender bias by others. Specifically, parents can help
274
children cope with gender discrimination. Some evidence suggests that having a feminist identity,
defined as the belief in equality for men and women, helps girls (and women) cope more actively
with gender discrimination at school and from peers (Ayres, Friedman, and Leaper, 2009; Leaper and
Arias, 2011) and cope more actively with sexual harassment (Leaper, Brown, and Ayres, 2013). These
active coping styles, also called approach strategies, can include confronting perpetrators of sexism
or seeking out others for advice and emotional support after experiencing discrimination, and are
often associated with being the most effective at stress reduction (Cortina and Wasti, 2005). Parents
are important in fostering such a feminist identity. Adolescent girls are more likely to have a femi-
nist identity if their parents (typically their mothers) self-identify as feminists and teach them about
feminism. In this way, mothers can help their daughters actively cope with gender discrimination by
helping foster an identity that incorporates a belief in the equality of men and women.
Parents can also help protect their children from the negative effects of discrimination by being
emotionally supportive of their children who are in the midst of experiencing discrimination
(Smith-Bynum, Anderson, Davis, Franco, and English, 2016). In general, it appears that children
who have emotionally supportive and positive relationships with their parents are better equipped to
cope with discrimination. For example, feeling supported by parents (particularly mothers) seems to
strengthen girls’ confidence to use active or approach coping strategies when sexism occurs (Leaper
et al., 2013). Relatedly, more accepting parental attitudes toward LGBTQ status seems to moderate
the negative effects of sexual minority stress (Feinstein, Wadsworth, Davila, and Goldfried, 2014). In
contrast, having conflict with parents (i.e., feeling a lack of emotional support) exacerbates the link
between discrimination and poor mental health among LGBTQ adolescents (Freitas, D’Augelli,
Coimbra, and Fontaine, 2016).
Directions for Future Research in Parenting Girls and Boys

Research on parenting influences on the differential outcomes of girls and boys has been fruitful and
robust. Despite all of the previous work on parenting girls and boys, there are still important areas
that need to be further explored and refined. First, there needs to be an improvement in how we
identify the gender of research participants. All developmental researchers should include a better
assessment of the SOGI status of the children and adolescents.Temkin and colleagues (2017) provide
recommendations. We urge all researchers to follow those recommendations, even those researchers
not studying gender identity or sexual orientation: to include the basic questions of “What gender
were you at birth, even if you are not that gender today? That is, what is the gender on your birth
certificate?” and “What is your current gender identity, even if it is different than the gender you
were born as?” This question allows researchers to better understand the gender composition of
their samples. For example, most of the research described in this chapter simply asked girls and
boys in the study to report their gender: girl or boy. The results were then interpreted based on the
presumption that those participants were cisgender, and thus their genetic and hormonal make-up is
consistent with their identification. This is not necessarily the case, however, and leads to flawed data
and analysis. Particularly because gender developmental researchers try to disentangle the influence
of biological predispositions from socialization in predicting girls’ and boys’ outcomes, it is critical to
better measure who those girls and boys actually are.
Methodologically, more longitudinal studies should be conducted on parental influences on girls’
and boys’ differential outcomes. Although this is a common critique of developmental research, it is
particularly important in this context. Currently, there is surprisingly little longitudinal research, with
Cunningham (2001a, 2001b) a notable exception. Most of the extant literature documents that (1)
there is an existing gender difference on a particular psychological or academic construct, (2) parents
differ in their treatment of daughters and sons on a related construct (which is typically inferred
from a mean difference in parenting behavior or attitudes based on the gender of the child), or (3) a
275
particular parent attitude about gender or behavior is associated concurrently with a child outcome.
The inference is then made that the observed gender difference is due to the differential treatment by
parents. For example, (1) there is a reliable gender difference in math self-efficacy, (2) parents of sons
rate their child’s competence in math higher than parents of daughters, and (3) parents’ expectations
of their children’s math abilities predict their children’s efficacy in math, controlling for grades in
math. The inference is that gender differences in math efficacy are, at least in part, explained by par-
ents’ differing beliefs about their child’s math abilities. This inference actually involves several logical
leaps. Because children are active in the construction of their gender schemas and development, and
seek out and attend to information consistent with their gender group (Martin and Ruble, 2010),
it is particularly difficult to pinpoint parent-driven effects versus child-driven effects. Obviously, as
with most constructs, parents and children bidirectionally influence one another, and the starting
point of this trajectory can be difficult to ascertain without longitudinal research. This is particularly
important in the context of gender because of the biological underpinnings of gender, the changes
that occur because of puberty, and the complexity and diversity within gender groups—all of which
can change the influence of parents on girls and boys. To use the previous example, it may be that boys
are more responsive than girls to parental expectations in math because of a biological sensitivity to
math cues that comes online with the sexual differentiation of puberty; perhaps parental expecta-
tions are only predictive of math efficacy for a small development window, and that influence is not
predictive of later math behaviors or efficacy beliefs; or perhaps parental expectations are shaped by
family dynamics not captured in tightly constrained studies.Without longitudinal research beginning
early in development, these questions are difficult to examine.
Future research should also explore the role of implicit gender attitudes in shaping children’s
development. According to a meta-analysis, parents’ explicit gender role attitudes are only related to
children’s outcomes with a small effect size (Tenenbaum and Leaper, 2002). However, this small asso-
ciation is likely a result of parents’ behaviors being shaped by implicit attitudes more so than explicitly
stated beliefs (most parents want to appear egalitarian). Research on gender development should learn
from research on ethnicity (another important social category). For example, that research shows that
parents’ implicit ethnic attitudes shape their nonverbal and subtle behaviors, and children detect those
subtle parental behaviors and change their own attitudes accordingly (Castelli, Zogmaister, and Tomel-
leri, 2009). It may be that gender attitudes operate similarly, and are an area ripe for future research.
Future research should also take a family dynamics approach more often, including a clearer focus
on interactions with both parents, and between siblings and other family members. McHale and
Crouter (McHale et al., 2003) have long argued for this approach, but the field has yet to fully follow.
Likely, this is because of the complexity and diversity of fully articulated family models. Specifically,
future research should make more within-family comparisons, as gender-differential treatment likely
becomes amplified for a particular child when there is a different-gender child in the same house-
hold (McHale et al., 2003). This gender-differential treatment can have important implications for
development. To use the same example, a girl who sees her own parents show more confidence in
her brothers’ math abilities may be more impacted by the STEM gender stereotype relative to a girl
who only sees her parents’ attitudes toward daughters. Furthermore, this impact may differ across
developmental periods (hence the need for longitudinal research).
Conclusions
Although there is considerable variation across cultures, ethnic groups, socioeconomic groups, and
family structures, parents seem to provide different opportunities for girls and boys in accordance
with culturally held stereotypes. This includes providing stereotypically different language opportu-
nities and environments.Thus, in addition to simply getting more verbal input, girls learn more about
emotions, particularly sadness, and social interactions from their parents; boys, in contrast, learn more
276
about anger and aggression, as well as math and science. Parents also provide gender-differentiated
training for adulthood. By rewarding doll play and nurturing role play in early childhood, and by
being assigned more household chores, girls are provided training in domestic tasks and childcare.
Boys are punished for feminine toy play and given fewer opportunities to learn domestic tasks.
This training telegraphs the gendered division of household and parenting labor in adulthood, in
which women are engaged in substantially more childcare and domestic tasks than men. Parents also
implicitly shape the values and attitudes of their children in stereotypical ways. They provide more
feedback to their daughters about their appearance than their sons, and girls come to focus more on
their appearance as their body esteem declines. At the same time, parents are more confident of sons’
math and science abilities than daughters,’ and thus, regardless of grades, boys show greater interest
and confidence and less anxiety in math and science than girls do.
Ultimately, we must be mindful of how gender impacts children and parents in universal ways,
in culturally specific ways, and in idiosyncratic ways. Hopefully, research examining how parents
contribute to gender disparities will continue to evolve and inform—as our methodologies become
more sophisticated, as our understanding of gender diversity is enriched, and as the social construc-
tion of gender changes with greater political, occupational, and financial equity for women.
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9
PARENTING AND
TEMPERAMENT
John E. Bates, Maureen E. McQuillan, and Caroline P. Hoyniak
Introduction
Social competencies, such as smiling at the right time, understanding what “no” means, or clearly
expressing one’s needs, develop over time. How this happens is of great importance from multiple
perspectives. Qualities of development are crucial in human society, both for individuals and for
individuals’ social groups. Social development research asks how social competencies grow by con-
sidering processes and outcomes of biological, psychological, and social systems. It considers these
processes and outcomes in terms of both normative development and individual differences. The
present chapter considers two key types of processes in social development, parenting and tem-
perament processes, and how they contribute to individuals’ behavioral, emotional, and cognitive-
academic adjustment outcomes. Parenting and temperament are often seen as independent contribu-
tors to social development, but the literature also suggests ways in which these constructs are linked
across time. The linkage may involve whether and how parenting predicts changes in child tempera-
ment, as well as whether and how child temperament influences changes in parenting. Despite well-
recognized stability in temperament and parenting traits, evidence suggests that there is some change
in both. For example, as evidence that parenting can change in response to the social environment,
changes in maternal responsiveness have been linked to children’s maturation and to challenges and
opportunities in other facets of the mothers’ lives (Bornstein, Tamis-LeMonda, Hahn, and Haynes,
2008; Hart and Risley, 1992; Isabella, 1993; Landry, Smith, Swank, Assel, and Vellet, 2001; Smith,
Landry, and Swank, 2000).
Parenting is often considered to be the most important subsystem of the broader social devel-
opmental system (Bronfenbrenner, 1979; Bugental and Grusec, 2006). Qualities of parenting are
regarded as central elements of children’s processes and outcomes in developing skills and attitudes
for participating in social relationships, networks, and cultures. This chapter views parenting in rela-
tion to a complementary subsystem, child temperament—a set of biologically based individual dif-
ferences that are also important for socialization outcomes.We discuss research on how parenting and
temperament, separately and interactively, predict development. We examine how a parent’s custom-
ary responses to a child can forecast child social development, including possible changes in tempera-
ment. We also consider how children’s characteristics might influence and interact with parenting to
forecast child social development. Our interest in the topic stems from our clinical experiences with
families working on child behavior problems and, in a transactional process, from the field’s and our
own empirical studies of development.
288
Parenting and Temperament
Historical, Theoretical, and Method Considerations in the Study of

Temperament and Parenting
Toward a Developmental Systems Theory

The conceptual context for this chapter is developmental systems theory (Lerner, 2006; Bates, Sch-
ermerhorn, and Petersen, 2014). Child adjustment outcomes, and the many biological and social
factors involved in those outcomes, are all elements of a developing system. As with any attempt to
describe life, a developmental systems view of social development considers the orderly and chaotic
transactions between elements of the system. The challenge is to discover manageable, empirically
supported models that increasingly encompass the organic and probabilistic transactions among ele-
ments of the child’s social development system.The area of social development has far to go, but seen
in its own developmental context has shown remarkable growth in the quality of measurement and
study design, the adequacy of definitions of elements, and the complexity of models of transactions
among elements of social developmental systems.
In historical terms, the science of social development has evolved at a brisk pace. Although seminal
research on the effects of parenting began in the 1920s, research on parenting hit its empirical stride
only in the 1950s (Maccoby, 2000). In a further step toward encompassing a broader developmental
system, transactional processes between children and parents had been recognized conceptually from
early in the history of research on parenting (Cairns and Cairns, 2006). However, it was only circa the
1970s, prodded by Bell (1968), that the area started empirically concentrating on the possibility that
children could affect the behavior of those who were supposedly socializing them. By the most recent
decades, systems models consider not only parenting dimensions and child temperament dimen-
sions, but also interactions between parenting and temperament dimensions. These models have been
informed by increasingly rich measures of biological, psychological, and social factors in development.
In later sections, this chapter considers research on parenting and child temperament factors in social
development, but first it describes some key foundational concepts in parenting and temperament.
Parenting
Much research in social development has focused on the question of how parenting qualities influence
social development outcomes. An important product of the first several decades of social develop-
ment research is that measurable dimensions of parenting emerged, with conceptual similarities across
research projects and sets of measures. Parenting is operationalized with a variety of kinds of measures,
including self-report and observational methods, and scales for many particular qualities of parenting.
It was discovered that multiple indexes of parenting could be summarized with just a few dimensions.
As summarized by Maccoby and Martin (1983) and many other reviewers, most studies find a warmth
dimension that includes levels of affection, sensitivity, and responsivity, and some find that affection and
responsivity are distinguishable. Studies also find a second, fairly independent dimension pertaining to
parents’ effective control of the child.The dimension of effective versus ineffective parental control may
represent two at least partially independent dimensions, with level of harsh control as one dimension
and positive management as the other. A parent could avoid harsh control methods (i.e., seldom yelling
or spanking), but lack the resources for strategically managing a child’s misbehavior with non-harsh
control tactics or for establishing a warm, mutually enjoyable relationship to encourage socialization
(Hoffman, 1977; Kochanska, 1997b). Such parenting profiles are common in families with young chil-
dren with oppositional behavior problems—a parent avoids harsh discipline, but fails to use enough
positive guidance and mild, effective discipline. The specifics of the warmth and control factors vary
somewhat from study to study, depending on measurement techniques, including the particular ques-
tionnaires and observational systems used, child age, and study design. Sometimes control or warmth
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John E. Bates et al.
are represented with the two aforementioned sub-constructs, but overall the literature suggests that,
despite these differences, the various dimensions of warmth and control converge with other measures
of the family system in expectable ways (Grusec, 2011). Effective limit setting and authoritative control
(Baumrind, 1966), positive and involved parenting (Goodnight, Bates, Pettit, and Dodge, 2008; Pettit,
Bates, and Dodge, 1997), and scaffolding are all associated with positive development and fewer behav-
ior problems. Authoritarian, harsh, hostile, intrusive, and inconsistent parenting are associated with less
positive development and more behavior problems (Dodge, Coie, and Lynam, 2006).
Articles on parenting have historically emphasized the malleability of children, while often mini-
mizing or ignoring child effects on parenting. As consensus about parenting dimensions emerged,
however, the social development field began to theoretically transcend simple parent effects models.
All the classically dominant theoretical frameworks (psychodynamic, cognitive, and behavioral) had
recognized that child characteristics could influence parents (Cairns and Cairns, 2006), even if most
research articles’ interpretations of findings were in terms of parent effects. However, with growth
in knowledge about genetic and other biological bases for individuality, and following Bell’s (1968)
systems theory reinterpretation of evidence that had been generally interpreted only in terms of
parenting effects, it became insufficient to assume that observed correlations between parenting
and child outcomes were simply due to parenting effects on child development. In parallel with
the emerging clarity of measurement of parenting, larger, more definitive studies were being con-
ducted. As the findings from these more sophisticated parenting studies were published, the social
development field started to recognize that, even if the likelihood of bidirectional effects in the par-
ent–child relationship were set aside, the correlations between parenting measures and child social
development outcomes were far from explaining truly practical amounts of variance. In this context,
coinciding with increased awareness of natural systems in science in general (Gleick, 1989; Plomin,
1982; Thelen, 1989), researchers showed a readiness to add constructs from a different realm—child
innate, biological differences. Temperament concepts and measures became widely used to represent
the biological and child effects parts of the developmental system.
Temperament
A set of constructs known collectively as temperament became a major complement to the parenting
environment in social development research. Temperament constructs were regarded as representing
biologically based, early-appearing, and relatively stable individual differences (Bates, 1989).The con-
cept of temperament has been invoked since ancient times, but during much of the twentieth cen-
tury, temperament constructs were seldom used.The field’s scientific attention was largely directed to
understanding the social-environmental causes of individual differences in children, which may have
been partly due to societal reaction against the wave of biological determinism of the early twenti-
eth century, with its excesses of eugenics and racism. Starting in the late 1960s and 1970s, however,
a breakout in research on temperament began (Rothbart and Bates, 1998). The U.S. psychiatrists
Thomas and Chess deserve credit for inspiring these new efforts by publishing their longitudi-
nal descriptions of early child characteristics that could influence transactions in the family system
(Thomas, 1968; Thomas, Chess, Birch, Hertzig, and Korn, 1963). Perhaps indicating how far out of
use the concept of temperament had become, at the beginning of their work,Thomas and Chess did
not use the term temperament. Their early descriptions spoke of “primary reaction patterns,” which
they identified inductively in their longitudinal study (Thomas et al., 1960). Relatively soon, meas-
ures of temperament came to be routinely included in studies of social development (Rothbart and
Bates, 1998, 2006). Research exploring temperament concepts as factors in social development was
a trickle in the 1960s and became a torrent by the mid-1980s (Bates, 1989).
A great many possible traits could be measured under the rubric of temperament, and quite a few
constructs have been measured with some validity. The constructs have been measured via caregiver
290
reports (Bates, Freeland, and Lounsbury, 1979; Buss and Plomin, 1975; Carey and McDevitt, 1978),
structured tasks in the home and the laboratory (Bornstein, Gaughran, and Segui, 1991; Goldsmith,
Reilly, Lemery, Longley, and Prescott, 1995; Goldsmith and Rothbart, 1999; Kagan and Snidman,
1991), and, less systematically, psychophysiological indexes (Fox, Henderson, Perez-Edgar, and White,
2008; White, Lamm, Helfinstein, and Fox, 2012; Whittle, Allen, Lubman, and Yucel, 2006). Neverthe-
less, like the discovery of dimensions in parenting, a rough consensus has emerged on dimensional
frameworks for temperament (Bornstein et al., 2015; Rothbart and Bates, 2006), especially for tem-
perament measured by caregiver reports.
Based on factor analytic work, conceptual mapping, and observed correlations between measures,
sets of three to five dimensions of temperament have achieved empirical support, like the three
to five dimensions often found in more general personality (Halverson, Kohnstamm, and Martin,
2014; Rothbart and Bates, 2006). Among the top three temperament dimensions, there are indi-
vidual differences in two major aspects of reactivity to situations, positive emotionality and negative
emotionality, and there are individual differences in self-regulatory capacities. Positive emotionality
encompasses scales including interest, appetite, joy, and assertion. Negative emotionality encom-
passes scales including discomfort, distress, fear, and, at least early in development, anger (which is
certainly negative, but later becomes more associated with frustrated approach, as children become
more mobile). Positive and negative emotionality can be seen as somewhat unrelated, such that
one child could be both high on positive emotionality and high on negative emotionality, whereas
another could be high on one but not the other. Negative emotionality can be further divided into
important subdimensions. Angry temperament, shown most clearly in relation to frustration, is often
associated with high levels of positive reactivity, whereas fearful temperament is more independent
of positive reactivity (Rothbart and Bates, 2006). Self-regulation, especially the construct of effortful
control, is the crucial third dimension in temperament. It encompasses individual differences in the
set of predispositions or abilities that allow a child to self-regulate by inhibiting dominant responses
and performing subdominant responses (Rothbart and Bates, 2006). Of course, it is recognized that
self-regulatory dispositions, as they are measured, not only contain innate characteristics, but are also
actively shaped by the environment (e.g., socialization) and unfolding physical maturation (e.g., fron-
tal lobe growth and connectivity; Diamond, 2002).This complexity in temperamental self-regulation
adds special difficulty to interpretations of findings, even beyond the usual ambiguities of conceptual
and operational definitions. Despite conceptual and operational measurement challenges, tempera-
ment constructs, including temperamental self-regulation, have plausible groundings in observable
behavior and biological processes, including genes, neurotransmitter differences, and neural activity
in relevant brain structures (Fox, Henderson, Rubin, Calkins, and Schmidt, 2001; Kagan, Reznick,
and Snidman, 1987; Lesch, Bengel, and Heils, 1996; Pezawas et al., 2005).
Parenting and Temperament in Combination and Interaction

The parenting and temperament measures developed in the 1970s and 1980s have become relatively
standard tools. The field has been using these measures to address questions more complex than the
original ones of whether parenting or temperament affects children’s social development, instead
considering questions of how parenting and temperament might influence each other over time and
how they may moderate one another’s effects on development. Research of the past 15–20 years has
expanded the empirical description of systems in social development in striking ways. As a founda-
tion for the current review, we highlight, briefly, a few relevant patterns of findings (see Bates and
Pettit, 2015) to serve as a foundation for the main sections of the chapter.
1. Parenting and temperament as independent predictors. It might be expected that, in studies that meas-
ure both parenting and temperament as predictors of child social development, both kinds
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of measures would uniquely predict outcomes. However, a clear pattern of additivity did not
always emerge in multiple regression analyses (Bates and Bayles, 1988; Bates, Maslin, and Frankel,
1985). In a previous review, Bates and Pettit (2015) concluded, based on studies published from
2005 to 2013 examining how temperament and parenting supplement one another in predict-
ing child outcomes, that only about half of the studies showed supplemental prediction. In many
studies, one of the constructs predicted adjustment outcomes, but not both. Several measure-
ment explanations could shed light on these findings. Parenting and temperament measures
show correlations with one another, in both cross-sectional studies (reviewed in Bates and Pettit,
2015; Bates, Schermerhorn, and Petersen, 2012) and longitudinal studies (Kochanska and Kim,
2013; Pitzer et al., 2011). These correlations are modest, but even small-to-moderate levels of
collinearity can affect the accuracy of models, sometimes leading to exclusion of significant pre-
dictors (Graham, 2003), so the correlations between parenting and temperament might explain
some instances in which additive effects are not found. In addition, both parenting and child
temperament traits could have genetically based personality roots (Collins, Maccoby, Steinberg,
Hetherington, and Bornstein, 2000; Moffitt et al., 2007), and it is quite possible that they are
shared by inheritance. However, genetically informed designs have shown that the effects of
the parenting environment on child development cannot be fully explained by shared genes
(Ganiban, Ulbricht, Saudino, Reiss, and Neiderhiser, 2011; Leve, Winebarger, Fagot, Reid, and
Goldsmith, 1998), and as discussed next, cross-time, lagged associations are interesting even if
genetic effects ultimately cannot be ruled out.
2. Parenting change as an outcome of temperament. Bates and Pettit (2015) described several studies sug-
gesting that child temperament predicts change in parenting. The temperamental dimension of
child negative emotionality predicts, in cross-lag models, changes in parenting, with at least one
study showing each of the following patterns: child fearfulness predicting increases in mother
warmth and decreases in inconsistent control, encouragement of child autonomy, and direc-
tiveness; and child anger/frustration predicting increases in authoritarian parenting over time.
However, these patterns of prediction were not strong enough for broad conclusions. Bates and
Pettit (2015) found too few studies showing children’s positive emotionality predicting parent-
ing changes to draw even a tentative conclusion. For child temperamental self-regulation, several
studies showed that self-regulation predicted increased parental supportiveness and decreased
restrictiveness, but the pattern was not replicated in all studies.
3. Child temperament change associated with parenting. Warm, sensitive parenting predicts decreases in
child negative emotionality, while harsh parental control predicts increases in negative emo-
tionality (Bates and Pettit, 2015). Similar parenting dimensions also predict changes in child
fearfulness in two, quite different ways: challenging (e.g., directive and not-too-nice) parenting
in early childhood predicts decreases in fearfulness, and insensitive parenting predicts increases
in fearfulness, but there have also been a few non-confirmations of these patterns. Harsh parent-
ing has also been shown to predict increases in angry temperament and reductions in effortful
control (Lee, Zhou, Eisenberg, and Wang, 2013). Parental positive involvement has been shown
to predict increased infant positive emotionality (Belsky, Fish, and Isabella, 1991). Finally, across
several studies (with only one non-finding), parental warmth and positive involvement predict
increases in child effortful control, whereas parental intrusive control predicts reduced effortful
control (Bates and Pettit, 2015).
4. Parenting and child temperament interacting in prediction of outcomes. Two, relatively well-supported
patterns have emerged in the literature on temperament by parenting interactions: First, children
high on general negative emotionality have worse social development, especially if they have
parents who are high on negative parenting or low on positive parenting; and second, children
who are fearless could develop high externalizing problems if they experience low positive par-
enting or high negative parenting (Bates and Pettit, 2015).
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Based on previous reviews, at the outset of the current review we expected to find that parenting
and child temperament are both involved in child social development, even if indexes of the con-
structs do not always supplement one another in predicting development; that parenting and tem-
perament influence one another; and that parenting and child temperament combine and interact in
forecasting social development. Two more preliminary notes provide a foundation for the chapter’s
updated picture of findings about parenting, temperament, and development: It may be helpful to
consider first some theoretical mechanisms relevant to the emerging data on social development
involving parenting and temperament and, second, a few methodological considerations that affect
reading the literature.
Theoretical Mechanisms in Social Development

Empirical specifics about temperament, parenting, and development have been emerging at a rela-
tively fast rate. Evidence suggests that both temperament and parenting predict child social devel-
opment, and that temperament and parenting sometimes change, despite their notable levels of
stability.Temperament and parenting also influence changes in one another. How do these predictive
associations happen? We briefly consider general models for the developmental processes that could
account for these predictions. As anticipated by the developmental systems models emerging in the
1960s and 1970s (Bell, 1968; Sameroff, 1975), findings show dynamic, transactional relations between
biological constitution and environment in social development (Collins et al., 2000).
First, concerning the association between parenting and developmental outcomes, there are sev-
eral leading possibilities for how parenting could be involved. Parenting helps to create conditions for
learning what the world is like, what one’s position is in the world, and how one can and should get
physical, cognitive, and social needs met (Ainsworth, 1979; Cummings, Davies, and Campbell, 2000;
Patterson, Reid, and Dishion, 1992). Parenting provides both antecedents and consequences for the
child behaviors that comprise the child’s skills, habits, attitudes, and self-concept.
Second, concerning temperament and developmental outcomes, there are also several leading
possibilities for how temperament could be involved in development (Rothbart and Bates, 1998).
The most straightforward ones involve direct linear processes, such as when a high level on a temper-
ament trait, such as fearfulness in response to novelty, marks variations in psychophysiological systems
that also serve as part of the foundation for development of an anxiety disorder. Also straightforward,
but richer in detail about developmental process, are indirect linear processes—such as a mediation
process in which high child negative emotionality sometimes elicits reinforcing consequences, even
if it is in the form of hostility from caregivers and peers (Patterson et al., 1992), which in turn give
opportunities to develop coercive habits through modeling and negative reinforcement.
Third, concerning parenting and temperament changes over development, the most appealing
model is one of transactional process (Sameroff, 2009), in which the child behaviors that operationally
define temperament elicit and shape parenting responses, and parenting responses reciprocally elicit
and shape child behaviors that represent temperament. For example, if a child is high in negative reac-
tivity and a parent manages the child in ways that maximize the child’s sense of security and success,
the child would not only experience less distress over time, but also develop cognitive control over
emotional reactivity. So, the child’s rank-order level of negative reactivity might decrease over time.
By contrast, if the parents, because of their own emotional reactivity (perhaps triggered by negative
thoughts, such as resentment or hopelessness), lack of cognitive self-regulation skills, or environmental
stressors, are not able to manage such a child in effective ways, a cycle of negative transactions could
lead to increased negative emotionality in both child and parent. As complex as these processes are,
still more complex transactional processes are likely—ones involving nonlinear interactions between
child temperament and parenting. For example, a child’s temperamental impulsivity matters more for
the development of externalizing behavior problems, as seen by either teachers or mothers, when
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the child has a parent who is observed to be low in control than when the child has a parent high in
control (Bates, Pettit, Dodge, and Ridge, 1998). Theoretically, the process should involve differential
motivational and learning impact of a particular parenting behavior on children according to their
biologically based differences in reactivity and self-regulation (Belsky et al., 2007; Wachs, 2000).
Although we have mentioned some possible mechanisms to explain the empirical data, it is
understood that the actualities of development are subtler and more chaotic than revealed by stand-
ard measures of parenting and temperament. For example, some development may be shaped by
small, daily events, such as when parents differentially reinforce irritable child behavior, whereas other
development may be shaped by extreme, divergent events, like physical abuse (Dodge, Pettit, Bates,
and Valente, 1995). Development would also involve other factors that supplement the effects of par-
enting or temperament, such as intellectual functioning, nutrition, sleep, family stress, social support,
teachers, and peers. Nevertheless, although it is important to recognize the many social development
subsystems, parenting and temperament are core elements of social development, are extensively
studied, and therefore merit a special focus.
A Few Methodological Considerations in Research on

Temperament and Parenting
For the present chapter, the methodological consideration most emphasized is the design of the
study. Longitudinal designs are the most relevant to the questions considered. We especially empha-
size longitudinal designs that allow meaningful controls for initial levels of the constructs.This design
allows researchers to model changes in temperament and parenting as functions of one another.
Measurement is a background consideration, but not emphasized.The validity of measures (i.e., their
relations and non-relations with a network of other measures) is encouraging but still in progress.
When we talk about changes in temperament, we recognize that this is change in a measure, an
operational construct, not necessarily in the abstract, theoretical construct. Perhaps there are changes
at a relatively core, biologically influenced level, too, but the behavioral phenotype is what is most
likely to change (Bates, 1989). A second methodological emphasis is on interaction effects between
temperament and parenting in the prediction of social development outcomes, such as behavior
problems. There are so many temperament X parenting findings that researchers have been increas-
ingly interested in the particular shape of the interactions they discover, most often comparing mod-
els of diathesis-stress processes, where vulnerable children perform at the level of their peers when
exposed to more positive or less negative environments, versus models of sensitivity to both stress
and support, commonly referred to as differential susceptibility, where sensitive children outperform
their peers when exposed to more favorable environments.
Studies of Parenting and Temperament as Independent Predictors

of Social Development
Social development models often have separate terms for parenting practices and child tempera-
ment as independent predictors. Do the two kinds of variables additively supplement one another
in predicting child outcomes, thereby accounting for more variance in concert than singly? Bates
and Pettit (2015) found that some studies did and others did not find additivity. They identified 20
studies that examined whether temperament and parenting supplement each other when predicting
adjustment. Of the 20 studies, 11 showed additive, supplemental effects for parenting and tempera-
ment, and 9 studies showed that either parenting or temperament predicted adjustment, but not
both. Additions to the literature since that review suggest similarly uncertain conclusions. For the
present review, we identified 23 additional studies that examined the prediction of a variety of child
outcomes, including internalizing and externalizing problems, performance in the strange situation,
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social skills, scholastic competence, and relationship with the teacher.We separated the 23 studies into
59 separate cases depending on the outcome studied and the measure used (observed versus ques-
tionnaire; mother, father, or teacher report). Of these 59 cases, 20 indicated an additive effect of par-
enting and child temperament, and 39 did not. Of the 39 that did not demonstrate an additive effect,
12 showed an effect for parenting practices only, 19 showed an effect for child temperament only, and
8 showed only an interaction effect between parenting and child temperament, with neither parent-
ing nor temperament showing a main effect. Therefore, although parenting and child temperament
sometimes supplement each other in predicting adjustment outcomes, they just as often do not. The
lack of converging evidence for supplemental effects could reflect measurement deficiencies, but
could also reflect processes concerning how child temperament and parenting might influence one
another. If parenting and temperament are correlated contemporaneously or even influence one
another across development, this would introduce collinearities that could affect their regression
weights, even if each has a simple, bivariate relation with the outcome. The next sections consider
recent research on how parenting and child temperament relate to one another across development.
Child Temperament Effects on Parenting

Parenting traits change even if there is also, in general, strong stability in parenting traits. Can some
change in parenting be explained by children’s temperament or the problem behaviors that tempera-
ment measures have been shown to predict? The present section focuses specifically on the influence
of temperament on parenting, and generally on the effects of child behavior problems (which are
conceptually and empirically linked with particular temperament dimensions; Bates, 1989) on parent-
ing. Problematic child behavior often creates challenges for parents, including disruption in the family
system, increased time demands, and parent feelings of frustration, worry, guilt, and/or embarrassment
regarding their child’s behavior (Bussing et al., 2003). Child behavior problems also tend to elicit
harsher and less supportive parenting. Murray and colleagues (2013) showed that adolescents’ self-
reported aggression predicted increases in their perceived levels of parental psychological control 3
months later, controlling for initial levels of psychological control. Changes in positive parenting have
also been shown in association with changes in child aggression. For example, in an intervention study
with cross-lagged tests at pre-intervention, post-intervention, 6-month follow-up, and 12-month
follow-up, decreases in child aggression predicted increases in child reports of positive parenting (Te
Brinke, Dekovic, Stoltz, and Cillessen, 2017). Similar links have been found in cross-lagged designs
for diagnostic symptoms of oppositional defiant disorder and conduct disorder, which predict more
timid use of discipline, poorer communication, and less parental involvement and supervision (Burke,
Pardini, and Loeber, 2008). Children’s callous-unemotional traits, particularly low levels of guilt and
empathy, also predict change in parenting over 12 months, toward less parental involvement and more
inconsistent discipline and punishment, controlling for prior levels of these parenting practices, as
well as child hyperactivity and antisocial behavior traits, among other covariates (Hawes, Dadds, Frost,
and Hasking, 2011). Externalizing behavior problems in general predict decreases in parental support
(Huh, Tristan, Wade, and Stice, 2006) and increases in maternal negativity (Zadeh, Jenkins, and Pepler,
2010). It can be argued that behavior problems provide a window on the active role the child may
play in the socialization process, shown by their accounting for change in parent behavior. Behavior
problems have roots in early temperament (Rothbart and Bates, 2006). Are there similar processes,
then, involving child temperament influences on parenting? Evidence suggests there are.
Child Negative Emotionality Predicts Parent Behavior

Most findings of child temperament effects involve the influence of child negative emotionality on
parenting. Children who are high in negative emotionality tend to show immediate and intense
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negative emotional reactions (e.g., anger or fear) in response to changes in the environment, and
this has been shown to be associated with parental stress (Gelfand et al., 1992) and with angry and
controlling parental reactions (Scaramella and Leve, 2004).
Children’s negative emotionality is associated with high levels of parental psychological and
behavioral control (Laukkanen et al., 2014) and with parents’ psychological aggression and corporal
punishment (Xing, Zhang, Shao, and Wang, 2017), but in much of this research it is hard to infer
direction of effects. Many studies rely on parent reports to measure both parenting and tempera-
ment. This kind of data could be of interest, especially in a longitudinal design, as a description of
parents’ views of their own experience across time, but studies with multiple sources of information
are typically regarded as more definitive. Cross-sectional studies, especially when they have multiple,
cross-validating measures, are useful as initial checks on theoretical models and measures, and for
generating hypotheses for later longitudinal studies. Longitudinal studies have shown that higher
levels of child negative emotionality predict increased use of negative parenting practices (e.g., harsh
control, rejection, inconsistent discipline, and authoritarian parenting) with autoregressive controls
for prior levels of parenting across infancy (Bridgett et al., 2009), preschool years (van der Bruggen,
Stams, Bogels, and Paulussen-Hoogeboom, 2010), and elementary school years (Bates, Pettit, and
Dodge, 1995; Eisenberg et al., 1999; Lee et al., 2013; Lengua and Kovacs, 2005). These findings are
suggestive of developmental influences, but they do not rule out genetic mechanisms.
Genetically informative designs allow further rigor in testing child effects. Studies of monozy-
gotic and dizygotic twins enable estimates of variance in parenting attributable to genetic factors
(e.g., child temperament), shared environment (e.g., family structure, demographics, and values),
and experiences unique to each twin (e.g., interpersonal relationships that are different with one
twin from the other). Twin studies have shown, via significant heritability estimates, that children’s
genetic predisposition for temperamental difficultness predicts hostile parenting in infancy (Boivin
et al., 2005) and toddlerhood (Forget-Dubois et al., 2007). Jaffee and colleagues (2004) also found
that twins’ genetic predisposition for negative emotionality at age 5 predicts parental use of corporal
punishment, but not maltreatment, suggesting that use of corporal punishment may be driven by
child characteristics, whereas harsh discipline that crosses a boundary to maltreatment may be more
driven by parent characteristics.
Although twin studies can elucidate the extent to which parent behaviors are shared or uniquely
experienced by siblings depending on their genetic and temperamental predispositions, adoption
designs can lead to even stronger conclusions about child effects because the evocative effects of a
child who is genetically distinct from an adoptive parent can be tested (Lipscomb et al., 2011). Bio-
logically related parents and children share genetic predispositions, so the genotype and environment
(e.g., parent behavior) are inherently linked and difficult to disentangle.This passive gene-environment
correlation may partially explain why parents appear to be influenced by child temperament. For
example, parents who tend to be highly negatively reactive may be especially challenged by and reac-
tive to their biologically related and similarly reactive child, and such parents may be more likely to
engage in ineffectual, harsh responses to child behavior. Adoption studies with children and parents not
genetically related can set this passive gene-environment correlation aside. Lipscomb and colleagues
(2011) examined age-related changes in children’s negative emotionality at 9, 18, and 27 months using
growth curve modeling of latent variables in a large sample of adoptive families and found that the
slope across time for child negative emotionality was positively associated with the slope of adoptive
parents’ overreactivity and inversely associated with the slope for parental efficacy. This finding sug-
gests that increasing child negative emotionality is associated with increasing parental overreactivity
and decreasing parental efficacy, even in parents who are not biologically related to the child. However,
this study does not advance understanding of the directionality of links between child temperament
and parent behavior, because change in parent behavior could just as plausibly predict change in
child temperament as the reverse. In other adoption studies, the temperamental or behavior problem
296
characteristics of the biological parents have been considered as a proxy for the child’s genetic, tem-
peramental predisposition. For example, Klahr and colleagues (2017) found that birth parent antisocial
behavior predicted increases in adoptive fathers' (but not mothers') use of negative parenting practices
from 18 to 27 months, providing additional preliminary evidence to suggest that children who are at
risk for developing externalizing behavior problems tend to evoke harsh parenting practices. Child
social wariness or fearfulness at 18 months has also been shown to predict lower levels of adoptive par-
ent directiveness observed during a clean-up task at 27 months, controlling for prior levels of parenting
and for changes in child social wariness (Natsuaki et al., 2013).This is a pattern also previously seen in
non-adoptive families (Mills and Rubin, 1990).
Child Positive Emotionality Predicts Parent Behavior

Child positive emotionality, often referred to as surgency, involves high levels of activity, approach of
people and objects, and smiling or laughter. Children who are high in positive emotionality also tend
to seek out high-intensity pleasure. They tend to be extraverted and sociable (Putnam and Rothbart,
2006). Child positive emotionality is typically associated with more positive parenting and less nega-
tive parenting (Putnam, Sanson, and Rothbart, 2002;Wilson and Durbin, 2012). In an adoption study,
Hajal et al. (2015) found that sociability of the birth mother was inversely associated with adoptive
fathers’ harsh parenting. That is, children with a genetic disposition to high positive reactivity appear
to have elicited less harsh parenting than did less positive children. Harold et al. (2013) measured a
different birth mother trait, ADHD symptoms, which we tentatively assume are related to tempera-
ment variables, including positive emotionality-related traits of strong approach, reward sensitivity,
and sensation seeking. Birth mothers’ symptoms of ADHD were associated with more hostile par-
enting in the adoptive parents at child age 6, mediated via adoptive child impulsivity, activation,
reward sensitivity, and sensation seeking at age 4.5. It is probably too soon for a full theoretical model
in this area, but we would interpret these studies as supporting a developmental process in which
some aspects of child positive emotionality, like interest and joy, lead to positive reciprocation by the
parents. Not only are interested, joyful, active children likely to elicit reciprocal positivity, they may
also be more responsive to positive parenting efforts. Parents do not automatically know how to rear
a specific child, they learn how to do it (Hart and Risley, 1992), and positive, assertive children can
help them learn to be positive parents. Other aspects of the broad positive emotionality construct,
such as reward sensitivity and sensation seeking, might be experienced by parents as more negative
(frustrating, frightening, etc.) and therefore elicit negative parenting, especially when the child’s posi-
tive emotionality is accompanied by high levels of impulsivity or low effortful control.
Child Effortful Control Predicts Parent Behavior

The third core dimension of temperament, effortful control, serves to regulate the negative and
positive reactivity, as foreshadowed in our interpretation of the Harold et al. (2013) ADHD find-
ings. In general, high levels of child effortful control are associated with lower parental control
efforts, potentially because these children need less parental guidance to regulate their own behav-
ior. Lee and colleagues (2013) showed that poorer effortful control at time one (first and second
grade) was associated with more authoritarian parenting practices at time two (fifth and sixth grade),
using autoregressive controls for prior levels of parenting and multiple informants—parent, teacher,
and child. Longitudinal studies, such as Lee et al. (2013), which measure parenting and tempera-
ment at multiple time points, are important. We expect to see more of such studies, including ones
spanning across major developmental eras. Longitudinal designs spanning developmental eras are
important because the magnitude and directionality of the link between temperament and parenting
might change depending on developmental stage. Tiberio et al. (2016) examined bidirectional links
297
between temperament and parenting from ages 3 to 13 or 14. By using an autoregressive, cross-lag
model across multiple stages of development, they found evidence that children’s effortful control
influenced parenting and stage of development moderated the influence of child temperament on
parenting. The general pattern was for child effortful control to influence later parenting when chil-
dren were younger, and for parenting to have more influence on child effortful control when the
children were older. High levels of parent-reported child effortful control at age 3 predicted increases
in a multimethod composite measure of mothers’ positive parenting at age 5, as well as decreases in
fathers’ negative parenting (poor discipline). Child effortful control at age 5 did not predict increases
in mothers’ positive parenting at age 7, but did predict decreases in mothers’ negative parenting, and
did not predict changes in fathers’ parenting. Child effortful control at age 7 predicted increases in
mothers’ positive parenting at the age 11–12 follow-up, but did not predict fathers’ parenting. Effort-
ful control at age 11–12 did not predict changes in parenting at age 13–14. However, fathers’ positive
parenting at age 7 predicted increased child effortful control at age 11–12, and mothers’ lower levels
of poor discipline at age 11–12 predicted higher levels of child effortful control at age 13–14.
Worth highlighting in the development of research on temperament and parenting is the notable
increase in observational measurement of parenting. Observations of parenting, especially across a
long period of development, are likely to show smaller levels of cross-age continuity than parents’
self-reports, even equating for measurement reliability. Parents’ self-reports may show high cross-age
correlations because of constancy in how parents view themselves, perhaps due in part to response sets,
such as social desirability (Edwards, 1990; Wiggins, 1973), which would leave little cross-time variance
to account for by child characteristics. Observational or multimethod measures of parenting, as in Tibe-
rio et al. (2016), may have more change to explain, and useful findings about sources of the cross-age
variance may emerge. To the extent that cross-age variance in observations of parenting are not sim-
ply due to unreliability or lack of validity in observational measures, observed parenting might index
parents’ sensitivity to changes in their child, which, as an instance of lawful discontinuity (Sroufe and
Rutter, 1984), would be theoretically interesting. For example, increases in child effortful control may
forecast a change in promoting versus inhibiting child autonomy. Several studies have used ecologi-
cally valid, semi-structured parent–child interaction tasks to measure various parent behaviors across
tasks, contexts, and time. Klein and colleagues (2016) used observed measures of both child effortful
control and parenting and found that better child effortful control at 36 months was associated with
less observed maternal negativity at 54 months during parent–child tasks in a cross-lagged panel model
design.This result parallels prior work showing inverse associations between child effortful control and
negative parenting practices (Bridgett et al., 2009; Eisenberg et al., 1999; Lengua, 2006). Lower child
self-regulation from 4–12 months of age predicts more negative parenting at 18 months (Bridgett et al.,
2009), and similarly, lower child regulatory ability at 6–8 years predicts more frequent parental punitive
reactions to negative child emotions at 8–10 years (Eisenberg et al., 1999). Likewise, lower initial levels
of effortful control predict increases in parental rejection across ages 8–15 (Lengua, 2006).
In addition to well-established links between child effortful control and changes in parental man-
agement, there is also an inverse association between child effortful control and maternal supportive
parenting, again suggesting that well-regulated children may elicit more autonomy or less parental
guidance. In a longitudinal adoption design with autoregressive controls, infants with low levels of
effortful control tended to experience more maternal support, structuring, and clear instruction
during parent–child interaction tasks as adolescents, which in turn was concurrently associated with
less adolescent delinquency (van der Voort et al., 2013). This finding suggests that mothers may
strategically use gentle forms of guidance to meet children’s needs and effectively buffer the child’s
lack of effortful control. However, this finding somewhat contradicts earlier, related work which
showed direct associations between child effortful control and other forms of positive parenting
behavior. Poorly regulated toddlers concurrently experience less parental monitoring, sensitivity,
and use of warm control (Feldman and Klein, 2003), and children rated by their mothers at age 5 as
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high in resistance to control (and thus poorly regulated) similarly experience less parental monitor-
ing through grades 5–11 (Pettit, Keiley, Laird, Bates, and Dodge, 2007). It is worth noting that the
study of adoptive families showed a different pattern than studies of non-adoptive families. Perhaps
adoptive parents of a child with low effortful control have a better chance of responding adaptively
because they are less likely than biological parents to share the same predispositions to dysregulation.
The differential effect for adoptive parents could also be because they tend to be older. In contrast,
birth parents may share the genetic predisposition for low levels of effortful control and be younger
themselves and thus may be more likely to respond to challenging child behavior with poorly regu-
lated responses, rather than with sensitivity and warmth. To summarize, effortful control appears to
affect parent behavior but potentially in varying ways depending on the relation between parent and
child, the age examined, and the measures used.
Parenting Effects on Child Temperament

Although temperament is considered to be relatively stable, evidence suggests that there is some vari-
ability in the rank-order stability of temperament across childhood (Rothbart and Bates, 2006). How
do such shifts in temperament occur? Studies have considered changes in the phenotypic expression
of temperament as a function of qualities of parenting. Perhaps because temperament traits are theo-
retically more stable than parenting traits, we have seen less research focusing on the effect of parent-
ing on child temperament than focusing on the possible effect of child temperament on parenting.
Cross-sectional associations between parenting and child temperament are often interpreted as child
effects, but could as easily be seen as indicating effects of parenting on child temperament. Fortu-
nately, some longitudinal studies allow interpretations of parent effects. Unless otherwise specified,
the studies highlighted in this section have longitudinal designs and include controls for previous
levels of child temperament.
Parenting Predicts Child Negative Emotionality

Positive parenting practices in infancy and toddlerhood, including maternal sensitivity and respon-
siveness, have been associated with subsequent decreases in negative emotionality (Belsky et al., 1991;
Pauli-Pott, Mertesacker, and Beckmann, 2004; Rispoli, McGoey, Koziol, and Schreiber, 2013) and fear
reactivity (Braungart-Rieker, Hill-Soderlund, and Karrass, 2010), although not in every study (Rubin,
Nelson, Hastings, and Asendorpf, 1999). Negative parenting has been shown to be associated with
increased child negative emotionality in pre-adolescence (Eisenberg et al., 1999). Inconsistent parent-
ing in middle childhood has been associated with greater levels of child fearfulness and irritability 1 year
later (Lengua and Kovacs, 2005). A complication to consider is that temperamental negative emotion-
ality and its changes over time can be the result of different contributing factors for different children.
This condition is illustrated by the Kopala-Sibley et al. (2015) finding that poor-quality parent–
child relationships were associated with increases in negative emotionality in early childhood, but
only for children with high levels of cortisol reactivity, which suggests that the effect of parenting on
temperament may depend on the child’s own biological susceptibility to stressors, or alternatively, that
temperament will ultimately be better conceived as a more detailed, multifaceted profile of disposi-
tions than just those shown in a single scale of a caregiver report temperament questionnaire.
Parenting Predicts Child Positive Emotionality

There is little support for the proposition that positive parenting practices are associated with increases
in child positive emotionality, with the notable exception of Belsky et al. (1991) showing that high
parental positive involvement at age 3 months predicts increased infant positive emotionality at
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9 months. A small amount of additional support comes from Kopala-Sibley et al. (2015), who found
an association between high-quality parent–child relationships and subsequent increases in positive
emotionality, but only for children with low levels of cortisol reactivity. However, overall, evidence
at this point is too scant for strong conclusions on the effects of parenting practices on child positive
emotionality.
Parenting Predicts Child Effortful Control

The most robust area of research on the influence of parenting practices on child temperament has
focused on effortful control. Longitudinal findings suggest that positive parenting practices in early
childhood, including high levels of maternal support, nurturance, and responsiveness, are associated
with later increases in parent- and observer-reported effortful control (Klein et al., 2016; Kochan-
ska, Murray, and Harlan, 2000; Pitzer et al., 2017). Additionally, parent limit setting and scaffolding
observed in parent–child interaction tasks are associated with improved, observed effortful con-
trol in toddlers and preschoolers (Klein et al., 2016; Lengua, Honorado, and Bush, 2007; Lengua
et al., 2014). Children from low-income families have lower effortful control than do children from
higher-income families, and it appears that this association is mediated by lower levels of parental
limit setting and scaffolding (Lengua et al., 2007; Lengua et al., 2014). Findings of Kopystynska et al.
(2016) support the notion that positive parenting practices are associated with improved effortful
control outcomes. Maternal sensitivity observed at 18 months was associated with improved child
effortful control at 30 months. However, this association was not present across the 30- to 42-month
span. Concerning the interactive effects of multiple parenting measures, Kopystynska et al. (2016)
also found the best effortful control outcomes at 30 months in children whose parents used gentle
control strategies and showed high levels of sensitivity. The cross-lagged findings of Tiberio et al.
(2016), mentioned in the previous discussion of child effortful control on parenting, also showed that,
at least in older children, positive parenting can predict changes in child effortful control.
Negative parenting appears to adversely affect child effortful control. Higher levels of observed
maternal intrusiveness during a parent–child interaction task in early childhood are associated with
subsequent decreases in parent-reported effortful control (Taylor, Eisenberg, Spinrad, and Widaman,
2013). Additionally, higher levels of authoritarian parenting in middle childhood, a parenting style
characterized by low levels of warmth and responsiveness and high levels of punitive disciplinary
strategies, are associated with decreases in child effortful control nearly 4 years later (Lee et al., 2013).
Similarly, punitive reactions to child emotionality are associated with decreased regulatory abilities
in pre-adolescence (Eisenberg et al., 1999). Moreover, the Tiberio et al. (2016) study also found that
negative parenting is associated with decreases in child effortful control at older but not younger ages.
In summary, the literature on parenting effects on child temperament generally supports previ-
ously noted patterns in which positive parenting measured at one age has some chance of producing
positive changes in child temperament traits measured at a later age. Studies have also extended the
field by pointing to the possible value of considering multiple dimensions of parenting at the same
time to identify potentially complex influences on child temperament. In addition, the findings open
the question of whether the effects of temperament on parenting or parenting on temperament differ
according to developmental stage.
Parenting X Temperament Moderator Effects

The literature on interactions between parenting and temperament in predicting child social devel-
opment is extensive enough that we have organized our review of it, first, by the type of parenting
practice examined—negative or harsh versus positive or warm. Positive parenting is not simply
the inverse of negative parenting (Pettit and Bates, 1989), so it would make sense to consider both
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negative and positive practices. Second, under the two kinds of parenting, we have organized our
review according to the major dimensions of temperament—negative emotionality, positive emo-
tionality, and effortful control.
Interactions With Negative Parenting Practices

Negative parenting practices, including overcontrol, rejection, and hostility, are associated with both
internalizing (Rapee, 1997) and externalizing (Dodge et al., 2006) adjustment problems. Beyond
these main effects, it appears that some temperament characteristics may make children relatively
susceptible to the impact of negative parenting, and other characteristics may make children relatively
resilient. In the present section, we consider how negative parenting interacts with the major dimen-
sions of child temperament in forecasting social development outcomes.
Negative Parenting X Negative Emotionality

By far, the most robust literature examining negative parenting by temperament interactions has
focused on child negative emotionality. The literature largely supports the notion that children high
in negative emotionality are the most vulnerable to the effects of negative parenting practices (Bates
et al., 2012; Bates and Pettit, 2015). Findings highlight a child vulnerability or diathesis-stress model:
Among children exposed to negative parenting practices, those who are high on negative emotional-
ity are more likely to develop externalizing and internalizing problems, low social competence, and
diminished cognitive performance. Many longitudinal studies support the vulnerability hypothesis.
Infants reported by parents to be high in anger and frustration and exposed to hostile parenting
are more likely to develop co-occurring internalizing and externalizing problems at age 5, whereas
infants reported to be low in anger and frustration and exposed to hostile parenting are more likely
to develop internalizing problems at age 5 (Edwards and Hans, 2015). Similarly, consistent exposure
to negative parenting practices from ages 6 to 36 months interacts with infant negative emotionality
to predict observed negative emotions and discomfort expressed when left alone or with a stranger at
36 months (Dix and Yan, 2014). Consistent with the vulnerability hypothesis, when exposed to con-
sistently negative parenting practices, children high in negative emotionality show more separation
distress than children low in negative emotionality. However, it should be noted that Dix and Yan
(2014) also measured behavior problems, social competence, and attachment security, but separation
distress was the only child outcome for which the pattern of findings supported the child vulner-
ability hypothesis. Such null findings highlight the need for continued research on which adjustment
outcomes are most likely to be susceptible to parenting by temperament interactions. Additionally,
from a developmental perspective, it is of interest to examine how such processes differ across spans
of development (i.e., are the processes similar across ages or are there developmental shifts in how
parenting and temperament interact?).
In a longitudinal study with a high-risk sample of toddlers, high levels of parent intrusiveness
and parental negative regard predicted increased child behavior problems a year later, controlling for
initial levels of behavior problems, but only for children with high levels of observed fear reactiv-
ity (Barnett and Scaramella, 2015). Harsh parenting in toddlerhood also predicted increased levels
of a neural biomarker thought to index risk for anxiety (the error-related negativity event-related
potential) at age 4, but only for children displaying high levels of fearfulness (Brooker and Buss,
2014). Children with lower levels of fearfulness did not show a neural activation pattern indicative
of increased susceptibility for anxiety, even when they did experience harsh parenting. In a converg-
ing, cross-sectional finding, preschoolers with high temperamental negative and positive emotional
reactivity tended to be more disruptive during peer interactions, but only if their parents reported
high levels of authoritarian parenting (Gagnon et al., 2014). Also in a sample of preschoolers, those
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with high levels of parent-reported child negative emotionality and whose parents reported negative
parenting practices (a composite of nonreasoning, over-directiveness, and negligence), tended to have
higher internalizing problems, whereas for those with low negative emotionality, the level of aversive
parenting did not matter for internalizing problems (Ren, Zhang, Zhou, and Ng, 2017).
Another example of the interaction between negative parenting and child temperament in pre-
dicting adjustment outcomes is the Prinzie et al. (2014) finding that a child’s trajectory of internaliz-
ing problems across middle childhood is partly explained by the interaction of overreactive parenting
and child shy personality. For children high in parent-reported shyness, exposure to lower levels of
overreactive parenting predicts membership in a trajectory class starting high on internalizing, but
decreasing over the years. Children exposed to average and high levels of overreactive parenting do
not show this association. This finding complements the Lewis-Morrarty et al. (2012) finding that
children who are highly inhibited in childhood also show high social anxiety in adolescence, but
only if they are observed during a parent–child interaction to be exposed to parental overcontrol.
Although the Prinzie et al. findings provide support that higher levels of overreactive parenting may
be associated with more detrimental outcomes in children high on parent-reported shyness, the
latent class methodology makes it difficult to make assertions about how exposure to overreactive
parenting is associated with anxiety at any given time point.
Negative Parenting X Positive Emotionality

The literature on the interaction between negative parenting practices and positive emotionality has
remained relatively sparse. Our previous review identified a general pattern that children high in
positive emotionality are relatively protected from the effects of negative parenting when compared
to children low in positive emotionality (Bates and Pettit, 2015). We did not find further studies
focused on the interaction between negative parenting practices and child positive emotionality.
Negative Parenting Practices X Effortful Control

In the literature on the interaction between negative parenting and effortful control, we saw a some-
what contradictory pattern of findings (Bates and Pettit, 2015). Studies suggested that children with
low levels of effortful control have worse adjustment outcomes than do peers with higher levels of
effortful control when they are exposed to negative parenting practices (Leve et al., 2005; Poehlmann
et al., 2011). Conversely, Hilt, Armstrong, and Essex (2012) found that children high in effortful
control showed an increased tendency toward rumination if they were exposed to overcontrolling
parenting. We concluded that there was more evidence supporting an increased susceptibility to
negative parenting practices in children with low levels of effortful control (Bates and Pettit, 2015).
Two additional studies have examined the interaction between negative parenting practices and
child effortful control. For children with low levels of executive functioning (thought to be highly
related to effortful control), Gueron-Sela, Bedford, Wagner, and Propper (2017) found that exposure
to high levels of harsh/intrusive parenting at age 5 was associated with higher levels of internalizing
problems at school entry, but for children with higher levels of executive functioning, exposure to
harsh parenting was not associated with subsequent internalizing problems. Similarly, in another
study, children with low levels of parent- and teacher-reported effortful control were more likely
to develop internalizing problems in pre-adolescence if their parents reported using authoritarian
parenting practices, but not children with high levels of effortful control (Muhtadie, Zhou, Eisenberg,
and Wang, 2013). These findings support the conclusion that children with low levels of effortful
control are particularly susceptible to the effects of negative parenting practices.
Overall, exposure to negative parenting practices is associated with worsened adjustment out-
comes in children high on negative emotionality and low on effortful control. Additionally, high
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levels of positive emotionality may serve as a buffer to the effects of negative parenting on adjustment
outcomes.
Interactions With Positive Parenting Practices

Positive parenting practices, including warmth, sensitivity, emotional availability, contingent and
appropriate responsiveness, scaffolding, consistent responses to children’s needs, and authoritative
parenting (Baumrind, 1967; Biringen, Derscheid, Vliegen, Closson, and Easterbrooks, 2014; Born-
stein and Tamis-LeMonda, 1989; Lamb and Easterbrooks, 1981), are associated with positive adjust-
ment outcomes, including not only good behavioral adjustment, but also language development and
academic success (Darling and Steinberg, 1993; Denham et al., 2000; Kochanska and Aksan, 1995;
Landry et al., 2001; Stams, Juffer, and van IJzendoorn, 2002). Although distinctions can be made
among the positive parenting constructs, they tend to be correlated with one another and have simi-
lar associations with socially valued child outcomes. Positive associations between positive parenting
and child adjustment may be amplified for certain children depending on their temperamental dis-
position. The differential susceptibility model (Belsky, Bakermans-Kranenburg, and van IJzendoorn,
2007) proposes that susceptible children would have the poorest outcomes within negative environ-
ments and the most favorable outcomes within positive environments. These theorized interaction
effects with positive parenting have been examined in two ways: (1) correlational analyses to deter-
mine whether higher levels of positive parenting are associated with better adjustment outcomes
for children of a particular temperament or (2) intervention or experimental studies to manipulate
parenting and examine within-subjects effects of improved parenting.
Positive Parenting Practices X Negative Emotionality

Because there have been so many relevant studies of positive parenting in interaction with child
negative emotionality, we discuss the findings separately.
1. Correlational studies of general negative emotional reactivity. In many studies, negative emotionality
has been measured broadly, with measures that sum across numerous situations and ways of
showing negative emotion. In longitudinal-correlational studies, children displaying high levels
of difficultness (i.e., high levels of negative emotionality) at ages 2–3 showed fewer external-
izing behavior problems at ages 6–8 when they experienced higher levels of maternal empathy
(Pitzer et al., 2011) or higher levels of parent-reported contingent praise, sensitivity, and enjoy-
ment of parent–child interactions (Gallitto, 2015). Similarly, in Roisman et al. (2012), children’s
difficult temperament interacted with observed maternal sensitivity (at 6, 15, 24, and 36 months)
to predict higher levels of teacher-reported academic skills and social competence and fewer
total behavior problems. The shape of the interaction supports a differential susceptibility inter-
pretation, in which highly difficult children who also experienced maternal sensitivity showed
the fewest behavior problems and had the best academic performance and social competence.
When the same interaction was tested using mother reports of social skills and objective tests
of academic skills, however, the results were more consistent with the diathesis-stress model, in
which highly difficult children with low levels of maternal sensitivity had the worst adjustment
outcomes but had average outcomes when exposed to high levels of maternal sensitivity. This
vulnerability effect finding of Roisman et al. resembles the significant interaction found by
Gallitto (2015), in which high levels of positive parenting resulted in difficult, average, and easy
children having the same levels of behavioral adjustment, and low levels of positive parenting
were associated with difficult children’s adjustment becoming notably worse than others’ adjust-
ment. Several other studies examining the interaction between positive parenting and child
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negative emotionality have shown more support for the diathesis-stress, or vulnerability, model
than the differential susceptibility model. Stoltz, Beijers, Smeekens, and Dekovic (2017) found
that children high in negative emotionality who experienced more observed positive parenting
at age 5 showed less teacher-reported externalizing behavior at age 12.Visual inspection of the
plots generated from this interaction effect suggested evidence for differential susceptibility, but
more stringent statistical tests failed to find convincing evidence for the differential susceptibil-
ity hypothesis, finding instead an effect that was more suggestive of diathesis-stress. Also fitting
a diathesis-stress model better than a differential susceptibility model is the study of Kochanska
and Kim (2013), which showed that highly difficult children displayed more observed compli-
ance and less mother-reported externalizing when they had experienced high levels of observed
parental responsiveness, but difficult children’s adjustment was not any more positive than that
of children who were low to average in difficult temperament traits.
2. Correlational studies of subdimensions of negative reactivity. The last section concerned studies of
general negative emotionality. This section concerns the more specific negative emotionality
domains of anger/frustration versus fearfulness. Diathesis-stress interactions between positive
parenting and these specific temperament variables have been found. Children who are high in
anger/frustration show high levels of internalizing problems when they experience low levels of
authoritative parenting, but when they experience high levels of authoritative parenting, their
levels of internalizing problems are like those of their peers who are low to average in anger
and frustration (Muhtadie et al., 2013). Augustine and Stifter (2015) reported that highly fearful
children show the highest levels of moral behavior when exposed to high levels of parental rea-
soning and explanation. When parents are low in reasoning and explanation, highly fearful chil-
dren’s moral behaviors (including avoidance of cheating and high levels of generosity) are like
those of their non-fearful peers. This pattern differs somewhat from the diathesis-stress or vul-
nerability pattern. It is referred to as vantage sensitivity—performing better than peers in posi-
tive environments and performing at average levels when exposed to less positive environments.
Barnett and Scaramella (2015) also found this pattern with children displaying varying levels
of fearfulness/fearlessness as measured during interactions with a roaring remote-controlled
robot.When parents were low in supportive parenting, fearful children (i.e., those who were less
likely to approach the robot) showed levels of behavior problems that were like their fearless,
high-approach peers. However, the fearful/low approach children showed the fewest behavior
problems when they experienced more supportive parenting, again behaving better than peers
in positive environments and behaving at average levels when exposed to less positive environ-
ments. A related finding is that of Zarra-Nezhad et al. (2014), which showed that, for children
who were socially withdrawn in kindergarten, their mothers’ lack of affection predicted devel-
opment of more externalizing behavior problems in grades 1–3, whereas for non-withdrawn
children, mothers’ lack of affection was not so predictive. Similarly, among preadolescents whose
fathers had psychiatric problems, those with temperamental low flexibility (indicating poor
adaptability to change and high levels of distress in response to novelty) showed higher levels of
both internalizing and externalizing symptoms when they experienced less positive parenting,
particularly from their fathers (Rabinowitz, Drabick, Reynolds, Clark, and Olino, 2016).
3. Genetic measures of negative emotionality. The differential sensitivity pattern has been supported in
recent genetic studies.When factors such as the short allele of the 5-HTTLPR gene (short-short
and short-long genotypes) or the DRD4 allele are considered, there is evidence for differential
susceptibility, particularly in European and European-American samples (Bakermans-Kranen-
burg and van IJzendoorn, 2006; van IJzendoorn, Belsky, and Bakermans-Kranenburg, 2012).
The 5-HTTLPR gene, a serotonin transporter gene, has been found to moderate associations
between maternal responsiveness and both child moral internalization and school competence.
Children with short serotonin transporter gene alleles show a positive association between
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maternal responsiveness and moral internalization and school competence, with evidence for
differential susceptibility for moral internalization (Kochanska, Kim, Barry, and Philibert, 2011).
A similar pattern was seen in Bakermans-Kranenburg and van IJzendoorn (2006), in which a
dopamine receptor allele generally associated with child externalizing problems was found to
be associated with the highest levels of mother-reported externalizing problems when mothers
were rated by observers as insensitive, but the least behavior problems when mothers were rated
as highly sensitive (Bakermans-Kranenburg and van IJzendoorn, 2006). This result has since
been replicated in research showing significant interactions between DRD4 alleles and respon-
sive, supportive, and warm parenting to predict increases in child self-regulation in accordance
with the differential susceptibility model (Cho, Kogan, and Brody, 2016) and fewer externalizing
behavior problems (Propper, Willoughby, Halpern, Carbone, and Cox, 2007).
4. Paradoxical interactions. Beyond evidence suggesting that positive parenting helps children who
are high in negative emotionality develop behavior that is as good or sometimes even better
than their less reactive peers, there is also evidence to suggest that too much positive parenting
may be problematic for children who are high in negative emotionality. For example, Danzig
et al. (2015) reported that children observed to be high in anger, hostility, sadness, and pushiness
on a structured observational measure of temperament showed less social competence at age
6 when exposed to higher levels of observed positive parenting. In a related way, the promo-
tive effect of sensitive parenting was found by Paschall et al. (2015) only for children with low
levels of negative emotionality. For low negative children, but not for more negatively reactive
children, sensitive parenting, defined as high supportiveness and low negativity, predicted less
preschool classroom aggression and better teacher-child interactions.
How does this kind of pattern, so different from the previously discussed positive parenting X
child negative emotionality interaction, occur? Perhaps, focusing on the high supportive mother
and high negative child, this effect pertains to an inappropriate or ineffectual positivity, when
the child may need some authoritative control. Or, thinking about the low negative children
aided by sensitive parenting, perhaps it resembles the Kochanska (1997a; Kochanska, Aksan, and
Joy, 2007) effect, in which fearless children become better socialized when they and their moth-
ers experience a secure, fun relationship. Davis, Votruba-Drzal, and Silk (2015) also found this
result with children whose mothers described them as displaying low levels of fear and distress
in novel situations at 6 months. These low-fear children were positively affected by high levels
of maternal sensitivity, whereas children rated as fearful were more likely to display moderate
and increasing levels of internalizing symptoms across ages 4.5–11 if their mothers exhibited
high warmth/sensitivity. Hartz and Williford (2015) similarly found this promotive effect of
maternal sensitivity only for children low in negative emotionality when they tested a three-
way interaction with child negative emotionality, maternal sensitivity, and teacher sensitivity.
For children low in negativity, maternal sensitivity was negatively associated with internalizing
problems regardless of teacher sensitivity levels. Waller, Shaw, and Hyde (2017) also showed that
child fearlessness predicted callous-unemotional behaviors for children who experienced low
levels of positive parenting, but not for children who experienced high levels of positive parent-
ing, which is consistent with other diathesis-stress patterns and supports the special importance
of positive relationships as a pathway to socialization for children whose lack of sensitivity to
fear cues might impair socialization from negative parenting (Kochanska, 1995; Kochanska, Kim,
Boldt, and Yoon, 2013).
5. Clinical modification of positive parenting X child negative reactivity. Experimental evidence for inter-
actions between positive parenting and child negative emotionality comes from studies of inter-
ventions to change positive parenting that have also considered how these changes interact with
child temperament or personality-like symptom patterns. Interventions allow for a relatively
stringent test of the differential susceptibility model, because children are exposed to less positive
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environments prior to treatment and more positive environments after parents have adopted
more effective ways to manage child behavior. Interventions targeting supportive parenting
improve negatively emotional children’s attachment security (van den Boom, 1995). Klein and
colleagues (2006) gave families several home visits during the child’s first year of life to promote
supportive parenting practices. Children who were rated by their mothers as high in negative
emotionality were shown to respond the most to the treatment, by having better attachment
security post-intervention. This result was replicated by Cassidy and colleagues (2011) when
infants with high levels of negative reactivity or irritability showed the greatest gains from a
similar parenting intervention, as these highly irritable infants were again more likely to be rated
as securely attached following the intervention.
Similar results have been found by Scott and O’Connor (2012) and Rodriguez, Bagner, and
Graziano (2014) in studies of interventions to help parents manage high levels of oppositionality in
their young children, such as the Incredible Years program or Parent-Child Interaction Therapy. In
the Scott and O’Connor (2012) study, children were classified on the basis of particular configura-
tions of parent-reported symptoms of oppositional defiant disorder.We can think of these symptom-
based configurations as akin to a temperament classification, although we do not assume that the
classifications were necessarily fully aligned with standard temperament dimensions. Children in the
emotionally dysregulated group (based on the symptoms loses temper, touchy or easily annoyed, and
angry) experienced greater reduction in conduct problems following the parenting intervention
compared to children in the headstrong group (argues, defies rules, annoys others, and blames oth-
ers) or the control group. This finding was not due to the parents of the emotionally dysregulated
children changing more in response to the intervention, because the parents of the headstrong group
showed equivalent increases in positive parenting (Scott and O’Connor, 2012). This differential sus-
ceptibility effect was also found by Rodriguez and colleagues (2014) for children displaying high
levels of distress at baseline during observed parent–child interaction tasks (child directed play and
toy clean-up). These negatively reactive children showed the greatest reduction in disruptive behav-
ior following a similar parenting intervention (Rodriguez et al., 2014). Both results replicate earlier
work indicating that children rated as high on negative emotionality showed decreased behavior
problems following increases in supportive parenting after a parental education intervention (Blair,
2002). Thus, consistent with several correlational studies of parenting X temperament interactions,
emotionally dysregulated, negatively reactive children tend to show the greatest treatment response
and thus demonstrate greater susceptibility to the caregiving environment.
Parents sometimes change in response to their children’s temperament. Relevant to the discus-
sion of interventions to increase positive parenting, some changes that parents make in response to
difficult child behavior are self-directed. Parents make conscious efforts to change their relationship
with their children, independent of professional settings (Goodnight et al., 2008). Especially for
children who were seen as temperamentally resistant to control (in very early childhood, failing to
stop when told “no” or protesting when removed from a troublesome activity), parental increases in
positive involvement and limit setting led to improvements in child behavior, whereas there was less
improvement for the more tractable children (Goodnight et al., 2008).
Positive Parenting Practices X Positive Emotionality

The links between positive parenting practices and child adjustment could theoretically be fur-
ther amplified for children high on the positive emotionality dimension, who tend to be high in
approach, impulsivity, sensation seeking, and reward sensitivity.These children may respond especially
favorably to positive parenting practices like warmth and sensitivity. There is some evidence to sup-
port this hypothesis. For instance, conceptually consistent with earlier findings by Kochanska and
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others (Cipriano and Stifter, 2010; Kochanska, 1997a; Kochanska et al., 2007), exuberant children
show the most moral competence when parents use positive forms of control, namely redirection,
during observed parent–child interactions (Augustine and Stifter, 2015), and among children high
on impulsivity/surgency, observed parental responsiveness predicts decreased externalizing behavior
2 years later (Slagt, Semon Dubas, and van Aken, 2016).
Positive Parenting Practices X Effortful Control

Bates and Pettit (2015) concluded that children with low levels of temperamental self-regulation
tend to be especially likely to develop later behavior problems when they experience low levels of
positive parenting, such as in a study by Degnan and colleagues (Degnan et al., 2008). This kind of
finding has been replicated in work showing that children who are low in effortful control show
decreased externalizing behavior problems when exposed to highly responsive parenting (Slagt et al.,
2016). Similarly, in an adoption study by Reuben et al. (2016), children who showed less effort-
ful control during a Stroop task at 27 months had lower levels of teacher-reported externalizing
behavior at ages 6–7 when their adoptive parents reported high warmth in their parenting than
when their parents reported low warmth. Positive parenting also has been found to moderate the
relation of children’s effortful control to internalizing problem outcomes. In a study by Kiff, Lengua,
and Bush (2011), children with low levels of effortful control showed more depressed and anxious
symptoms when they experienced low levels of parental guidance. An interesting contrasting result
also emerged when autonomy-granting parenting, another form of positive parenting, was consid-
ered. Children who were in low in effortful control showed the most anxious symptoms (high levels
relatively stable across time) if their parents were high in autonomy granting (Kiff et al., 2011). This
result may indicate that, although poorly regulated children appear to respond well to positive forms
of parenting, including responsiveness, guidance, and warmth, high levels of autonomy granting may
not actually be optimal for the development of children with poor effortful control.
In summary, interactions between child temperament and positive forms of parenting in pre-
dicting child adjustment are important to consider as a complement to interactions between child
temperament and negative forms of parenting. Both need to be considered to understand more
deeply the nature of moderator effects. To distinguish between different kinds of moderator effects,
especially the old standard, diathesis-stress or vulnerability model, the vantage sensitivity model, or
the newer, differential susceptibility model, it is useful to consider both positive and negative kinds of
parenting. Several genetic studies have shown that children with risk genotypes have more favorable
developmental outcomes compared to their peers when they are parented in positive ways, offer-
ing support for differential susceptibility. At the same time, more conventional correlational studies
without systematic information about genetic factors show more evidence for the diathesis-stress
or vantage sensitivity models. Whether negative emotionality in general is considered or the more
specific dimensions of anger and fear are considered separately, research suggests that positive parent-
ing helps negatively reactive children develop levels of adjustment that are comparable with their
less reactive peers. However, there have also been some somewhat paradoxical but replicated find-
ings with positive parenting X negative emotionality. In some studies, children with low levels of
fear appear to have better outcomes when they experience more positive parenting, whereas highly
fearful or negatively reactive children might have worse outcomes when exposed to high levels
of positive parenting. This paradoxical pattern is in line with the idea of “not-too-nice” parenting
(Bates, 2012), which suggests that such children may need to be encouraged to encounter and master
initially fearful situations, rather than be overprotected from such situations by a parent who is overly
sensitive and responsive.
In addition to these important findings from genetic and other correlational designs, interven-
tion studies in which positive parenting is purposefully targeted for improvements enable tests how
307
children of various temperaments respond to such changes in parenting. These studies from clinical
contexts have generally shown that children high in negative emotionality are more responsive to
parenting interventions, both at early ages for building secure attachments and at older ages for the
prevention and reduction of behavior problems.The same pattern has been found for temperamental
unmanageability in a study of parental campaigns to reduce child behavior problems. Fewer studies
have examined the interaction between positive parenting and child positive emotionality or effort-
ful control. In general, however, the literature suggests that children high in positive emotionality
benefit most from positive parenting.This pattern makes conceptual sense, because children’s positive
emotionality could predispose to higher levels of sensitivity to rewarding events and objects, perhaps
including the social reinforcement provided by a warm parent. Positive parenting also appears to help
children who are low in effortful control, suggesting that supportive parenting helps to buffer these
at-risk children from later developing adjustment difficulties.
Future Directions in Research on Temperament and Parenting

in Social Development
Research on social development seeks to chart a complex set of processes, including genetic, neu-
rophysiological, emotional, cognitive, and relationship processes at multiple levels, from biological
systems, such as arousal and stress response systems, to psychological systems, such as those involved
in cognition, attachment, and empathy, to the even more complex systems of family and societal
context. The present chapter illustrates the breadth and complexity of research on parenting and
social development, even though it has been organized around only the constructs of parenting and
child temperament. A broad overview suggests an area that is vital and still developing. How might
this area of research develop further?
Methodological Directions
First, because knowledge depends on methods, future research will continue to raise questions about
methods, and there will be changes in what are considered best methods. There is a continual inter-
play between methods and questions in research. We have emphasized questions of how parenting
and child temperament combine to explain individual differences in social development. Cross-
sectional studies can provide clues and insights into social processes, but longitudinal studies can pro-
vide exponentially more information about how these processes unfold, so the present chapter has
highlighted the findings of longitudinal studies. In addition to using longitudinal designs, researchers
have also increasingly used sophisticated statistical models that can show continuity, change, and
the factors that account for continuity and change. Statistical designs include growth curve mod-
els and cross-lagged models (Bollen and Curran, 2006). Models that combine the two (Berry and
Willoughby, 2017) are also starting to demonstrate useful distinctions between the kinds of associa-
tions between measures over time that are common across individuals and the kinds of associations
between measures that differ from one individual to another over time. In other words, these models
partition the variance into that which occurs between individuals and that which occurs within
individuals over time. An advantage of within-individual, cross-lag effects, such as findings of rela-
tions between parenting and child temperament, is that they inherently control for the many ways
in which individuals differ from one another. Doing so enables more confident conclusions that
the linkage between parenting and child temperament is not just the result of another difference
between children, such as socioeconomic status. Some of the questions raised in this chapter about
how child and parent traits might shape social development could be refined by differentially mod-
eling processes that represent families in general, as opposed to processes that represent change or
development in individual families.
308
The chapter has also emphasized studies of how parenting and temperament interact in fore-
casting development of children. The focus on the interactions between these two constructs has
been a highly productive vein of investigation, as increasing numbers of researchers have addressed
moderator effects. At the same time, the sophistication of the models of interaction has also grown,
with increased numbers of studies evaluating the particular shape of the interaction effects and the
parts of the predictor scale across which the interaction is likely to be non-spurious (i.e., regions of
significance). Almost all of the studies of interaction effects we have found have presented interac-
tions between two predictors. Given the complexity and statistical difficulties of interpreting even
two-way interactions, this seems appropriate. However, as many recognize, nature probably does
not limit itself to two-variable interactions. We have begun to see three-way interactions, such as
the effect of family stress in predicting child externalizing behavior depending on the child’s early
temperament profile of both unmanageability and novelty distress (Schermerhorn et al., 2013), or
the effect of child negative emotionality on the prediction of internalizing problems depending on
both parental and teacher sensitivity (Hartz and Williford, 2015). Further complexities can also be
modeled. For example, it is now possible to evaluate models in which interaction effects explain
mediation processes (Preacher, Rucker, and Hayes, 2007), such as a hypothetical process in which
child difficult temperament predicts later behavior problems via the impact of temperament on harsh
parenting, but only for children who are also temperamentally low in self-regulation. To investigate
longitudinal, multifactor, interactive, nonlinear questions, studies need to have sufficient numbers of
participants for statistical power and representativeness, and the frequency and extensiveness of the
assessments need to be developmentally appropriate and feasible.
Design and modeling are not sufficient, of course, without well-measured constructs. Even though
we recognize important issues with all the measures of parenting and temperament (Bates, Scher-
merhorn, and Petersen, 2012), the present chapter de-emphasized measurement concerns. Instead,
we emphasized the reasonably broad consensus on the dimensional meanings of measures of parent-
ing and temperament. Now that the chapter is turning to the future, however, we must acknowledge
that the consensus is probably a provisional agreement, because researchers will raise new questions
of validity and develop new measures that overcome deficiencies of older ones. Parenting measures
are assumed to represent the accumulating experience of the child, and there is considerable evi-
dence that they do, with many small-to-moderate associations among parenting-relevant measures.
However, the power of the measures to predict social development outcomes for children is limited.
It seems likely that new measures will be developed, which will enable questions not currently
studied. For example, it may be possible to better measure the chain of cognitions that a parent has
in a naturally occurring conflict with a child. Perhaps this nuanced assessment could be done using
a combination of a continuously worn device to measure a parent’s physiological arousal and an
automatically triggered voice recording or a cell-phone prompt to describe the sequence just expe-
rienced (Trull and Ebner-Priemer, 2009). Or perhaps there will be measures of existing concepts that
are adapted to underexplored contexts. For example, we are currently developing ways to measure
the sense of security that the parent provides a child in the context of preparing the child for bed
(Hoyniak, Bates, McQuillan, et al., 2017; McQuillan and Bates, 2017).
Similarly, the apparent consensus on temperament dimensions (Rothbart and Bates, 2006; Zent-
ner and Bates, 2008) is itself probably a waystation. Most studies in the area rely on caregiver reports,
which have shown validity, but exciting other measures are being explored, including psychophysi-
ological, biochemical, and molecular genetics measures of individual differences in autonomic func-
tioning, HPA-axis functioning, and neural functioning (Cho and Buss, 2017; Hoyniak, Bates, Petersen,
et al.,2017; Hoyniak, Petersen, Bates, and Molfese, 2018; Perry, Dollar, Calkins, and Bell, 2017; Roy
et al., 2014). Such measures have not become standard yet. We expect to see further accumulation of
findings on biological measures of temperament and hope that more studies will be completed with
multiple biological measures of temperament, for the sake of conceptual organization and validation.
309
Studies of biological measures with multivariate designs and longitudinal follow-through would be
especially useful, as they would allow meaningful partitioning of variance and identification of trait-
like qualities. However, biomarkers may not always lend themselves to the kind of organizational
schemes that work with questionnaire and behavior observation measures, such as factorial dimen-
sions, because many multivariate studies have found that individual differences on multiple psycho-
physiological measures often do not covary in the same way across individuals (Fahrenberg, 1991).
We also recognize that we probably should not expect one-to-one correlations between behavioral
dimensions and psychophysiological ones.
As a final point of future methodology, we would emphasize replication. Initial discovery is
encouraging, but not sufficient. The present chapter has sought, as past reviews have, to recognize
patterns across studies. As patterns emerge with particular temperament and parenting measures in
combination to predict social development, and as the main effects and moderator effects are shown
to be robust across different measures of the constructs and different samples of children, theory will
advance. Replication can be facilitated by teams of developmental researchers organizing to run
the same study at multiple sites or comparing different longitudinal studies within the same paper
(Broidy et al., 2003; Davis-Kean et al., 2008).
Theory Directions
The chapter mentioned several developmental processes by which children’s temperament might
affect parenting and the reverse. It still seems plausible that constitutional characteristics of children
could influence parent emotional reactions (positive or negative), as well as reflective, tactical, and
strategic parenting eventually influencing child development. Parenting, in turn, can influence the
activation of child emotional reactions (positive or negative) as well as the cognitively based self-
regulatory development that ultimately affects children’s self-management of emotion and attention,
and thus social competencies. Given the prevalence of such process models in theoretical discussions
and good statistical models for testing mediation, we would expect to see more mediation studies
showing empirical examples of relevant mediation or cascades of associations involving tempera-
ment and parenting (Bates and Pettit, 2015). We have found three encouraging examples of studies
showing that parenting mediates the link between child temperament and adjustment (Harold et al.,
2013; van der Bruggen et al., 2010; van der Voort et al., 2013). We also found support for an alterna-
tive yet related mediation model in which child temperament mediates the link between parenting
and adjustment (Dix and Yan, 2014; Kopystynska et al., 2016; Pitzer et al., 2017). The numbers of
mediation studies in the area of parenting, temperament, and social development have been limited
perhaps by design issues (e.g., the use of measurement intervals not conducive to detecting mediation
processes), measurement issues (e.g., not assessing the right qualities of behavior or attitudes), statisti-
cal challenges in showing mediation effects (MacKinnon and Pirlott, 2015), or incorrect specifica-
tion of the theoretical models themselves, perhaps because the reciprocity of influences is essentially
simultaneous and cannot be disentangled by longitudinal and even finer-grained time series analyses.
Nevertheless, as the methodological and conceptual issues are resolved, we think it likely that pro-
gress will be made in richly and accurately describing mediation processes involving parenting and
child temperament in children’s social development.
Another, complementary theoretical direction is toward understanding nonlinear interactions
between temperament and parenting as predictors of social development. This has already become a
vigorous area of inquiry in the past 20 years.The methodological and conceptual challenges foresee-
able for growth in research on parenting X temperament interactions are as great as for productive
use of mediational models. There are so many possible ways in which multiple child and family fac-
tors could interact in shaping developmental outcomes that systematicity in selection of factors to
test, replications of findings, and theoretical models that can predict moderator effects in advance will
310
be crucial, and this is even more crucial when contemplating higher-order interaction effects, say
with a profile of two parenting traits in interaction with two child temperament traits.
As the numbers of studies of temperament X parenting interaction have grown, it has become
possible to focus theoretical attention upon the particular shape of temperament X parenting inter-
actions. The area can now start to classify the interaction effects. The leading classifications of effects
at this point include the time-honored standard pattern of diathesis-stress, such as when a vulner-
ability factor, including an adverse temperament trait, predicts a problem outcome more strongly for
children in a less-than-ideal parenting environment and more weakly for children in a more-ideal
parenting environment. Or from the complementary perspective, a less-than-ideal parenting envi-
ronment predicts worse development particularly for difficult children and less so for children with
less challenging temperaments. The second-most noted pattern is called differential susceptibility:
Here, the supposed risk trait predicts not only a stronger negative effect from non-ideal parenting
than shown by children without the risk trait, but also a stronger positive effect from more-ideal
parenting. Further progress in theoretical understanding of temperament X parenting effects will
be aided by the greater precision in description of development. This may also lead to the research
becoming increasingly useful in clinical and educational practice (Bates, 2012). The trend we see is
an accumulation of replicated findings delineating with increasing precision how specific tempera-
ment and parenting variables interact in particular ways. One kind of increase in precision, often
mentioned as a goal in methodologically sophisticated work but demonstrated relatively rarely in
studies of temperament and parenting, is a statistically and conceptually meaningful model of medi-
ated moderation, or moderated mediation. We found one such study in our present review of the
literature that showed evidence for moderated mediation. Kopystynska and colleagues (2016) found
that at high levels of maternal sensitivity, the effect of maternal gentle control on later academic
functioning was mediated by child effortful control. Although we did not find studies that explicitly
examined mediated moderation, we reviewed two studies (Laukkanen et al., 2014; Xing et al., 2017)
that tested possible processes by which temperament may affect parenting—through changes in
maternal well-being and anxiety, respectively. Such studies are a first step at empirically testing pos-
sible hypotheses about how and why a moderator variable, namely child temperament, may differen-
tially influence the link between parenting and adjustment. Ultimately, tests of mediated moderation
will lead to improved theoretical models.
Conclusions
Our overarching question has been how a developmental system representing both early-appear-
ing, relatively stable child temperament traits and relatively stable parenting traits might account
for children’s social development outcomes. Temperament and parenting constructs show evidence
of playing transactional roles in children’s social development. This conclusion builds on previous
advances that have established broadly meaningful dimensions of both temperament and parenting
and established that individual families’ scores on these dimensions predict child social developmental
outcomes.The conclusion also builds on newer work showing that dimensions of child temperament
influence parenting traits and vice versa and that temperament and parenting often interact with one
another in forecasting social development. The chapter highlighted longitudinal designs and those
with autoregressive controls to facilitate inferences of change of either temperament or parenting.
Several theoretically and practically useful findings have emerged. Longitudinal-correlational research
and experimental-interventional research show that child temperament and adjustment phenotypes
are influenced by parenting. For the most part, the influences are consistent with the positive versus
negative valence of the parenting, with positive parenting leading to less negative and more positive
child temperament traits, and negative parenting the reverse. Similarly, longitudinal findings show
that child temperament traits predict changes in parenting traits, even though there are not as many
311
such findings as for parenting predicting child temperament. Parallel to findings on the influence of
parenting on the child, for the most part, the changes in parenting are consistent with the valence of
the child temperament, with socially valued child traits, such as effortful control, predicting increased
supportiveness and reduced restrictiveness, or angry-frustrated temperament predicting increased
authoritarian parenting. Also emerging are patterns of statistical interactions between temperament
and parenting in accounting for child outcomes. In general, adverse temperament matters more for
the social development of children experiencing non-ideal parenting, or conversely, parenting mat-
ters more for children with adverse temperament. For example, positive parenting matters especially
for children high on negative emotionality traits. However, there are also a few interesting effects in
which children with fearful temperament appear to develop better when they receive more chal-
lenging, less supportive parenting. Finally, the chapter looked forward to advances in complexity of
mediator and moderator effects. Such future advances are wished for, not only because of their value
in building developmental theory, but also because of their value for improving the prevention and
treatment of childhood problems and promotion of positive social development.
Acknowledgments
Work on this chapter was facilitated by funding from the National Institute of Mental Health (Grant
Number MH099437) and the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and
Human Development (Grant Number HD073202). Caroline Hoyniak is supported by a Graduate
Research Fellowship from the National Science Foundation (Grant Number 1342962). Maureen
McQuillan was supported on training grants from the National Institute of Mental Health (Grant
Number T32 MH103213) and the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development
(Grant Number HD007475).
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10
PARENTING IN ADOPTIVE
FAMILIES
Introduction
Families in the twenty-first century are increasingly diverse, with respect to sociodemographics, fam-
ily structure, and parenting tasks, raising questions for social science researchers about variations in
parenting processes across different kinds of families. Adoptive families, historically a nontraditional
family system, are becoming increasingly common, and like families in general, more diverse. In this
chapter, we examine current challenges faced by adoptive parents and parenting processes that shape
children’s development and adjustment.
We begin with a discussion of contemporary trends in adoption practice, including new contex-
tual realities that help shape adoption practices, characteristics of children and parents united through
adoption, and pathways to adoptive family life. We then turn to examine common adoptive parenting
processes and common challenges across adoptive families, with a focus on adoption socialization—the
processes through which parents facilitate relationships, communicate about adoption, and promote
identity formation and adjustment in the adoptive family. Unique challenges and adoptive parenting
processes are discussed next, which include experiences faced by adoptive parents rearing children
amidst racial or cultural differences within the family, by sexual minority parents, and by parents rear-
ing children with special needs. In the final section of the paper, we consider how parenting processes
enable adoption to serve as a protective function and discuss adoption services as a critical support for
adoptive parenting. Because this chapter focuses on adoptive parenting processes, a detailed examina-
tion of research and theory on adoption adjustment is not presented; readers interested in this topic are
referred to Brodzinsky, Smith, and Brodzinsky (1998), Grotevant and McRoy (1998, 2012), and Groza
and Rosenberg (1998).
Adoption in the Twenty-First Century

Historically, the practice of adoption served quite different purposes than it does today (Herman,
2008; Sokoloff, 1993). Going back as far as antiquity and continuing until the late nineteenth century,
adoption was viewed primarily as a means of meeting the needs of adults (e.g., to ensure inheritance
lines; for religious purposes; to meet requirements for holding public office; to secure additional
labor for the family; to ensure maintenance and care in old age) as well as society (e.g., to strengthen
alliances between separate, and potentially, rival social groups) rather than the needs of children
(French, 2019). In the United States, prior to the 1850s, adoption existed only as an informal affair,
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Parenting in Adoptive Families
without legal recognition of the transfer of care and custody of children from one individual to
another (Sokoloff, 1993). Beginning in colonial times, children who were orphaned or abandoned
were often placed with relatives or indentured to families to live, work, and learn a skill or craft. In
the early 1800s, overcrowded conditions and growing poverty in large eastern cities resulted in the
rise of orphan asylums, which typically were cold, inhumane institutions where children’s emotional
needs were inadequately met. As a response to the conditions in these orphanages, Charles Loring
Brace, the founder of New York Children’s Aid Society, began sending children westward on “orphan
trains,” where unfortunately they often were exploited as cheap labor by families who were inade-
quately screened for their motives and suitability to rear these children. In 1851, Massachusetts passed
the first adoption statute, which set forth the conditions for adopting a child. Thereafter, many states
passed similar legislation, although it was not until 1929 that all states had statutes providing some
form of judicial supervision regarding adoption. The development of adoption law (Bussiere, 1998)
and the rise of the modern adoption agency system beginning in the early 1900s led to a gradual and
important shift in the philosophy of adoption practice.The new focus centered on the “best interests
of the child” (Goldstein, Freud, and Solnit, 1973) and, thus, the needs of children for families.
As we move to discuss new contextual realities in adoption, we take this opportunity to introduce
the terms we will use regarding adoptive parents and children’s cultural backgrounds, as well as par-
enting processes related to cultural backgrounds. In this chapter, we use the terms race and ethnic-
ity to refer to individuals’ backgrounds and transracial and transethnic to refer to adoptive families
who adopt across race or ethnicity, respectively. Although race is no longer considered a biological
construct (Yudell, Roberts, DeSalle, and Tishkoff, 2016), as a social construct race continues to be
an important way to understand individuals’ experiences (Frankenberg, 1993; Takaki, 2008). Many
individuals are subjected to racialized experiences based on their phenotypic expression (Sue, 2010)
that may be noticeable based on their background (e.g., Asian, African descent). Although these bias
experiences must be navigated by all people of color, families rearing adoptees across race face par-
ticular challenges as the differences are linked to adoption. For example,White adoptive parents rear-
ing a child adopted from Russia and White adoptive parents rearing a child adopted from Ethiopia
are both adopting across ethnic groups. However, the issues of stigma that the latter families face are
more complicated, given the phenotypic differences within the families; using the term transracial
signals these differences within those adoptive families.When referring to characteristics or processes
that might be racial and/or ethnic, we will use the term ethnic-racial.
New Contextual Realities That Shape Adoptive Processes

With evolving societal mores through the latter decades of the twentieth century and the first two
decades of the current century, new public laws and shifting public opinions have facilitated shifts in
adoption practice. The earliest shifts, increasing acceptance of single parenthood in the mid to late
1900s and the development of family support programs, coupled with legalization of abortion and
ready availability of contraception, resulted in a dramatic decrease in the number of healthy White
infants available for adoption. This decrease led parents to consider other options, including domes-
tic transracial or transethnic adoption. Typically practiced by European American parents adopting
children of color, these placements dramatically declined after 1972 because of opposition from the
African American and Native American communities (National Association of Black Social Workers,
1972; Papke, 2013). Twenty years later, the passage of the Multi-Ethnic Placement Act of 1994 and
Interethnic Placement Act of 1996 enabled increases in transracial and transethnic placements, par-
ticularly of children from foster care (K. Bernard, Frost, and Kuzava, 2019). However, these laws did
not require pre-adoptive training or preparation to assist parents seeking to parent children of a dif-
ferent race or ethnicity. Placements of children from foster care grew quickly following the passage of
the Adoption Assistance and Child Welfare Act of 1980, which targeted finding nurturing permanent
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homes for children languishing in foster care. Most of these children were identified as having special
needs—children whose history and personal characteristics (e.g., older age at placement, being a child
of color, exposure to abuse and/or neglect, chronic medical, mental and/or psychological problems,
or being members of a sibling group) had previously been seen as barriers to adoption. An important
provision of this law was financial support—in the form of adoption subsidies for families who could
not otherwise afford to rear an adopted child, and special needs subsidies to enable families adopt-
ing a child with chronic medical or mental health needs to access critical services. Pre- and post-
placement services, which focused on preparing and supporting the child and the family to unite
as a new adoptive family, often terminated with legalization of the placement. Subsequent federal
laws reaffirmed this commitment to permanency planning and to supporting adoptive families with
financial subsidies (e.g., Adoption and Safe Families Act of 1997, Keeping Children and Families Safe
Act of 2003, Adoption Promotion Act of 2003, and Fostering Connections to Success and Increasing
Adoptions Act of 2008).
Alongside the changes in domestic adoption, intercountry adoption in the United States and
around the world began to increase. Placements typically involved children from countries includ-
ing China, Russia, Korea, Ukraine, Guatemala, and Ethiopia with families in Western, industrialized
countries, including the United States, Netherlands, Spain, and Italy (Selman, 2009, 2012). The rea-
sons that sending countries choose to place their children for adoption via intercountry arrange-
ments have been complex and controversial (Bartholet and Smolin, 2012; Fuentes, Boechat, and
Northcott, 2012). With increasing international concern about a lack of regulation of intercountry
adoptions and unethical practices, notably whether children were really orphans, kidnapping, and/
or selling of babies, The Hague Convention on the Protection of Children and Cooperation in
Respect of Intercountry Adoption (The Hague Convention) was issued in 1993. Each country was
urged to pass its own laws to ratify the convention that established a uniform set of principles and
safeguards for the protection of children, birth parents, and adoptive parents in the transfer of children
for adoption. Passage of the Intercountry Adoption Act of 2000 provided for the implementation of
The Hague Convention in the United States, ensuring more consistency in the services delivered for
and procedures followed in intercountry adoptions. The United States ratified The Hague Conven-
tion in 2007, joining approximately 60 other countries that had already ratified it. At the zenith of
intercountry adoptions in 2004, families in the United States adopted 22,884 children from other
countries (Selman, 2009). Since then, placements have steadily declined, to a low of 5,648 in 2015
(US State Dept, 2016). The United States is not only a receiving country, but also a sending country.
Since 2004, over 1,400 U.S.-born children have been placed in countries such as Canada and the
Netherlands (Selman, 2012). Official U.S. State Department reports list considerably fewer children,
totaling approximately 600, who have been placed outside the United States (U.S. State Dept., 2016).
This discrepancy is likely due to the private placements that birth parents—increasingly African
American—can arrange that may not be reported to the government (Groza and Bunkers, 2014).
The reasons that U.S.-born children are placed outside the United States reflect some evolving con-
textual realities, including the use of the Internet to facilitate private placements and birth parent
choice of adoptive parents, that have shaped adoption.
A critical new family resource for children in need of permanent loving families are sexual
minority adults and couples (Gates, Badgett, Macomber, and Chambers, 2007). There has been con-
siderable controversy regarding parenting and adoption by lesbians and gay men (Patterson, 2019).
Critics have argued that children need both a mother and father to develop normally, that sexual
minority adults are unfit parents, and that children reared by these adults would be at greater risk for
psychological problems (Regnerus, 2012; Wardle, 1997). Because of these concerns, many adoption
agencies in the past refused to place children with gay men and lesbians (Brodzinsky, 2012). Despite
these concerns and barriers, it has become increasingly common for sexual minority adults to adopt
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children, especially as policies, regulations, and laws preventing or discouraging them from adopting
have been overturned (Appell, 2012; Pertman and Howard, 2012). Joint adoption by same-sex cou-
ples is legal throughout the United States and in 25 other countries (Carroll, 2017). Data from Cen-
sus 2000 and the National Survey of Family Growth suggest that at least 65,000 adopted children,
or 4% of all adopted children in the United States, are being reared by sexual minority adults (Gates,
Badgett, Macomber, and Chambers, 2007). Since 2000, the number of adoptions by sexual minority
couples has doubled, and they are now four times more likely than different-sex couples to adopt
children (Gates, 2013).They are also more likely to adopt racial minority children and older children
from foster care than are heterosexual adoptive parents (Brodzinsky, 2011b; Goldberg, Downing, and
Richardson, 2009; Goldberg and Smith, 2009).
The Internet is rife with adoption-related resources and possibilities for making connections.
Aside from web pages featuring agency services and adoption statistics, one can access chat rooms
and list servers that offer opportunities for dialogue about adoption. Numerous adoption blogs
feature personal experiences with adoption. Prospective parents can share information about pre-
adoption processes with different agencies and countries. Adoptive parents rearing children adopted
from a specific country or children with certain special needs can share resources. A YouTube explo-
ration reveals a variety of videos about adoption; for example, adopted persons share their reflections
on their experiences in hopes of educating others; sexual minority adults recount the stigma they
received as they sought to adopt a child; and news anchors debate about whether same-sex couples
should be allowed to adopt. In short, the Internet offers unlimited opportunities to access informa-
tion about adoption. Some sites vet or screen the information shared for accuracy, whereas other
sites provide little oversight. These realities must be navigated by anyone seeking information about
adoption.
The Internet facilitates connections that lead to adoption. In recognition that birth parents now
are empowered to select their child’s adoptive parents, some prospective parents post videos on
YouTube and other sites that feature their stories, marketing themselves to birth parents or preg-
nant women considering making an adoption plan. Moreover, adoption agencies provide advice to
prospective parents about how to create a compelling adoption video. The Internet also facilitates
connections that lead to a reunion of birth parent and adoptee. Historically, search and reunion were
often facilitated by adoption search professionals who knew how to discreetly find information.
With the Internet, adoptees, adoptive parents, or birth parents can search on their own, often aided
by suggestions or guidelines provided online by adoption organizations. Unassisted searches also take
place, made possible through Facebook and other social media outlets (Black, Moyer, and Goldberg,
2016). In short, the Internet has such reach and offers such search possibilities that adoptive parents,
adoptees, and birth parents need to be prepared for the possibility of contact, even when not initially
planned (Howard, 2012). In addition to the possibility of unsolicited contact, Howard (2012) offers
cautions about other risks associated with the Internet, such as misleading information, insensitive
treatment, and the possibility of fraud or other unethical activities.
Another activity made possible with the Internet is surveying large numbers of adoptive parents
and adopted persons. As a result, web-based studies of adoptive parent and adopted persons have
burgeoned—especially adolescents and adults. Unfortunately, few studies target birth parents (see
Brodzinsky and Smith, 2014; Grotevant, McRoy, Wrobel, and Ayers-Lopez, 2013, as exceptions),
leaving a gap in the field’s understanding of their experiences and, in particular among birth parents
in contact with adoptive families, of their perceptions of adoption.
In summary, evolving social mores, shifting public opinion, passage of several federal laws and
an international treaty, as well as the explosion of social media have combined to facilitate shifts
in adoption practices. These changes—all occurring in the last 50 years—have contributed to new
complexities in adoption processes.
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Current Variations in and Patterns of Adoption

Adoption in today’s world represents different pathways to family status that mirror the diversity in
our world. Children are adopted at any age from birth through late adolescence. As the diversity in
the world has become increasingly recognized and valued, adoptive parents have become increas-
ingly diverse with respect to age, ethnic-racial background, religious background, sexual majority or
minority status, marital status, and socioeconomic status.
Pathways to adoption are varied and include private domestic placements, placements from foster
care, and intercountry adoptions. Private domestic placements include arrangements mediated by an
adoption agency or lawyer, stepparent, or other relative and placements within Indigenous Tribes.
Placement from foster care is sometimes made possible through voluntary relinquishment of a child
by a parent to the child welfare system, but more often follows involuntary termination of parental
rights after a child has been removed from a parent’s custody for cause. Intercountry adoption is
facilitated through adoption from sending countries to receiving countries. Sending countries are
those that have not been able or have not chosen to provide domestic opportunities for children in
need of homes. Receiving countries include those that make it possible for their citizens to adopt
from outside the country. This chapter focuses on domestic adoptions (excluding those involving
stepparent and other relative adoptions, as well as adoptions within Tribal communities), adoptions
from foster care, and intercountry adoptions.
Aggregating reliable statistics about these three pathways is challenging, due to different reporting
mechanisms and structures for each pathway. Generally, more reliable information is available about
placements from foster care and intercountry adoptions. A nationally representative survey covered a
time span from approximately 1990–2007 found that private domestic placements (excluding step-
parent adoptions) accounted for 38% (677,000), placements from foster care were 37% (661,000),
and intercountry placements were 25% (444,000) of all adoptive families (Vandivere et al., 2009).
Because of increases in adoptions from foster care and decreases in intercountry placements, cur-
rently, adoptions from foster care are the predominant type of placement today. Although adoptive
families face common challenges, each pathway presents unique challenges for adoptive parenting.
These will be discussed in detail below.
Mirroring the increased diversity in the United States, the characteristics of adopted children
vary substantially. The population of adopted children in the United States is more racially and eth-
nically diverse than the overall population of children in the United States. In 2009, non-Hispanic
White adoptees represented 37% of all adoptees, whereas non-Hispanic Black adoptees were 23%,
and Hispanic and Asian adoptees each were 15% (terms used in Vandivere et al., 2009). Adoptees
meeting “Other” characteristics (for example, two or more races) were 9%. Within the adoptee
population, children differ in their race/ethnicity according to the pathway through which they were
placed, and these demographics change over time. In 2015, 53,459 children were adopted from foster
care, almost two-thirds by non-relatives. Among children adopted from foster care, 48% were non-
Hispanic White, 22% were Hispanic, 18% were Black, and 8% were Multiracial (the remaining 3%
were American Indian/Alaskan Native, Asian, or unknown.) Also in 2015, 5,648 children found
homes through intercountry adoption; 57% were from Asian and South Asian countries, 23% were
from countries in Africa or of predominantly African descent; 13% were from European countries,
and 6% were from Central and South American countries. The top five sending countries to the
United States were China, Ethiopia, South Korea, Ukraine, and Uganda. Adopted children tend
to be older than the United States population of children (Vandivere et al., 2009), largely because
many adoptees are adopted after age 2. Adoption pathway again accounts for some variation in age:
the largest percentage of adoptees over age 5 are children adopted from foster care, followed by
intercountry adoptees and children placed domestically. Children adopted from foster care have the
326
broadest age range: Among the children who left foster care for adoption in 2015, 48% were under
age 5, 42% were ages 5–12, and 9% were ages 13–17 (U.S. Department of Health and Human Ser-
vices, Administration for Children and Families, Administration on Children, Youth, and Families,
and Children’s Bureau, 2016). In summary, adopted children are diverse in their race/ethnicity, tend
to be older than the general population, and within-group variation is linked to adoption pathway.
Adoptive parents in the twenty-first century are also increasingly diverse, but less diverse than
adoptees. Although most adoptive parents are White (73%), their ethnic-racial and socioeconomic
characteristics vary across adoption pathway (Vandivere et al., 2009). In 2009, among domestic U.S.
private placements, 71% of parents were White, 19% Black, and 7% Hispanic. Adoptions from foster
care were slightly more diverse: 63% of parents were White, 27% Black, and 5% Hispanic. Families
adopting from foster care also are more economically diverse. Almost all (92%) of intercountry adop-
tions are by White parents; Black and Hispanic parents account for 8%. Because these placements
require more financial investment, virtually all families are middle to upper income. Thus, sociode-
mographic differences in parents’ characteristics across these three pathways reflect differences in
resources and access to adoption opportunities and services. Black and Hispanic families, particularly
those with modest incomes, are largely accessing the foster care system for adoption. Since 1970,
sexual minority parents have been adopting in increasing numbers (Gates, Badgett, Macomber, and
Chambers, 2007).
Adoptive parents generally have similar goals in seeking to adopt—they want to provide a child
a home and to expand their family (Malm and Welti, 2010). However, there are some differences
in families’ motivations linked to the adoption pathway that families choose. Families choosing pri-
vate domestic adoption are more likely to cite infertility as one reason for adopting and are more
likely to want an infant and a healthy child. Parents adopting through foster care are more likely to
seek to provide a child a home and find foster care a more realistic option financially, as well as the
quickest pathway for adoption. Parents adopting internationally also seek to provide a child a home,
view domestic adoption as too difficult, and often seek to have an adoption with no contact with
birth parents (Malm and Welti, 2010; Pinderhughes, Matthews, Deoudes, and Pertman, 2013). Given
that parents adopting through different pathways may have different motivations, it may be helpful
to understand whether these motivations are linked in different ways to challenges that adoptive
families experience. Further research may shed light on parents’ motivations to adopt and adoption
challenges.
Current adoptive practice also signals a dramatic shift from closed adoptions, where there was no
contact between birth and adoptive parents, to placements that are more open, providing a more
empowered role for birth parents. In dramatic contrast to adoption of the mid-1900s, when birth
parents secretly placed their infants for adoption—often under duress—with an unknown couple,
birth parents today often actively participate in making an adoption plan, including selecting the
adoptive parents. Very often, adoption plans include contact with the adoptive parents, only during
the transfer of the infant or following placement of the child (Grotevant and McRoy, 1998).
Whereas adoption up through the late 1900s was largely characterized by placement of healthy
children, an increasing trend in adoption is the placement of children with adverse backgrounds (e.g.,
prenatal complications, postnatal neglect and abuse) and identifiable special needs (Pinderhughes
et al., 2013). Although adoption professionals seek to provide parents with comprehensive informa-
tion about children’s pre-placement histories and implications for their functioning in their new
homes (Brodzinsky, 2008; Smith, 2010), parents find themselves challenged, and sometimes poorly
prepared, to support their adopted children’s needs. The number of families rearing adoptees with
disabilities is increasing, largely due to adoptions from foster care and intercountry placements. An
increase in the number of adoptions from foster care has led to increases in the number of fami-
lies with children who have special needs. As fewer countries send healthy infants for intercountry
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adoption, the proportion of available children who have disabilities has increased. We discuss the
nature of these special needs in detail later in the chapter.
Increased Emphasis on Importance of Post-Adoption Services

With the increased variation and patterns of adoptions has come increased awareness about the
opportunities and challenges of adoption. Such evolving awareness has fueled greater attention on
providing post-placement services. In fact, post-placement services historically were limited to the
period immediately after placement and before the adoption was legalized, a period that could vary
from several weeks, as in the case of an infant placement, to years, as with adoptions from foster care.
Adoptive families today, united through various pathways and facing common and specific chal-
lenges, have need for more nuanced post-placement services. Some families face challenges incorpo-
rating into their homes and rearing children from foster care or institutions who have experienced
various types of pre-adoption adversity, including trauma, neglect, and/or multiple separations.Tran-
sracial and transethnic families face challenges supporting the healthy identity development of adop-
tees. Most importantly, adoptive families need available adoption-competent post-placement services
throughout the child’s development (Brodzinsky, 2013; Dhami, Mandel, and Sothmann, 2007; Wind,
Brooks, and Barth, 2007). As we discuss in more detail later in the chapter, these services now include
education and information, support, clinical, and other specialized services.
In summary, new contextual realities, such as social media and changes in public opinion, along
with changes in formal and informal adoption practices, highlight various complexities in adoption
that include common and unique challenges for adoptive families (Pinderhughes, Matthews, and
Zhang, 2015). All adoptive families face some common challenges associated with adoption, includ-
ing navigating the transition to adoptive family life and dealing with loss—for the adoptee, loss of the
birth family, and if parents adopt due to infertility, their loss of the possibility of having a biological
child. Adoptive parents face the tasks of facilitating communication about the child’s adoption story
and managing whatever contact there is with birth family (Grotevant et al., 2007;Wrobel, Grotevant,
Berge, Mendenhall, and McRoy, 2003), together with the goal of supporting the adoptee in develop-
ing a positive sense of self as an adopted person (Grotevant, Dunbar, Kohler, and Esau, 2000).
Depending on the pathway to adoption and adoptees’ or adoptive parents’ characteristics, certain
adoptive families also face unique challenges. Families rearing children amidst cultural differences—
racial or ethnic differences within the family—face the added task of helping their adoptees develop
a healthy identity given their race and ethnicity. Parents of children who have disabilities must pro-
vide support to enable adoptees to have as optimal development as possible. Sexual minority parents
navigate external views about and possible barriers to their being adoptive parents. These common
and unique challenges for adoptive parents are addressed next.
Adoption Socialization: Normative Adoptive Parenting

Processes and Challenges
Whether adopting a newborn infant, an older child from foster care, or a child placed from another
country, adoptive parents encounter a variety of tasks and responsibilities in rearing their children,
over and above those usually encountered by non-adoptive parents (Brodzinsky and Pinderhughes,
2002). These tasks are part of adoption socialization, a process by which parents introduce adoption
information and experiences into the family in such a way as to promote healthy identity and psy-
chological adjustment in their children and the family as a whole. Among the many facets of adop-
tion socialization are deciding what type of child to adopt and from where; integrating the child into
the family, promoting parent–child attachments (Cummings and Warmuth, 2019); sharing adoption
information with the child, supporting curiosity about the child’s origins, and helping the child cope
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with adoption-related loss; promoting a positive view of the child’s birth heritage, supporting positive
self-esteem, and helping the child integrate being adopted into a healthy and secure identity; and, in
an increasing number of families, managing contact and relationships with members of the child’s
birth family (Brodzinsky and Pinderhughes, 2002). These aspects of adoption socialization are com-
mon to all adoptive families; others are unique to specific types of adoptive families.
Like all families, those formed through adoption transit various life cycle stages in which adop-
tion issues are impacted by social, emotional, and cognitive developmental changes in their children,
as well as by parental attitudes, beliefs, values, and expectations about the children themselves and
their experiences of adoptive family life. Addressing adoption issues can be challenging for adoptive
parents, sometimes creating uncertainty about the options available to them. As a result, adoptive
parents often benefit from guidance and support from adoption and mental health professionals as
adoptive families move from one family life cycle stage to another (Brodzinsky, 2008; Smith, 2010).
Becoming an Adoptive Parent: Parenting Adopted Infants

Although people adopt for many reasons, infertility continues to be a primary motive for becoming
an adoptive parent (Malm and Welti, 2010). Infertile couples often face years of medical testing and
treatment in their struggle to conceive a child as well as emotional pain associated with the loss of
their long-desired biological offspring (Burns, 2007; Harris, 2013). Unresolved infertility-related loss
is an important factor in the emotional life of adoptive parents and has been linked by mental health
professionals to difficulties in successful adoption socialization, especially sharing adoption informa-
tion with children, acknowledging and validating children’s loss, and supporting children’s curiosity
about and connections with their birth heritage (Brinich, 1990; Brodzinsky, 1997).
The transition to parenthood can be challenging for any parent as they take on new roles and
responsibilities and encounter unforeseen stressors and violated expectations (Ryan and Padilla,
2019). Adoptive parents also experience unique stressors as they navigate their way toward parent-
hood (Brodzinsky and Huffman, 1988; Goldberg, Kinkler, Moyer, and Weber, 2014; Goldberg, Smith,
and Kashy, 2010; Moyer and Goldberg, 2017). Becoming an adoptive parent involves a complicated
process of decision-making about the type of child to adopt (e.g., infant or older child, boy or girl,
healthy child or one with a disability, or child of the same or different race or ethnicity), the type of
adoption to pursue (domestic infant placement, domestic child welfare placement, or intercountry
placement), and whether contact with birth family is desired. Because of the lack of cultural norms
for many of these decisions, adoptive parents often find that their primary support systems (e.g.,
parents, siblings, extended family, and friends) do not understand what they are going through and/
or question some of the decisions they make. Adoptive parents also require the approval of others
before they can become parents. They must apply to an adoption agency or seek the help of an
independent adoption practitioner (e.g., a lawyer), undergo an in-depth and often stressful evalua-
tion called a home study, and then wait for an uncertain period before a child is placed with them;
even after placement, they must wait still longer for the court to finalize the adoption. In addition,
for fost-adopt parents (i.e., foster parents who make the commitment to adopt the child in their
care, should the biological parents’ rights be terminated), there is added stress regarding the legal
uncertainty of whether the child will be freed for adoption. Because of these stressors, many adop-
tive parents report feeling uncertain, anxious, helpless, powerless, and depressed as they transition to
adoptive parenthood.
Adapting to unmet expectations can also be quite stressful for adoptive parents (Goldberg et al.,
2010; Moyer and Goldberg, 2017).Troublesome child characteristics that were unforeseen or misun-
derstood (e.g., difficult temperament, attachment problems), unrealistic views regarding the demands
of parenting a special needs child, post-placement changes in the couple’s relationship (e.g., less inti-
macy), coping with birth family contact, inadequate support from others, and problems encountered
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in working with adoption professionals can be challenging for adoptive parents, making the transi-
tion to parenthood even more stressful than anticipated. Post-adoption depression is not uncom-
mon among adoptive parents, at rates (e.g., 10–15%) comparable to postpartum depression among
biological parents (Foli, South, and Lim, 2012; Foli, South, Lim, and Jarnecke, 2016; Mott, Schiller,
Richards, O’Hara, and Stuart, 2011). Post-adoption depression usually is linked to unfulfilled and
unrealistic expectations related to self, child, and family, as well as unmet support needs (Foli, 2010;
Foli et al., 2012).
Despite these additional stressors, most adults make the transition to adoptive parenthood reason-
ably well. A number of factors help buffer adoptive parents from these unique stressors (Brodzinsky
and Huffman, 1988; Goldberg et al., 2010). For example, compared to non-adoptive parents, those
who adopt children typically are older when they first become parents and have been married longer.
They also report high levels of marital satisfaction and relationship quality, at times even higher than
non-adoptive parents (Calvo, Palmieri, Codamo, Scampoli, and Bianco, 2015; Leve, Scaramella, and
Fagot, 2001; Pace, Di Folco, Guerriero, Santona, and Terrone, 2015) as well as less internalized adult
attachment insecurity (e.g., low anxiety or avoidance; low idealization or derogation; Calvo et al.,
2015; Pace et al., 2015). In addition, they are usually more settled in their careers and more finan-
cially stable. Furthermore, individuals and couples presumably at the greatest risk for succumbing
to the challenges of adoptive parenthood (e.g., those with significant mental health problems and/
or serious marital difficulties) are likely to be screened out for adoptive placement during the home
study process because of concerns about the risk for neglect, abuse, or a disrupted placement. When
adoptive parents experience strong support from others, it significantly reduces stress during the tran-
sition to parenthood (Bird, Peterson, and Miller, 2002). Finally, most adoptive parents receive some
pre- and post-placement preparation, education, and support from agencies during the transition to
parenthood, which can be extremely beneficial in helping families develop appropriate knowledge,
expectations, and skills that facilitate integrating a child into the family, especially one with special
needs (Brodzinsky, 2008; Smith, 2010).
Once a child has been placed for adoption, parents begin the process of creating a caregiving
environment that promotes a healthy and stable parent–child attachment. Generally, adoptive and
non-adoptive mothers and their infants are comparably responsive in their interactions (Suwalsky
et al., 2012; Suwalsky, Hendricks, and Bornstein, 2008a), despite findings that non-adopted infants
are more alert and explore more (Suwalsky et al., 2008a; Suwalsky, Hendricks, and Bornstein, 2008b)
Importantly, the earlier a child is adopted, the greater the chances of facilitating a secure attach-
ment. A meta-analysis of attachment studies in Europe, Australia, and the United States found that
children placed before 12 months of age were as securely attached as their non-adopted peers; in
contrast, those adopted after 12 months showed less attachment security (van den Dries, Juffer, van
IJzendoorn, and Bakermans-Kranenburg, 2009). However, researchers have also reported a higher
rate of disorganized attachment in some early-placed adopted children compared to non-adopted
peers, which is believed to be due to the impact of maltreatment, deprivation, and neglect during the
infant’s first weeks and months of life (Lionetti, 2014; van den Dries et al., 2009). Finally, in a sample
of Italian adoptive families, secure attachment in adopted infants is facilitated when mothers have a
secure attachment state of mind; maternal attachment security is also protective against disorganized
attachment in adopted infants (Lionetti, 2014).We discuss impact of early experiences on late-placed
adopted children later in the chapter.
Parenting Adopted Toddlers and Preschoolers

The emergence of language and symbolic thought during the toddler and preschool years provides
a foundation for parents’ initial efforts to share the story of adoption with their child (Brodzinsky,
2011a), often referred to as “adoption entrance narratives.” These narratives are the means by which
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parents promote the construction and maintenance of family relationships (Galvin and Colaner,
2013; Hays, Horstman, Colaner, and Nelson, 2016; Kranstuber and Kellas, 2011). They support chil-
dren’s efforts to make sense of and represent the adoption experience in their emerging sense of
self and family. Sometimes this process begins with a spontaneous question from the child about birth
and reproduction (e.g., “Where do babies come from?”; “Did I grow in your tummy?”); in transracial
and transethnic adoptive families, it may be in response to the child’s developing awareness of ethnic-
racial differences, both within and outside of the family (Juffer and Tieman, 2009); and in still other
cases, it begins with parents reading adoption books to the child as a way of introducing the topic
into family conversations.
Regardless of how the process begins, talking with children about adoption often creates dis-
comfort among adoptive parents (Barbosa-Ducharne and Soares, 2016). Whereas previously the goal
of adoption socialization was integrating the child into the family and fostering secure attachments,
now parents are tasked with the responsibility of acknowledging to the child that they are connected
to two families—one that gave them life and one that is rearing them. This process of “family differ-
entiation” sometimes creates confusion for parents regarding what information to share and when to
share it, as well as worry that children will be distressed by their new reality or that the parent–child
attachment will become less secure (Brodzinsky, 2011a). Unresolved feelings regarding infertility can
add to a parent’s anxiety about sharing adoption information (Brodzinsky, 1997), leading parents to
procrastinate and delay in beginning the telling process. Unresolved feelings can also result in parents
adopting a “rejection-of-difference” attitude regarding adoptive versus non-adoptive parenthood
(Kirk, 1964). In such circumstances, parents tend to dismiss inherent differences of forming a fam-
ily through adoption compared to procreation, as well as minimize the unique socialization issues
confronting their children and themselves. Such an attitude can compromise parents’ ability to share
adoption information in a realistic, transparent, timely, and supportive manner, as well as their ability
to help their children understand and cope with adoption-related loss. In contrast, parents who adopt
an “acknowledgement-of-difference” approach to adoption are better able to validate and normalize
the unique socialization issues confronting family members and support their children in navigating
their understanding of and adjustment to being adopted (Brodzinsky, 1987, 2011a; Kirk, 1964).
Preschool children generally have considerable interest in their adoption story, as well as positive
feelings about being adopted (Brodzinsky, Singer, and Braff, 1984; Juffer and Tieman, 2009).They are
especially interested in hearing their parents share the story of their adoption and seeing photographs
taken during the adoption process (Juffer and Tieman, 2009). As the telling process unfolds, children
readily label themselves as having been adopted and learn their adoption story. But their abilities to
comprehend adoption and understand its broader implications are still very limited. Such cognitive
limitations can be confusing for parents who often overestimate what their children comprehend
when parents hear children use adoption language or repeat some version of their adoption story.
Research by Brodzinsky and his colleagues (Brodzinsky et al., 1984; Brodzinsky, Schechter, Braff, and
Brodzinsky, 1986) showed that for infant-placed children, it is not until 5–7 years of age that most
boys and girls begin to clearly differentiate between birth and adoption as alternative ways of enter-
ing a family or begin to experience a sense of loss from being separated from birth family or a sense
of marginality associated with adoption-related stigma. It is this growing awareness of the meaning
and implications of being adopted that sets the stage for the emergence of adoption-related adjust-
ment problems (Brodzinsky, 2011a; Brodzinsky and Pinderhughes, 2002).
Parenting the School-Age Adopted Child

The school-age years are a time of rapid cognitive and social cognitive growth. Children’s ability
to analyze life circumstances, alternative problem solutions, social situations, others’ points of view,
as well as their own views deepens and become more complex during this developmental period
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(Collins and Madsen, 2019). Furthermore, these cognitive and social cognitive changes pave the way
for adopted children to more fully understand the meaning and implications of the adoption narra-
tive being shared by their parents (Brodzinsky, 2011a; Brodzinsky et al., 1984; Brodzinsky et al., 1986;
Sherrill and Pinderhughes, 1999).
The vast majority of children during middle childhood show considerable interest in their back-
ground and the circumstances of their adoption, especially when they have been placed transracially
and from another country (Juffer and Tieman, 2009). Children’s emerging cognitive abilities allow
them to imagine possible alternatives confronted by their birth parents, leading them to wonder why
they had to be adopted, and, given that they were, what it means about their birth parents and them-
selves. As a result, the adoption story that was previously received in an unquestioning and positive
manner now is viewed with more nuance, complexity, and emotional confusion. “If she didn’t know
how to be a good mother, why didn’t she ask someone to teach her so that she could keep me . . . it just seems
that she could have learned and then maybe she could have kept me” (Joshua, a 9-year-old boy adopted from
Russia); “My parents told me that she was too young to take care of me . . . and she wanted me to have a good
family . . . but I sometimes think that she just didn’t want me . . . didn’t want to bother with me . . . that I was
too much trouble” (Lila, 10 year old girl adopted from Guatemala). For both Joshua and Lila, develop-
ment has resulted in new ways of thinking about their adoption and the reasons why they were not
kept by the birth family.
The emergence of logical thinking also sensitizes children to the fact that they not only have
gained a family through adoption, but have lost one as well. Loss is a central issue for adopted indi-
viduals and much more complicated than is often realized (Brodzinsky, 2011a). Children in closed
adoptions lose connection with their birth parents and birth siblings and extended birth family. Many
lose connections with previous non-biological caregivers and supports, such as foster parents, foster
siblings, friends, teachers, coaches, orphanage staff, and others. The loss of early caregivers, whether
biological parents or others, also means the loss of a “meaning-maker” who can provide the informa-
tion necessary for children to understand their early life experiences and how they have been shaped
by them. In addition, children sometimes experience status loss associated with adoption-related
stigma, which is frequently experienced as microaggressions from others (Garber and Grotevant,
2015). Furthermore, when there are obvious dissimilarities between children and other family mem-
bers in physical appearance (such as in transracial and transethnic adoptions), personality traits, or
abilities, children may feel as if they do not “fit in” the family. For those placed across racial, ethnic,
and cultural lines, there is also growing awareness of the loss of racial, ethnic, cultural, and sometimes
linguistic connections. Finally, for many adopted individuals, there is a sense that part of the self has
been lost, which can compromise identity development (Grotevant, 1997).
As children develop a more nuanced view of adoption, they often begin to feel ambivalence about
their life circumstances. Parents need to understand that the shift from a generally positive view of
adoption during the preschool years to a more complex and ambivalent view during the school-age
years is a very normal process. It represents neither a failure of parenting nor an indication of emo-
tional problems in the child. Rather, in most cases, children’s ambivalence reflects a grief reaction that
emerges in response to adoption-related loss. For many children, grief is subtle and only manifested
in slight shifts in attitudes and feelings about being adopted. In such cases, unless children have been
forthcoming with their feelings, parents may not even realize that they are experiencing confusion,
sadness, or other negative feelings about their adoption. For other children, especially those placed
at older ages who have been separated from previous attachment figures, grief is much more acute
and obvious.
One of the critical tasks for adoptive parents during this period is to create a caregiving envi-
ronment that supports children’s growing curiosity about their origins, reinforces a respectful view
of the birth family and their heritage, maintains open communication about adoption issues, vali-
dates and normalizes children’s reactions to adoption, and supports their grief work as they navigate
332
through this process (Brodzinsky, 2011a). The ability to meet these challenges requires that parents
recognize the inherent differences in rearing an adopted child compared to one that was born into
the family and are open to listening to and respecting their child’s point of view about their adoption
experience, which can be quite different from their own.
In summary, the middle childhood phase of the family life cycle presents parents with a number
of challenges in relation to adoption socialization. Of greatest importance is the need to facilitate
openness in adoption communication within the family and to guard against creating a rigid, imper-
meable psychological barrier between the adoptive and biological families, which can present the
child with a dilemma of divided loyalties. Although most parents appear quite successful in handling
these socialization tasks, some are not. It is in the latter case that we are more likely to observe serious
problems in children’s adoption adjustment.
Parenting the Adopted Adolescent

Adolescence brings with it a host of developmental changes that have important implications for
all family members as teenagers and their parents continue to cope with issues related to adop-
tion (Soenens, Vansteenkiste, and Beyers, 2019). The emergence of abstract thinking allows adopted
individuals to understand their unique family status in deeper and more complex ways, including
the biological, sexual, relational, sociocultural, and legal implications of adoption (Brodzinsky, 2012;
Brodzinsky et al., 1984). They have a more realistic and perhaps a more empathic understanding
of the circumstances confronting their birth parents, as well as recognition of the societal role of
adoption in meeting the needs of neglected, maltreated, and abandoned children. In addition, their
increasing awareness of the perceptions, attitudes, and values of others sensitizes them to the fact that
many people see adoption as a “second-best” route to parenthood and do not necessarily envy them
for their adoptive family status. In short, the complexity with which adopted teenagers are able to
understand adoption informs their emerging sense of self.
Developing an adoptive identity revolves around a number of questions, some global and others
quite specific (Grotevant, 1997; Grotevant and Von Korff, 2011): “Who am I as an adopted per-
son? What does being adopted mean to me? How does being adopted fit into my understanding
of self, relationships, family, and culture? Who are my birth parents and why didn’t they keep me?
What is my genetic heritage? Do I have any siblings?” Although issues of identity do not begin in
adolescence, this is a time in which such questions receive more focused attention as the teenager
constructs meaning about their family status, their connection to their birth heritage, and how being
adopted fits into other aspects of their self.
There is considerable variability among individuals regarding the salience they attribute to their
adoptive status. For some it is relatively unimportant, no more than a fact of life; for others, it is so
fundamental to their sense of self that it colors virtually everything they experience. For most peo-
ple, however, adoption appears to occupy a meaningful but more balanced place in their emerging
identity, neither an aspect of self that is ignored, nor one that overshadows other parts of the self.
The personal meaning of being adopted is highly influenced by the many contexts impacting the
person, including culture, community, family, peers, and school (Grotevant, Dunbar, Kohler, and Esau,
2000). When adopted individuals experience positive views about adoption from others, whether
at the broader cultural level or at the more immediate levels of family, peer, and school relationships,
they find it easier to integrate this life experience into a healthy and positive sense of self. Families
that create a more open communicative environment regarding adoption issues and support their
children’s curiosity about their origins are more likely to foster positive self-esteem in their boys and
girls (Brodzinsky, 2006).
Integrating the past into the present and imagining oneself in the future is another aspect of iden-
tity formation that can be complicated for adopted teenagers. Being cut off from one’s origins or
333
being prevented from obtaining information about one’s history by restrictive laws or social service
regulations can be extremely frustrating for those who are intent on knowing about their heritage
and the reasons for their adoption. As previously noted, those who have been separated from previous
caregivers lose their “meaning makers,” people who knew them when they were younger and who
could have helped them understand what happened to them. Adolescence can also be especially dif-
ficult for youth placed transracially or transethnically, especially for those who have had inadequate
role models and experiences that would allow them to explore the personal meaning and importance
of their ethnic-racial minority status.
Adoptive parents often need guidance and support in helping their teenagers navigate the com-
plexities of adolescent adoption issues. They need to recognize the normality of their children’s
interest in their heritage and support their efforts in searching for answers that can fill “identity gaps”
related to adoption. Maintaining an open communicative environment is essential in achieving this
goal. So too is ensuring that teenagers understand that they have their parents’ support in deciding if,
and when, they will seek to contact birth family members.
Openness in Adoption
There has been a growing trend toward increased openness in adoption. Open adoption has two
meanings. Structural openness involves the extent of direct and indirect contact that exists between
the adoptive and birth families. Communicative openness refers to the extent to which families
are able to discuss adoption information with their children in an honest, comfortable, empathic,
and supportive manner. Although conceptually and empirically related, they constitute two distinct
aspects of the adoption experience (Brodzinsky, 2005, 2006).
Structural Openness in Adoption

Structural openness ranges from fully confidential adoptions, in which there is no sharing of iden-
tifying information between the families and no contact, to mediated adoptions, in which contact
is through an intermediary such as the adoption agency, to fully disclosed adoptions, in which the
families are aware of each other’s identity and meet face to face and/or have indirect contact (e.g.,
by email, telephone, social media, and other communication methods) at the time of placement and/
or in the post-adoption years (Grotevant and McRoy, 1998). The frequency and nature of contact
between adoptive and birth families are quite fluid and often change over time as the needs and
life circumstances of the parties change (Grotevant et al., 2007). In addition, open adoption varies
considerably from one type of adoption to another. For example, data from the National Survey
of Adoptive Parents found that 68% of private domestic adoptions involved some post-adoption
contact, whereas only 39% of domestic foster care adoptions and 6% of intercountry adoptions
involved such contact (Vandivere, Malm, and Radel, 2009). These figures may underestimate the
extent of direct and/or indirect contact for all three types of adoption (Brodzinsky and Goldberg,
2016; Brodzinsky and Goldberg, 2017).
There has been some concern among adoption professionals that structurally open adoptions
could create difficulties for members of the adoption kinship system (e.g., adoptive parents, birth
parents, and adopted individuals), leading to destabilization of the adoptive placement and/or the
adoptive parent–child relationship. However, research has not supported these concerns. Although
contact with birth family does not appear to necessarily enhance post-placement adjustment of
adoptive parents, it does not undermine it either (Ge et al., 2008). Furthermore, other benefits of
contact have been noted (Berry, 1991; Ge et al., 2008; Grotevant, McRoy, Elde, and Fravel, 1994;
Grotevant and McRoy, 1998; Hollenstein, Leve, Scaramella, Milfort, and Neiderhiser, 2003;Von Korff
and Grotevant, 2011). For example, adoptive parents report having more positive relationships with
334
birth family and being more satisfied with the placement arrangement when they have contact with
birth family members. They also feel more entitled to their children, have less fear of birth parents’
attempts to reclaim their boys and girls, and report more acceptance of their children’s curiosity
about their origins. Adoptive parents are also more satisfied with open adoption when they have
control over the nature and extent of contact with birth family. In contrast, when adoptive parents
feel pressured into an open adoption arrangement, whether by the agency or because they believe
it’s the only way they can adopt, they are likely to report less satisfaction with open adoption (Berry,
Dylla, Barth, and Needell, 1998; Grotevant, Perry, and McRoy, 2005).
Adopted children who have contact with birth family members also appear to benefit from
the experience (Berge, Mendenhall, Wrobel, Grotevant, and McRoy, 2006; Grotevant and McRoy,
1998; Hawkins et al., 2007; Mendenhall, Berge, Wrobel, Grotevant, and McRoy, 2004; Von Korff
and Grotevant, 2011; Wrobel, Ayers-Lopez, Grotevant, McRoy, and Friedrick, 1996). Greater open-
ness results in more opportunities for family discussions about adoption, increased curiosity on the
part of children regarding their heritage and the circumstances leading to placement, more interest
in searching for background information and birth family members, and a better understanding of
the meaning and implications of being adopted. Adopted teenagers in open placements also report
more satisfaction with the information and contact they have than those in closed placements, as
well as a clearer sense of their adoptive identity. Finally, most research suggests that contact with the
birth family neither enhances nor undermines children’s psychological adjustment and self-esteem
(Brodzinsky, 2006; Ge et al., 2008; Von Korff, Grotevant, and McRoy, 2006). What appears more
important for children’s adjustment is their satisfaction with openness rather than a specific type or
level of contact (Grotevant, Rueter,Von Korff, and Gonzalez, 2011).
In summary, research generally supports the view that contact with birth family is associated with
more benefits than drawbacks. However, this conclusion should not be interpreted to suggest that fami-
lies do not experience challenges related to contact. Structural openness is a dynamic process that changes
over time. Determining whether it is safe to have contact with specific birth family members (e.g., those
who have histories of mental illness, substance use, or criminality), establishing appropriate “boundaries”
regarding frequency and the nature of contact, gauging the impact of contact on family members, and
resolving inevitable conflicts with birth family members regarding contact issues are ongoing responsi-
bilities faced by adoptive parents (Black et al., 2016; Grotevant, 2009; Neil and Howe, 2004).
Communicative Openness in Adoption

Adoption communicative openness involves the process of sharing adoption information with chil-
dren, validating their connection to birth family, honoring their heritage, and respecting children’s
unique perspectives and feelings about their adoption experience. It also involves the sharing of
adoption-related feelings and the development of emotional attunement about adoption issues
between parent and child (Brodzinsky, 2005).
In discussing adoption communication, Rueter and Koerner (2008) distinguished between con-
versation orientation versus conformity orientation. The former is characterized by family interactions in
which all members co-discover the meaning and social reality of their adoption experiences, and
in which parents respect and support their children’s unique perspectives and feelings about being
adopted. In contrast, the latter is characterized by family interactions in which the meaning of adop-
tion is defined primarily by parents, with children expected to conform to their parents’ points of
view. This distinction highlights the importance of recognizing that talking with children about
adoption is not inherently the same as adoptive communicative openness. The latter, which is con-
sistent with their notion of conversation orientation, reflects not only sharing adoption information
with children but also being willing to listen, respect, and affirm children’s unique points of view
and feeling states.
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Research generally supports the benefits related to adoption communicative openness (Barbosa-
Ducharne and Soares, 2016; Brodzinsky, 2006; Horstman, Colaner, and Rittenour, 2016; Howe and
Feast, 2000; Kohler, Grotevant, and McRoy, 2002; Rueter and Koerner, 2008; Skinner-Drawz, Wro-
bel, Grotevant, and Von Korff, 2011). For example, youth who experience more open and supportive
family communication about adoption report more trust of their parents, fewer feelings of alienation
from them, better family functioning, and more efforts to discover information about their origins.
Adults who reported feeling more comfortable raising adoption questions with their parents when
they were younger also reported feeling more positive about their adoption experience and closer
to their parents than those who described discomfort in family discussions about adoption. Com-
municative openness is associated with better psychological adjustment among adopted individu-
als, including more positive self-concept and self-esteem (Brodzinsky, 2006; Hawkins et al., 2007;
Levy-Shiff, 2001), more positive adoption identity (LeMare and Audent, 2011), and fewer behavior
problems (Brodzinsky, 2006). However, Neil (2009) and Grotevant, Rueter,Von Korff, and Gonzalez
(2011) failed to find a relation between communicative openness and children’s and adolescents’
psychological adjustment.
Overall, research suggests that when children are reared in a home environment in which they
feel comfortable in expressing their thoughts and feelings about being adopted, and when their
unique adoption experiences are understood, respected, and supported by parents, they are much
more likely to internalize their adoption experience in a way that reflects a positive sense of self.This
is especially true when parents foster a conversation orientation to adoption discussions and provide
an appropriate level of structure and guidance to adoption family narratives (e.g., helping to interpret
background information, correcting obvious misperceptions on the part of their children, supporting
search interests and activity, and so forth) (Rueter and Koerner, 2008).
Unique Adoptive Parenting Processes and Challenges

Adoptive parents face rearing children amidst cultural differences, which can pose certain unique
challenges for adoptive families. Those differences may be reflected between parents and adopted
children, as in transracial, transethnic, and intercountry adoptions, or they may be reflected in par-
ents’ characteristics that situate them as different from many adoptive families, as in sexual minority
parents who adopt. Historically, little attention was paid to cultural differences, except regarding
family formation. In the mid-1900s, when adoption served the needs of middle-class couples seek-
ing to become parents, adoptive placements focused on matching children and families on physical
characteristics. The message to rear adopted children “as if ” they were biological children was given
to adoptive parents even when they were adopting across race, ethnicity, or culture. Furthermore,
until recently, sexual minority parents were prohibited from fostering or adopting. Today, adoptive
parents must consider the cultural differences that they and their children navigate as they work to
support their child’s adoptive identity and identity as a cultural being. Parents rearing children with
pre-adoption adversities and/or special needs also face unique challenges in supporting the child’s
placement adjustment and development.
Parenting Children From Different Racial or Ethnic Backgrounds

Typically, transracial, transethnic, and/or intercountry adoptive families are headed by parents from
the dominant host culture (in the United States, European American parents), and adopted children
are of Hispanic/Latinx, African, or Asian descent. Early research on domestic transracial adoptions
generally found that these youngsters were well adjusted, had positive relationships with parents,
and did not suffer from psychological/behavioral problems (Bagley, 1993; Brooks and Barth, 1999;
Feigelman and Silverman, 1983; McRoy and Zurcher, 1983; Simon, Altstein, and Melli, 1994;Vroegh,
336
1997). Moreover, in a meta-analysis of research on self-esteem, Juffer and van IJzendoorn (2007)
found that transracial adoptees do not suffer from low self-esteem.Yet, early studies on racial identity
and racial attitudes among transracially adopted children and youth yielded contradictory findings.
Some researchers reported reasonably positive racial identities (Brooks and Barth, 1999; Feigelman
and Silverman, 1983;Vroegh, 1997), whereas others indicated confused, ambivalent, or negative racial
identity among youngsters and adults placed across racial lines (McRoy and Zurcher, 1983; Shireman
and Johnson, 1986).
The coming-of-age of adults around the world who were transracially or transethnically adopted
has enabled their voices to enrich the field’s understanding of the complexities they experienced
as children and continue to experience as adults (Baden, Treweeke, and Ahluwalia, 2012). Whether
anecdotal reflections (Trenka, Oparah, and Shin, 2006), research-based qualitative (Haenga-Collins
and Gibbs, 2015; Hübinette and Tigervall, 2009; O. Kim et al., 2017), or quantitative accounts (Basow,
Lilley, Bookwala, and McGillicuddy-DeLisi, 2008; McGinnis, Smith, Ryan, and Howard, 2009), many
adult adoptees articulate their struggle to navigate issues of belonging and exclusion, as well as prob-
ing questions from others that prompt exploration of their cultural, ethnic, or racial identity (Garber
and Grotevant, 2015; O.M. Kim, Hynes, and R. M. Lee, 2017). Lee (2003) aptly coined the term
“transracial paradox” to describe the complexities that transracial adopted persons face. He noted
that transracial adoptees receive the benefits conferred to their families based on their parents’ statuses
(typically White and ethnically European), but contend with other, often negative experiences linked
to their lower status of being adopted (Baden, 2016), an ethnic-racial minority (Sue et al., 2007), and/
or an immigrant (Lee, 2003). The experiences articulated above point to the complexities in navi-
gating the transracial paradox for adoptees, and that adoptees perceive whether and how their parents
address adoption, and race/ethnic differences, as consequential (Docan-Morgan, 2011; McGinnis
et al., 2009; Samuels, 2009). Indeed,Tuan and Shiao’s (2011) qualitative study of 59 Korean American
adopted adults reflecting on their socialization experiences and current life experiences illustrated
the importance to adoptees of how transracial adoptive parents navigate ethnic-racial differences. For
adoptees, parents’ acknowledgment of ethnic-racial differences was critical but insufficient in helping
the adoptee feel supported. Rather, whether parents actively provided support and advocacy when
children faced difficult situations outside the home were key in shaping adoptees’ felt experience of
coping alone and feeling misunderstood or being supported. We turn now to discuss transracial and
transethnic adoptive parents’ support of their children’s identity development, referred to as ethnic-
racial socialization, after briefly summarizing the literature on the types of ethnic-racial socialization
(Hughes et al., 2006).
Ethnic-Racial Socialization
The support of identity development in transracial and transethnic families typically includes multi-
ple types of ethnic-racial socialization. Here, we use the definition and subtypes offered by Hughes
and colleagues regarding these processes, which parents use to provide “information, values and
perspectives about ethnicity and race to children” (Hughes et al., 2006, p. 747), whether biological
or adopted. Cultural socialization is designed to provide adopted children exposure to their birth
culture; preparation-for-bias helps prepare children to deal with experiences of stigma; egalitarian
socialization promotes the idea of a level playing field for all and the importance of hard work; and
color-blind messages minimize or deny the importance of race. Most research on adoptive families
has centered on cultural socialization and preparation-for-bias. A new focus is emerging regarding
transracial and transethnic families, bicultural socialization, in which parents provide cultural sociali-
zation and promote connection to the family’s and adoptive country’s culture.
Adoption professionals encourage families to provide cultural socialization to support adoptees’
ethnic identity development, which can include their interest in their culture, connection to their
337
cultural group, pride in their background, or ethnic self-label (Baden, 2007; Bebiroglu and Pinder-
hughes, 2012; Goldberg, Sweeney, Black, and Moyer, 2016; Huh and Reid, 2000; Mohanty, Keoske,
and Sales, 2006; Pinderhughes, Zhang, and Agerbak, 2015). Cultural socialization can range from
providing books, clothing, and ethnic foods to language lessons or culture lessons—often delivered
through culture camps—and having a cultural mentor who typically is an older person from the
same racial or cultural background.This range of approaches can be viewed on a continuum of depth
of cultural socialization, with parents providing some activities that reflect deeper cultural exposure
than other activities (Zhang and Pinderhughes, 2018).
Preparation-for-bias conveys messages about discrimination and can offer suggestions for cop-
ing with such experiences (Hughes et al., 2006). Parents will discuss stereotypes of the adoptee’s
racial group, others’ assumptions about the adoptee, as well as discrimination—both observed and
experienced. Preparation-for-bias can be more challenging to engage in than cultural socializa-
tion, as it typically requires that parents address negative messages or assumptions about the adop-
tee’s racial group. These processes can take place in two types of situations. First, parents can plan
preparation-for-bias conversations proactively, when they feel emotionally ready to have these dif-
ficult conversations. There also are those situations that provide in-the-moment opportunities for
preparation-for-bias. These situations often take place when adoptive parents and adoptees are out
together, and the adoption is publicly visible (Wegar, 2000). Parents and children often receive
unwelcome questions and comments from strangers that reflect assumptions about adoption (Baden,
2016; Farr, Crain, Oakley, Cashen, and Garber, 2016) and race (Sue et al., 2007). Other times, chil-
dren come home with stories about their experiences, for example being called racial slurs, being
teased about their skin color or shape of their eyes, being bullied for looking different, or treated
insensitively by teachers (Docan-Morgan, 2011; Tuan and Shiao, 2011;Vashchenko, D’Aleo, and Pin-
derhughes, 2012). When any of these situations occur, parents must navigate a conversation, typically
unanticipated. During these conversations, emotions often can be charged, and parents may struggle
with what to say and how to say it. These conversations thus can be very uncomfortable and parents
can find themselves limiting or avoiding them (Goar, Davis, and Manago, 2016; Tuan and Shiao,
2011). It is important for parents to remain aware that, as they make choices to engage in or avoid
talking about challenging situations, they are modeling for their children choices about dealing with
bias. Taking the opportunity to practice these discussions, as well as to reflect on one’s views about
ethnic-racial differences, can help parents make more effective choices when these conversations
arise (Pinderhughes, Matthews, and Zhang, 2016; Stevenson, 2014). Notably, transracial adoptive
parents who have experienced stigma themselves, such as sexual minority parents, are more likely to
have these conversations (Goldberg and Smith, 2016).
Across development, parents provide more cultural socialization than preparation-for-bias (John-
ston, Swim, Saltsman, Deater-Deckard, and Petrill, 2007), perhaps reflecting the challenges with
having conversations about bias and stigma. Johnston and colleagues (2007) offer the only data on
age trends in these processes. Cultural socialization, actively provided as early as age 4, seems to peak
around age 12 and decline through adolescence. Preparation-for-bias becomes evident somewhat
later and peaks around age 14, with just a slight decline across adolescence. Emerging patterns in
research on cultural socialization and preparation-for-bias suggest that the role that adoptive parents
play in these processes, for example, how they think about ethnic-racial differences or their approach
to providing cultural socialization and preparation-for-bias, is critical.
Parent’s Role in Socialization Processes

The provision of cultural socialization and preparation-for-bias does not occur in a vacuum, but
rather is thought to be linked to parents’ beliefs and attitudes (J. Lee,Vonk, and Crolley-Simic, 2015).
Pinderhughes (2013) suggested that these processes are linked to parents’ attitudes about cultural and
338
ethnic differences, beliefs about the value of providing these forms of ethnic-racial socialization, as
well as the parents’ or family’s ethnic identity. Parents are more likely to acknowledge cultural back-
ground differences, whereas they are less likely to acknowledge ethnic-racial differences (Bebiroglu
and Pinderhughes, 2012; Tuan and Shiao, 2011). When parents acknowledge cultural differences,
value the importance of providing exposure to their child’s culture of origin, or frame the adoptive
family’s ethnicity as multicultural, they are more likely to provide cultural socialization (Berbery
and O’Brien, 2011; O. M. Kim, Reichwald, and Lee, 2013; R. M. Lee, Grotevant, Hellerstedt, Gun-
nar, and Minnesota International Adoption Project Team, 2006; Pinderhughes, Zhang, et al., 2015).
Parents who acknowledge ethnic differences, see these differences from not only their own but also
their children’s viewpoints, or believe in the value of preparing children for stigma are more likely
to provide preparation-for-bias (Berbery and O’Brien, 2011; Crolley-Simic and Vonk, 2011; R. M.
Lee et al., 2006).
Parents’ approaches to providing cultural socialization or preparation-for-bias can range from
taking the initiative to provide activities and discussions, proposing activities to children for their
consideration and choice, waiting until children express interest or ask, and offering no experiences
(Bebiroglu and Pinderhughes, 2012; Goldberg et al., 2016; Harf et al., 2015; Tessler, Gamache, and
Liu, 1999).When parents take the initiative to provide cultural socialization, adoptees are more likely
be very interested in and enjoy their activities (Bebiroglu and Pinderhughes, 2012). In contrast, when
parents avoid conversations, especially about bias experiences, adoptees may come to feel that they
cannot seek help to deal with these types of experiences (Docan-Morgan, 2011).
As adoptive parents provide cultural socialization or preparation-for-bias, they may reflect on
their own views and feelings about race/ethnicity, culture, and adoption. Adoptive parents who
have expanded their definition of the family’s ethnicity to include the adoptee’s background (for
example, “White parents with Chinese daughter”; “Multicultural family”) are more likely engage in
these self-reflections than parents who do not expand their family ethnic description (Pinderhughes,
Zhang, et al., 2015). Some adult adoptees, reflecting on their family experiences, encourage adoptive
parents to examine their own identities in the hopes that such self-reflection will enable parents to
provide better cultural socialization (Palmer, 2011). Harrigan (2009) observed that adoptive parents
personally navigate contradictions, including the degree to which their role is similar to and differ-
ent from other parents, as well as their similarity to and difference from the adoptee. In this process,
adoptive parents may experience tension balancing similarity and difference. How parents manage
this contradiction—acknowledging or rejecting it, embracing or avoiding discussion—can leave
adoptees feeling supported or isolated.
Adoptive parents must balance the vast array of potential cultural socialization and preparation-
for-bias activities, along with the anticipated benefits of these activities, as well as any contextual
considerations that might affect the availability or accessibility of these activities. Parents rearing
transracially or transethnically adopted children in urban settings are likely to have access to a greater
variety of interpersonal resources to support their child’s ethnic-racial identity than are parents rear-
ing children in small towns or rural communities. In these latter circumstances, parents may have to
navigate among resources on the Internet that vary in their quality in search of activities or infor-
mation appropriate for their child. These processes may differ across urban and rural settings and
internationally. Differences in cultural socialization in families in the Netherlands, Norway, and the
United States was related to differences in the country-based sociopolitical realities, such as percent-
age of ethnic minorities in the population and experiences of stigma (Riley-Behringer, Groza, Tie-
man, and Juffer, 2014).Thus, an understanding of parents’ engagement in cultural socialization should
consider the prevailing views and practices regarding ethnic and cultural differences in one’s country.
In keeping with a focus on how parents support their adopted child’s ethnic identity, we turn
briefly to the impact of ethnic-racial socialization on children’s functioning. Some studies have
found that when parents provide cultural socialization, their children are more likely to have positive
339
self-esteem, feel connected to their culture of origin, and have fewer externalizing behaviors (Huh
and Reid, 2000; Johnston et al., 2007; Manzi, Ferrari, Rosnati, and Benet-Martinez, 2014; Pinder-
hughes, Zhang, et al., 2015; Yoon, 2004). Hu, Anderson, and R. M. Lee (2015) studied adolescents’
and parents’ reports of cultural socialization, along with the general parenting environment—parental
involvement and parent–child conflict—and youth ethnic identity. They found that whereas parent-
reported cultural socialization was related to ethnic identity, general parenting environment was not.
In short, parents who want to support their children’s ethnic identity should incorporate cultural
socialization into their parenting processes. Although less is known about the impact of preparation-
for-bias, research has found that children who received messages preparing them to deal with stigma
were more likely to have higher self-esteem and less depression (Mohanty, 2010; Mohanty and
Newhill, 2011). Other studies illustrate complexities in relations between preparation-for-bias and
adoptees’ functioning. Preparation-for-bias can serve a protective role when adolescents experience
high levels of discrimination—they are less likely to feel stress related to the stigma they experienced
(Leslie, Smith, Hrapczynski, and Riley, 2013). However, too little or too much preparation-for-bias
might undermine school engagement: adopted Korean adolescents who reported moderate levels of
preparation-for-bias had positive connections with school, whereas those reporting low or high lev-
els of preparation-for-bias had negative connections (Seol,Yoo, Lee, Park, and Kyeong, 2016). Finally,
Anderson, Lee, Rueter, and Kim (2015) observed three patterns of family communication about
ethnic-racial differences in adoptive families with South Korean adoptees and their links to adoptee
delinquent behaviors. In families where all members either acknowledged differences or rejected dif-
ferences, adolescents had lower levels of delinquent behaviors than adoptees in families where there
were discrepant views about differences and the importance of differences. The researchers suggest
that the cultivation of shared views about race and ethnic differences within the family may support
adoptee adjustment.
Bicultural Socialization
An emerging focus is on adoptees’ bicultural identity—how they view themselves and/or their
connections to their cultural group of origin and to their family’s cultural group or, in the case of
intercountry adoptees, their adoptive country. Bicultural identity integration—identification with
one’s birth cultural group and one’s adoptive family’s cultural group—may be positively linked to
well-being among adolescents and young adults (Baden, 2002; Ferrari, Rosnati, Manzi, and Benet-
Martínez, 2015; Manzi et al., 2014). For example, among Italian youth, ethnic and national identities
were linked to bicultural identity integration, which, in turn predicted more positive well-being
1 year later (Ferrari et al., 2015). Thus, when youth are able to integrate their identities related to
their ethnic background and their connection to their adoptive country, they report more confi-
dence, self-acceptance, personal growth, and relationships with others. Youth who were not able to
integrate their ethnic and national identities—being “caught between two cultures,” so to speak—
were more likely to have externalizing problems (Manzi et al., 2014, p. 898). Thus, having some bal-
ance in their bicultural identities is linked to more positive adjustment.
Little is known about the role of parents in promoting bicultural identity integration.Youth who
receive cultural socialization are also more likely to feel connected to the family’s national identity
(Manzi et al., 2014), suggesting that parents also actively support processes of learning about and
connecting to one’s adoptive country. In a recent small interview-based study, parents explicitly
talked about working to minimize tensions between their children’s Asian American heritage and
the European American heritage of the adoptive family (Chen, Lamborn, and Lu, 2017). As greater
attention is directed to parents’ role in supporting bicultural identity integration, there will be greater
understanding of the complexities that transracially and transethnically adopted children experience,
and more guidance can be provided to parents about how to support their adopted child.
340
In summary, although professionals encourage adoptive parents to provide cultural socialization

and preparation-for-bias, the impact of these processes on adopted children’s adjustment and func-
tioning appears to be complex and not yet fully understood. As researchers are better able to capture
the complexities in these processes in research designs, the impact of ethnic-racial socialization pro-
cesses will be better understood.
Parenting Late-Placed Children and Those With Special Needs

Another set of unique challenges confront adoptive parents who are rearing children placed at older
ages (late-placed adoptees) and those with special needs or disabilities. Although researchers differ in
their definition of late-placed adoptees (Hawk and McCall, 2010), in this chapter, late placement is
defined as being adopted after infancy, at approximately or after 18 months. This is a period when the
accumulation of adverse early experiences, especially neglect, can undermine later development (Merz
and McCall, 2010, 2011).Very often, late-placed children also have special needs. In fact, having a dis-
ability can create long waits for children who need adoption. However, not all children with disabilities
have been placed after infancy. Some early-placed children—those placed as infants—also have dis-
abilities, and in some cases these disabilities are not identified until after placement. Given the overlap
between late-placed adoptees and adoptees with special needs, we discuss both groups in this section.
Adoptions of children with special needs can be classified into two groups—those involving children
with disabilities that have reasonably predictable manifestations (i.e., physical and developmental disabili-
ties, mental retardation, and chronic medical conditions) and those involving children with disabilities
that have unpredictable manifestations (i.e., emotional or behavior problems). (For more on parenting
children with disabilities, see Hodapp, Casale, and Sanderson, 2019). Generally, adoptions of children
with disabilities who have more predictable manifestations tend to be quite successful, as indicated by
relatively low rates of placement disruption, when the child is removed from the home prior to the legal
finalization of the parent–child relationship (Rosenthal, 1993). In addition, among intact placements
of children with developmental or physical disabilities, parents’ satisfaction is usually high and family
adjustment is positive (Glidden, 1991, 2000; Rosenthal, 1993). In fact, when compared with a group of
birth families of children with developmental disabilities, adoptive parents of developmentally disabled
children report less stress in parent, family, and child functioning (Glidden, 1991). Adoptive parents of
children with developmental disabilities are more likely to have their needs for post-adoption services
met than are parents of children with emotional and behavioral disabilities (Hill and Moore, 2015).
Of greater concern regarding placement outcome are adoptions of children who manifest serious
emotional and behavioral problems. Placement disruption rates for these children range from 10%
to 20% (Rosenthal, 1993; Festinger, 2014). Older age at the time of placement, lack of or insecure
attachment, and/or the presence of severe problems, such as chronic stealing, aggressiveness, fire set-
ting, sexual acting out, and suicidal behavior, are the most frequent correlates of adoption disruption
(Barth and Berry, 1988; Festinger, 2014; Partridge, Hornby, and McDonald, 1986; Rosenthal, 1993;
Selwyn, Wijedasa, and Meakings, 2014). Other factors commonly associated with adoption disrup-
tion, as well as post-placement adjustment difficulties, include early environmental adversity, such as
neglect, physical abuse, sexual abuse, multiple foster placements, and time in institutions (Festinger,
1990; Merz and McCall, 2010; Pinderhughes, 1998; Selwyn et al., 2014; van den Dries, Juffer, van
IJzendoorn, and Bakermans-Kranenburg, 2009). Despite the higher disruption rates and adjustment
problems, the large majority of placements of children with special needs are successful, as meas-
ured by family intactness, by parents’ and children’s reports of satisfaction with the adoption, and by
caseworkers’ evaluations of placements (Groze, 1996; Matthews, Tirella, Germann, and Miller, 2016;
Paulsen and Merighi, 2009; Pinderhughes, 1998).
Some parents proactively choose to adopt children with special needs, viewing their choice as an
important altruistic step for a child in need who might otherwise not find a permanent, loving family.
341
Other parents initiate adoption with the intent of rearing a healthy infant but opt to adopt a child
with special needs when they find healthy infants are rarely available. Among these parents, some may
feel pressured (whether within themselves or by others) to adopt a child with special needs to be
able to adopt. This especially has been the experience for sexual minority parents (Goldberg, 2010;
Moyer and Goldberg, 2017). Once children are placed, some parents realize that they did not fully
understand all the adoptees’ limitations or challenges linked to the special needs. Parents adopting
children with behavior or emotional disabilities often find that the adoptee’s functioning is inconsist-
ent, making it difficult to anticipate and plan for how to respond and support her. These parents face
the task of adjusting their expectations. And still other parents adopt children who they believe to be
reasonably healthy, only to find out that their son or daughter has one or more special needs or dis-
abilities that were not identified before placement but emerge after the child joined the family. This
unfortunate pattern is increasing among adoptions, especially among intercountry placements, where
birth country assessments and record keeping of children’s functioning are often not comprehensive.
In a survey of over 1,000 parents who adopted internationally, 493 were rearing a child with special
needs (Pinderhughes, Matthews, Deoudes, and Pertman, 2013). In almost three quarters of these
families, the adoptee received a new diagnosis after placement. For some families, the diagnosis was
the first identification of any special need, whereas for other families the diagnosis was an additional
special need. Further compounding the stress of discovering the special need after placement, almost
two-thirds of parents discovered the special need years later, when problems emerged as children
grew older, attended school, and faced demands that revealed their limitations. In other cases, chil-
dren had challenges that were mis- or undiagnosed in their birth country, delaying their chances to
receive intervention. Thus, parents adopting children through intercountry adoption may need to be
prepared to encounter new challenges for their adopted children after placement.
The special needs that children struggle with often are due to prenatal adversities and/or experi-
ences of neglect or trauma in their pre-adoptive settings, which include birth families, foster fami-
lies, and institutions. Children placed from other countries often have experiences in institutions,
which vary widely in how well caregivers meet children’s needs for safety, physical nourishment,
and emotional and intellectual stimulation (McCall, 2011). Consequently, children adopted after just
a few months of age may have experiences that constitute some type of adversity. Until the 2000s,
due to limited knowledge about the neurobiology of trauma effects, professionals only understood
and focused on the behavioral consequences of trauma and neglect and prepared parents for typi-
cally inconsistent behavioral manifestations of emotional and behavioral maladjustment (Brodzinsky
and Pinderhughes, 2002). Since 2000, research on the neurobiological consequences of trauma and
neglect, particularly for children adopted from institutions, has dramatically increased (Hart and
Rubia, 2012; Loman et al., 2013; McDermott, Westerlund, Zeanah, Nelson, and Fox, 2012; Mehta
et al., 2009; Nelson, Bos, Gunnar, and Sonuga-Barke, 2011; Pollak et al., 2010) and has painted a
much more complex picture of the devastating but often unpredictable impact of early trauma on
human development and functioning. In short, converging findings point to the possibility of impor-
tant delays in cognitive, language, and social development or limitations in children’s functioning in
these areas (see review by Palacios, Román, Moreno, León, and Peñarrubia, 2014). These limitations
may vary depending on the nature of the trauma or neglect, as well as when it occurred and how
long it lasted during the child’s pre-adoptive life (Merz and McCall, 2010).With the potential impact
of early experiences on children’s special needs, preparation for adoptive parents is critical.
Preparation for Parenting Children With Special Needs

Although a majority of families who adopt through licensed agencies receive some formal prepara-
tion and education prior to the placement of the child in the family, this process generally is more
342
involved and more crucial when families decide to take on the responsibility of adopting a child
with special needs (Sar, 2000). Pre-adoption preparation usually begins with the home study, which
among other things is likely to involve an exploration of the prospective adoptive parents’ motivation
for adopting a special needs child, along with parents’ expectations regarding what life with the child
will be like. Attendance at group meetings, along with others who are planning to adopt a child with
special needs, is also typically part of the preparation process and can be quite useful for discussing
common issues associated with these types of placements, including separation and loss, attachment,
family communication issues, reaction of others to the adoption, behavior problems and discipline
strategies, utilization of supports, and so forth. The final component of preparation occurs when a
specific child has been identified for adoptive placement with the family and the agency shares the
unique history of the youngster with the prospective parents, in anticipation of initial visitations and
integrating the child into the family.
The importance of preparation and education for families who adopt children with special needs
cannot be overemphasized. Sharing background information with parents is not sufficient; profes-
sionals need to explain to parents the relevance of the information for both short-term and long-
term adjustment, as well as its implications for parenting these children. Research has found that
the more thorough the preparation, the more realistic are the parents’ expectations regarding the
adoption, which in turn, is likely to reduce the chances of placement disruption and increase the
chances of positive adjustment among family members (Barth and Berry, 1988; Moyer and Goldberg,
2017; Partridge et al., 1986; Sar, 2000). Pre-placement education and support also prepare prospec-
tive parents for the many unique parenting challenges they will encounter in rearing their special
needs child.
Integrating a Late-Placed Child Into the Family

Any time a child enters a family, the family system must modify its patterns of functioning to inte-
grate the new member (Kerig, 2019). Parents assume new roles and responsibilities, children’s roles
are transformed as their ordinal positions in the family change, dyadic relationships are newly created
or altered, and family interactions and routines are disrupted or revised. Although a similar transition
occurs when infants are born or adopted into a family, these processes are less predictable and more
intense among families adopting special needs children. Most special needs adopted children have a
history of living in family systems that did not work and, consequently, may be skeptical of attempts
to build family cohesion and connection. Pinderhughes (1996) described a sequence of readjust-
ment through which the family moves as its members shift to incorporate a child with special needs.
Before placement, family members and the child form expectations and fantasies about what adop-
tive family life will be like. After placement, each family member may find themselves rethinking the
expectations they formed prior to the placement, particularly with testing of limits by the adoptee. In
some families, parents or children may experience ambivalence about the placement and feel reluc-
tant to change attitudes and behaviors, despite signs that they are dysfunctional. The family moves to
restabilize with a new equilibrium in the way that its members interact. Typically, at this point there
is a better fit between expectations and reality for all family members. Integration is facilitated by
helping children identify the daily routines, family traditions, and family patterns from former place-
ments that gave them comfort and incorporating those into the life of the new family. In addition,
parents can help children by focusing on similarities between the child and family members, and by
modifying nuclear and extended family traditions and rituals to include the child. Finally, new family
rituals that focus on adoption, such as celebrating the day the child entered the family, can be created.
These efforts can be useful in helping the child to feel integrated into the family and in facilitating
emotional bonds between the child and other family members.
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Forming Attachments and Supporting the Grief Process

The development of an attachment bond between parents and their special needs adopted child is
often complicated by the impact of disrupted relationships from earlier periods in the child’s life, as
well as by heightened parental anxiety or a mismatch between parental expectations and the child’s
characteristics and behavior. A meta-analysis of studies of attachment and age at adoption showed
that whereas children adopted within the first 6–12 months of life tend to show normative patterns
of secure attachment with adoptive parents, those youngsters placed after 12 months may be at risk
for attachment problems and developmental difficulties (van den Dries et al., 2009).
Related to the issue of attachment is the experience of separation and loss, which usually is more
acute and obvious in adoptions of late-placed children compared to infant adoptions (Nickman,
1985). Parents of late-placed adoptees must help their children grieve the loss of earlier attachment
relationships with birth parents, birth siblings, extended birth family, previous foster family members,
and so forth. Many adoption professionals believe that learning to cope with these losses is critical
for the development of healthy attachments in the adoptive family.
Yet, for many adoptive parents, the child’s emotional connections to previous birth family and
foster family members can be experienced as a threat to the integrity and stability of the family.These
emotional connections can be further complicated when adoptive families have contact with birth
families or prior families after placement. Because contact with birth families after placement from
foster care is increasingly common (Brodzinsky and Goldberg, 2016), adoptive parents may need pro-
fessional support in navigating issues that can arise regarding type and amount of contact and roles
of birth family members (Jones and Hackett, 2012; Maynard, 2005). Studies from Britain and Ireland
demonstrate that when adoptees from foster care have birth parents who did not consent to the
adoption, interactions between adoptive and birth families can be tense and challenging (Jones and
Hackett, 2012; Logan and Smith, 2005; MacDonald, 2017; Neil and Howe, 2004). However, some
researchers have found that when regular contact facilitates positive connections, or cooperation is
high between birth and adoptive families, both families can better understand the other’s experiences
and perspectives (Logan and Smith, 2005; MacDonald, 2017). This reciprocity can make it possible
for the adoptee to be more supported.
Sometimes adoptive parents tend to minimize the importance of the birth family in the child’s
life and provide little opportunity for youngsters to discuss their feelings about being separated from
birth family members. In such cases, the chances of coping effectively with adopted-related loss is
compromised, leading to increased risk for problems in the adoptive family (Brodzinsky, 1987, 1990;
Brodzinsky, Schechter, and Henig, 1992; Brodzinsky, Smith, and Brodzinsky, 1998; Nickman, 1985;
Reitz and Watson, 1992). As children grieve the loss of former relationships, and begin to test out
new attachments in the adoptive family, their behavior may become unpredictable and confusing and
present considerable difficulty for adoptive parents.
Managing Troublesome Behaviors

Even when adoptees with special needs are able to form attachments to new parents, difficulties in
individual and interpersonal functioning may persist for years after placement (Groze, 1996; Kay,
Green, and Sharma, 2016). Behavioral problems, such as hyperactivity, aggression, stealing, fire setting,
and sexual acting out, can be particularly detrimental to placements. Because of their histories with
dangerous, unpredictable family situations or neglectful institutions, late-placed children often enter
new adoptive placements with expectations that relationships are not nurturing and may be unsafe.
As a result, late-placed children may manifest behaviors that, while adaptive in previously unsafe situ-
ations, differ substantially from the adoptive family’s style and expectations. Late-placed children may
withdraw from relationships because they have learned that it is not safe to interact with adults.They
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may be aggressive as a defense against the belief that the world is a place where adults hurt children.
They may constantly “test” their new parents with acting-out behavior—in effect asking, Do you
really love me? Will you leave me, too? They may display inappropriate sexual behavior because that
is how they received attention from adults in the past. They may demonstrate excessive self-reliant
behavior, rejecting attempts by parents to nurture them because they have learned to take care of
themselves or younger siblings in previous neglectful environments.
Children’s behavioral problems may be linked to views that caregivers are unpredictable and may
reflect problems in social information processing. Children may show a persistent and exaggerated
fear response and may have difficulty discerning when they are safe, viewing a non-threatening situ-
ation as possibly dangerous (Jaffee and Christian, 2014). In their interpersonal interactions, children
may be more drawn to angry (than sadness or distress) cues, for example. Children may be constantly
ready to react to perceived danger and this preoccupation may interfere with their ability to focus
on learning.They also might be highly sensitive to and misinterpret nonverbal cues, which can affect
their social interactions with others and ability to adapt to changing social situations. (For a synthesis
of the literature on the neurobiological impact of abuse and neglect, see Jaffee and Christian, 2014.)
Adolescents are vulnerable to internalizing symptoms, such as depression and anxiety (Festinger and
Jaccard, 2012). In addition, typical adolescent impulsive behavior may be magnified, and higher-level
thinking may be delayed, leaving adoptees with special needs more vulnerable to serious risk-taking.
For example, information-processing challenges and limited social skills put Finnish adopted adoles-
cents at risk for being bullied, especially among children adopted internationally (Raaska et al., 2012).
Parenting a child with these often entrenched “survival behaviors” requires special skills. Car-
egivers often find that parenting techniques that were effective with other children may not work
with these youngsters. Among the characteristics of adoptive parents often cited as contributing to
successful special needs placements are tolerance for ambivalent and negative feelings, a sense of
entitlement to care for the child, ability to find happiness in small increments of improvement, flex-
ible expectations, good coping skills, tolerance for rejection, ability to delay parental gratification,
good listening skills, a sense of humor, flexible family roles, strong support network, and availability
of post-placement social and mental health services (Katz, 1986; Rosenthal, 1993; S. L. Smith and
Howard, 1999). Mental health and child welfare professionals offer a number of helpful guidelines
for how parents can support their adopted children (American Academy of Pediatrics, n.d.; Child
Welfare Information Gateway, 2014). Parents can actively listen to and be available for adoptees to
help them feel understood. Parents should learn to focus on the child’s needs and functioning and
less on their own reactions or needs, keeping in mind the possible impact of pre-placement experi-
ences. Clear limit setting also is important. As children may have different responses to trauma and
to healing from trauma, it is essential for parents to learn to identify triggers that might unsettle
or destabilize their adopted child and help him develop strategies for self-calming and relaxing. In
contrast, negative power assertive strategies, such as scolding, highly controlling behavior, threats, and
physical punishment (McRoy, 1999), as well as parental inability to maintain warmth and sensitive
attitudes in the face of child opposition and/or withdrawal (Rushton, Dance, and Quinton, 2000),
are related to less stable placements.
Maintaining Realistic Expectations

Realistic parental expectations have been linked consistently to more positive adoption outcomes
(Barth and Berry, 1988; Foli, Lim, South, and Sands, 2014; Glidden, 1991; McRoy, 1999). Parents’ abil-
ity to develop and maintain realistic expectations about the child’s current functioning and potential,
their own ability to help the child overcome previous problems, and the time frame for integrating
the child into the family are among the most important factors in successfully parenting special needs
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adopted children. Expectations formed during the pre-placement preparation process are crucial and
reflect a level of understanding of the child attained by parents prior to the youngster’s actual arrival
(Moyer and Goldberg, 2017; Sar, 2000). Unexpected problems are the most stressful for parents (S.
R. Smith, Hamon, Ingoldsby, and Miller, 2009; for discussion of stress and parenting, see also Crnic
and Coburn, 2019) and increase the chances of adoption disruption or dissolution (Brodzinsky and
Pinderhughes, 2002). These problems can be exacerbated when parents have received insufficient
preparation, when they hold unrealistic expectations, and when there is inadequate flexibility in family
functioning (Moyer and Goldberg, 2017; Reilly and Platz, 2004; Rosenthal, Groze, and Morgan, 1996).
The importance of realistic expectations and understanding the child is underscored by research on
adoption of children with developmental disabilities or chronic medical conditions. With predictable
manifestations of the disability, parents who are fully informed about their adopted child’s condition
can more realistically anticipate problems and tend to report more satisfaction and more positive
family adjustment than parents who are less informed about their child’s condition, as well as those
who are rearing children with less predictable manifestations of their disability (Glidden, 1991, 2000).
Adoptive parents also report less stress in parent, family, and child functioning than a comparison group
of birth parents of children with developmental disabilities (Glidden, 1991). When parents choose to
adopt a developmentally disabled child, they can prepare for the entrance of the youngster into the
family with the assistance of a readily available resource—the adoption agency. In contrast, when a
developmentally disabled child is born into a family, there is often shock among family members, fol-
lowed by efforts to readjust expectations regarding the child and the parenting experience (Hodapp
et al., 2019). Parents must also grieve the loss of their “ideal” child and begin to learn about the special
caregiving needs of their youngster and the resources available to assist them. In this regard, adoptive
parents of developmentally disabled children are often a step ahead of their non-adoptive counterparts.
For parents to enter into an adoption with realistic expectations, they must be provided with
accurate child-specific background information prior to placement (Moyer and Goldberg, 2017;
Sar, 2000), coupled with appropriate explanations of the implications of the information for child
adjustment and parenting challenges. Unfortunately, many parents do not feel sufficiently prepared
by adoption agencies to rear their child with special needs (Nelson, 1985; Reilly and Platz, 2003;
Rosenthal et al., 1996). This can occur when parents are so eager to have the adoptee join their
family that they do not fully appreciate what adoption professionals have shared, or when adoption
professionals present a more positive picture of the child’s functioning than is the reality.
Even when parents have unrealistic expectations at the time their child first joins the family,
parents’ flexibility in changing expectations can facilitate placement success. Flexibility of adop-
tive fathers, in particular, as assessed by their sense of humor and creative discipline strategies, has
been linked to more stable placement outcomes. However, parents can find it quite challenging to
modify initial expectations (Moyer and Goldberg, 2017; Pinderhughes, 1996). For example, parents
must appreciate that their perceptions of a child’s need for close and nurturing family ties may not
match the child’s readiness to accept such closeness. In such situations, parents who are looking to
satisfy their own needs through close parent–child ties may feel thwarted by the lack of reciprocity
in the relationship, as well as by the behavior problems manifested by the child. In their qualitative,
longitudinal study of families adopting children from foster care, Eheart and Power (1995) observed
that parents’ failure to change expectations to be more consonant with the child’s actual functioning
increased the chances of the adoptive placement disrupting.
Maintaining Pre-Existing Relationships

Successful parenting of a special needs adopted child is closely intertwined with maintenance of
positive relationships among other dyads in the family and with the integrity of the family itself.
Maintaining a harmonious marital relationship is critical, particularly during the early phases of
346
adoption when little gratification is coming from the adoptee. Both parents need to communicate
effectively and to be able to offer support and respite for each other.When the adoptive mother takes
on the primary responsibility for day-to-day care of the child, and thus becomes the primary target
for the adoptee’s unpredictable behavior, the role of the adoptive father in supporting the mother
is extremely important. Westhues and Cohen (1990) found that the affective, supportive, and active
involvement of the adoptive father was associated with lower rates of adoptive placement disruption.
In contrast, insufficient marital communication has been linked to higher disruption rates (McRoy,
1999). Post-placement supports are an important support for the marital relationship (Mooradian,
Hock, Jackson, and Timm, 2011).
The impact of a special needs adoptive placement on children already in the home is likely to
be substantial (Phillips, 1999). In the course of integrating an older adopted child into their family,
parents face the challenge of providing support, and in some cases protection from physical or sexual
abuse by the adoptee, to their other children. It is not unusual for biological, foster, or adoptive chil-
dren already in the home to be affected negatively by the entrance of a new special needs adopted
youngster into the family system. Emotions such as jealousy, resentment, anger, and fear can persist
for months, and even years, after placement (Groze, 1996; McRoy, 1999; S. L. Smith and Howard,
1999).To reduce family conflict and support the well-being of the other children in the home, adop-
tion professionals encourage parents to include siblings in the preparation process and maintain open
and clear communication among all family members, and when necessary, seek professional support
from a family therapist.
Managing External Stressors and Utilizing Supports

Parents in adoptions of children with disabilities also face the challenge of helping their youngster
negotiate new relationships with peers and cope with new school settings. Although there are few
empirical data on the dynamics involved in friendship formation and maintenance among special
needs adopted children, with their histories of harsh and inconsistent parenting and multiple losses
or institutional neglect, these children are very likely to have difficulties with peers (Raaska et al.,
2012). Indeed, special needs adoptive parents often report peer problems among their children as a
major source of concern (Smith and Howard, 1999). Furthermore, Barth and Berry (1988) noted that
involvement with deviant friends and peer problems was linked with adoption disruption. Ironically,
the task of facilitating developmentally appropriate peer relationships, a normal component of the
process of individuation from parents (Ladd and Kochenderfer-Ladd, 2019), may run counter to initial
goals of adoptive parents, who are often preoccupied in the first few years following placement with
facilitating strong and secure attachments between themselves and their children (Pinderhughes, 1996).
Adoptees are disproportionately represented among children who receive special education ser-
vices (Brodzinsky and Steiger, 1991) and require residential treatment programs (Brodzinsky, Santa,
and Smith, 2016). This is especially the case for late-placed adoptees, whose emotional and behav-
ioral problems may compound learning difficulties. How school personnel respond to adoptees
with multiple needs is critical. For example, a small study of Norwegian teachers of elementary
students diagnosed with reactive attachment disorder and who were late-placed adoptees illustrated
the importance of balancing consistent structure and positive attention with strategies for helping
children calm down (Rijk, Hoksbergen, and Laak, 2008). Teachers reported greater success reaching
students with these strategies than when resorting to those like shouting or getting angry. Notably,
having supports from other school personnel was critical.Yet, parents often note that school person-
nel are poorly informed about the needs of children adopted at older ages and frequently view them
in negative and stereotyped ways (Goldberg, Frost, and Black, 2017; Groze, 1996).
To contend successfully with the stressors associated with adoptions of children with disabilities,
parents need to rely on informal and formal supports, such as extended family, friends, neighbors,
347
other adoptive families, former foster families, birth families, therapists, and previous caseworkers
(Leung and Erich, 2002; Moyer and Goldberg, 2017; Wind et al., 2007). Barth and Berry (1988)
found that families whose adoptive placements were disrupted have fewer relatives within visiting
distance and less contact with them compared with families that remained intact. Similarly, other
researchers have found that various positive indices of placement outcome are associated with greater
approval and support from family and friends and greater involvement with other adoptive families
(Groze, 1996; Groze and Rosenthal, 1991; Rosenthal, Groze, and Morgan, 1990).The benefits of such
contact include normalization of feelings; alleviation of a sense of isolation and alienation; fostering a
sense of belonging in the adopted child; empowerment of adoptive parents; sharing of advice, infor-
mation, and skills; and increasing the likelihood of seeking professional help when needed.
Professional support of placements of children with special needs is critical both before and after
placement. Miller, Pérouse de Montclos, and Sorge (2016) recommended that adoption medicine
professionals—medical professionals who have knowledge about adoption processes and impact of
pre-adoption experiences on children’s development—have an important role to play in support-
ing parents who adopt children with special needs. Adoption medicine professionals should provide
consultation to help prospective parents consider the kinds of disabilities they might be able to work
with and to review medical records of a specific child who has been proposed by adoption profes-
sionals as a match for the family. Adoption-competent mental health professionals also can help par-
ents before placement emotionally prepare for and, after placement, cope with the challenges their
children pose (Brodzinsky, 2013). This type of pre-adoption support will enable parents to have as
complete an understanding of their child as possible and to form realistic expectations about chal-
lenges that lie ahead.
Financial and medical subsidies are another critical factor in adoptions of children with special
needs. In fact, families view these supports as essential for coping with the stress of rearing their
troubled children (Reilly and Platz, 2004; Rosenthal et al., 1996). Moreover, financial and medical
subsidies have been credited with making adoption accessible to ethnic-racial minority, low-income,
and foster families—groups that typically adopt older and special needs children. Without these sub-
sidies, many youngsters with special needs, rather than being adopted, would linger in foster care or
end up in institutional placements (Barth and Berry, 1988).
Other service needs that have been identified as being important for successful special needs
placements include advocacy for specialized and individualized educational services; individual,
group, and family therapy; specialized training of mental health professionals regarding the dynamics
of adoptions of children with special needs; parenting skills classes emphasizing behavior manage-
ment and working with traumatized and attachment disordered children; identification of com-
munity resources; respite care; life planning for developmentally disabled youth; intensive family
preservation services; and availability of services over the life of the family (Kramer and Houston,
1998; Rosenthal et al., 1996; S. L. Smith and Howard, 1999).
In summary, rearing adopted children with special needs and late-placed children presents indi-
viduals and couples with several interrelated parenting challenges. Unlike infant adoptions or rear-
ing birth children, these challenges are linked to the adoptee’s previous history in other families
or institutions and present both internal and external pressures on the family concurrently. When
parents can maintain high levels of commitment to their adopted child and the placement and man-
age troublesome child behaviors, adoptions of children with special needs are more likely to succeed
(McRoy, 1999; Partridge et al., 1986). Adoptive parents can support these adoptees through inter-
actions that affirm and validate the adoptee and structured but flexible rules. Informal and formal
supports are critical; we will discuss supports in greater detail after turning our attention to parenting
among sexual minority parents and adoption as risk or protection.
348
Adoptive Parenting as a Sexual Minority

Although sexual minority adults adopt for many of the same reasons as heterosexual adults (e.g.,
desire to form a family and have children; desire to nurture a child in need), they are significantly
less likely to do so because of infertility (Farr and Patterson, 2009; Patterson, 2019). Sexual minority
adults also appear to place less importance on being a biological parent than do heterosexual adults,
and consequently are more likely to choose adoption as their first choice in considering parenthood
(Goldberg et al., 2009).
In transitioning to adoptive parenthood, lesbians and gay men experience not only the challenges
faced by heterosexual parents (e.g., decisions about the type of child and adoption to pursue, home
study assessment, uncertain waiting periods, and other challenges), but some additional ones as well.
Too often they encounter negative stereotypes, misconceptions, and discrimination from adoption
professionals, birth parents, and others in the community, which can create anxiety and challenge
their confidence in their adoption decision (Brodzinsky, 2012; Kinkler and Goldberg, 2011; Mallon,
2012). Despite the added stress, lesbian and gay parents adjust to adoptive parenthood very well, in
ways comparable to their heterosexual counterparts (Goldberg and Smith, 2009). This is especially
true when they perceive greater social support and have a strong couple relationship (Goldberg and
Smith, 2011).
Sexual minority adoptive parents are confident, competent, and emotionally healthy caregivers in
ways that are similar to heterosexual parents (Farr, 2017; Farr, Forssell, and Patterson, 2010; Goldberg
and Smith, 2008; Lavner,Waterman, and Peplau, 2014;Tornello, Farr, and Patterson, 2011). Regarding
adoption-specific issues, they are particularly sensitive to their children’s curiosity about their origins
and are supportive of contact with the birth family at a level comparable to, and at times greater than,
heterosexual adoptive parents (Brodzinsky and Goldberg, 2016, 2017). In addition, no group differ-
ences have been found in adjustment patterns between children adopted by sexual minority parents
and those adopted by heterosexual parents (Farr, 2017; Farr et al., 2010; Lavner, Waterman, and Pep-
lau, 2012; Tan and Baggerly, 2009), despite the fact that the former group is often subjected to teasing
and bullying regarding parental sexual orientation (Cody, Farr, McRoy, Ayers-Lopez, and Ledesma,
2017). The preparation and attention to socialization issues among sexual minority adoptive parents
appear to successfully buffer stresses experienced by these children from teasing and other types of
microaggressions (Goldberg and Smith, 2016; Oakley, Farr, and Scherer, 2017).
In summary, although sexual minority adoptive parents encounter additional challenges in the
transition to adoptive parenthood, and their children sometimes experience teasing regarding their
parents’ sexual orientation, these experiences do not lead to increased adjustment problems. Like
the findings from other areas of family research, those related to adoption indicate that family and
developmental outcomes have much more to do with family process variables (e.g., quality of parent-
ing and relationship quality) than family structural variables (same-sex versus different-sex parents;
Golombok and Tasker, 2015).
Adoption as Risk or Protection

Considerable attention has been focused on adoption by child welfare professionals and mental
health professionals.The perspectives of these two groups, however, have often differed. Child welfare
professionals generally have viewed adoption as a solution to a variety of societal problems. As such,
these individuals have emphasized the benefits associated with being adopted. In contrast, mental
health professionals have been more concerned with the psychological risks associated with being
adopted. Although they may appear contradictory, these two faces of adoption represent “two sides
of the same coin.” Moreover, both perspectives appear valid.
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Within the social sciences, interest in problems associated with adoption can be traced to the work
of Schechter (1960) and Kirk (1964), who were among the first researchers to point out that adop-
tion, although a reasonable option for children in need of out-of-home placement, is itself linked to
increased risk for adjustment difficulties. Three sources of data address this issue: (1) epidemiological
studies on the incidence and prevalence of adoptees in mental health settings; (2) studies of presenting
symptomatology of clinical samples of adopted and non-adopted children; and (3) research on psycho-
logical characteristics and adjustment patterns of adopted and non-adopted children in non-clinical,
community-based settings. Detailed discussion of the literature on risk is beyond the scope of this chapter
(see Brodzinsky and Pinderhughes, 2002); findings will be briefly summarized. Since the focus of this
chapter is on parenting adopted children, greater attention will be devoted to how parenting processes
in adoptive families help adoption to serve a protective function.
Adoption as Risk
Questions about adoption as a risk factor for children’s development historically centered on com-
parisons of adoptees with children from the same type of community or socioeconomic level that
currently characterizes the adoptive family. Various studies from different national health surveys
have reported that adopted children are significantly overrepresented in out-patient and in-patient
mental health settings (Miller, Fan, Christensen, Grotevant, and Van Dulmen, 2000; Warren, 1992).
These early national studies are corroborated by meta-analyses of different studies in the literature
(Behle and Pinquart, 2016; Juffer and van IJzendoorn, 2005). These differences exist even though
adoptive parents are more likely to seek services for their children than are non-adoptive parents,
even when problem levels are the same. Studies focused on the functioning of adopted persons in
many European countries, Australia, New Zealand, Canada, and the United States also demonstrate
that adoptees are at risk for more externalizing and, in some studies, internalizing problems, men-
tal health diagnoses, and more school-related problems and likelihood of placement in residential
treatment centers (Askeland et al., 2017; Behle and Pinquart, 2016; Bimmel, Juffer, van IJzendoorn,
and Bakermans-Kranenburg, 2003; Brodzinsky et al., 2016; Juffer and van IJzendoorn, 2005; Miller
et al., 2000). A U.S. census-based study of children ages 5–15 found that adoptees had twice the rate
of disabilities as non-adoptees (Kreider and Cohen, 2009). Unpacking patterns among adoptees,
Howard and colleagues found the highest rates of problems among children adopted from foster care
(Howard, Smith, and Ryan, 2004); in a meta-analysis that excluded children placed from foster care,
Juffer and van IJzendoorn (2005) found fewer referrals and problems for intercountry adoptees than
domestic adoptees.
In summary, although the majority of adopted children are within the normal range of function-
ing, they are more likely to manifest psychological and academic problems than their non-adopted
peers are. Importantly, these difficulties appear to have more to do with pre-adoption risks (e.g.,
genetic vulnerability, prenatal complications, and pre-placement adversities such as neglect, abuse,
relationship disruptions, and orphanage life) than with the experience of adoption per se.
Adoption as Protection for Recovery From Adversity

Two important considerations must be kept in mind when addressing the question of adoption as a
protective factor: First, most children move up the socioeconomic ladder when they are adopted. In
other words, adoptive parents, on average, are financially and materially more advantaged than are
the birth parents of adopted children. In turn, these advantages may well provide opportunities for
adopted children that they are unlikely to experience if they continued to live with their biological
family. Second, most children who are adopted move from a home/caregiving setting characterized
by insecurity, instability, and a lack of adequate stimulation and nurturance to an environment more
350
often characterized by greater security, stability, stimulation, and nurturance. Therefore, in examining
whether adoption is a protective factor, one must compare long-term outcome for adoptees with
youngsters from backgrounds similar to those characterized by the adoptees’ birth families, as well as
to youngsters who remain in foster care or grow up in institutional environments.
A number of studies from England, France, India, Scotland, Spain, Sweden, and the United States
have compared the adjustment of adopted children to several other groups of youngsters living under
more adverse social conditions, including children residing in long-term foster care or institutional
environments or children living with biological parents who come from disadvantaged backgrounds
similar to that of the birth families of the adoptees (Bharat, 1997; Bohman, 1970; Bohman and Sig-
vardsson, 1990; Dumaret, 1985; Hodges and Tizard, 1989; Jimenez-Morago, Leon, and Roman, 2015;
Maughan and Pickles, 1990; Palacios, Moreno, and Román, 2013; Scarr and Weinberg, 1983;Triselio-
tis and Hill, 1990;Weinberg, Scarr, and Waldman, 1992).The results of these studies are consistent and
telling. First, in each of the studies where the appropriate comparison was made, adopted children
fared significantly better than children who resided in long-term foster care or in institutional-type
environments. This result is not surprising and forms the rationale for the emphasis on permanency
planning within the child welfare system. Adopted children also fared better than children who were
reared by biological parents who either did not want them or showed ambivalence about keeping
them. In addition, adopted children display better adjustment than youngsters living with biological
parents whose disadvantaged socioeconomic status was similar to that of the adoptees’ own birth
families. Although the latter finding should not be interpreted to suggest that children be removed
from their birth families simply because they are living in conditions of poverty, it does suggest that
one benefit of adoption is that it can, when appropriate, provide a more advantaged environment for
children, which in turn, may well have positive effects on development and adjustment.
Taken as a whole, these research studies provide clear and convincing evidence that adoption can,
and usually does, serve as a protective factor in the life of the child whose biological parents cannot
or will not provide an appropriate childrearing environment. However, it is no longer sufficient to
state that adoption can serve as a protective factor for children who lack an appropriate caregiving
setting. The key question that has emerged is how does adoption serve a protective function for
these children? More specifically, what are the parenting processes that enable adoptive families to
help children recover from pre-adoptive adversity and thrive, relative to their peers reared in institu-
tions or birth families, and to function in ways that approximate or match their peers in their new
communities?
Multiple studies demonstrate the power of sensitive parenting from adoptive parents who have
secure attachment models themselves. Among early-placed domestic and intercountry adoptees,
mothers’ secure attachments were linked to more secure attachment in infants (Lionetti, 2014).
However, infants who had a difficult temperament were less able to respond to sensitive caregiving,
suggesting the importance of supports for sensitive caregiving for these children. In two important
longitudinal studies of Italian adoptees placed between ages 4 and 7, Pace and colleagues (C. S. Pace
and Zavattini, 2011; C. S. Pace, Zavattini, and D’Alessio, 2012) found that adoptees’ attachment pat-
terns can shift from insecure working models to secure working models—even within 8 months of
placement—aided by parenting from adoptive mothers who have secure attachment models. Nota-
bly, adoptees with insecure internal working models who were placed with adoptive mothers who
had insecure attachment models did not change, highlighting the importance of maternal sensitivity
for late-placed children. Pace and colleagues (2015) then followed up a small sample of Italian adoles-
cents who were placed between ages 4 and 9 and their mothers to examine concordance of adoptees’
and parents’ internal working models. With eligibility criteria designed to ensure a homogenous
sample—teens had to be in the home at least 4 years and could not have special needs, parents were
moderately to highly educated and in an intact marriage, and families lived in urban areas—they
found 70% concordance in internal working models between mothers and their teens.Thus, sensitive
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caregiving is critical to support the development of a secure attachment among adoptees, especially
those in need of reversing an insecure attachment.
Other signs of the importance of maternal sensitivity in adoptive families come from longer
longitudinal studies. For example, Jaffari-Bimmel and colleagues (2006) followed 160 early-adopted
youth and their Dutch families over three time points from infancy through middle childhood to
adolescence, with a focus on whether early experiences or concurrent experiences were linked to
social functioning in adolescence. They found that maternal sensitivity and attachment measured in
infancy predicted social competence, friendliness, and social esteem among adolescents, and that chil-
dren’s social development in middle childhood and maternal sensitivity of adolescents mediated this
relation (Jaffari-Bimmel, Juffer, van IJzendoorn, Bakermans-Kranenburg, and Mooijaart, 2006).Thus,
maternal sensitivity appears to help shape children’s social development, which, along with sensitive
parenting of adolescents, affects current social functioning in adolescence.
Further illustrations of the importance of sensitive caregiving from adoptive parents come from
evidence-based video feedback interventions with adoptive families (Juffer and Steele, 2014; Steele
et al., 2011). For example, Juffer and her colleagues (Juffer, Bakermans-Kranenburg, and van IJzen-
doorn, 2005) offered one group of Dutch parents a personalized book with tips on sensitive par-
enting and another group of parents a personalized book and a three-session home-based video
feedback of their interactions with their children at 6 and 9 months of age. Comparisons with a
control group that received a brief booklet on adoption issues showed that children of the parents
who received the video-feedback-plus-book were less likely to receive disorganized attachment
classification or have low scores on a disorganized attachment rating scale at 12 months of age. The
book-only intervention was not as effective. The intervention targeted parents’ sensitive responses to
their children, and the researchers were able to demonstrate that parents improved in their sensitivity
to and cooperation with their adopted infants. Thus, improving parents’ sensitivity and cooperation
enables parents to help their adopted infant develop a secure attachment. Several evidence-based
interventions designed initially for foster families also hold promise for adoptive families.These inter-
ventions promote therapeutic parenting that fills the compensatory experiences which children with
trauma histories need (Bernard, Dozier, Bick Lewis-Morrarty, Lindhiem, and Carlson, 2012; Fisher
and Chamberlain, 2000). For example, Attachment and Biobehavioral Catch-Up (ABC; Bernard
et al., 2012) provides careful detailed feedback to parents about their interactions with their child.
ABC helps parents nurture their children through distress, follow their children’s lead when children
are not distressed, and avoid acting in ways that would frighten children (see Bernard et al., 2019,
and Powell, 2019, for more on foster parent interventions and parenting interventions, respectively).
Although more is known about how parenting processes facilitate adopted children’s recovery and
development, parents continue to face challenges providing those processes and supports that children
need.These challenges are due to two sets of issues. First, although pre-placement preparation is criti-
cal, sometimes parents cannot adequately process the information that professionals tell them during
the home study and early preparation period. They may be too focused on having the child in the
home. Moreover, some implications of children’s pre-adoptive adversities do not emerge until later in
the child’s development (e.g., learning and school adjustment; identity) (Matthews et al., 2016). By the
time children are older and their vulnerabilities begin to emerge, the earlier preparation/education
may not be relevant anymore. Thus, post-adoption support is critical. The second issue is that post-
adoption support provides insufficient and, in some cases, ineffective services for adoptive families.
Post-Adoption Services
There is a growing trend toward promoting adoption competencies among professionals (Atkinson,
Gonet, Freundlich, and Riley, 2013;Brodzinsky, 2013). This trend has responded to two clashing
realities—adoptive families need competent mental health support and the limited accessibility of
352
services provided by adoption-competent providers (Hill and Moore, 2015; Pinderhughes et al., 2013;
Reilly and Platz, 2004). Despite the increased awareness that adoption is a lifelong process, this under-
standing apparently has not yet translated into enhanced training of professionals and students about
adoption-related issues that need attention during the immediate post-placement period, at different
developmental periods when children face new tasks, and linked to stressful situations well into adult-
hood. The lack of such training as a core element in mental health training programs (Koh, McRoy,
and Kim, 2015) has heightened the demand for ongoing professional development. One creative
response to this demand, the federally funded National Adoption Competency Mental Health Train-
ing Initiative (NTI), targets two distinct professionals—child welfare professionals and mental health
professionals—with 20 or more hours of online training (Center for Adoption Support and Educa-
tion; n.d.). In addition, several post-graduate adoption competency training programs are available
around the country (see Brodzinsky, 2013, for a summary of these programs). These programs, geared
to increase the number of adoption-competent mental health professions available for adoptive fami-
lies, offer classroom-based and sometimes in-home training for licensed mental health professionals.
Importantly, and in line with our earlier discussion about the power of the Internet, professionals can
receive some training online. Aside from insufficient adoption-competent services, other barriers to
successful adoptions include adoptive families’ lack of knowledge of available and accessible services,
issues of cost, and adoptive parents’ reluctance to seek formal services, sometimes preferring to access
informal services. These parent-related barriers must be addressed by adoption professionals.
The common and unique challenges facing adoptive families can be addressed through a spec-
trum of services, including education and information, clinical services, material support, support
networks and other specialized supports, as well as supports that cut across different areas of need.
Sponsored by the federal government, the Child Welfare Gateway website provides a helpful frame-
work for this spectrum of services (Child Welfare Information Gateway, 2012). Education, infor-
mation, and referral services typically address parenting concerns, impact of the placement on the
marital relationship, and the adoptee’s pre-placement history. Professional services provided to chil-
dren, parents, and families are most likely enhanced by adoption-competent providers, including
clinical, educational, medical, and legal services. Material support provides adoptive families with
financial resources to support rearing children (adoption subsidies) and to enable families to address
adoptees’ special health or mental health needs. These supports are especially important for families
that are rearing late-placed adoptees who cope with the ongoing impact of pre-adoption adversities.
Support networks provide peer support for parents and for adoptees, whereas specialized supports
address certain needs that adoptive families have, such as for respite care. Either support can aid
transracial or transethnic adoptive families in helping their adopted children develop healthy ethnic,
racial, and adoptive identities or families who need respite care to rear children with substantial
physical or mental health needs. Finally, services that cut across these areas include advocacy or train-
ing for advocacy with service providers, schools, and other settings in which adopted children’s and
their families’ challenges need better understanding, as well as case management services that assist
families in obtaining needed services (Child Welfare Gateway, 2012).
In summary, adoption serves as a protective factor through the functioning of adoptive parents.
Parenting processes that are sensitive and responsive to young children’s needs, based on their pre-
adoptive experiences, that provide support for the development of a positive identity, that promote
open conversation about adoption, and that can flexibly address children’s emotional distress and
behavioral problems serve to help children recover from pre-adoptive adversity and grow optimally.
Most adoptees can and do function at levels comparable to their non-adopted peers in new settings.
However, adoption-competent supports are critically needed, first as a normative support for families
as children move through development and face new developmental tasks, and second to help those
families whose challenges outweigh their parenting skills or resources. Continued development of
adoption-competent services will enable the field to support the increasing needs of adoptive families.
353
Conclusions
Adoption increasingly mirrors the diversity in the world and is a complex set of processes—legally,
socially, and psychologically. Adoption offers different pathways to family life for children lacking
permanent parents and for adults seeking to adopt.Yet, adoption is a complex set of processes that do
not end with placement or its legalization. Rather, adoption is a lifelong set of processes that children
and parents must navigate. Changes in adoption practices make it difficult to generalize about the
average adopted child or the average adoptive family. The degree to which families are successful in
adoption is highly related to the pre-adoptive experiences children have, and most importantly, the
parenting processes that adoptive parents can provide. The keys to successful parenting of adopted
children include good preparation, realistic expectations, effective behavior management skills, good
communication, and adequate supports—all of which are common to other families as well.
Yet, adoptive parents face numerous adoption-related challenges that compound normative par-
enting challenges (Brodzinsky, 1987; Brodzinsky et al., 1992; Kirk, 1964; Reitz and Watson, 1992).
Acknowledging the inherent differences of adoptive family life, creating a rearing environment that
is conducive to open and supportive dialogue about these differences, maintaining a respectful and
empathic view of the child’s birth family and heritage, and supporting the child’s search for self are
critical tasks faced by adoptive parents (Brodzinsky et al., 1992). Moreover, some adoptive parents
also face unique challenges that can include supporting children who have experienced trauma, who
continue to function with delays in development or disabilities, who are from a different cultural
background than their adoptive parents, or as a sexual minority parent. When adoptive parents are
successful in meeting these challenges, as most are, they find the experience of rearing adopted chil-
dren to be personally rewarding and successful in terms of their children’s adjustment. When these
adoption-related challenges, whether common or unique, outweigh families’ skills and resources,
adoption-competent services need to be available and accessible. With such supports, adoptive par-
ents can provide critical compensatory processes that enable adoptees to recover and thrive, thus
joining the large percentage of adoptive families who are successful.
Acknowledgments
Research from the Pinderhughes’s lab was supported by the William T. Grant Faculty Scholars
Program.
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11
FOSTER PARENTING
Kristin Bernard, Allison Frost, Sierra Kuzava, and Laura Perrone
Introduction
Children are born biologically prepared for consistent and responsive parenting. Children placed
in foster care have usually experienced just the opposite—histories of caregiving characterized
by neglect or abuse that significantly undermine their safety and well-being. Furthermore, chil-
dren in foster care have endured a separation from their parents, which reflects another significant
trauma and threat to healthy development. Foster parents provide substitute care to these vulnerable
children.
Foster parents vary in their reasons for becoming foster parents, whether they are related to the
foster children they care for, how many foster children they care for at a given time and across their
tenure as a foster parent, and in their perceptions about their roles as substitute caregivers. These
differences in experiences and expectations influence the quality of care that they provide to foster
children.The primary shared feature that distinguishes foster parenting from other forms of parenting
is that the foster parent–child relationship is expected to be temporary.
In this chapter, we consider the unique role of foster parents. First, we provide an overview of
the child welfare system broadly, including a brief history of how foster parenting has changed over
time, a discussion of the key individuals involved in and served by the child welfare system (i.e.,
foster children, birth parents, child welfare agency caseworkers, and foster parents), and a considera-
tion of relationships among these individuals. Second, we discuss attachment in the context of foster
care, examining issues such as how infants form attachment relationships with foster parents and the
characteristics of foster placements that support the formation of secure and organized attachment
relationships. Third, we consider foster parent commitment, defined as a foster parent’s emotional
investment in an enduring relationship with the foster child. After considering the challenging of
commitment for foster parents (e.g., temporary nature of care, professional role of the foster parent,
lack of biological relatedness), we discuss research examining predictors and outcomes associated
with foster parent commitment. Fourth, we review several programs and practices designed to sup-
port effective parenting among foster parents, along with evidence for their efficacy in improving
parenting and enhancing outcomes among foster children. Fifth, we discuss controversies in foster
care, such as maltreatment perpetrated by foster parents and ethnic/racial disparities in child welfare
involvement. Finally, we offer recommendations for future research and clinical and policy efforts
that may help us understand and enhance the experience of foster parents and the vulnerable chil-
dren they care for.
368
Foster Parenting
The Child Welfare System
From Early Substitute Care to the Child Welfare System

Today: A Brief History
The placement of children with substitute caregivers was a necessary social practice before formal
legislation for child welfare practices were in place. In colonial America, orphaned or poor children
were placed into others’ homes to provide indentured service or labor. In the 1800s, dependent
children who were orphaned in urban areas were often sent west by way of “orphan trains” to work
for farm families who provided care; this system for placing children into homes, started by Charles
Loring Brace, served the primary goal of protecting society from these problematic children, rather
than to protect the vulnerable children themselves.
In the late 1880s, Charles Birtwell, overseeing efforts of the Boston Children’s Aid Society, shifted
the practice of placing children in others’ homes in two major ways: enhancing prevention efforts
and promoting goals of reunification of children with their families. In the early twentieth cen-
tury, several national initiatives increased attention to children’s safety and well-being. In 1912, for
example, the Children’s Bureau was founded; although its initial focus was on issues related to infant
mortality and infant health, foster care and child welfare practices became a focus of the Children’s
Bureau’s efforts over time.
By the 1960s and 1970s, the number of children in foster care increased, likely due to the increase
in federal funding to support foster care systems and a heightened awareness of child abuse.This shift
coincided with the Child Abuse Prevention and Treatment Act of 1974, which required states to
enact procedures of child abuse reporting and investigation.
Several policies in the 1980s and 1990s addressed a growing concern that children were experi-
encing lengthy stays in foster care and/or not being returned home at all. With growing evidence
that disruptions in care had negative consequences for children, legislative changes focused on fam-
ily preservation, permanency, and reunification. The Adoption and Safe Families Act of 1997 also
emphasized the importance of child safety and well-being, which continue to be prioritized today.
The child welfare system today can be thought of as several intersecting organizations, including
public agencies (e.g., departments of social services), private foster care agencies, and community-
based providers that share a common goal of promoting child safety and well-being.The responsibili-
ties of the various entities within the child welfare system include screening and investigating reports
of child maltreatment, arranging and overseeing out-of-home placements (e.g., with non-relative
foster caregivers or relative foster “kinship” caregivers), providing preventive services, and coordinat-
ing reunification, adoption, or other permanency plans.
Although the child welfare system exists to ensure child protection and safety and prioritize child
well-being, it has several characteristics that pose inherent challenges for children, foster parents, birth
parents, and child welfare staff. Placement into foster care, although serving the immediate purpose
of protecting children, can pose threats to children’s healthy development, as children’s relationships
with primary caregivers are disrupted. For birth parents, the removal of a child from their care is often
experienced as a traumatic loss, resulting in feelings of resentment, hostility, and despair; in addition
to the reasons for child removal (e.g., inability to provide safe care, perhaps due to psychopathology,
substance abuse, involvement in abusive partner relationships, homelessness), such overwhelming feel-
ings may make it difficult to engage effectively with required service plans to regain custody and may
make relationships with children, case planners, and foster parents strained and difficult. For example,
birth parents may feel rejected by their children or judged by foster parents, which may lead them to
miss visits with their children, avoid services (e.g., parenting classes), or engage in problematic coping
strategies (e.g., substance use). Case planners and other workers at foster care agencies have the chal-
lenging jobs of prioritizing the well-being of children while managing the needs of birth parents and
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supporting foster parents, often for between 10 and 20 children at a time. Finally, foster parents, who
are the focus of this chapter, are challenged to provide optimal care in the context of relationships that
are, by definition, temporary, to children who are often harder to parent due to emotional, behavioral,
or developmental problems. Foster parents must also navigate often tense relationships with children’s
biological parents and satisfy the demands of case planners and foster care agencies. Before exploring
the unique challenges of foster parents in their role providing care, we consider each of the individuals
involved in or served by the foster care system in more depth.
The Child Welfare System: Considering the Individuals Involved
Foster Children
In 2015, approximately 428,000 children were in foster care in the United States, with approximately
40% of children between 0 and 5 years old (U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, 2016).
The average length of time a child was in foster care was approximately 20 months, demonstrating
the inherently temporary nature of the foster parent–child relationship. Children enter into the child
welfare system for a variety of reasons, often due to concerns related to maltreatment (i.e., child abuse
or neglect) that threaten a child’s safety and well-being in their home. Whereas child abuse refers to
threatening experiences reflecting acts of commission (i.e., acting in a way that is harmful toward
a child), such as physical abuse, emotional abuse, or sexual abuse, child neglect refers to failures to
provide adequate care or acts of omission (e.g., failing to meet the child’s medical, education, or basic
physical needs). Neglect is the most common reason for removal from the home, but many children
experience multiple types of maltreatment before being placed into foster care (U.S. Department of
Health and Human Services, 2016).
In addition to experiences of maltreatment, children in foster care are often exposed to a number
of other risks before they are removed from their parents’ homes, including prenatal risks (e.g., sub-
stance exposure), parent psychopathology, parent substance abuse, domestic violence, and poverty-
related risk factors (English, Thompson, and White, 2015). Placement into foster care, of course,
represents an additional risk, given that children experience a separation from primary caregivers.
Taken together, experiences of maltreatment, exposure to prenatal and postnatal risk factors in the
family, and separation from caregivers threaten healthy development, placing children at elevated risk
for a number of emotional and behavioral issues, including anxiety, depression, posttraumatic stress
disorder, and oppositional defiant disorder (Garland et al., 2001). Indeed, children in foster care are
about three times more likely to develop a psychiatric disorder compared to children not placed in
foster care (Briggs-Gowan, McCue Horwitz, Schwab-Stone, Leventhal, and Leaf, 2000).
Children placed in foster care can also show several difficulties related to self-regulation. Studies
of stress system functioning have shown that children in the foster care system show irregular pro-
duction of cortisol, a stress hormone serving a number of important functions in the body (Dozier
et al., 2006; Fisher, Gunnar, Dozier, Bruce, and Pears, 2006). Children in foster care also show defi-
cits in executive functioning and inhibitory control, which may impact their school performance
and socioemotional development (Bruce, McDermott, Fisher, and Fox, 2009). Finally, children in
the foster care system often show difficulties in relationships starting as early as infancy. Infants in
foster care are more likely to show disorganized attachment, and school-aged foster children have
poorer peer relationships (Leve, Fisher, and Degarmo, 2007; van den Dries, Juffer, van IJzendoorn,
and Bakermans-Kranenburg, 2009). Whereas infants may adjust relatively quickly to relying on the
foster parent as a primary caregiver, children and adolescents may struggle with accepting the foster
parent in this role, due to feelings of loyalty to their parents, resentment about placement into foster
care, yearning to return home, and distrust of the foster parent or the child welfare system (Baker,
Creegan, Quinones, and Rozelle, 2016).
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Thus, children entering foster care bring with them a host of previous experiences that have
shaped their socioemotional, behavioral, and biological development—often in ways that pose sig-
nificant challenges to parenting.
Birth Parents
Parents whose children are removed from their care and placed into foster care often struggle with
the traumatic loss of their child as well as the issues that led to that loss. Maltreatment can be best
conceptualized using an ecological transactional model (Cicchetti and Toth, 2005), with many factors
contributing to its occurrence. Within the parent, risk factors for perpetrating maltreatment include
mental health problems (Windham et al., 2004), substance abuse (Cash and Wilke, 2003), and stress
(Pereira et al., 2012). Within the family, risk factors include domestic violence (Hartley, 2002), lack
of social or partner support (Price-Wolf, 2015), and low income (Jonson-Reid, Drake, and Zhou,
2013; Maguire-Jack and Font, 2017). Additionally, maltreatment may be transmitted across genera-
tions, with estimates of continuity ranging widely from 7% to 70% (Berzenski, Yates, and Egeland,
2014). Maltreatment occurs at higher rates in communities characterized by concentrated poverty
or elevated violence (Coulton, Korbin, and Su, 1999; Drake and Pandey, 1996; Eckenrode, Smith,
McCarthy, and Dineen, 2014), although these neighborhoods may also be subject to more reporting
or investigation for maltreatment (Coulton, Crampton, Irwin, Spilsbury, and Korbin, 2007). Taken
together, maltreating parents are often overwhelmed by a host of risk factors at the individual, family,
and community level that undermine their ability to provide safe and optimal caregiving, especially
in the absence of protective factors.
In 2015, the identified placement goal for children in foster care was reunification with birth
parents for about 55% of children in foster care in the United States (U.S. Department of Health
and Human Services, 2016). When reunification is the plan, birth parents must meet several require-
ments to have their children returned to their care. Such requirements may include participating in
mandated services, such as parenting programs, mental health treatment, substance abuse treatment,
as well as securing safe and stable housing. A visitation schedule is usually established, allowing birth
parents to visit with their children, with these visits often initially supervised at an agency. Over time,
these visits may become more frequent, with children transitioning to weekend visits at the birth
parent’s home until the child is reunified.
Birth parents’ past experiences, characteristics, and current circumstances influence foster parents
directly and indirectly. Although some birth parents and foster parents have supportive relationships
and effectively coparent, many relationships between birth parents and foster parents are conflictual.
Birth parents may interact with foster parents in hostile ways, due to feelings of anger, jealousy, or
resentment; alternatively, they may withdraw, miss visits, or fail to maintain consistent communica-
tion (Chateauneuff,Turcotte, and Drapeau, 2017; Haight, Kagle, and Black, 2003). Conflicts between
foster parents and birth parents can result in placement disruptions. Indirectly, birth parents’ past
experiences and behaviors, particularly those that have contributed to the foster child being placed
out of home, may influence foster parents’ perceptions and feelings about the birth parent or their
foster child.
Child Welfare Caseworkers

Foster care agencies are responsible for finding foster care placements when children are removed
from their parents’ care. In addition to placing children and monitoring the quality of care provided
in foster homes, foster care agency staff are responsible for providing or coordinating services for
children. Given that foster children have elevated mental and physical health problems, they often
require psychological and medical treatments as part of their service plans. Although child welfare
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caseworkers are often responsible for ensuring that foster children receive services to meet their
mental health needs, they are often undertrained in assessing those needs and identifying appropriate
services, especially services that are evidence-based (Dorsey, Kerns, Trupin, Conover, and Berliner,
2012). Finally, child welfare caseworkers coordinate and supervise visitation between birth parents
and their children in foster care and oversee the process of reunification when children return home.
In addition to the high number of responsibilities, child welfare caseworkers intersect with many
other professional systems, including law enforcement, the court system, and schools. Furthermore,
they directly interact with foster children, birth parents, and foster parents.
Turnover rates for child welfare caseworkers are high, with low pay, lack of experience, lack of
peer, supervisor, and organization support, limited training, and safety risk predicting turnover (Scan-
napieco and Connell-Carrick, 2007). Child welfare caseworkers often have high caseloads, requiring
them to coordinate care and services for between 10 and 20 children at any given time. High case-
loads among child welfare caseworkers and high rates of turnover can interfere with foster children
and foster parents getting the support and services that they need (Hayes, Geiger, and Lietz, 2015).
Additionally, when child welfare caseworkers are unresponsive to foster parent needs, the likelihood
of foster parents discontinuing fostering is increased (Rhodes, Orme, Cox, and Buehler, 2003). Thus,
foster parents rely on child welfare agencies for training and educational resources, case management,
and emotional support (Chipungu and Bent-Goodley, 2004; Geiger, Piel, and Julien-Chinn, 2017).
Foster Parents
Foster placements include non-relative foster homes (45%), relative or “kinship” foster homes (30%),
group homes (6%), institutional settings (8%), pre-adoptive homes (4%), and other categories, such
as supervised independent living, runaways, or trial home visits (U.S. Department of Health and
Human Services, 2016). Studies examining demographic characteristics of foster parents find that
foster parents are, on average, in their early to mid-40s, married, and have low to mid socioeconomic
status (Ahn, Greeno, Bright, Hartzel, and Reiman, 2017).
Following screening and selection procedures, which typically involve thorough investigation
of their backgrounds, home and financial situation, mental health, and parenting capacities, foster
parents receive mandated training to prepare them to provide care to children removed from their
homes. Foster parents are paid for their service as caregivers, although the stipends they receive are
not substantial, and typically foster parents work outside of the home.
When a foster child is placed in a foster parent’s home, the foster parent assumes a role much like
any other parent. The foster child is integrated into the foster parent’s family, which may include
additional caregivers and additional children (e.g., biological children and/or related or unrelated
foster children). Foster parents assume responsibility for caring for the child’s basic physical and nutri-
tional needs, as well as their social and emotional needs.Thus, the foster parent provides food, shelter,
and clothing for the child. The foster parent may impose rules and routines for the foster child and
implement discipline strategies, as well as offer comfort or other forms of support (e.g., help with
schoolwork) as needed. Although many parenting decisions are made by the foster parent him- or
herself, the foster parent shares his or her authority over the child with the child’s birth parent as well
as with the foster care agency.
Foster parents have a unique role for several reasons. First, attachment theory and research high-
light several differences between foster parenting and other forms of parenting. Children are born
biologically prepared to expect consistent and responsive caregiving. Maltreatment and subsequent
separations from primary caregivers pose significant threats to children forming attachment rela-
tionships. Foster parents, then, serve a role in supporting foster children as they form attachment
expectations following serious threats to attachment relationships, including loss, separation, and
trauma. Second and related, the role of foster parents is unique because, by design of the child welfare
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system, they serve as temporary parents to children. This is unlike care provided by biological parents,
for which an ongoing relationship is assumed. The temporary nature of the relationship poses chal-
lenges to foster parents committing to, or emotionally investing in, the children in their care. Other
challenges to commitment may include the professional nature of their caregiving role and lack of
biological relatedness to the foster child.
Summary of the Child Welfare System

The child welfare system serves to protect children and promote child well-being, and primarily
serves children who have experienced threats to their safety such as abuse and neglect. Foster parents
care for children who have been removed from their homes and placed into temporary, out-of-home
care. In addition to their relationships with foster children, which are challenged by issues related to
attachment and commitment, foster parents must navigate potentially complex relationships with
their foster children’s birth parents as well as child welfare agency caseworkers.
Attachment in Foster Care

Next, we turn attention to parent–child attachment in the context of foster care. Attachment theory
offers a useful framework for considering the unique role of foster parents, given that foster care
poses a direct threat to children’s relationships with primary caregivers. Furthermore, foster parents,
in taking on the role of primary caregiver to foster children, may face several attachment challenges
themselves, such as providing care that supports children’s attachment despite knowing that the rela-
tionship may be temporary.
Overview of Attachment Theory

Originating from the work of John Bowlby and Mary Ainsworth (Ainsworth and Bowlby, 1991),
attachment theory proposes that infants are oriented to form bonds with their primary caregivers
and that the quality of their attachment has implications for children’s development. The quality of
an infant’s attachment relationship is assessed empirically through the Strange Situation Procedure
developed by Ainsworth, which involves a series of increasingly stressful separations and reunions
between the infant and the caregiver (Ainsworth, Blehar, Waters, and Wall, 1978). Infants whose
attachments are classified as secure can use the caregiver as a secure base from which to explore and
as a source of comfort in times of distress. In contrast, infants with an insecure-avoidant attachment
classification are not likely to seek out their caregiver in times of distress, instead ignoring him or
her, while those with an insecure-resistant/ambivalent attachment classification are likely to show a
mixture of seeking contact with and rejecting the caregiver without being fully comforted by the
caregiver. Later, Main and Solomon (1990) developed a fourth classification, disorganized, to capture
those infants who lack a consistent attachment strategy with their caregiver. The quality of attach-
ment in infancy is important because it has been associated with a variety of outcomes. In particular,
disorganized attachment is a risk factor for negative outcomes, including externalizing problems, dis-
sociative behavior, and increased risk for psychopathology (Carlson, 1998; van IJzendoorn, Schuen-
gel, and Bakermans-Kranenburg, 1999). As a result, forming an organized and secure attachment is
considered ideal.
In addition to characterizing interactions with caregivers in infancy, attachment theory extends
into adulthood. Attachment representations, or internal working models, are formed based on expe-
riences with caregivers over time and shape individuals’ expectations of relationships with close
others (Main, Kaplan, and Cassidy, 1985). The Adult Attachment Interview (AAI; George, Kaplan,
and Main, 1985) was developed to assess these internal attachment representations through a series
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of questions about past and current relationships with one’s parents and questions about any expe-
rienced loss or trauma. Based on the AAI, adults are classified as secure-autonomous if they discuss
attachment-related experiences in an open and coherent manner that shows a valuing of attach-
ment relationships; insecure-dismissing if they minimize the importance of attachment by describing
attachment figures in an idealizing way or deny memories of attachment experiences; insecure-
preoccupied if they show anger and preoccupation with past attachment experiences; or unresolved/
disorganized if they show lapses in their thinking or discourse when discussing loss or abuse. Par-
ents’ AAI classifications predict their infants’ attachment classifications, suggesting that parents’ own
attachment representations play a role in their ability to respond to their infant, and in turn, in their
infants’ development of attachment expectations (van IJzendoorn, 1995).
Although attachment is of relevance to any infant-caregiver dyad, it is of particular interest in
the foster parent–child dyad given the unique nature of their relationship. Attachments are generally
formed with one’s primary caregivers and require the presence of a consistent caregiving relationship.
The potentially frequent disruptions in relationships with primary caregivers experienced by foster
children are not conducive to developing an attachment relationship, raising important questions
as to how to provide foster children with the best opportunities to develop organized and stable
attachments. In addition, foster children may be predisposed to insecure or disorganized attachments
because of their early environments, as maltreatment or neglect are associated with increased likeli-
hood of disorganized attachment (Carlson, 1998). In contrast to these potential challenges to attach-
ment security for foster children, foster care itself may provide an opportunity for forming improved
attachment relationships with a new caregiver, particularly if that caregiver is sensitive to the child’s
needs and consistently present. Therefore, it is important to consider some of the unique challenges
and potential benefits of attachment in the context of foster care.
Maltreatment as a Threat to Attachment

Early maltreatment is one factor that has been consistently related to insecure or disorganized
attachment patterns. Early studies utilizing the Strange Situation Procedure indicated an association
between maltreatment and insecure attachment, with somewhat inconsistent findings. For exam-
ple, within a low socioeconomic status sample, infants who had been maltreated were less likely to
be securely attached at 12 months than those who had received good maternal care (Egeland and
Sroufe, 1981). However, this difference was no longer significant at 18 months, as more than half
of the maltreated infants’ classifications changed between the 12- to 18-month assessments, with
increases in avoidant and secure classifications. Thus, early differences in attachment classification
between maltreated and non-maltreated low socioeconomic status infants did not seem to hold con-
stant as infants aged. The association between maltreatment and insecure attachment was replicated
in a study comparing maltreated and non-maltreated infants in a poverty sample ranging from 8 to
31 months of age, with the additional finding that only maltreatment by the mother, and not mal-
treatment by another person, was associated with significant differences in attachment classification
(Lamb, Gaensbauer, Malkin, and Schultz, 1985).This finding suggests that the impact of maltreatment
may be specific to infants’ attachment with the perpetrator of maltreatment, allowing the potential of
forming secure relationships with other caregivers. Such studies provided preliminary evidence for
maltreatment as an antecedent of insecure classification.
The development of the disorganized classification for the Strange Situation Procedure (Main
and Solomon, 1990) further clarified the association between maltreatment and attachment status
by identifying many infants as disorganized who had previously been coded with forced organized
attachment classifications. In one of the early applications of the disorganization classification system,
low socioeconomic status infants who were maltreated had a much higher prevalence of disorgan-
ized classifications (82%) than those who were not maltreated but matched for similar demographic
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characteristics (19%; Carlson, Cicchetti, Barnett, and Braunwald, 1989). The association between
maltreatment and disorganized attachment was further supported by a meta-analysis of samples from
55 studies indicating that maltreated children were more likely to demonstrate disorganized attach-
ment and less likely to demonstrate secure attachment than other high-risk children (Cyr, Euser,
Bakermans-Kranenburg, and van IJzendoorn, 2010). However, this meta-analysis also demonstrated
that children who had experienced five or more socioeconomic risk factors (e.g., low income, sin-
gle mother, minority) were similarly likely to have disorganized attachment as maltreated children.
This finding suggests that the differences in attachment between maltreated and non-maltreated
children diminishes as the quantity of other risk variables increases among non-maltreated children.
Adding additional insight to the maltreatment-attachment association, a study examining ethnically
diverse preschoolers with low socioeconomic status found that the severity of maltreatment was not
related to differences in attachment classification, suggesting that both low-severity and high-severity
maltreatment may have as impact on attachment quality (Pickreign Stronach et al., 2011). Taken
together, there is substantial evidence supporting early maltreatment as a predictor of disruptions in
attachment.
The association between maltreatment and attachment has implications beyond early childhood.
For example, childhood experiences of physical and sexual abuse or maltreatment have been associ-
ated with increased likelihood of an unresolved classification on the AAI among at-risk adolescent
mothers (Bailey, Moran, and Pederson, 2007). In addition, the association between early maltreat-
ment and attachment may contribute to outcomes later in life. For instance, disorganized attachment
as measured by the Strange Situation Procedure in infancy mediates the association between early
experiences, such as maltreatment, and adolescent psychopathology and dissociation (Carlson, 1998).
In addition, self-reported current insecure attachment mediates the association between childhood
emotional maltreatment and current depressive symptoms in adults (Hankin, 2005). Such findings
suggest that attachment may be one mechanism through which early maltreatment is associated with
negative outcomes later in life. As a result, attempts to nurture secure attachments may be of impor-
tance in populations at high risk for maltreatment, including foster children.
Forming Attachment Relationships in Foster Care

Because of disruptions in care and potential exposure to maltreatment, infants and children in foster
care may find it particularly challenging to form secure attachments. At the same time, foster care
may provide these infants with a new opportunity to form new attachments. As a result, it is impor-
tant to understand the nature of forming attachment relationships in foster care.
The Bucharest Early Intervention Project (Nelson, Fox, and Zeanah, 2014) is a randomized con-
trol trial of foster care as an intervention for Romanian children who lived in institutional care early
in life. For this study, children were randomly assigned to care as usual (staying in the institution, at
least initially) or high-quality family foster care. Given the unique experimental design, the Bucharest
Early Intervention Project offers insight into the role that foster care can play in children’s develop-
ment of secure attachments, among many other outcomes across various domains of functioning.
Children’s attachment was assessed at the age of 42 months (Smyke, Zeanah, Fox, Nelson, and Guthrie,
2010). Whereas only 17.5% of children in the institutionalized care as usual had developed secure
attachments, 49.5% of children in the foster care group had developed secure attachments. Further-
more, children who were placed in foster care before the age of 24 months were more likely to have
secure attachments and less likely to have disorganized attachments than children placed in foster care
after the age of 24 months. In addition, girls showed greater differences in attachment between foster
care and institutionalized care than boys. Institutionalized children randomly assigned to care
as usual also had more signs of attachment disorder and disinhibited social engagement at 12 years
of age than both children receiving high-quality foster care and never-institutionalized comparison
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children (Humphreys, Nelson, Fox, and Zeanah, 2017). These findings suggest that it is possible for
children to form secure attachments in the context of foster care and that they are more likely to
form secure attachments in foster care than in the context of institutionalized care.
Although children have the potential to form secure attachments in foster care, a variety of vari-
ables likely moderate the likelihood of doing so. One factor that may contribute to the likelihood of
forming a secure attachment in foster care is age at placement. Stovall-McClough and Dozier (2004)
found that infants who were younger than 1 year old at placement had higher levels of secure behav-
ior, lower levels of avoidant behavior, and more coherent attachment strategies early in their place-
ment than those placed at an older age; however, differences in attachment based on age at placement
may not last, as such differences were not found when attachment was assessed after at least 3 months
of placement (Dozier, Stovall, Albus, and Bates, 2001). Although younger age at placement may be
associated with greater attachment security and coherence early in placement, this factor seems to
have diminishing importance as the length of foster placement increases.
Another factor that may play a role in the formation of attachment relationships is the quality of
foster care received. Children of foster parents who show more sensitivity toward their foster child
display higher levels of attachment security at home than children of foster parents who show less
sensitivity (Oosterman and Schuengel, 2008), suggesting that the quality of parenting influences
foster children’s attachment patterns, similar to findings in intact, biologically related dyads. The
association between the quality of parenting and children’s attachment is further supported by the
outcomes of interventions targeting the quality of care received by foster children (described below).
Multidimensional Treatment Foster Care Program for Preschoolers, for example, which focuses on
improving multiple aspects of the foster child’s environment including sensitive, responsive, and con-
sistent parenting, is associated with increases in secure behavior and decreases in avoidant behavior
compared to control children receiving foster care as usual (Fisher and Kim, 2007). Similarly, Attach-
ment and Biobehavioral Catch-up, which promotes responsive and sensitive caregiving among foster
parents, is associated with less avoidance behavior in foster children compared to a control educa-
tional intervention (Dozier et al., 2009). Such intervention results indicate that increasing quality of
parenting among foster parents helps reduce insecure attachment behaviors, aiding in the formation
of secure attachment relationships in foster children. Furthermore, given the experimental designs
employed in these randomized clinical trials, these studies support a causal association between foster
parent quality of care and foster children’s attachment security.
Taken together, foster care provides children with an opportunity to form new attachment rela-
tionships that may improve on previous caregiving environments. While in the care of foster parents,
the likelihood of developing a secure attachment appears to be impacted by the quality of caregiving
provided.
Foster Parent Attachment State of Mind

Given the strong association between parents’ attachment states of mind and their children’s attach-
ment styles (van IJzendoorn, 1995), consideration of foster parents’ attachment states of mind is
also important to understanding what may support the quality of foster parent–child relationships.
Studies examining foster parents’ attachment states of mind in comparison to adoptive or commu-
nity parents have not found significant differences in categorizations or scores (Jacobsen, Ivarsson,
Wentzel-Larsen, Smith, and Moe, 2014; Raby et al., 2017), suggesting that those who choose to
become foster parents do not significantly differ in attachment states of mind. Furthermore, foster
parents have been found to have lower scores on the preoccupied dimension and fewer preoccupied
categorizations than a low-income group of biological parents referred to child protective services
(Raby et al., 2017). Like any typical sample of parents, foster parents vary in their attachment state of
mind. In a sample of foster care dyads in which the infant entered foster care between birth and 20
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months of age, all non-secure/autonomous foster mothers were categorized as dismissing, which the
authors suggested may be adaptive given the possibility foster parents face of having to give up their
foster child (Bates and Dozier, 2002).
Foster parent attachment state of mind also plays a role in the foster parent–child relationship.
For example, foster parent attachment state of mind has been associated with foster parent–child
interaction, with insecure parents showing more atypical interaction behaviors, such as role confu-
sion, intrusiveness, and disorientation (Ballen, Bernier, Moss, Tarabulsy, and St-Laurent, 2010). Thus,
a secure attachment state of mind may promote parent–child interactions likely to promote a secure
attachment and positive outcomes in foster children. In addition, foster child age at placement plays
a role in the association between foster parent attachment state of mind and interactions with the
foster child. Foster mothers with an autonomous state of mind whose foster child was placed before
the age of 12 months reported more acceptance and belief in their ability to influence their child
than autonomous mothers whose child was placed after 12 months of age (Bates and Dozier, 2002).
The authors of this study proposed that the age-related differences in foster mothers’ beliefs in their
ability to influence their child may be an effect of mothers’ awareness of expression of needs in
younger foster children or of the difficulty of overcoming the increasing challenges faced by older
foster children. Regardless of the mechanism, there is evidence that foster parents’ attachment states
of mind are associated with the caregiving they can provide to their foster child, which in turn may
be influenced by other factors of the foster parent–child relationship.
In addition to influencing the foster parent’s interactions with their foster child, foster parent attach-
ment state of mind has been associated with foster child outcomes. Foster parent attachment state of
mind is related to infant attachment quality with a correspondence like that of biologically intact dyads
when assessed between 12 and 24 months of age (Dozier et al., 2001).This finding indicates that attach-
ment state of mind may play a similarly important role in foster and biologically intact dyads. When
assessed between 2 and 3 years of age, the correspondence between foster parent attachment state of
mind and foster child attachment was somewhat lower than when assessed a year earlier, but also some-
what higher than the correspondence found in a study of late-adopted children (Jacobsen et al., 2014).
Additionally, promising associations have been found between autonomous foster parent states
of mind and child outcomes. Based on an assessment of attachment diary data, children who were
placed before the age of 12 months with an autonomous parent were likely to show secure behaviors
in diary reports of daily situations that elicited distress, as well as in the Strange Situation Procedure
(Stovall and Dozier, 2000). Similarly, the foster children of autonomous parents have been found
to demonstrate more secure and coherent behavior and less avoidant behavior in the first week of
placement than those with insecure parents (Stovall-McClough and Dozier, 2004). An autonomous
attachment state of mind appears to benefit the foster parent’s ability to form a secure attachment
with their child and therefore provides an additional factor to target among foster parents.
Summary of Attachment in Foster Care

Attachment likely plays a significant role in the foster care environment. Children in foster care
face multiple challenges to their ability to form secure attachments, including potentially frequent
changes in primary caregivers and an increased likelihood of early maltreatment. However, foster
care also provides these infants with new opportunities to form secure attachments. The formation
of secure attachments among foster dyads is possible and may be more likely than in other care
contexts, such as institutional care. In particular, foster parents who are more sensitive or who have
a secure-autonomous attachment state of mind themselves may be especially likely to foster secure
attachments in their foster children. Overall, efforts should be made to provide foster infants with
opportunities to develop secure attachments, with particular attention paid to the potential role of
the foster parent in nurturing such attachments.
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Foster Parent Commitment

In this section, we discuss factors that influence a foster parent’s commitment, or their investment in
having a lasting relationship with a particular child. Foster parents’ beliefs about their roles and motiva-
tion to take on the responsibility of fostering are central to the study of foster care and the factors that
influence its success. Reasons individuals may decide to become foster parents range from the altruistic
(i.e., providing care to at-risk children) to the practical (i.e., securing employment), and foster parents
may view their role as that of an employee providing time-limited assistance, or they may see themselves
as permanent sources of love and support in their foster children’s lives (Ackerman and Dozier, 2005;
Bates and Dozier, 2002; Rodger, Cummings, and Leschied, 2006). Indeed, a number of researchers have
examined variability in foster parents’ levels of commitment and emotional investment in their foster
children in relation to outcomes such as placement stability, foster parents’ neurobiology, and children’s
behavioral and emotional development (Ackerman and Dozier, 2005; Bick, Dozier, Bernard, Grasso, and
Simons, 2013; Dozier and Lindhiem, 2006; Rodger et al., 2006). General measures have been developed
to quantify foster parents’ attitudes about their role as a foster parent, such as the Casey Foster Parent
Inventory (Orme, Cuddeback, Buehler, Cox, and Le Prohn, 2007) and the Foster Parent Attitudes
Questionnaire (Harden, Meisch, Vick, and Pandohie-Johnson, 2008). However, the This Is My Baby
Interview (TIMB; Bates and Dozier, 1998; Dozier and Lindhiem, 2006), a semi-structured interview
for foster parents, most directly and specifically measures foster parent commitment and has been used
in the largest share of research examining associations between foster parent commitment and foster
parent and child outcomes. The TIMB interview produces three scores: parents’ acceptance of the child,
commitment to the child, and belief in their influence on the child’s psychological development. The
commitment subscore is of greatest interest and use in research examining foster parents’ commitment
to their foster children. For our purposes, we utilize the same definition of foster parent commitment
as Dozier and colleagues: the caregiver’s investment in an enduring relationship with the foster child.
The concept of parental investment is motivated by both attachment and evolutionary prepared-
ness theories. Given that humans infants are highly reliant on caregivers for survival, parents’ long-
term emotional investment in their offspring is critical (Harden et al., 2008). Furthermore, attachment
theory holds that infants have an innate need to maintain proximity to their caregivers, a need that is
almost certainly fulfilled in part by caregivers’ commitment to the caregiver-child relationship (Cohn
and Tronick, 1989). Among biological parent–child dyads, parental investment has been assessed using
the Parental Investment in Child scale (PIC; Bradley, Whiteside-Mansell, Brisby, and Caldwell, 1997),
a self-report questionnaire with items that assess parental delight, sensitivity to needs and cues, accept-
ance of the role of parenting, and distress at being separated. However, foster parent commitment is
conceptually distinct from parental investment among biological parents, in that the definition of
commitment involves the caregiver’s willingness to have an enduring relationship with the child.This
interest in an enduring relationship is assumed to be present among most biological parents.
Given the often short-term and fractured nature of foster care, the structure of the foster care
system, the lack of biological relatedness to foster children, and the challenges of providing care to
children with behavioral and emotional problems, commitment may be an especially relevant con-
cept to be studied in foster parents. We now consider several factors that may interfere with foster
parents’ feelings of commitment to foster children.
Commitment Challenges for Foster Parents
Temporary Care
The temporary nature of foster care is perhaps the most immediately apparent challenge to foster
parents’ ability to develop a sense of commitment to their foster children. Given that commitment is
defined as the caregiver’s investment in an enduring relationship with the foster child, fostering a child
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whose placement future is uncertain is—nearly definitionally—a commitment obstacle. In such a

situation, foster parents may view lack of commitment to their foster child as adaptive, particularly if
they have experienced giving up foster children in the past (Dozier, 2005; Dozier, Grasso, and Lind-
heim, 2007). The foster care system in the United States is designed with temporary, time-limited
care in mind: in 2015, approximately 45% of children who left foster care were in care for less than
1 year (U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, 2016). Foster parents’ challenge, then, is
to develop a sense of commitment to their foster child despite the reality of a likely impermanent
relationship.
Structure of Foster Care

Other aspects of the structure of the foster care system may place additional burdens on foster par-
ents’ commitment to their foster children. Foster care placements are frequently ambiguous and the
product of crisis situations, communication between various members of the foster system team is
often strained or confusing, and foster parents may feel they have not received adequate training
(Bass, Shields, and Behrman, 2017; Rodger et al., 2006). Much like other public service or helping
professions, there is also a great imbalance between children in need of foster care services and high-
quality, intrinsically motivated foster parents able to provide them (Bass et al., 2017).Therefore, foster
care must be partially presented as a form of employment, and one that is not often perceived of as
high status or requiring expertise (Bass et al., 2017; Rodger et al., 2006). Some have criticized the
“professionalizing” of foster care and argued that conceptualizing the role of foster parent as a job
inherently contradicts the task of forming attachment and commitment to foster children (Dozier,
2005). Unfortunately, these system-level issues are not easily remediable; those responsible for making
decisions about removing children from their biological parents must act quickly and prioritize basic
child safety. Nonetheless, interventions may be effective in changing foster parents’ cognitions and
behaviors toward their foster children (Dozier, Bick, and Bernard, 2011), although evidence-based
parenting interventions have not yet directly targeted commitment.
Lack of Biological Relatedness

Lack of biological relatedness to one’s foster child may also pose a challenge to foster parents’ sense
of commitment. From an evolutionary perspective, new mothers become biologically prepared for
caregiving during pregnancy and postpartum, with hormones secondary to pregnancy and early car-
egiving experiences likely contributing to observed structural and functional brain changes organ-
ized around caregiving (Kim et al., 2010; Swain, Lorberbaum, Kose, and Strathearn, 2007). Imaging
studies have identified unique patterns of neural responding in mothers when they are exposed to
own-child specific stimuli, such as the sound of their infant crying or their own infant or child’s
photograph, compared to photos and cries of unfamiliar infants and children (Bornstein et al., 2017;
Bornstein, Arterberry, and Mash, 2013; Doi and Shinohara, 2012; Grasso, Moser, Dozier, and Simons,
2009; Noriuchi, Kikuchi, and Senoo, 2008). However, similar research has also demonstrated that
parents—compared to non-parents—show a unique pattern of neural response to infant stimuli
regardless of whether the infant is related to them (Proverbio, Brignone, Matarazzo, Zotto, and Zani,
2006; Seifritz et al., 2003; Strathearn, Li, Fonagy, and Montague, 2008). These bodies of literature
converge to suggest that both biology and caregiving experience are important factors shaping
parents’ neural responses to the children in their care. Indeed, brain imaging research comparing
foster and biological parents has demonstrated that foster parents and biological parents show similar
patterns of heightened neural response to a photo of their own child, and that this enhanced neural
activity is related among both types of caregivers to caregiving attitudes, such as awareness of infants’
need for nurturance and pleasure in parenting children (Grasso et al., 2009). However, commitment
379
has not been found to be associated with enhanced foster or biological parent neural activity to child
cues (Grasso et al., 2009). It is possible that more targeted neuroimaging tasks that are specifically
designed to elicit feelings of commitment may better differentiate neurobiology associated with
commitment among foster parents.
The question of biological relatedness is also interesting to consider given that a great number
of foster parents are the biological relatives of their foster child. So-called “kinship care” accounted
for 30% of foster care placements in 2015 (U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, 2016).
Some research has indicated that kinship caregivers may have a more positive perception of their
foster children and feel more responsible for facilitating foster children’s emotional development
compared to non-related foster parents (Beeman and Boisen, 1999; Gebel, 1996; Rubin et al., 2008),
but whether kinship caregivers feel a stronger sense of commitment to their foster children has yet
to be examined and is a compelling target for future research.
Foster Child Factors

Given the bidirectional nature of parent–child interaction, it is hardly surprising that foster children’s
own characteristics can pose challenges to foster parent commitment. Children entering foster care
frequently have severe developmental and behavioral problems that may challenge parents, increasing
foster parent stress (Gabler et al., 2014). Indeed, children who enter foster care with externalizing
problems are more likely to experience disruptions in care (Oosterman, Schuengel, Slot, Bullens,
and Doreleijers, 2007), and foster children who have physical disabilities, are older, and require more
services (e.g., mental health treatment, early intervention) are more likely to elicit negative or less
nurturing caregiver behavior and less likely to achieve placement stability than their counterparts
(Barber, Delfabbro, and Cooper, 2017; Dozier and Lindhiem, 2006; Stovall-McClough and Dozier,
2004; Stovall and Dozier, 2000). Research specifically examining commitment has similarly indi-
cated that foster parents tend to feel greater commitment toward children who have lower levels of
caregiver-reported behavior problems, particularly externalizing problems (Dozier and Lindhiem,
2006). Furthermore, there is some evidence that older foster children may themselves feel ambiva-
lence about a permanent relationship with a foster parent, and may understandably struggle to feel
a sense of belonging to both a foster family and a biological family (Biehal, 2014). Ambivalence on
the part of the foster child can then be seen as an additional commitment challenge for foster parents
and may explain, in part, why foster parents are more likely to commit to younger foster children.
Taken together, the task of foster parents is to develop a sense of commitment to foster children
who may exhibit challenging behavior, have uncertain placement futures, and are not (always) bio-
logical relatives, with little training and often strained communication within the foster care system.
There are also challenges for foster children (particularly older foster children) who often feel ambiv-
alent about the notion of foster parent commitment and may not be able to reconcile permanently
belonging to both their foster family and biological family (Biehal, 2014). These tasks may seem
unrealistic or overly demanding; however, the presence of a committed caregiver in a foster child’s life
yields substantial benefits, so much so that some experts consider it to be as vital as any other basic
necessity, such as food and shelter (Dozier et al., 2007; Dozier and Lindhiem, 2006). We discuss both
predictors and outcomes of foster parent commitment, as well as the relation between commitment
and parenting, in the following sections.
Predictors of Foster Parent Commitment

Several studies have identified factors that predict foster parents’ ability to commit to their foster
children. Not surprisingly, predictors of foster parent commitment are related to the commitment
challenges that foster parents frequently face. Specifically, foster parents endorse higher levels of
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commitment toward their foster children when foster parents perceive that the relationship is likely
to be permanent (Dozier and Lindhiem, 2006), when there are lower levels of foster child, tod-
dler, and infant externalizing behavior (Koren-Karie and Markman-Gefen, 2016; Lindhiem and
Dozier, 2007), and when foster children enter care at a younger age (Dozier and Lindhiem, 2006).
Foster parent education, age, and income have not been found to predict foster parent commitment
nor has match between caregiver and child ethnicity (Bernard and Dozier, 2011; Koren-Karie and
Markman-Gefen, 2016; Lindhiem and Dozier, 2007). However, foster parents who have fostered
more children previously have been found to show lower levels of commitment compared to those
who have fostered fewer children (Dozier and Lindhiem, 2006). This may be due to self-selection
(that foster parents who feel more committed are likely to stop fostering children after experienc-
ing losing them) or to foster parents’ need to protect themselves emotionally against the prospect
of impermanent relationships with children in their care. Foster parents also generally show higher
levels of commitment compared to group care providers, which may be due in part to the fact that
foster parents care for relatively fewer children compared to group care workers and provide care in
their own home, similar to biological parents (Lo et al., 2015). Finally, there has yet to be evidence
that biological factors, such as foster mothers’ neural responses to photos of their foster child’s face
and oxytocin levels after cuddling with their foster child, are related to foster parent commitment
(Bick et al., 2013; Grasso et al., 2009). More research is needed to uncover whether other neuro-
biological factors may contribute to foster parents’ ability to commit to their foster children. How-
ever, one optimistic interpretation of the lack of identified biological substrates of commitment is
that commitment is not specific to certain neurobiological profiles, and therefore that interventions
aimed to enhance commitment may be successful among a variety of foster parents.
Commitment and Parenting Quality

There is relatively little research examining the specific ways in which foster parent commitment
affects parenting practices and cognitions. It should not necessarily be assumed that parents who are
nurturing or responsive are also committed, or vice versa, especially among foster parents who may
view provision of care to children as their job. Among non-foster families, parents’ socioemotional
investment in their children—defined broadly as acceptance of their parenting role, delight in their
child, parenting knowledge, and separation anxiety—has been linked to higher levels of sensitive
caregiving, social support, and marital support and lower levels of parental neuroticism, anxiety, and
depression (Bradley et al., 1997). However, the definition of socioemotional investment used by
Bradley and colleagues is much broader than that used by Dozier and colleagues (Bates and Dozier,
1998) in their research on foster parent investment, and it is possible that a more specific definition
of commitment may be related to a unique set of parenting behaviors—especially when examined in
a foster parent population. In a study specific to foster parents, Bernard and Dozier (2011) used the
TIMB interview to examine associations between foster parent commitment and behavior in a play
interaction, and found that foster parents with higher levels of commitment displayed significantly
more delight toward their foster children during play than foster parents with lower levels of com-
mitment (Bernard and Dozier, 2011). This finding was replicated in a later study by the same group
(Bick et al., 2013). More research is needed, however, to understand the relation between foster par-
ent commitment and the full range of caregiving behavior.
Commitment and Child Outcomes

The task of caregivers to form enduring relationships with foster children is challenging for many
reasons, and foster parents’ commitment to their foster children may enhance a number of child
outcomes. Ackerman and Dozier (2005) found that children whose foster mothers were more
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committed, as assessed by the TIMB interview, displayed more adaptive coping responses when
separated from their caregiver and had more positive self-representations as assessed by a projective
puppet interview than children whose foster mothers expressed lower levels of commitment. The
importance of this finding cannot be overstated; children in foster care have experienced significant
early adversity and are therefore at increased risk for developing maladaptive coping strategies and
more negative representations of themselves, in addition to other behavioral and emotional problems
(Simmel, Brooks, Barth, and Hinshaw, 2001; Toth and Emde, 1996). Commitment has also been
found to predict placement stability, such that foster children with committed caregivers are more
likely to be adopted or to have a long-term placement (Dozier and Lindhiem, 2006). Placement
instability is associated with a number of other outcomes, such as conduct problems and other exter-
nalizing disorders and poor academic functioning (Aldgate, Colton, Ghate, and Heath, 1992; Barber
et al., 2017). Therefore, findings that commitment predicts placement stability suggest that foster
parent commitment is an important mechanism in shaping foster children’s long-term outcomes. It
warrants mentioning again, however, that caregivers are less likely to commit to children and toddlers
with externalizing problems as well as children who are older (Koren-Karie and Markman-Gefen,
2016; Lindhiem and Dozier, 2007), and thus associations between commitment and placement stabil-
ity are moderated by child factors. Finally, qualitative research suggests that children’s sense of perma-
nency and belonging to their foster family is a major factor affecting the quality of their experience
in long-term foster care (Biehal, 2014). Although not a long-term outcome, this qualitative finding
is equally important and suggests that other factors, such as foster child happiness and life satisfaction,
may be affected by foster parent commitment.
Summary of Foster Parent Commitment

Foster parent commitment, defined as a foster parent’s investment in an enduring relationship with
their foster child, has received relatively little attention in the foster care literature compared to other
caregiver cognitions and behaviors. Committing to a foster child may be uniquely challenging to
foster parents, given that they are faced with the prospect of a likely impermanent relationship with
their foster child, must care for children with significant behavioral and emotional problems, may
care for older, more ambivalent children, and must contend with lack of support from or strained
communication with others within the foster care system. Foster parent commitment is associated
with a range of positive child outcomes, from enhanced placement stability to decreased external-
izing problems. Evidence suggests that the challenge of committing is made easier for foster parents
when they have fostered fewer children, when they provide care in a non-group home setting, and
when their foster children are younger and have fewer behavioral problems. More research is needed
to uncover the ways in which the foster care system can promote commitment among foster parents,
including predicting which potential foster parents may be able to commit more easily as well as
which foster children may benefit most from a committed caregiver.
Interventions for Foster Parents

Foster parents face many challenges given their unique role, including parenting children who may
have behavioral, emotional, and developmental issues, committing and emotionally investing in what
is likely to be a temporary relationship, supporting children’s transitions between homes, and navi-
gating relationships with children’s birth parents. After defining and reviewing these challenges that
highlight the need for foster parent support, we discuss programs and practices designed to address
the unique needs of foster parents.
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The Need for Foster Parent Support

Children enter foster care having typically experienced abuse or neglect, exposure to other risk
factors, and the added challenge of separating from their primary caregivers. Collectively, these trau-
matic experiences threaten development in ways that have lasting consequences for children’s social,
emotional, behavioral, and biological functioning. Thus, when children enter foster care, they may
behave in ways that make it difficult for foster parents to provide sensitive, consistent, and effective
caregiving. Foster children’s behavioral problems have been shown to increase stress among foster
caregivers and further increase the likelihood of disruptive placements (Chamberlain et al., 2006).
Interventions that help caregivers navigate the many emotional, behavioral, and social challenges
faced by children in the foster care system can be a powerful tool for improving child outcomes.
Children in foster care can exhibit vulnerabilities that demand a supportive, structured, and sensi-
tive parenting style, as well as a strong attachment between the caregiver and child. However, the
temporary nature of foster placements can undermine the parent–child relationship and make it
more difficult for parents to implement effective parenting strategies. For instance, foster parents are
often under the impression that they should not get “too close” to their foster children to ease chil-
dren’s transition out of the home. Foster parents may believe that limiting the attachment relationship
may protect children from pain on separation from the foster caregiver, but research suggests that low
levels of commitment interfere with providing sensitive and stable care to foster children (Bernard
and Dozier, 2011; Dozier and Lindhiem, 2006).
Foster parents may also play a role in their foster child’s transition from their home to either
another foster family or back to their birth family. The transition itself can represent a traumatic
experience for a child, and the changes in rules, discipline strategies, and family routines may cause
conflict between caregivers and children. Communication between foster caregivers or between
foster caregivers and birth parents may be strained or inconsistent, which makes it more difficult to
ensure a smooth transition between placements. Interventions aimed at foster parents can address this
challenge by facilitating communication between caregivers.
Interventions providing education, training, and support to foster caregivers are essential to helping
them provide the best possible care for their children. Several parenting interventions are developed
specifically for children in foster care. These interventions, which are often dyadic in nature, target
a range of ages from infancy (e.g., Attachment and Biobehavioral Catch-up) to adolescence (e.g.,
Multidimensional Treatment Foster Care for Adolescents). In addition, some general parenting inter-
ventions aimed at child behavior problems have been adapted for use with foster care families (e.g.,
Incredible Years). These interventions all show promising results to suggest that foster families can
greatly benefit from extra support and education (Hambrick, Oppenheim-Weller, N’zi, and Taussig,
2016; Leve et al., 2012).
Attachment and Biobehavioral Catch-up (ABC)

Attachment and Biobehavioral Catch-up (ABC; Dozier, Bick, and Bernard, 2011) is an intervention
aimed at increasing sensitive parenting and decreasing frightening behavior among parents of infants
and toddlers.The intervention focuses on helping foster parents respond to infants’ cues in a sensitive
and nurturing way. By creating a safe, responsive, and warm environment, foster parents can promote
children’s development of secure attachment behaviors and improved self-regulatory capacities.
ABC is a relatively brief (10-session) home-based intervention that includes both parents and
children. The program is administered by parent coaches, who use video feedback and in-the-
moment commenting to point out positive parenting behaviors and gently shape negative parenting
behaviors. ABC is also a manualized treatment in which each session focuses on one of the three
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parenting targets, including nurturance to distress, following the child’s lead with delight during
nondistress interactions, and frightening behavior.
ABC has been evaluated for infants in foster care, infants living with their birth parents following
child protective services involvement, infants adopted internationally, and toddlers in foster care. In
randomized clinical trials, ABC has been compared to a control intervention, which was also 10 ses-
sions delivered in the home, but focused on educating parents about children’s cognitive, language,
and motor development, rather than enhancing sensitivity. Bick and Dozier (2013) found that foster
mothers who participated in ABC showed greater improvements in their sensitivity toward their
foster children from pre- to post-intervention than foster mothers who participated in the control
intervention.
ABC has also been found to have positive effects in several key outcomes related to children’s
physiological and social development. Children who receive ABC show higher rates of secure attach-
ment and lower rates of disorganized attachment compared to children receiving a control interven-
tion (Bernard et al., 2012). In addition, infants receiving ABC showed more normalized production
of diurnal cortisol immediately following treatment, an effect which persisted into early childhood
(Bernard, Dozier, Bick, and Gordon, 2015; Bernard, Hostinar, and Dozier, 2015). ABC has also shown
effects on children’s expression of negative affect. Lind, Bernard, Ross, and Dozier (2014) examined
young children’s negative affect during a frustrating task and found that those who received ABC
during infancy expressed less anger overall, less anger toward their caregiver, and less global negative
affect than children who received a control intervention during infancy.
Beyond socioemotional outcomes, ABC has been shown to enhance children’s executive func-
tioning and school readiness. Specifically, preschool-aged foster children who received ABC as infants
had higher cognitive flexibility on a set-shifting task and better theory of mind than children who
received a control intervention (Lewis-Morrarty, Dozier, Bernard, Terracciano, and Moore, 2012).
These results were replicated in a sample of foster children who received a toddler model of ABC,
which included an additional parenting behavior target. In the toddler model of ABC, in addition to
targeting the ABC-infant targets of nurturance, following the lead, and frightening behavior, parent
coaches help foster parents implement strategies to help calm their foster children when children
become emotionally and behavioral dysregulated. Toddlers in foster care who received ABC showed
better executive functioning, specifically better cognitive flexibility and lower parent-reported atten-
tion problems, than did toddlers in foster care who received a control intervention (Lind, Raby,
Caron, Roben, and Dozier, 2017). Finally, foster children who received ABC showed higher levels
of receptive vocabulary than foster children who received a control intervention (Bernard, Lee, and
Dozier, 2017). These results suggest that intervening during infancy to enhance the quality of care
provided by foster parents can have positive effects on foster children’s emotional, social, and physi-
ological development.
Multidimensional Treatment Foster Care for Preschoolers (MTFC-P)

Multidimensional Treatment Foster Care for Preschoolers (MTFC-P; Fisher, Kim, and Pears, 2009)
is a family-based intervention aimed at young children in foster care. In this intervention, parents are
taught to create a warm, consistent environment for children in which positive behavior is encour-
aged and negative behavior is limited. This approach incorporates a 12-hour intensive training for
foster parents prior to the child’s placement, access to trained consultants throughout the placement,
and weekly group therapy for parents and children. Importantly, this program includes additional
support and training for foster families around transitions, such as acquainting the new placement
family with the rules and discipline strategies of the original foster care family to ensure that the
child encounters similar expectations, rewards, and consequences across settings.
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Foster Parenting
Similar to ABC, MTFC-P has been evaluated through several randomized clinical trials, with
foster children randomly assigned to receive MTFC-P or care as usual. In one study, foster parents
receiving MTFC-P reported lower parenting stress over time compared to those in the control
group; in fact, foster parents in the control group showed increases in parenting stress over time and
elevated stress reactivity to child behavior problems (Fisher and Stoolmiller, 2008). Furthermore,
MTFC-P showed effects on placement permanency. Children receiving MTFC-P had fewer place-
ment changes over a 2-year period compared to those in regular foster care, suggesting that this
approach helped children stay in placements longer (Fisher, Burraston, and Pears, 2005). Given evi-
dence that placement disruptions can negatively affect children’s developmental outcomes, MTFC-
P’s effect on placement stability has implications for enhancing other child outcomes.
MTFC-P has shown promising results for several child outcomes. First, children receiving
MTFC-P show more secure attachment-related behaviors compared to children receiving care as
usual (Fisher and Kim, 2007). Children receiving MTFC-P also show more normative daily cortisol
output over time. Fisher, Stoolmiller, Gunnar, and Burraston (2007) examined daily cortisol output
in children who received MTFC-P, children who received care as usual, and children who had never
been placed in foster care. At the beginning of the study, both foster care groups showed abnormal
cortisol output (i.e., a blunted pattern of diurnal output). However, over the course of 12 months,
the treatment group showed cortisol output that was more normative (i.e., similar to the commu-
nity sample), whereas the care-as-usual group showed increasingly aberrant cortisol production. This
finding suggests that intervening with parents and children can reverse dysregulation of physiological
stress systems in children.
Keeping Foster Parents Trained and Supported (KEEP)

Keeping Foster Parents Trained and Supported (KEEP; Price, Chamberlain, Landsverk, and Reid,
2009) uses a similar approach to MTFC-P to target children during middle childhood. KEEP is
composed of intensive group training sessions for parents as well as support and supervision from
consultants. As with MTFC-P, training is focused on behavior management skills, including positive
reinforcement, consistent use of non-harsh punishment, and close supervision of the child and his
or her peer relationships. In particular, training sessions focus on increasing positive attention relative
to discipline, such that children receive positive reinforcement four times for every one correction
or disciplinary action. This shift toward positive attention is meant to help improve children’s self-
esteem and create a warm environment in the home, while encouraging positive behavior.
KEEP has shown promising effects on child and parent functioning. Chamberlain and colleagues
(2008) found that children receiving KEEP showed fewer behavior problems than those in a control
condition immediately after the intervention. They found that this effect was mediated by positive
parenting behaviors, or the ratio of parents’ positive comments to negative comments. These results
showed that targeting parenting was an effective way to reduce problem behaviors among children
in foster care (Chamberlain et al., 2008). Similar to MTFC-P, KEEP also reduced placement disrup-
tions. The intervention increased the chance of positive exits (e.g., reunification with birth parent)
and mitigated the risks of multiple placements. In a control group, for every additional placement,
there was an increased risk of subsequent placement disruption, whereas in the treatment group there
was no such association (Price et al., 2008).
Middle School Success (MSS)

Middle School Success (MSS; Smith, Leve, and Chamberlain, 2011; Kim and Leve, 2011) specifically
targets foster children and foster parents during the transition from primary school to middle school.
385
As with MTFC-P and KEEP, parents are given behavior management training focused on encourag-
ing positive behavior in youth and using consistent punishment, such as short-term loss of privileges,
when necessary. During the summer before middle school, parents take part in six training sessions.
Then, after middle school begins, foster parents and foster children both attend weekly meetings. For
foster parents, the meetings are in a group setting and focused on increasing behavioral management
skills. For foster children, the meetings are individualized and incorporate skill-building techniques.
Studies of MSS have pointed to a number of beneficial effects. Girls who received MSS showed
fewer internalizing and externalizing problems than girls in a control group, and this effect persisted
6, 12, and 24 months after completion of the program (Kim and Leve, 2011; Smith et al., 2011). In
addition, girls who completed the program showed increased prosocial behavior 12 months later and
decreased substance use 36 months later, with stronger effects for marijuana and tobacco use (Kim
and Leve, 2011). These results show that a parenting intervention for foster parents can have benefi-
cial effects for foster children as they progress through middle school.
Multidimensional Treatment Foster Care for Adolescents (MTFC-A)

Similar to MTFC-P, Multidimensional Treatment Foster Care for Adolescents (MTFC-A; Smith
and Chamberlain, 2010) incorporates a number of different intervention components to support
foster parents and adolescents. Adolescents in the foster care system are more likely to engage in
risky behavior, which can adversely impact their development and functioning. Thus, this parenting
program incorporates a focus on the importance of close parental supervision. The program advo-
cates for foster parents to serve as mentors for their adolescent foster children, in addition to setting
limits and providing positive reinforcement. Parents in this program receive special training prior to
placement and are offered supervision and support from consultants throughout the placement. This
intervention involves a coordinated effort in the home, in the educational setting, and among peers
to create a safe and supportive environment for adolescents.
Research on MTFC-A has shown that adolescents receiving this treatment have fewer placement
disruptions and higher school engagement compared to those in regular foster care (Leve, Fisher, and
Chamberlain, 2009). In addition, this program impacts a number of risky behaviors common in ado-
lescence.Those receiving MTFC-A have fewer arrests and a lower pregnancy rate (Chamberlain and
Reid, 1998; Kerr, Leve, and Chamberlain, 2009; Leve et al., 2009). MTFC-A also reduces antisocial
behavior among adolescents by improving family management strategies. Eddy and Chamberlain
(2000) found that boys with a history of juvenile delinquency who received MTFC-A showed less
antisocial behavior compared to boys who received regular foster care. This effect was mediated by
improved family management strategies and lower deviant peer relationships (i.e., associations with
peers who engage in criminal behavior). Such evidence of mediation suggests that MTFC-A works
by helping parents better manage behavior and influencing adolescents’ social circles (Eddy and
Chamberlain, 2000), further suggesting that the quality of foster parenting is a mechanism that influ-
ences behavioral and social outcomes for children in foster care.
Other Parenting Programs

A number of parenting interventions not developed specifically for foster care children have been
adapted for use with this population. Many of the general principles of effective parenting, such as
positive reinforcement and consistent use of non-harsh punishment, apply to foster caregiving. Thus,
many of the parenting programs developed to treat child behavior problems have been extended to
use in foster families, whether the child has a behavior problem or not.
One such program is a modified version of Incredible Years (Webster-Stratton and Reid, 2012).
Incredible Years was originally developed to treat child behavior problems by training parents in
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Foster Parenting
behavioral management strategies and child-directed interaction. The modified version of the Incred-
ible Years includes a coparenting component that involves the foster parent and birth parent. The pro-
gram promotes open communication and negotiation around common conflicts, such as visitation,
discipline, and family routines. This important component aids in creating a smooth transition for the
child between foster and birth homes. Research on the modified version of Incredible Years has dem-
onstrated that foster parents show improvement in coparenting skills and positive discipline, but the
program does not show effects for child externalizing problems (Linares, Montalto, Li, and Oza, 2006).
Parent-Child Interaction Therapy (PCIT; Eyberg and Matarazzo, 1980; McNeil, Hembree-Kigin,
and Anhalt, 2011) has also been implemented with parents and children in the foster care system.This
program was developed for children between ages 2 and 7 and uses targeted coaching to improve
parenting. The program has two phases. In the first phase, parents focus on using positive attention,
in the form of behavioral descriptions, reflections, and praise, to build a warm interactional style
with their children. In the second phase, parents are taught to set limits and use short-term discipline
strategies (e.g., “time out”) to increase child compliance and reduce child behavior problems, such as
oppositional behavior and aggression. PCIT reduces child behavior problems and caregiver distress in
foster parent–child dyads (Timmer, Urquiza, and Zebell, 2006). In this study, there was no difference
between foster caregivers and non-abusive biological caregivers in terms of treatment effectiveness.
In addition, PCIT has been beneficial in reunification efforts. A study with parents who had previ-
ously been reported for physical abuse found that those who received PCIT were less likely than
those with no treatment to engage in physical abuse again with their children (Chaffin et al., 2004).
Thus, PCIT can be a helpful intervention for children in the foster care system, as well as those who
reunite with their birth parents.
Child-Parent Psychotherapy (CPP; Lieberman, Ghosh Ippen, and Van Horn, 2006; Toth, Michl-
Petzing, Guild, and Lieberman, 2018) has also shown promising results with foster caregivers and
children. CPP is focused on reducing traumatic stress in infants and young children by supporting
the development of a secure parent–child relationship. Sessions include psychodynamic therapy and
education with the parent, and play therapy with the parent and child. A study of young foster chil-
dren before and after treatment showed that children had a decrease in mental health symptoms and
an increase in socioemotional functioning following the intervention (Weiner, Schneider, and Lyons,
2009). Future research is needed to understand how CPP compares to care as usual for children in
foster care, but results from biologically intact dyads support its efficacy in enhancing secure attach-
ment and normalizing cortisol regulation (Cicchetti, Rogosch, and Toth, 2006; Cicchetti, Rogosch,
Toth, and Sturge-Apple, 2011).
Summary of Interventions for Foster Parents

Parents and children involved in the foster care system face a variety of unique challenges. Several
parenting interventions exist to help support foster caregivers in providing a safe, warm, and con-
sistent environment for foster children of all ages. These interventions have shown a wide range of
benefits, from improving children’s mental health symptoms to reducing placement disruptions. Even
interventions that were not specifically developed for foster care have shown positive effects on foster
parent functioning and child mental health. These interventions represent an opportunity to help
improve the experience of foster caregivers and the children who are placed with them.
Controversies in Foster Parenting

Foster care can be an effective intervention for many children, providing them with a safe and stable
environment, which can have a regulating influence following experiences of maltreatment. How-
ever, sometimes foster care goes awry. We discuss two issues related to the foster care system that
387
often draw the attention of the media, including the occurrence of abuse and neglect in foster care
and possible discrimination in decision-making within the foster care system.
Abuse and Neglect in Foster Care

Although foster care is designed to remove children from maltreating parents and unsafe environ-
ments, some children face further harm while in foster care. In 2016, 0.2% (2 in 1000) substantiated
cases of maltreatment in the United States involved foster parents as the perpetrator of abuse or
neglect (U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, 2016), which reflects a decline from previ-
ous years (i.e., 0.32% in 2014; U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, 2017). These rates
are relatively small, but such cases of maltreatment while in out-of-home care gain substantial atten-
tion in the news, exacerbating public concerns that the foster care system not only fails to protect
children, but also causes direct harm.
Some studies have found that children in foster care are more likely to be the subjects of maltreat-
ment allegations than children in the general population, but that maltreatment allegations against
foster parents are less likely to be substantiated than those against birth parents (Benedict, Zuravin,
Brandt, and Abbey, 1994). DePanfilis and Girvin (2005) explored barriers to effective decision-
making in investigations of child maltreatment in foster care, which may result in underestimates of
the prevalence of maltreatment in out-of-home placements. In this study, New Jersey Division of
Youth and Family Services (DYFS) Institutional Abuse Investigation Unit (IAIU) files were exam-
ined to determine the extent to which investigations of abuse and neglect in out-of-home care
followed professional standards and policies. Whereas 12.3% of out-of-home maltreatment reports
were substantiated by the IAIU, objective coders estimated that 33% of the cases should have been
substantiated based on state definitions of maltreatment. Specifically, coders disagreed with the IAIU
decisions when the documented incidents met New Jersey’s definitions of child abuse or neglect,
such as a foster mother hitting a child in the face with a belt, leaving in a 4-inch mark. DePanfilis and
Girvin attributed faulty decisions about abuse and neglect in foster care to a number of factors, such
as limited knowledge (e.g., lack of thorough investigations, limited resources/guides about assessing
safety), inadequate information processing (e.g., failure to match facts of the case to legal definitions),
and perceptual blocks (e.g., disregard of inconsistent perspectives on case). The most concerning
factor, however, was what they called “task environment,” which included issues about the work
environment that interfered with the quality of decision-making. For example, investigators had
high caseloads, which may have led to inadequate time investigating and/or documenting incidents
and risk. Related to this, substantiating a case led to additional burden on workers, as it required
follow-up actions, such as removing a child from a foster home and revoking a foster caregiver’s
license. Additionally, notes in the records indicated a shortage of foster homes and difficulty finding
alternative placement resources. Together, these personal, professional, and systemic factors may lead
to incidents of maltreatment in foster care remaining unaddressed.
The occurrence of child abuse while in foster care, though relatively limited based on national
statistics, raises serious concerns regarding the system’s ability to protect already vulnerable children
and may lead to increased distrust in foster parents and foster care workers. Thus, ongoing attention
is needed in order to ensure that practices (e.g., screening and training of foster parents, monitoring
of the quality of care, and investigation of concerns) adequately protect the safety and well-being of
children in out-of-home care.
Discrimination in Foster Care Placement Decisions

A second issue that can increase distrust of the foster care system involves the apparent ethnic
disparities in families who become involved with the child welfare system. In the United States,
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Foster Parenting
African American children are disproportionately likely to be subjects of child maltreatment reports
and investigations (Fluke, Yuan, Hedderson, and Curtis, 2003; Harris and Hackett, 2008) and to be
placed in foster care (Hines, Lemon, Wyatt, and Merdinger, 2004). Using a sample of approximately
72,000 investigations of substantiated maltreatment from the National Child Abuse and Neglect
Data System between 2004 and 2005, Knott and Donovan (2010) examined the association between
ethnic identity and foster care placement. Controlling for child characteristics (e.g., age, behavioral
problems), caregiver characteristics (e.g., substance use, domestic violence), household factors (e.g.,
poverty, inadequate housing), and abuse characteristics (e.g., maltreatment type), ethnic identity sig-
nificantly predicted the likelihood of placement into foster care. Specifically, African American chil-
dren had 44% higher odds of out-of-home placement relative to White children. In another study,
however, interactions between socioeconomic status and ethnic group suggested a more complex
picture. After adjusting for socioeconomic and health factors that were correlated with CPS involve-
ment, Black and Latino children with low socioeconomic status had a lower risk of substantiation
and foster care placement than White children with low socioeconomic status (Putnam-Hornstein,
Needell, King, and Johnson-Motoyama, 2013).
The issue of overrepresentation of minority children in foster care has received much attention in
the popular press (Clifford and Silver-Greenberg, 2017; MacFarquhar, 2017), with these stories often
calling into question the ethical and fair decision-making of key professionals. Combined with the
findings of research studies, it is clear that further attention to injustices occurring within the child
welfare system is sorely needed.
Summary of Controversies in Foster Parenting

Despite the purpose of the foster care system to offer protection of children and support well-being,
these goals are not always achieved. The occurrence of maltreatment while in foster care, as well
as discrimination in child welfare decision-making, are examples of clear failures of the foster care
system.
Future Directions in Research, Policy, and Practice

Related to Foster Parenting
There is still much to learn about foster parenting, and much to be improved about the foster care
system. Here, we offer some suggestions about future directions for research, policy, and practice
related to foster parenting.
Given the need for high-quality and stable foster care placements, one important area for research
is evaluating procedures for the selection and retention of exceptional foster parents. The Quality
Parenting Initiative, developed by Carol Schauffer and the Youth Law Center, is an example of a
change in policy and practice that aims to strengthen foster care by ensuring high-quality parenting
to children in foster care (Skene, 2011). QPI partners with child welfare systems and communities,
as well as participants in those systems (i.e., foster parents and birth parents), to jointly define high-
quality parenting and implement practices and policies that are aligned to support that definition. By
including these key stakeholders in decision-making and “re-branding” of the foster care system, QPI
aims to change foster care in substantial ways, such as increasing retention of strong foster parents,
improving the relationships between birth parents and foster parents, and reducing disruptions for
children in care. Research about system- or policy-level changes, such as those implemented through
QPI, can help demonstrate the effectiveness of such practices. In turn, such evidence of effectiveness
may lead to increased funding and support for important policies and practices.
Another important area for research is understanding how foster parenting shapes children after
children leave care. For example, it may be useful to examine to what extent the quality of care
389
provided in one foster placement influences children’s adjustment in future placements or the likeli-
hood of successful reunifications with birth parents.Taking the example of attachment as an outcome,
research suggests that young children form attachment relationships relatively quickly when placed in
foster care and organize their expectations around the foster parent’s availability (Dozier et al., 2001);
thus, some interventions aim to enhance foster parents’ availability and responsiveness, in order to
increase the likelihood of children forming secure attachments while in care (Bick and Dozier, 2013).
However, few research studies have followed foster children as they transition from placement to
placement. Although we may speculate that forming secure attachments in one foster care placement
may be associated with smoother transitions in future placements, reduced behavioral problems, or
enhanced socioemotional adjustment, there is little evidence for these longitudinal effects. Research
examining the extent to which initial placements matter for later adjustment would inform practice
decisions for how to target services to support foster parents and the children in their care.
Additionally, although the number of evidence-based programs that aim to support foster parents
is growing, there is a need for ongoing research evaluating the efficacy and dissemination of such
practices. Foster children are more likely to need mental health treatment than their peers (Burns
et al., 2004) but less likely to receive it; furthermore, the services that foster children receive are only
estimated to sufficiently meet their needs 25% of the time (Kolko, Herschell, Costello, and Kolko,
2009). As evidence-based interventions, which show strong efficacy in research settings, are dissemi-
nated into communities, their effectiveness often declines (Durlak and Dupre, 2008; Weisz, Jensen-
Doss, and Hawley, 2006). Given evidence that foster children are underserved and evidence that
interventions have reduced effectiveness when moved into communities, future research is needed
to identify potential barriers to accessing treatment and challenges of their effective implementation.
Conclusions
Foster parents have a challenging role in providing substitute care for vulnerable children. Foster
children often have elevated emotional, behavioral, and developmental needs and may express attach-
ment behaviors (e.g., avoidant behaviors, resistant behaviors) that fail to elicit nurturing care. Thus,
foster parents are faced with the challenge of providing therapeutic caregiving that is sensitive and
consistent. Providing such care may be challenging, as it may not come naturally to some foster
parents, based on their own attachment representations, and because it may be difficult to com-
mit to a foster child, given that the relationship is expected to be temporary. The quality of foster
parenting (e.g., engagement in sensitive and consistent interactions) and foster parent commitment
have been shown to matter for foster child outcomes, such as attachment quality, children’s behavior
problems, and children’s socioemotional competence. Given the impact of foster parents on children’s
well-being, it is critical that foster parents are supported in providing high-quality care. Indeed, a
number of parenting interventions, such as ABC, MTFC, and KEEP, enhance parenting quality and
reduce parenting stress among foster parents, with these changes, in turn, influencing foster children’s
outcomes.
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12
PARENTING TALENTED
CHILDREN
Introduction
Most parents would attest that rearing a child is among the most rewarding—and challenging—of
human enterprises. Is parenting talented children easier, more difficult, or the same sort of challenge
as parenting other children? As we discuss, and as any parent in this distinct position will discover,
it can be all three. This chapter summarizes the state of the relevant literature today for the benefit
of parents everywhere struggling to provide their children with experiences appropriate to their
extraordinary potential—in the home, in the classroom, and in the world at large.
Although talented children differ critically from their peers, they are, nonetheless, still children and
share the majority of qualities with their peers.We focus on those aspects of parenting distinctive to tal-
ented children, assuming that many of the basic tasks of parenting are similar for all children: provisioning
for adequate nutrition, health, safety, and the attainment of developmental milestones. Only when the
existence of a special talent such as writing, mathematics, or gymnastics ability affects one of the basic
areas of caretaking—such as nutrition or safety—are the more general areas of parenting of interest here.
This chapter, based in part on a chapter that appeared in the last version of the Handbook of Par-
enting (Feldman and Piirto, 2002), takes on a series of aspects, from a number of perspectives, on the
matter of parenting talented youth. We first take up several definitional, conceptual, and empirical
issues that make our task more challenging. As it happens, the field of child development has tradi-
tionally taken little interest in this subject, focusing instead on central tendencies, statistical averages,
and developmental universals (Feldman, 1980). The field of gifted studies has had a similar tendency,
focusing on systematized metrics of generic intelligence as the operational definition of talent.When
the field of child development has ventured beyond the construct of the typical child, it has tended
to do so in the direction of clinical, intellectual, or economic deficits to be overcome, rather than the
special challenges and opportunities that appear when a child possesses unusually strong talents and
abilities. Parenting with even the most commonly studied form of talent—academic talent, as usu-
ally indexed by high performance on an aptitude test—has rarely been studied by developmentalists.
The field that does concern itself with gifts and talents, that of Gifted Education, tends to be non-
developmental and finds itself preoccupied with traditional academic success as the favored criterion.
The empirical literature in this field is thus lopsided, including vastly more studies of standard-fare
academic ability than the numerous other forms of talent (Kaufman, 2013).
The lack of empirical data on parenting and talent development can, in part, be attributed to diffi-
culties encountered when trying to define gifts and talents both concretely and accurately (Feldman,
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Parenting Talented Children
2016; Ziegler and Heller, 2000). There are, after all, many ways to be talented, and many ways in
which talent may be developed.There exists to date no consensus definition of talent among scholars
(Al-Shabatat, 2013; Feldman, 2014; Gagné, 1985; Renzulli, 2005). According to the American Col-
lege Dictionary (1955, p. 1235), talent is “a special natural ability or aptitude.” This is the definition
of talent employed in the present chapter. We further define talents as relatively broad (e.g., the set
of abilities that make up IQ, often referred to as “gifts”), or relatively narrow (e.g., the ability to run
very fast in a straight line); also as relatively extreme (e.g., a child prodigy in music) or greater than
an individual’s other abilities, but not necessarily exceptional on a comparative basis. We take it as
a given that all talents, as we define them, are products of multifold biological processes (including
genetic influence, but not limited to genetic influence) as well as some contextual processes (includ-
ing training, but not limited to training).
When we refer to a talent, we are referring to the current level of function that we assume to be
the product of several contributing forces, some of which we may be able to identify or even quantify,
many of which are indeterminable. Talent is understood to be complex in origin and development.
When we review efforts to enhance the quality or strength of a talent, we recognize that we are lim-
ited in our knowledge of both the natural as well as the sociocultural influences on its development.
Talented youth may be further distinguished on the basis that they are not well served by standard
approaches in parenting and education, and it is this property of our concept of talent that motivates
the need for scholarly study. This definition assumes that wide variations exist in children’s natural
talents and abilities, and that these talents and abilities may be detected by both formal and informal
means of assessment.
In this chapter we do not deal with the technical aspects of talent assessment, a challenging area
in itself (Howe, Davidson, and Sloboda, 1998; Ziegler and Heller, 2000), but rather focus on the
ways that parents tend to respond to the actual or presumed presence of such elevated potentials in
their children. Assessing the existence and strength of a talent is only made possible in the context
of performance. Although certain tests, such as intelligence quotient or musical aptitude, are held to
be metrics of pure talent, this misconstrues both the purpose of assessment and the nature of talent.
Musical talent, for instance, can only be assessed in the context of established forms of music, with
technologies and techniques that have cultural histories and that are evaluated using standards estab-
lished by a given musical community.
The sciences of development, of biology, and of the mind are still young. As these domains mature,
it is likely that improved methodologies—techniques that further our understanding of how the physi-
ology of the brain gives rise to the phenomena of mind and behavior or how the genetic and cellular
information contained within a fertilized egg give rise to a fully-formed living organism—will bring us
closer to an empirical science of human potential. These transforming methods, however, entail recip-
rocal transformations in the space of theory. We can therefore expect that technologies to come will
force reformulation of our notions of talent and ability as much as they provide evidence to substantiate
them. Today, our modes of talent assessment are based on human judgment and, as such, caught up in
the constraints of subjectivity and cultural context.
The construct of talent may be divided into several broad categories for the purposes of discus-
sion: general intellectual ability, commonly understood in relation to intelligence tests or scholastic
achievement; specific intellectual abilities, such as pronounced aptitude in mathematical or linguistic
domains; creative ability, as may be expressed in the visual or performance arts; and talents that are less
readily categorized but no less extraordinary, such as athletic or practical ability. These categories are
not to be understood as mutually exclusive: Most real-world activities require more than one kind
of talent or ability; when there is a virtual absence of all but the focal ability, we may be looking at
a savant (Treffert, 1989; Morelock and Feldman, 1993). We may focus, however, on the presence of
one or more distinct talents in a given child and their contributions to the development of expertise
in various fields.
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There are at least as many diverse family structures and parenting styles as there are forms of talent.
Perhaps most prominently in the Western world, tolerance for unconventional parenting systems is
on the rise. Increasingly, parenting is a task no longer limited to married, heterosexual couples, but is
taken on by single men and women and by couples and individuals across the queer spectrum (Pat-
terson, 2004). The empirical literature on anything beyond the traditional mother-father pairing is
sparse, but we can assume that more research will appear as these varied forms of parenting become
more common.With that caveat about the generalizability of findings on parenting talented children
in mind, we can look for patterns and consistencies in research findings about both challenges and
successful responses of caregivers to their children’s talent.
Constraints on the empirical base make our task especially challenging. Much of what we can
draw from current literature on parenting talented children would not pass muster as good social
science research. Individual case studies may be found, along with reports from science journalists
(Clynes, 2015; Suskind, 2014), but there are few studies of groups of children with well-identified
talents or of parents whose approaches to childrearing vary systematically. It is under this premise that
we introduce the main impetus of our chapter: a reorientation toward the task of parenting talented
children in light of contemporary conceptual shifts. For decades, the field concerned with the devel-
opment of human potential has been transitioning from a focus on central tendencies and universals
to the subjects of personal and contextual variability. The conceptual revolution we speak of is well
recognized within child developmental scholarship, but it has yet to percolate to the domains con-
cerned with gifts, talents, and exceptional human achievement. We see the purpose of our chapter as
laying the preliminary groundwork for integrating this theoretical metamorphosis with the research
initiative on parenting talent in all of its many forms.
We begin with a brief review of some of the major concepts that have been part of the fields of
gifted studies and education, because such notions as gifts, talents, intelligence, and genius are central to
our task. In the minds of many—and to the consternation of some—terms such as brilliant, genius,
gifted, and especially intelligent became synonymous with a high measure of g—general intelligence—
as determined via the now standard battery of aptitude tests (Gagné, 1985; Gardner, 1982, 1983;
Smutny and Eby, 1990; Sternberg, 1985; Tannenbaum, 1983, 1986). The final decades of the twenti-
eth century brought about a transition in the study of intellectual talent, one which transported the
field away from homogeneity and toward a more varied and malleable conception of intelligence
(Feldman, 1992; Gardner, 1983; Treffinger, 1991).
In this chapter, we speak of talent as a child’s natural ability to achieve high levels of mastery in
culturally valued domains (Borland, 2003; Dai, 2010, 2017; Feldman, 2003; Gardner, 1983, 2006, in
press; Lee, 2000; Renzulli, 2005). The nature-nurture distinction, once hotly debated in the devel-
opmental sciences, is now widely understood to have been falsely dichotomized (Gottlieb, Wahlsten,
and Lickliter, 1998; Simonton, 2014). The existence of an ability, therefore, does not mean it will
flourish under any and all circumstances, and it will invariably require sustained efforts on the part of
the child and those who support and instruct her or him to bring a natural talent to its full expression
(Dai, 2010, 2017).This is, of course, where the parenting challenges lie: recognizing a particular talent,
supporting its development, procuring resources and services, negotiating with individuals, agen-
cies, and institutions, balancing development of the talent with other values, and trying to maintain
healthy and positive relationships with others in the family and in the community at large. Each of
these challenges is formidable under any circumstances; when a child is very talented, the challenges
can be intensified and made yet more complex (Feldman, with Goldsmith, 1986; McPherson, 2016).
Kaufman and Sternberg (2008), along with Al-Shabatat (2013), delineate four distinct approaches
to the study of the gifted, talented, and precocious: A domain-general perspective, represented by
intelligence assessment metrics, which typically regard human ability as a unitary and static factor
(e.g., Binet and Simon, 1916; Galton, 1869; Terman, 1925-1959); A domain-specific perspective,
represented by studies of specific talents or aptitudes and prodigious achievement (Feldman, 1980;
400
Gardner, 1983; Stanley, 1997; Thurstone, 1941); A systems perspective, in which the causes leading to
the manifestation of talents or gifts are conceptualized of in terms of an integrated complex network
of psychological factors (e.g., Renzulli, 2005; Sternberg, 2005); And lastly, a developmental perspec-
tive, in which contextual and environmental factors are made the emphasis of models and research
(e.g., Feldhusen, 2005; Feldman, 1979; Gagné, 2004; Tannenbaum, 1986). Dai (2010, 2017) puts
forth a hybrid developmental systems model of gifts and talents. In the present chapter, we operate
under a conception of talent that encompasses the many modes and factors in which, and by way
of which, talents come to be expressed. The contextual aspects of talent development are, of course,
our primary focus, as befits both the subject of parenting and the many changes that the field has
undergone in the last decades.
It bears repeating that there exists no unanimously accepted concept of talent in the gifted stud-
ies literature or in the child developmental literature. Gifted studies and the field of psychology in
general has oscillated between single and multiple theories of intelligence for more than a century
(Dai, 2010; Gardner, 1983; Winner, 1996). Since the dawn of psychometric evaluation, intelligence
has been reified as a unitary quality. Talent was not separately defined, because it was believed to be
subsumed under the broader and more general framework of the intelligence quotient, or IQ. There
were occasionally challenges to this view, arguing for specific abilities either in place of or as a com-
plement to IQ, but these efforts had little transformative effect on the academic field, nor had they
great impact on the public (Thurstone and Thurstone, 1941).
Challenges raised through scholarship outside of the field of gifted education proper (Gardner,
1983; Sternberg, 2000) have achieved greater success in transforming public perceptions of intel-
ligence away from the limited historical conception of a static and unitary quantity. Although most
scholars would now acknowledge that intelligence should be seen as including more specific abili-
ties in addition to IQ, in gifted education especially the tendency to adhere to the traditional IQ-
oriented view persists (Borland, 2003; Dai, 2010, 2017). Scholars within the field of gifted education,
such as Gagné, have proposed frameworks that try to integrate traditional perspectives with the more
contemporary, arguing that gifts are innate, or genetically determined, whereas skills or talents result
from training and practice, transforming natural gifts into highly refined mastery within a particular
domain (Gagné, 2004; 2015; Gagné and McPherson, 2016). From the perspective of contemporary
developmental and biological sciences, however, the very separation of traits into wholly innate and
wholly acquired categories reifies a dichotomy long-defunct.
Feldman (Feldman, with Goldsmith, 1986) proposed an alternative account, arguing that evolu-
tion of the human intellect took a distinctive twofold path; one path emphasizing a kind of general
ability to adapt under widely varied circumstances (called a gift, in this framework), whereas the
other keyed on a multitude of highly specific abilities to adapt in very specific circumstances (labeled
a talent). Both forms of ability are natural and may occur in varying degrees and combinations in
humans; some blessed with exceptional ability in the more general form (what had traditionally
been labeled a gifted child), and others display unremarkable general ability but possess remarkable
ability in one or more specific areas (a talented child). Prodigies, for example, are individuals with a
very powerful specific talent in a recognized area, supported by at least a moderate degree of general
ability, whereas savants are individuals with only a specific talent who largely lack general ability
(Feldman and Morelock, 2012).
Dai (2010, 2017) drew on elements of Gagné and of Feldman, among others, in constructing
the most complete current framework for the development of gifts and talents. Dai distinguished
between characteristic and maximal development of gifts and talents, with the former likely to occur
within the usual range of environments available to human beings in most parts of the world, and
the latter requiring specialized and less widely available circumstances and resources available only
to those fortunate enough to have access. Following Horowitz (2000), Dai proposed a four-phase
sequence that begins with the recognition of unusually powerful gifts and talents when children are
401
very young and proceeds through the highly specialized and refined conditions that give rise to and
sustain excellence in domains valued within a given culture.
Undoubtedly, there exist diverse manifestations and expressions of profound intellectual ability
in various domains. The first hurdle parents of high-potential children must face is identifying the
individual nature of their child’s exceptional potential, her or his “gifts” and “talents,” to use the terms
from Feldman (2016), the implications of which will inform their approach as caregivers (Morelock
and Feldman, 1991, 1993). For several decades, regrettably, the field has preoccupied itself with
the incarnation of a single form of talent, measured by a narrow set of aptitude and achievement
tests. The study of individual cognitive difference has moved from a focus on static factors within
the individual and relative to characteristics of the individual’s broader sociocultural context to a
dynamical, procedural view.This is seen to be reflective of a wider trend across the sciences, in which
the individual is no longer conceptualized as an unwitting subject of God-given fate or biological
determination, a hapless victim of chance or circumstance, or a wholly self-determining agent. The
individual of today is bound into a complex causal web of biological and historical circumstance,
chance and fortuity, experiential mediation, and her or his own agential power (Lewis, 2000; With-
erington, 2007).
Although all parents must grapple with the responsibility of fostering a satisfying life for their
offspring, the weightiness of this task is perhaps most profound in parents of exceptionally endowed
children, because the very existence of talented youth challenges our various colloquial conceptions
of the individual. Talented children pose a demand for a coordinated effort from all the systems with
which they interface, ranging from the social and health sciences to educational systems and, most
crucially, their parents. Feldman, with Goldsmith (1986), for example, used a metatheoretical frame-
work, called “co-incidence,” in an attempt to provide a scientifically grounded theory of the complex
interconnected dynamics determining the emergence of talent.
Although developed for extreme cases, the co-incidence model can be used to understand the
full range of talents and gifts found in children (Feldman, 1979). The framework looks at the inter-
play among at least six vectors of influence on developing talent, along with chance events that may
prove consequential. A similar framework, called “syzygies,” was proposed to account for the devel-
opment of musical prodigies that included physical characteristics, personality traits, general intel-
ligence, domain-specific abilities, social, cultural, and other environmental factors, as well as chance
(Faulkner and Davidson, 2016).The vectors of co-incidence include talents and gifts, personal quali-
ties, domains where exceptional talent can be expressed, families, teachers, and broader cultural and
historical contexts. When the vectors of influence are brought into productive coordination and
sustained over a sufficient period (often 10 years or more), the potential of a natural talent may be
fully expressed in domain mastery and exceptional achievement. The responsibility for coordinat-
ing the vectors of co-incidence falls mainly on the child’s parents during the critical early years of
development. Because access to resources is the key to successful support of exceptional talent, we
turn to some of the current realities that limit and constrain access to resources among many families.
Talent, Diversity, and Adversity Exploring Human Variation,

Circumstance, and Resource Access
The explanatory power of the co-incidence model (Feldman, 1979, 2016; Feldman, with Goldsmith,
1986), although directed in its original form at the extremes of talent—the prodigy—reaches beyond
those rare cases and is emblematic of a deeper shift in the dominant conceptualization of human
development and potential. These forces are evolutionary—both biological potentials and cultural
practices; personal or emotional qualities; the guidance of mentors, teachers, and role models; the
domain in which the talent emerges; the constraints of the broader sociocultural context; and the
impact of parenting style and family dynamics. Random events also play a critical role. Den Hartigh,
402
Van Dijk, Steenbeek, and Van Geert (2016) proposed a convergent theory of talent development,
termed a “dynamic networks approach,” and substantiated it with computer simulations. This inno-
vative model similarly proposes that the key to profound human achievement cannot be reduced to
any single factor, but rests instead on the complex interactions among many contributing influences.
In this section, we look to three components of the hexadic co-incidence framework that the
scholarship thus far has largely failed to address. These are the influences of human variation, the
influences of sociocultural context, and the influences of resource access.We deal with the difficulties
that arise when the identities of children possessing powerful talents are at odds with the identities
or expectations imposed on them by their environment. We deal also with the issues that arise when
there is a conflict or disconnect between sociocultural contexts on a micro scale—the family, the
neighborhood, the classroom, the social circle—and sociocultural contexts on a macro scale: the edu-
cational systems, the class system, the job market, the economy.We demonstrate that the co-incidence
model can provide far more realism—and optimism—than mainstream explanations for the appear-
ance of ethnic, cultural, economic, and gendered patterns of achievement and talent expression. We
turn to existing research findings and reassess them in light of this changing paradigm. For example,
Ambrose (2002) cited a need to import context sensitivity into the fields concerned with talent
development and human potential and urged reconceptualization of the core notions of “merit and
ability” operationalized in these domains. We end with a concrete appeal to build the empirical and
theoretical base to support heterogeneous concepts of talent, achievement, and potential. Researchers
such as Azuma and Kashiwagi (1987), as well as Ruzgis and Grigorenko (1994), have helped initiate
this directive, documenting the diversity and nuance of notions of intelligence and success.
British researchers Koshy, Brown, Jones, and Portman Smith (2012) launched an effort to uncover
commonalities in the experiences of parents with talented children living in relative poverty. Counter
to prevalent beliefs in the field, they found that these parents articulated a powerful drive in favor of
their children’s achievement and cogent visions for their children’s success.What they lacked was nei-
ther vision nor motivation, but the means to further involve themselves in their children’s education
and community support. Parents from a lower socioeconomic background found the task of rearing
talented children to be an isolating experience, in which they felt alienated from their respective
families and communities, from their children’s social reality and schooling, and from their children
themselves in respect to their talent expression.
Cross-cultural work in the field remains strikingly sparse, but efforts to expand the scope of talent
research beyond North America lend an enriched view of talent development and relevant vectors
of influence thereon. A study in Saudi Arabia by Hein, Tan, Aljughaiman, and Grigorenko (2014)
explored in-depth the interactions of parenting style, family composition, home environment, and
cultural context in the development of academically talented children. Hein, Tan, Aljughaiman, and
Grigorenko (2014) noted that family size and number of siblings negatively correlate with aca-
demic achievement in studies conducted in Western industrialized nations. Yet within their sample
of academically talented children in Saudi Arabia, the researchers found the effect of family size to
be gender-specific and contingent on the gender composition ratio of relatives. Among the gifted
Saudi children studied, the gender of siblings played a far more important role in determining
the outcomes of cognitive assessments than did family density or socioeconomic status (Hein, Tan,
Aljughaiman, and Grigorenko, 2014).
In much the same way that critical analysis has found the diagnosis of mental pathologies to be
highly gender-specific and relative to era and cultural context, positive cognitive abnormalities are
also gender-profiled. Little empirical evidence substantiates the assumption that actual sex differences
in cognitive capacity underlie this apparent inequity (Spelke, 2005). Parents of high-ability children
ought to be especially diligent during the critical developmental years not to preclude youth from
pursuing their interests and developing proficiency in such domains as may be “gender-atypical”
relative to the sociocultural environment in which they find themselves. On the other hand, parents
403
should also be mindful of pushing their talented children to excel in areas that may seem natural to
them, but not to their children. Talented youth are apt to be more susceptible than other children
to pressures placed on them by caregivers and mentors (Freeman, 2010). Expression of gender and
sexuality that fails to align with a familial, educational, or cultural context may be punished or may
intensify an existing sense of alienation (Kerr and Nicpon, 2003).
Many scholars over the past century have sought to understand the complicated and conten-
tious relation between ethnicity, poverty, ability, and success and have labored much in the gathering
of empirical evidence thereon (Darling and Steinberg, 1993; Ford, Grantham, and Whiting, 2008;
Frasier, 1991; Neihart, Reis, Robinson, and Moon, 2002; Rudasill, Adelson, Callahan, Houlihan, and
Keizer, 2013; Steinberg, Dornbusch, and Brown, 1992). Other scholars have sought to uncover and
to critically examine what they saw as implicit biases operating within psychological research and
educational research. Guthrie’s (1976) Even the Rat Was White: A Historical View of Psychology critiques
the demographic homogeneity of mainstream psychological research in the United States, draws
attention to marginalized scholars and overlooked evidence, and envisions a future for the psycho-
logical scholarship free from the prejudice of its past. In his 1981 book The Mismeasure of Man, Gould
scrutinizes the fallacies of reductionism, reification, and ranking in the history of intelligence assess-
ments (Gould, 1981). In a monograph entitled “Epistemological Perspectives on Intelligence Assess-
ment Among African American Children,” Schiele (1991) takes on the cultural and demographic
biases characteristic of aptitude testing in the United States education system and offers a directive
for a more holistic assessment regime unbiased toward and inclusive of African American experience.
Hilliard (1987), in “The Ideology of Intelligence and I.Q. Magic in Education,” probes the concept
of intelligence as it is operationalized in the fields of psychology, development, and education, ulti-
mately casting doubt on its scientific and pedagogical legitimacy.
In a similar vein, Richardson (2017), in his book Genes, Brains, and Human Potential: The Science
and Ideology of Intelligence, argues that more than a century of wanton reductionism and definitional
vagueness in the study of intelligence and human potential has perpetuated a stratified social order
and obscured the true dynamic complexity and diversity of human cognitive development. Taken
together, these works amount to an indictment of the notion of intelligence as it has been put to
work within the field of gifted education and within educational research at large. These authors set
out a clear case for more holistic, nuanced, and scientifically accurate measures of cognitive ability
and human potential. Once such integral and inclusive notions of ability and achievement have been
formulated and employed, we can anticipate the amalgamation of evidence of sufficient quality and
quantity to construct a scholarship of parenting exceptionally endowed children amidst diverse con-
texts and relative to diverse identities. Another issue that may add further complication to the task of
parenting a talented child is when talents are embedded within, or found alongside, other unusual
cognitive or emotional characteristics, especially problematic ones. It is this issue that we discuss next.
Neurodiversity and Talent

Within the scholarship on individual cognitive difference, there has been increasing focus on what
is known as twice-exceptionality (Neihart, 2008). Though hardly a novel phenomenon, the learning
profile and its associated terminology are new. The twice-exceptional child is considered to be a
child with gifted-level intelligence, or prodigious talent, in one or more domains, with marked defi-
cits in other areas. These deficits have classically been limited to autism spectrum disorders (ASD),
attention deficit or attention deficit hyperactivity disorders (ADD, ADHD), and dyslexia, dyscalculia,
and dyspraxia (Armstrong, 2010; Jaarsma and Welin, 2012). We may expand our understanding of
neurodiversity, however, to encompass the co-incidence of various talents with a range of learning
and developmental disorders, intellectual deficits in other domains, behavioral problems, attentional
problems, executive functioning problems, obsessive-compulsive disorders, or anxiety and mood
404
disorders. Occasionally, a child may experience several such challenges, prompting some authors to
urge a rebranding of the profile as “multi-exceptional” (Knapp, 2006). Along with the diagnosis of
a disorder, a child will also demonstrate superior academic potential, typically by performing well
above average on a standardized IQ test. Children are both “gifted” as well as constrained by their
diagnoses. It is this combination of high intellectual ability and impairment that marks the twice-
exceptional child.
Parenting the twice-exceptional child is complicated by the initial difficulties parents frequently
encounter in identifying the specific combination of ability and disability characteristic of their
children, for the possibilities are numerous and sometimes confounding (O’brien and Giovacco-
Johnson, 2007). For example, a very bright child may not be recognized as such by caregivers and
educators because the talents may be masked by the impairment. Conversely, a child with certain
extreme deficits may not be identified for appropriate care, or may not meet diagnostic criteria,
because the talent or intelligence allows the child to compensate for the impairment (Danielian
and Nilles, 2015). Even when both profound abilities and co-occurring impairments or atypicalities
are appropriately identified, there is still the difficulty of finding resources to work with the child’s
particular combination of talents and challenges. Few professionals have the necessary joint training
in both areas, and few families have the time or resources to recruit a team of specialists. There are
also few educational or extracurricular programs catering to the complex needs of twice-exceptional
children, again putting heavier burdens on parents to provide appropriate settings and experiences
for their children.
Since the notion of twice-exceptionality entered the parlance of learning and educational special-
ists in the 1980s, most effort has gone into research, identification, and support of twice-exceptional
children characterized by intellectual “gifts” in tandem with a specific learning disability (SLD),
whereas little attention has been paid to talented children with physical, behavioral, or emotional
impairments (Neihart, 2008). Over the decades, however, the field has shifted toward a focus on
talented youth with attentional or autism spectrum disorders (Neihart, 2008). Resource allocation
toward diagnosis, intervention protocols, and creation of specialized settings for twice-exceptional
children on the autism spectrum now far surpasses that of any other fusion of talent and deficit. This
is hardly surprising, given the rapid and drastic increase in diagnoses and corresponding scholarly,
political, and medical attention paid to the ASD phenomenon, which began in the early 1990s,
increased monotonically, and began to plateau in the early 2000s (Lundström, Reichenberg, Anck-
arsäter, Lichtenstein, and Gillberg, 2015). For families of twice-exceptional children with ASD, the
chances of finding help and support are greater now than ever.
By contrast, for exceptionalities other than this combination of ASD and high IQ, there is less sys-
tematic research and even fewer resources available to meet the specific needs of these children. For a
child whose pattern of disability and ability consists of eidetic memory and OCD, musical virtuosity
and ADHD, or mathematical skill and dyslexia, parents may find the task of adequately supporting
their children frustrating and lonely. Few existing programs are designed to work with these unique
sets of challenges and opportunities.
Each twice-exceptional condition presents its own idiosyncratic burdens and affordances, and the
two conditions often interact in ways that make them yet more problematic. A child struggling with
ADD, and its tendency to scatter attention across topics in rapid succession, may not be able to focus
on an area of interest long enough to satisfy his or her curiosity, adding intellectual frustration to the
attentional chaos of ADD. In cases such as this, where a child’s fleeting attention, emotional volatility,
uncompromising perfectionism, or antisocial behavior inhibits engagement in their domain of excel-
lence, good parenting may require prioritizing diagnosis and treatment of deficits, while not entirely
ignoring the child’s need for creative outlets or intellectual stimulation.
The first challenge for parents who believe that they may be dealing with a twice-exceptional
child is to obtain a clear diagnosis of the set of issues that their child must cope with and the unique
405
opportunities and challenges that may come along with a label of “gifted.” Testing a child can be
made more complicated by the influence of emotional or intellectual difficulties as well as the child’s
willingness or ability to adjust to the testing procedure. Once testing is complete, a detailed plan to
help control, mitigate, refocus, or eliminate any negative effects of the disorder is needed, with the
aim of enhancing the child’s ability to adapt to school and other life situations. If successful, the child’s
exceptional ability may be supported, rather than hindered, by her or his disorder. Success—or lack
thereof—in dealing with the complexities of a child’s idiosyncratic talents and struggles lies within
the family, and it is to the qualities of the family context that we now turn.
The Family System and the Development of Talent

There is a saying that talent seems to run in families. Actors breed actors (the Fondas, the Redgraves,
the Sheens); professors breed professors (Margaret Mead, Arthur Schlesinger, Jr.); race car drivers
breed race car drivers (the Unsers, the Pettys); athletes breed athletes (the Ripkens, the Roses); artists
breed artists (the Wyeths, the Renoirs); writers breed writers (the Cheevers, the Updikes); musicians
breed musicians (the Graffmans, the Bachs) (see Albert, 1980, 1990; Brophy and Goode, 1988; Goert-
zel and Goertzel, 1962; Goertzel, Goertzel, and Goertzel, 1978; Simonton, 1984, 1988, 1991, 1994,
1999). Family systems theory has been developed to help explain this phenomenon of “like father,
like son” (Fine and Carlson, 1992). In family systems theory, a child’s talent is viewed as an adaptation
of the child to the entire family’s interactions; these include parents, grandparents, and siblings and
take into account birth order, labeling, and gender (Jenkins-Friedman, 1992; Olszewski-Kubilius,
2008). The notion that there is something in the family’s interactions that produces talented behav-
iors takes into account the environment within which a child is reared and that child’s responses to
the environment (Sulloway, 1996).
Simonton (1984) found that the age of the parents matters, and younger parents who are able to
interest their children in their own passions seem to be better able to excite their children to follow
in their footsteps. An example from novelist and essayist Cheever’s memoir, Home Before Dark (1984,
p. 107), illustrates how interest was developed in the children of a writer:
Every Sunday after dinner, we each recited a poem for the rest of the family. It began with
sonnets and short narrative verse, Shakespeare and Tennyson, but soon we were spending
whole weekends in competitive feats of memory. My father memorized Dylan Thomas’s
“Fern Hill,” my mother countered with Keats’ “Ode to a Nightingale,” I did “Barbara
Fritchie,” my father did “The Charge of the Light Brigade,” and so forth. Ben, who was
eight, stayed with shorter poems.
Age of parents also takes into account the high level of energy it takes to keep up with a talented
child.
A number of factors determine how parents react to the presence of great talents in their
children. The birth position of the child is one factor (Sulloway, 1996). The last born tends to
be more rebellious and perhaps more creative; the firstborn tends to be more conservative and
seeks approval more. Simonton (1984, 1988) noted that firstborns tend to reach eminence or
to be considered geniuses more often than their younger siblings, but there is some evidence
that laterborn children whose births have been spaced several years apart have similar opportu-
nities. Much seems to depend on parental will and energy to nurture that talent (Kulieke and
Olszewski-Kubilius, 1989).
Family values may place particular importance on certain talents, such as music or mathemat-
ics, and traditions that provide a context within which the response to talent takes place. For these
reasons, children with the same set of talents, manifesting themselves in the same ways but reared
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in different families, may provoke a strikingly different response depending on one or more of the
factors just listed (Benbow, 1992; Feldman, 1992; Feldman with Goldsmith, 1986; Morelock and
Feldman, 1991; Olszewski-Kubilius, 2008).
Responsive parents and a family that values achievement (particularly in the target domain) are
critical catalysts in cases of extreme potential (Bloom, 1981, 1985; Feldman, with Goldsmith, 1986;
Goertzel and Goertzel, 1962; Goertzel et al., 1978; Goldsmith, 1987, 1990; Kulieke and Olszewski-
Kubilius, 1989; Radford, 1990;VanTassel-Baska, 1989). This is not to say that children whose homes
have been turbulent, fractionated, or even pathological have not sometimes attained eminence or
remarkably high achievement, especially achievement in artistic domains (Albert, 1980; Piirto, 1998b).
Many family systems operate on what may be termed a dysfunctional level, yet these interac-
tions, too, sometimes have positive impacts on talent development.VanTassel-Baska and Olszewski-
Kubilius (1989, p. 8) noted that “some form of adversity or a seemingly inhibiting or detrimental
factor which exists within the family structure or happens to the individual can and does somehow
work in a beneficial, generative manner.” Such factors may include economic disadvantage, physical
deformity, rejection by parents or peers, tension in the family, and parental loss.
High achievement after childhood trauma is an area not yet fully explored. The psychoanalyst
Miller (1981) postulated that adult achievement in creative domains takes place when there has been
childhood trauma with warmth present, whereas childhood trauma without warmth can produce
adult destructive behavior. Albert (1980) called this effect “wobble,” the presence of tension or dissent
in families of creative people. The implications for parents of talented children are that, in light of a
traumatic event, children may be beneficially encouraged to express themselves not only in tradition-
ally therapeutic or cathartic activities, but through metaphoric modes of expression as well (Piirto,
1998a,b, 1999). The evidence is unambiguous, however, in this respect: The more valued a particular
form of talent is within a family and the greater the amount of support this talent receives, the greater
the likelihood and extent that this talent will present itself in significant later achievement.
A family’s internal dynamics have a tremendous influence on a child’s or teenager’s talent develop-
ment and scholastic achievement, and nontraditional lifestyles do not seem to affect achievement much.
It is rather that the closeness of the family, and the robustness of the family identity, appears to be sali-
ent in determining child outcomes. A 12-year longitudinal study of nontraditional families by Weisner
and Garnier (1992) showed that academic achievement is not negatively affected when a child is in a
one-parent family, a low-income family, or a family with “frequent changes in mates or in household
composition,” so long as one particular factor is present: The family chose the lifestyle because it had
an intelligible and clear meaning for them—for instance, a religious choice leading to homeschool-
ing (p. 608). If the unconventional family had the resources to provide for the children’s needs and
emphasized achievement as important, the children did not experience a lowered achievement pattern.
Although the parents in Weisner and Garnier’s (1992) longitudinal study might have been “highly
experimental” in such arenas as diet or health care, they ensured that their children had adequate
nutrition, inoculations, and routine medical and dental care, and they valued and provisioned for
their children’s scholastic success. Indeed, Weisner and Garnier (1992, p. 625) found that “some non-
conventional life-styles can protect children against possible difficulties in school,” whereas others
can put children at risk. Across cases, the crucial variable was that the parents were committed to the
lifestyle and placed emphasis on their child’s academic achievement. One thinks of the “aging hip-
pies,” the “bohemian actors,” and the “poor struggling artists in garrets” as falling into this category
of unconventional yet intentional living. Although these modes of living might involve less financial
or residential stability, or else atypicality in some other respect, such a childhood often turns out
high achievers who follow in their parents’ footsteps, just as children do from families with more
conventional lifestyles.
Not all children, however, resemble their families of origin with respect to the domain of tal-
ent expression, and children from the same family may end up following quite divergent paths. The
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writer Graham Greene was a middle child in a large and nurturing family, and his father was a head-
master. Greene viewed his world with such great sensitivity that he attempted suicide in boarding
school during his teenage years; he had to go into psychoanalysis while his older brothers thrived
and were school leaders, although none of them would go on to attain the eminence of the younger
Greene (Sherry, 1989). Piechowski’s interpretation of Dabrowski’s “overexcitability” theory may be
in operation here; that is, the intensity with which each child perceives events may differ, and what
may send one child into extreme reactions may simply wash off another’s back (Piechowski, 1979,
1989, 1991). In fact, children’s temperament and personality may be of the utmost importance in the
development of their talents, and even in the case of multi-talented children, in the family’s choice of
which talent to develop. A passive, dreamy personality and temperament may lend itself to the quiet,
endless reading that seems to have been evident in the childhoods of most adult writers; an aggressive
personality and temperament may lend itself to the cutthroat world of childhood chess or athletics
(Piirto, 1998a, 1999, 2001).
In reacting to the realization that one’s child is endowed with remarkable ability, parenting tactics
frequently gravitate toward extremes. One such extreme is the “stage mother” or “Little League
father” situation, where the parent is fixated, even to the point of destructive narcissism, with the
development of a child’s talent—whether or not she wants to have her talent developed.We may take
Judy Garland’s childhood as an example—Garland’s mother was so obsessed with her acting career
that she even permitted the use of amphetamines and tranquilizers to facilitate Garland working
longer hours in the studio (Edwards, 1975). On the other end of the spectrum is the parent who
cares little what the child achieves or how he expresses himself, so long as he is happy. This laissez-
faire parenting style may be enacted by particularly busy or absent-minded parents. Both situations
are capable of producing talented adults, but may have negative repercussions on the child’s social
and emotional development.We may consider the case of the actor and comedian Steve Allen, whose
mother permitted him to move, alone, from Chicago to the Southwest at the age of 16 in order to
take a job as a radio announcer.
Other parents move with their children in order that they might pursue their talents.The mother
of the dancer Suzanne Farrell moved Farrell and her two sisters from Cincinnati to New York City
at the offer of an audition with Balanchine; they all lived in one room while their mother worked
as a private nurse (Farrell and Bentley, 1990). The parents of Albert Einstein moved to Italy when
he was a teenager, leaving him to board with a local family and attend secondary school by himself.
He soon quit and went to join his family, never to graduate (Clark, 1971). However, Einstein’s father,
like Edward Teller’s (Blumberg and Panos, 1990), saw his son’s mathematical talent and provided him
with a college student tutor.
The concert pianist Gary Graffman’s father was a violinist, and he frequently sat with Gary while
he practiced his lessons (Graffman, 1981). Graffman gave a concert at Carnegie Hall during his early
teenage years.The strong influence of family interests is especially common in the pursuit of musical
talent. According to Graffman (1981, p. 47):
Even though my father was dead set against turning me into a child performer, daily prac-
ticing came first: I practiced every morning from 7:20 to 8:20 before school (in addition to
two or three hours afterward). Whether or not I wanted to do this was never a considera-
tion. My parents brought me up in a loving, but strict, European manner. I was not con-
sulted in such matters. One went to school, one ate what was set before one; one practiced.
It was as simple as that.
Thus, the families of talented children cope with that talent in remarkably different ways; some focus
on it and some ignore it. On balance, though, those that focus on their children’s talent development
are more likely to see the child’s talent fulfilled.
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Baumrind (1971) indicated that parenting could be meaningfully organized relative to three
modes: authoritarian, authoritative, and permissive. All three environments have produced talented
adults, although it has been theorized that the authoritarian style produces resentment and stifling
that forces talented students to sneak, hide, and sublimate the expression of their talent so that it takes
place outside the home or surfaces later in life. For example, the social reformer Margaret Sanger
was forced to leave home in order to gain the freedom to finish school; her mother died of cervical
cancer at the age of 49, and her alcoholic father wanted her to act as his housekeeper. Gray (1979,
p. 25) reported that “she let their run-down house deteriorate even more. Realizing she could never
get enough money to return to Claverack to graduate, she decided to leave Corning for good.”
The actor Marlon Brando was sent to military school by parents who did not know what to do
with his rebelliousness. He was asked to leave the school and came to New York City to live with his
sisters, who were studying the arts. He wanted to study acting, but his father disapproved. As Thomas
(1973, p. 20) wrote, “Marlon would not be dissuaded by his father’s scorn.” Although he had con-
sidered many careers, including the ministry, acting appealed to him. He began to study with Stella
Adler at the New School for Social Research.
There is also evidence that genders of the child and the parent influence the development of
various kinds of talent. Male writers, for example, seem to have had what Miller (1987, p. 114) called
ineffectual fathers: “It would strike me years later how many male writers had fathers who had actu-
ally failed or whom the sons had perceived as failures.” She noted that this was the case for Faulkner,
Fitzgerald, Hemingway, Wolfe, Poe, Steinbeck, Melville, Whitman, Chekhov, Hawthorne, Strindberg,
and Dostoevsky. The same is true for women writers (Piirto, 1998a, 2001). Mothers’ attitudes toward
mathematics have greatly influenced both their sons’ and their daughters’ achievement. If mothers
say, “Well, I was not any good at math, either,” daughters especially might view mathematics as not
being a gender-appropriate field to pursue (Eccles and Harold, 1992).
Students with high academic talent who participated in the talent searches conducted among
seventh graders also had differential influence by fathers and mothers (Benbow, 1992; Kulieke and
Olszewski-Kubilius, 1989;VanTassel-Baska, 1989). Academically talented youth who participated in
talent searches tended to have strong, highly educated fathers as well as mothers who were highly
educated but who did not work full-time outside the home.These are tendencies, however, not rules,
and they reveal as much about the relations of talent visibility to educational and financial resource
access as they reveal of raw talent. We next discuss parenting at the extremes of talent—cases where
the child stands as an outlier even amongst very talented children.
Parenting Children With Extreme Talents

In this next section, we will explore the scenario of parenting extremely endowed children. We will
discuss the following types of extreme talents: cases of extremely high IQ; cases of extreme talents
in specific areas with or without concurrent high IQs; and genius or eminence, an outcome that has
been extensively studied in relation to parenting.
Research on cases of highly pronounced intellectual faculties, as denoted by IQ scores under
the extreme upper tail of the distribution, spans the last century, beginning with Terman’s massive
study of the gifted in the 1920s (Sears, 1979), and continuing into the present day (Deary, Johnson,
and Houlihan, 2009; Plomin, DeFries, Knopik, and Neiderhiser, 2013). More contemporary gene
sequencing studies aimed at disambiguating the phenomenon of extremely high IQ profiles indicate
that, though heritable, IQ is not parsimoniously reducible to any particular genetic factor (Benyamin
et al., 2014; Davies et al., 2011; Plomin, 2013). The heritability and developmental plasticity factors
of IQ are also masked by familial dynamics, socioeconomic status, sociocultural context, and edu-
cational environment (Piccolo, Arteche, Fonseca, Grassi-Oliveira, and Salles, 2016; Schwartz, 2015;
Tsethlikai, 2011).
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Studies of extreme talents in specific areas are more sporadic, falling into two categories: extreme tal-
ent in either mathematical or verbal abilities, such as shown by a very high score on a component of the
Scholastic Aptitude Tests (Benbow, 1992; Benbow and Minor, 1990; Hunt, Frost, and Lunneborg, 1973)
or on the American College Tests (Colangelo and Kerr, 1990). One difference found in these extremely
high scorers is that high mathematics scorers have superior short-term memory and high verbal scorers
have superior long-term memory (Benbow, 1992). High verbal scorers often use their verbal ability in
fields that are less specific to their ability than do high mathematics scorers. For example, high verbal
talent is necessary in academia, business, leadership, politics, law, and most high-level professions. A lack
of high mathematical ability does not preclude a person from reaching eminence. High mathematical
ability is much more specific to achievement in science, mathematics, and engineering.
A second area in which extreme talent has been studied is in child prodigies in various specific
fields (Deakin, 1972; Feldman, 1979; Feldman, with Goldsmith, 1986; Radford, 1990). Studies of
genius and eminence go back at least to Sir Francis Galton (1869) and have been carried on by Albert
(1983, 1980, 1990; Albert and Runco, 1986) and Simonton (1984, 1988, 1994, 1999, 2012), among
others. Here, too, family variables have often been found to play a significant role in determining
the degree of expression of talent. Biographical studies have produced substantial information with
respect to the degree of family influence on the achievement of eminence (Goertzel and Goertzel,
1962; Goertzel et al., 1978).
With the exception of Simonton’s work on historical movements (1984, 1988, 1991, 1994, 1999)
and to some extent Bloom’s (1985) work on world-class performers, virtually all of the information
available from observations of parenting, family structure, and the like is based on the study of indi-
viduals or relatively small groups of cases.This means that the database is quite small, but such studies
often produce rich and extensive information about each situation. Only a few studies of extreme
talent have examined relations among parenting variables and outcomes in children. Still fewer stud-
ies attempt to control or manipulate variables, thus limiting the generalizability of findings.
Because the topic of study is so specific to individuals, that is how their talent was nurtured and
developed, the present limitations of the research do not look to be easily remedied. Longitudinal
studies such as those of Terman (1925–1959), Subotnik and Steiner (1993) of Westinghouse winners,
Arnold (1993, 1995) of Illinois valedictorians (Arnold, 1995; 1993), the Study of Mathematically
Precocious Youth (Benbow, 1992, 2000; Benbow and Lubinski, 1995, 1997), or snapshot studies, such
as Harris (1990) of the students at the Hollingworth experimental schools in New York City and the
follow-up studies of high-IQ students who attended the Hunter College Campus Schools in New
York City (Subotnik, Karp, and Morgan, 1989; Subotnik, Kasson, Summers, and Wasser, 1993), are
imperfect but valuable ways of looking at high-IQ and high-achieving students. Most of the students
in the Hunter and Hollingworth studies had IQs about three standard deviations above the mean.
Case studies are often the method of choice when an area of investigation is just beginning. This
technique is better suited to exploring unknown psychological terrain; Freud’s work on the uncon-
scious (1915), Piaget’s studies of babies (1926), or Darwin’s observations of his son Doddy (Kessen,
1965) were all based on case study research. This conspicuous lack of quantitative data should alert
the reader to the fact that work in extreme giftedness is still in its early phases, and that whatever
patterns of parent behavior have been observed should be taken as provisional.
Those who have studied parenting in cases of extreme giftedness have found that there are many
similarities between situations of parenting for extreme intellectual talent and the situation of par-
enting children with handicaps (Albert and Runco, 1986; Bloom, 1982, 1985; Borland, 1989; Clark,
1992; Feldman, with Goldsmith, 1986; Goldsmith, 2000; Hall and Skinner, 1980; Morelock, 1995;
Robinson, Zigler, and Gallagher, 2001; Solomon, 2012;Tannenbaum, 1983;Treffert, 1989;Vail, 1987).
One difference between the two kinds of extreme situations is that impediments to functioning
are naturally seen as a higher priority for intervention, and consequently the allocation of public
resources tends to be much more substantial, whereas in all but a few countries talents are typically
410
seen as the responsibility of the individual child and her or his family. Placing the burden of sup-
porting talent development entirely on the shoulders of parents makes the likelihood of successfully
rearing talented children often as dependent on the parents’ abilities to generate adequate material
resources as on their parenting skills. We consider three issues about parenting extremely talented
children: recognizing extreme talents and gifts, responding to identified talents and gifts, and sustain-
ing optimal conditions for the development of talents and gifts.
Recognizing Extreme Gifts and Talents

The first task that faces parents who may think that they have a child of unusual potential is to try
to identify what the nature and strength of the talent might be. For some talents this is a relatively
straightforward matter, even during the first few years of life. For other talents and gifts, the signs may
be more subtle or not evident until the child is older.
For the 120 participants in Bloom’s (1985) study of world-class performers—mathematicians,
research neurologists, concert pianists, sculptors, Olympic swimmers, and tennis champions—the
talents that were to lead to such high levels of achievement before age 35 were evident before the
age of 5 for some fields, but not others. For research neurologists, mathematicians, and to some extent
sculptors, there were few early signs of the children’s extreme potential. However, the swimmers and
tennis players as well as the pianists were identified as having a special inclination toward the par-
ticular field before the age of 5 (Bloom, 198l, 1985; Gustin, 1985; Sloan and Sosniak, 1985; Sosniak,
1985a, 1985b).The identified talent was not always exactly a match for the future field of excellence;
for example, a child might have been intensely interested in all ball games before the age of 5 but
focused on tennis during the succeeding 5 years.
The research of Bloom, Sosniak, Gustin, and Sloan also revealed that few children across all fields
were thought to be child prodigies, that is to have prodigious talents that leaped full blown into
existence. Growth trajectories were more gradual and tended to follow a pattern of expression that
depended on the presence of attentive and active parental support, direction, and encouragement.
This pattern was also found by Feldman, with Goldsmith (1986) and Goldsmith (2000) in child
prodigy cases. It was also true that in all fields there was an early need to involve other people who
could offer specialized instruction. In explicit contradiction to the often believed view that extreme
talent will somehow express itself, Bloom and his coworkers (1985) found that sustained efforts to
identify and nurture talents in children was a distinguishing feature of families.
Although the data are less plentiful, the more extreme the talents of children, the more extreme
the qualities and characteristics of their parents often are (Deakin, 1972; Feldman, 2000; Feldman,
with Goldsmith, 1986; Goertzel and Goertzel, 1962; Goertzel et al., 1978; Treffert, 1989). For exam-
ple, in their study of child prodigies, Feldman, with Goldsmith found that in each of the six families,
one or both of the parents essentially devoted their life to providing optimal support for a child’s
emerging talent. The families also tended to see themselves as different from other families, to isolate
themselves from the rest of their community, and to create a kind of cocoon-like structure to nurture
their child’s early development (Feldman, 1992). These prospective findings tend to be confirmed by
the retrospective data on those who have achieved eminence in their lives and careers (Goertzel and
Goertzel, 1962; Goertzel et al., 1978).
Parents who were highly opinionated, actively involved in causes or movements, and sometimes
unstable were common in the families of those who were to become eminent. However, it appears that
the families in Bloom’s (1985) sample of “world-class” performers provided more stable and tranquil
contexts, albeit ones highly focused on the particular domain to be mastered.The cocoon-like quality
that Feldman found in the prodigy families seems to be present as well in the Bloom sample, but with
a somewhat different emotional tone. The families of the prodigies seem more fortress like, whereas
those of the world-class performers seemed open but protective and focused on the task at hand.
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In their longitudinal study of six male child prodigies in fields ranging from chess to music to sci-
ence to writing, Feldman (Feldman, with Goldsmith, 1986; Goldsmith, 2000; Radford, 1990) found
that, even among these very extreme cases, it was not obvious before age 5 for three of the children
in what field they would become a prodigy. For one musician and the two chess players in the sample,
talents were strikingly obvious early on, whereas ability was far less immediately and readily apparent
for the writer, the scientist, and for one child whose gifts were so diverse that it was impossible to
guess in what direction he would go.
In a follow-up to the six boy prodigies described by Feldman, with Goldsmith (1986), Goldsmith
(2000) found that early adulthood experiences varied from case to case. In two cases, relatively steady
progress from early prodigiousness to adult successful careers seemed well under way. A boy who
chose violin performance at 10 was establishing himself as an internationally active solo performer,
whereas another boy, whose writing interests began at age 3, found himself able to integrate music
interests that emerged at about age 8 into a highly successful music journalism career. Another child
became a successful adult, but not in the field of his prodigious activity. By age 10, this child had
given up chess and turned his attention to law at a large New York firm, and seemed on his way to a
successful career. A child who was multi-talented as well, but who gravitated toward music, became
a more well-rounded person during his early 20s.
Major differences between and among the family situations of the boys in this study may have
accounted for at least some of the variation in how the boys managed the transition from prodigies to
young adults. The families that seemed stable and connected to the wider world seemed to have fared
better in preparing their talented boys for productive activities as young adults.The more isolated fami-
lies were at greater risk for disintegration when their boys began to assert their independence, perhaps
because so much of their closeness revolved around responding to the child’s great talents. The greater
the continuity, both in terms of the fields chosen to pursue and in terms of the family’s ability to adapt
to changing circumstances, the greater the likelihood that the outcome would be positive for the child,
even if the outcome was different from what marked the child as talented earlier (Goldsmith, 2000).
Bloom’s, Feldman’s, and Goldsmith’s research shows that early identification and valuing of talents
tend to occur in homes where there is already a tradition of involvement in a relevant field. In other
words, if a child with musical talent is born into a family that values and enjoys music and where
music is an important part of family life, the chances are better that this talent will be recognized and
developed than in a family with different values.
There are few, if any, performers at the top of their fields in classical music or chess who began
playing later than age 10, whereas beginning the process by age 3 or 4 confers a distinct advantage.
Whether there is a critical period in the strict sense of the term (i.e., a period of time during which
it is essential to be exposed to a particular kind of stimulation) is not known (Bornstein, 1989), but it
is true that the later a talent for chess or music is discovered, the less likely it is to be fully expressed. If
not discovered and responded to before age 10, the likelihood of full expression of potential is greatly
reduced (Feldman, with Goldsmith, 1986).
In other fields, such as writing, art, mathematics, dance, and most sports, identifying a strong tal-
ent and responding to it can occur several years later. Most writers, artists, and mathematicians, for
example, do not begin serious preparation until after age 12, although the interests, predispositions,
and behaviors predictive of the emerging talent are evident earlier (Piirto, 1999). For example, the
mathematician and philosopher Bertrand Russell and the theoretical physicists Albert Einstein and
Edward Teller all demonstrated their passion for mathematics and logical thought before they were
about 10 or 11. Russell (1967, p. 38) wrote:
At the age of eleven, I began Euclid, with my brother as my tutor.This was one of the great
events of my life, as dazzling as first love. I had not imagined that there was anything so
delicious in the world. After I had learned the fifth proposition, my brother told me that it
412
was generally considered difficult, but I had found no difficulty whatever. This was the first
time it had dawned upon me that I might have some intelligence. From that moment until
Whitehead and I finished Principia Mathematica, when I was thirty-eight, mathematics
was my chief interest, and my chief source of happiness.
For the most part, however, students who pursue natural science and philosophical studies tend to
begin later, often well into their teens (Feldman, with Goldsmith, 1986; Lehman, 1953).
If a child is discouraged or prevented from pursuing interest in a particular field because doing so
would break social conventions, or because the child is laterborn and only firstborn children tend to
be seen as especially talented, the chances of noticing a talent are certainly reduced. Or, if a family’s
history is focused on one domain, such as theater or medicine or music, but the child’s talent hap-
pens to be in a different domain, again the chances are diminished that an extraordinary talent will
be recognized and nurtured (Feldman, with Goldsmith, 1986). As more is known about the relation
between a child’s natural areas of talent and a family’s match or mismatch with those talents, it may
be possible to equip parents to better recognize talent in areas other than those to which they are
naturally predisposed. Once recognized and responded to, it then falls to parents to decide how to
sustain the development of a talent that has emerged in their child.
When we shift our focus to the more general academic abilities, there are many studies of early
identification of high IQ in children. The literature shows that it is difficult to determine the degree
of general intellectual giftedness before the child is 3 years old (Louis, Lewis, Subotnik, and Breland,
2000; Roedell, Jackson, and Robinson, 1980). Some studies have used experimental or neuroimaging
procedures during early infancy to predict IQs at later ages, but these procedures are not available
to parents, and are in any case still in the early phases of development (Bornstein, 1989; Rose, 1989).
A study of the families of Head Start students who were high achievers showed that the parents had
higher levels of educational attainment, greater income, fewer children, and were probably European
American. Contrary to those who did not achieve, these parents rarely suffered from depression and
were more attentive, tractable, and promoted the children’s autonomy (Robinson, Weinberg, Red-
den, Ramey, and Ramey, 1998).
Sustaining the Development of Exceptional Talents in Young Children

It is now well established that a talent, however extreme it may be, requires sustained, coordinated,
and effective support from parents and others for a period of at least 10 years to have a chance of
fulfilling its promise (Bloom, 1985; Feldman, with Goldsmith, 1986; Hayes, 1988; Morelock and
Feldman, 1991; Piirto, 1999). Having great talent does not guarantee great achievement, nor is talent
capable of expressing itself without substantial resources external to the child.
Therefore, the decision to try to develop even an extreme talent has profound implications for
every member of the target child’s family. It is unlikely that a family will have the resources to sustain
more than one process at the same time (Bloom, 1985; Feldman, with Goldsmith, 1986; VanTassel-
Baska and Olszewski-Kubilius, 1989). This means that siblings of the target child are likely to receive
a great deal less, proportionally, of the family’s resources, a reality often difficult to accept and live
with (Rolfe, 1978).The need to focus or refocus resources makes it somewhat unsurprising that there
is rarely more than one prodigy in a family, and that families historically have tended to concentrate
on the firstborn (and oftentimes male) child when it comes to talent development (Feldman, with
Goldsmith, 1986; Goldsmith, 1990; Radford, 1990). Historically, support and assistance has been
withheld from talented girls, because in much of the world and throughout much of history, the
likelihood of a daughter being able to fulfill her talent was less than that afforded by a son, owing
to an imbalance in culturally ingrained and institutionalized gender roles (Goldsmith, 1987, 1990;
Greer, 1979; Piirto, 1991).
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How is a parent to know if the sacrifices necessary to develop a child’s talent are worth making? This
question may seem to have an obvious answer, but in truth does not. Of course, most parents would say
that they want to develop a child’s talents to their fullest, whatever the cost. But few families have the
resources to develop every child’s talents to their fullest expression, and that often makes it necessary
to focus on one child’s talents over another’s, or to insist that all children develop talents in the same
domain—the domain valued by the parents, or one with greater chances of material reward. This was
the case, for example, with the three Polgár sisters, all chess players (Polgár, 2005). Thus, we have the
establishment of salons, dynasties, or teams. Going into the so-called “family business” is a common
practice in the development of all talents, not just extreme talent. If a family with a child with great
musical talent, for example, lives in a rural area far from the next level teacher, and lessons must be taken
weekly or semiweekly, the family is faced with a difficult decision: Shall we move to be nearer the
teacher? Moves such as this were documented by Feldman, with Goldsmith (1986) in the case of one
prodigy studied, who moved from another city to the Boston area to find a suitable school, but moves
to develop talent are more common in the cases of talented athletes (especially tennis, ice skating, and
gymnastics) or musicians. The decision to develop a talent is one that requires reflection as to parents’
values, goals, and priorities as well as a realistic assessment of the strength and potential of the child’s
talent and the effect that developing the talent will have on the family system, especially on siblings.
To help with the decision of whether to pursue full talent development, it is often wise to consult
with individuals who are knowledgeable about the domain in question and who have had experi-
ence in what it means to go through a rigorous, protracted training process. This is especially true
for parents who find themselves trying to reckon the strength and potential of a child’s talent in a
field with which they themselves are unfamiliar. Even when parents are experienced in the domain
in question, there are reasons to seek advice from outside experts or consultants. First, it is difficult
for parents to accurately assess the potential in their own children because of their close attachment
to them. Second, coaches, master teachers, trainers, and high-level practitioners generally have much
more experience than parents do in assessing and developing talent. Parents have themselves and their
children to use as a primary basis for judgment. An active coach or teacher may have worked with
hundreds of students (Bloom, 1985; Feldman, with Goldsmith, 1986).
In most instances, the advice given by experienced people within a domain will not be defini-
tive with respect to the course of the talent’s development. This is true for several reasons, the most
important of which is that it is not possible to predict with confidence what will happen to a talent
over time.There are too many uncertainties in the process to assert with confidence what the course
of any given child’s progress will be. Indeed, parents would be wise to question too positive a predic-
tion, particularly if the person giving that prediction is trying to recruit the child into a program,
school, or mentorship relationship.
The earlier the prediction about the strength and distinctiveness of a given talent, the less confi-
dence can be placed in its accuracy. This is not so much because it is impossible to detect and assay
talent early; in some fields such as chess, music, and certain athletic domains talent can be assessed at
very early ages, in many cases younger than 5.The uncertainty in making predictions is that there are
myriad factors, both genetic and environmental, involved in bringing even an extreme talent to full
expression, and a generative confluence of all relevant factors can never be guaranteed. Even if such a
fortuitous convergence should occur, the variables positively influencing talent development must be
sustained over several years, and, when necessary, fluidly adapted to the changing needs of the child
and the maturation of her or his ability.
The kinds of supports that must be put into place and kept there include the right teachers teach-
ing the right kinds of things for child performers; the right integration of the target activity with
other priorities for the child and the family; the right level of challenge in terms of competition and
414
public performance; and a context that encourages continued involvement in the activity in ques-
tion. In summary, a number of factors beyond the control of the child and her or his respective family
play roles in the development of talent, including the additional sufficiency of financial resources,
proximity to appropriate facilities, and the availability of appropriate teachers.
Another less well-documented, although no less essential component in talent development is
freedom from cultural proscriptions against certain activities. Although a child might possess high
natural potential, proscriptions may hamper the child’s aspirations and attainment of excellence based
on such social or institutional constructs as race, gender, and class categorization. For example, in the
United States, a young male might experience disapproval if he wants to put his psychomotor talent
to use in dance such as classical ballet. Jacques D’Amboise, the former Balanchine dancer who now
conducts school-based classes in New York City, is especially eloquent on the topic of attracting psy-
chomotorically talented males to the art of dance and has even set up special classes for them during
the school day, but the battle against cultural proscription is an uphill one. Even world-class dancers
such as Rudolf Nureyev, have had to contend with a disapproving father in order to seriously pursue
dance as a career. Percival (1975, p. 21) wrote that Nureyev’s father “was none too pleased to find that
his only son had grown up to be interested only in something as ‘unmanly’ as dancing and told the
boy to forget the whole thing.” Young women, on the other hand, might experience disapproval if
they want to employ their logical-mathematical talent, such as is used in the game of chess.
Few female chess talents continue playing tournament chess beyond the elementary tournament
years, in spite of a demonstrated ability to do so. The most prominent counterexample to this trend
would be the case of the Polgár sisters. The three girls received regimented training throughout
childhood with the explicit goal in mind of attaining prodigious achievement in the discipline of
chess by their father—a committed chess enthusiast and educational psychologist who sought to
dismantle the notion of innate genius (Polgár, 2005). Each of the sisters quickly attained eminence.
The youngest of the sisters, Judit Pulgár, became a chess grandmaster at the age of 15, making her
the youngest player ever to have earned this distinction. A fellow grandmaster, Kasparov, lauded as
the greatest chess player in history, said of Polgár, “It’s inevitable that nature will work against her, and
very soon. She has fantastic chess talent, but she is, after all, a woman. It all comes down to the imper-
fections of the feminine psyche. No woman can sustain a prolonged battle” (Lidz, 1990). Despite
years of public antagonization, Polgár went on to beat Kasparov, and now serves as the head coach
and captain of the Hungarian national men’s chess team (Verőci, 2015).
In some fields where talent development begins early, a phenomenon (perhaps unfortunately)
labeled the “midlife crisis” in musical performers has been observed with some frequency (Bam-
berger, 1982, 2016). Usually manifesting sometime between the ages of 12 and 18, this so-called
midlife crisis refers to a breakdown in the child’s ability to perform and an accompanying emotional
crisis in the child’s confidence in her or his level of performance. Many promising careers have come
to an early end because of the debilitating effects of such a crisis in adolescence. The description
of an adolescent crisis for performers has been documented in only one field—music—though
informal observations have been made in the field of chess (Feldman, with Goldsmith, 1986) and
in writing (Piirto, 1998b). It should also be stressed that this adolescent crisis phenomenon has only
been observed amongst young performers in U.S. American culture; it may or may not occur in
other cultural contexts. It could also be that this so-called midlife crisis is in part precipitated by
the highly professionalized and competition-oriented schools of music where most of the students
with extreme talent pursue their chosen field. How such schools are organized, how they respond
to and develop talent, and what they see as furthering their interest in terms of public visibility all
play a significant part in how conservatories or music training academies impact the process of talent
development (Subotnik, 2000; van Lieshout and Heymans, 2000).
415
Conclusions
At the turn of the twenty-first century, a major shift was underway in both cultural attitudes on a
global scale and the field that targets talented children. Some hailed these changes as a “paradigm
shift” (Dai, 2017; Feldman, in press; Kaufman, 2013), in the sense that many fundamental assumptions
about gifts, talents, and their development were being replaced with new assumptions. The field of
gifted studies has not yet fully embraced the changes called for in this new “paradigm,” and no stand-
ard methodological approach has yet been adopted to replace the former research standards, yet there
are strong indications that the development of novel methods and new frameworks is imminent.
These changes already impact parenting talented children.
Under the framework that guided the field of gifted studies for more than a century, talent was typi-
cally assumed to be well captured by a standard paper-and-pencil psychometric evaluation (almost always
an IQ test), and parenting was studied in relation to its success in helping higher-IQ children do well in
school, in college, and in their careers. Famous longitudinal studies documented the lives and careers of
children considered talented—or gifted, as they were often labeled in the field—in this way (e.g.,Terman,
1925–1959).Talent was, in essence, equated with and reducible to a child’s forecasted earning potential.
Later studies differentiated talent into verbal and mathematical components (following the SAT
format), but the approach was similar in structure to earlier studies (e.g., Benbow and Minor, 1990;
Stanley, 1997). The small step from a single talent to two or more talents in research helped to cata-
lyze more changes to both colloquial and scholarly understandings of what constitutes talent, with
contemporary studies extending to athletic, artistic, musical, and other more specific talent areas, as
well as gender differences in talent development (Ericsson, 1996; Gardner, 2006; Kaufman, 2013;
Kerr, 1985; Sternberg, 1996). There are even research studies that demonstrate that abilities other
than talents in the usual sense (mindset, grit) may be as important, or more important, than canoni-
cally “cognitive” forms (Duckworth, 2007; Dweck, 2006).
As the landscape on which talent studies are carried out has shifted, so has the landscape on what
kinds of parenting abilities, if any can indeed be so generalized, are of most relevance across the
spectrum of talent domains—the diversity and breadth of which appears to be ever expanding. We
know more about extreme cases of specific talent development and parenting than we do about any
other area, but this work is largely based on a few cases and uses predominantly qualitative, informal,
or anecdotal research methods (Feldman, with Goldsmith, 1986). A few studies have added psycho-
metric data to the case material, but the database remains relatively small and unsystematic (Ruthsatz
and Detterman, 2003; Ruthsatz and Urbach, 2012).
Parents of talented youth are widely presumed to have it easy.Yet the academic literature specific
to gifted and talented children provides empirical evidence that these individuals require a far greater
commitment of all variety of resources from their respective families (Albert, 1980, 1990; Bloom,
1981, 1985; Feldman, with Goldsmith, 1986; Howe, 1982; Radford, 1990; Sears, 1979).What is more,
parents of talented children may find typical sources of support to be lacking, as they engender little
sympathy from their communities. Lacking larger and more systematic studies, questions about par-
enting can at best be provisionally answered based on science journalism as found in books (Bazzana,
2007; Clynes, 2015; Ruthsatz and Stephens, 2016; Solomon, 2012; Suskind, 2014).
The cases reported are sometimes complex and extreme, including Solomon (2012), who deals
with children possessing a wide range intellectual faculties, emotional sensitivities, and identities, such
as child prodigies, and explores the various challenges for parents presented with these differences.
A comment on the back cover of Solomon’s Far From the Tree captures the impact of the material well:
I have seldom read a book that made me feel moral quandaries as intensely as this one. . . .
What undid me again and again, was the radical humanity of these parents, and their grati-
tude to and for children they would never have chosen.
416
As Feldman, with Goldsmith (1986) found in their study of six child prodigies, the more extreme
and unusual the talent—or talents—a child possessed, the more extreme and unusual the abilities
required of the parents. When one explores the addition of further complicating factors in the mix,
such as neurodevelopmental disorders or the interplay of gender, ethnic, and cultural identities,
the ante for successful parenting rises again dramatically (Solomon, 2012). While Solomon’s book
addresses developmental challenges outside the scope of this chapter—individuals with dwarfism,
Down syndrome, or schizophrenia; children of sexual assault; transgender children—his thoughts
about parenting under extreme circumstances are often highly applicable to cases of talented chil-
dren. Although not the result of systematic scientific research, they are the product of careful observa-
tion and a thorough familiarity with the available research literature. Given the rapid pace of change
in the fields that conduct quantitative research on talent and parenting, we can look forward to find-
ings that support or else cause us to question the impressions reported in current science journalists’
accounts. For the time being, we are largely limited to anecdotal reports.
Almost all of the cases described in the newer literature, including within science journalism, are
stories of relative successes. That is, what we see are parents and children who are doing relatively
well by one another. Were that not the case, the children would not even have been recognized as
having exceptional talents, never mind afforded the opportunity to develop them. In all likelihood,
there is a vastly greater number of children whose talents are unfulfilled than those whose talents
are flourishing under exceptional parental care. When children succeed, they do so in large measure
because they are given the support, care, and devotion of parents whose lives are committed to their
welfare and achievement. There are exceptions, of course, of children who find ways to accomplish
their goals in spite of, rather than because of, what their parents have done for them.
Our goals, however, are to reduce the need for heroic resilience in the face of overwhelming bar-
riers and to increase our ability to identify the kinds of parenting strategies that work best with the
ever-growing diversity of talents, alongside corresponding difficulties and deficits, and situated within
the growing variety of contexts in which parenting takes place.The tasks are formidable and complex,
but the rewards of greater fulfillment and better parenting seem worthy of our most dedicated efforts.
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13
PARENTING CHILDREN
BORN PRETERM
Merideth Gattis
Introduction
Parenting influences child health and development. Families, practitioners, and researchers are
increasingly aware of how child health and development affects parenting. Research on parenting
children born preterm has made important contributions to our understanding of both directions of
influence. This chapter summarizes research on parenting of children born preterm and situates that
research within the broader context of relations between child health and development and parental
care. The chapter is divided into four sections. It begins by describing how preterm birth affects
children, both immediately after birth and over the long term. The second section identifies how
having a preterm child affects parents. The third section reviews ways in which interactions between
parents and children, including parental care and interventions that shape and support parental care,
influence developmental outcomes. The fourth section raises emerging questions and lays out future
directions for research on parenting children born preterm.
Preterm Birth Influences Child Health and Development

Preterm children are born before 37 weeks gestation and are therefore born at an immature stage of
development. Preterm birth is common: Every year an estimated 13–15 million children around the
world are born preterm (Beck et al., 2010; Blencowe et al., 2012). Due to variations in female literacy,
malaria, maternal body mass index, and medical care during pregnancy, the rates of preterm birth are
highest in Africa and North America, where more than 10% of children are born preterm, and lowest
in Europe, where about 6% of children are born preterm (Blencowe et al., 2012).
Gestational age influences immediate risks as well as long-term outcomes for children and affects par-
ents and their interactions with children.To help identify risks and evaluate outcomes, the World Health
Organization (WHO) distinguishes different groups of children born preterm based on gestational age,
including children born extremely preterm (before 28 weeks gestation), very preterm (between 29 and
32 weeks gestation), and moderate or late preterm (between 32 and 37 weeks gestation).
Theoretical Accounts of How Preterm Birth Influences

Child Health and Development
Research investigating preterm birth is often empirically rather than theoretically led, evaluating
multiple variables that may predict, exacerbate or alleviate, or result from preterm birth (Blencowe
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Parenting Children Born Preterm
et al., 2013; McDonald, Kehler, Bayrampour, Fraser-Lee, and Tough, 2016; Saigal and Doyle, 2008).
Even in an empirically focused research area, however, theories influence judgments about what spe-
cific research questions are worthwhile and which explanations of empirical findings are acceptable
(Karmiloff-Smith and Inhelder, 1974–75; Kuhn, 1962). Theories also influence design and measure-
ment in basic research as well as interventions (Glanz and Bishop, 2010).
Two broad theoretical perspectives guide research investigating how preterm birth influences child
health and development. The maturation perspective emphasizes the influence of biological maturation
on children’s health and behavior (Bakewell-Sachs, Medoff-Cooper, Escobar, Silber, and Lorch, 2009;
Baron, Litman, Ahronovich, and Baker, 2012; Forslund and Bjerre, 1983; Hunt and Rhodes, 1977;
Longin, Gerstner, Schaible, Lenz and Konig, 2006; Parmelee and Shulte, 1970). When children are
born preterm, their immaturity may prevent them from adapting to the extrauterine environment in
the way that a full-term child can, and may also render them vulnerable to harm. Children born pre-
term may initially require specialized care, including maintenance of basic bodily processes, such as
respiration and thermoregulation, as well as protection from infection, but as individuals mature over
time, the consequences of preterm birth become less noticeable and less impactful (Luciana, 2003).
According to the maturation perspective, negative outcomes associated with preterm birth are the
consequences of complications of preterm birth, disruptions or harm to the developing child during
a period of vulnerability, or deprivation of the additional time needed for maturation (Bakewell-
Sachs et al., 2009; Baron et al., 2012). In general, however, the same developmental processes are
involved, and (unless there are complications or co-morbidities) the development of children born
preterm should proceed at the same rate as children born full-term, with allowance for the difference
in biological age. Differences in gestational age at birth between children born preterm and full-term
may sometimes create the appearance of developmental differences or delays in children born pre-
term, but when studies use corrected age (adjusting for total age since conception so that comparison
groups are similar in terms of developmental stage) rather than simply chronological age (age since
birth, also called postpartum age), these differences diminish or even disappear.
Several studies of children born preterm have compared the relative influence of maturation
and experience on development. Studies comparing phonemic processing, for example, in children
born preterm and full-term address questions about whether early language skills are determined by
maturational timelines or language exposure (Gonzalez-Gomez, and Nazzi, 2012; Rago, Honbolygo,
Rona, Beke, and Csepe, 2014). Many of these studies can be said to operate from a maturation
perspective, insofar as the logic behind the comparison is grounded in an assumption that the same
processes govern the development of children born preterm and full-term. From this perspective,
the purpose of comparing children born preterm and full-term is not to identify differences in their
underlying processes, but to use prematurity as a window onto the processes. Studies that compare
the influences of maturation and experience on behavior sometimes match children born preterm
and full-term across both chronological and corrected age (using either different groups or multiple
testing times for the preterm group) to allow more accurate evaluations of the relative influences of
maturation and experience on development. Interventions grounded in the maturation perspective
focus on protecting, supporting, and stimulating preterm children and their parents during the initial
period of vulnerability and hospitalization.
A second theoretical perspective, not only on prematurity but on development more generally,
emphasizes the complexity of developmental processes, and the sensitivity of those processes to
environment and timing. According to this second perspective, the divergence perspective, differences
in the timing of birth and related environmental inputs, may cause the developmental trajectories
of preterm children to diverge from the developmental trajectories of full-term children, poten-
tially involving different processes as well (Aylward, 2005; Guarini et al., 2009; Reichetzeder, Putra,
Li, and Hocher, 2016; Sansavini, Guarini, and Caselli, 2011; Sesma and Georgieff, 2003; Sullivan,
Hawes, Winchester, and Miller, 2008; Volpe, 2009; van de Weijer-Bergsma, Wijnroks, and Jongmans,
425
Merideth Gattis
2008). Preterm birth is thus likely to have a persistent influence on development, and the differences
between children born preterm and full-term may amplify over the course of development, rather
than attenuate.Two somewhat paradoxical empirical findings led to the divergence perspective: First,
researchers documented differences between preterm and full-term children on physiological and
behavioral measures, even when testing at corrected ages to allow for similar levels of maturation,
and, second, rates of dysfunction in children born preterm increase with age, in particular after chil-
dren begin school, and some dysfunctions appear to be lifelong (Aylward, 2005; Johnson and Marlow,
2011; Sesma and Georgieff, 2003; van de Weijer-Bergsma et al., 2008). Aylward (2005) argued that
because of the nature of neurodevelopmental processes, multiple, subtle insults to the brain influ-
ence long-term developmental outcomes following preterm birth. Other researchers have focused
on environmental risk factors, such as maternal age, education, and income, and how those factors
interact with the immediate consequences of preterm birth (Blencowe et al., 2012). Both types of
arguments, whether focused on physical risks, psychosocial risks, or some combination of the two,
recognize the impact of multiple risk factors that interact and increase the probability of negative
developmental outcomes for preterm children over the long term.
The divergence perspective emphasizes the integral role of change in development, the intrinsic
relation between plasticity and vulnerability, and the cascading nature of development (Anderson,
Spencer-Smith, and Wood, 2011; Aylward, 2005; Bornstein et al., 2006; Sesma and Georgieff, 2003).
The divergence perspective predicts that, in some cases as a result of earlier extrauterine experience,
preterm birth may lead to earlier development of certain competences (van de Weijer-Bergsma et al.,
2008). The conditions of preterm birth and the plastic nature of development may, however, lead to
changes that are adaptive in the short-term but are also lasting and consequent, with the potential for
negative long-term outcomes (Guarini et al., 2009; Reichetzeder et al., 2016; Sullivan et al., 2008;
Volpe, 2009). Interventions grounded in the divergence perspective seek to mitigate maladaptive
long-term outcomes by identifying and addressing earlier adaptations, including interactions with
other factors, such as parental beliefs, knowledge, or support.
The maturation and divergence perspectives are not antithetical. Humans are complex, and pre-
term birth influences multiple aspects of child health and development, from basic physiology to
cognition to social interactions. It is possible, and indeed likely, that some developmental outcomes
are primarily influenced by maturation and other outcomes are more consistent with divergence.
Proponents of both perspectives also note that several factors associated with preterm birth, such as
maternal age, education, and health, influence long-term developmental outcomes, either directly or
indirectly, and see the need to evaluate or control for these factors in research. Nonetheless, the two
perspectives are distinct, generating different research questions and predictions about how preterm
birth influences child health and development; they also motivate different approaches to care.
Acute Biological Risks

Preterm birth poses immediate biological risks, the most urgent of which is mortality. Preterm birth
is the most frequent cause of death amongst neonates around the world (Blencowe et al., 2013).
Gestational age influences mortality: infants born extremely preterm (before 28 weeks gestation) and
very preterm (between 29 and 32 weeks gestation) have especially high mortality rates. Mortality
poses a threat to infants born preterm across all gestational ages, even for infants born moderate or
late preterm (between 32 and 37 weeks gestation). Available care influences mortality as well: Most
infants born extremely or very preterm require special care to survive, including neonatal intensive
care. In many countries, neonatal intensive care is either not available or not well established, leading
to higher mortality rates (Blencowe et al., 2013). In addition to directly influencing mortality rates,
preterm birth also contributes indirectly to mortality because it increases the risk of infection (Blen-
cowe et al., 2013). Infection is the second-most frequent cause of death for neonates generally and
426
interacts with preterm birth, increasing mortality rates in particular amongst infants born moderately
or late preterm.
The fundamental cause of immediate biological risks for children born preterm is immaturity
of the organs (Lawn et al., 2010). The immaturity of the brain and lungs are especially important:
Neonates born preterm have increased rates of brain injury, respiratory problems, and temperature
instability (Saigal and Doyle, 2008). As a result, neonates born preterm have higher rates of hospitali-
zation, longer durations of hospitalization, and higher rates of medical interventions.
Medical care influences survival and developmental outcomes for children born preterm. Appro-
priate neonatal care environments are critical to improving the survival rates of infants born preterm.
High-quality neonatal intensive care can, for example, help neonates maintain physiological stability
of respiration and temperature and protect infants from infection. At the same time, however, neona-
tal intensive care is associated with higher levels of light and noise, both of which may disrupt inter-
nal regulation. In some cases, neonatal intensive care is also associated with higher rates of infection,
which in turn increases the risk of mortality amongst infants born preterm.
In the 1980s and 1990s, a new model of neonatal intensive care was introduced, the Neonatal
Individualized Developmental Care Program (NIDCAP), or more simply, developmental care (Als
et al., 1986). The motivation for developmental care is that the physical environment of neonatal
intensive care units may be disruptive to newborns due to an excess of stimulation, including light,
noise, and the presence of medical equipment. The aim of developmental care is to support optimal
development of neonates, including those born preterm, by changing the physical environment, for
example by reducing noise and introducing cyclical lighting systems that simulate day and night,
thus reducing stress and supporting self-regulation. Randomized control trials demonstrated that
developmental care in neonatal intensive care units led to improvements in long-term functioning of
children born preterm, especially those born extremely and very preterm (Als et al., 1994; Als et al.,
2004) and in some cases also those born moderately or late preterm (Buehler, Als, Duffy, McAnulty,
and Liederman, 1995; but see also Ariagno et al., 1997).
Regulatory Problems
Preterm birth increases the rate of regulatory problems during infancy, including the regulation of
sleeping, feeding, and crying, three factors which are especially important to parents. Researchers
have evaluated whether and when regulatory problems occur, as well as identifying and evaluating
potential causes for those problems. Understanding the causes of regulatory problems is important
because different causes have different implications for long-term outcomes as well as interventions.
If, as would be predicted by the maturation perspective, immaturity is the primary cause of regula-
tory problems, interventions can be minimal and focus on sustenance and protection; if environmen-
tal factors, such as noisy, bright hospital environments, are the primary causes of regulatory problems,
improved environments should resolve the problems; and if, as would be predicted by the divergence
perspective, regulatory problems reflect functional changes, they may interact with aspects of the
environment, such as noise, light, or other aspects of care, and lead to longer-term problems.
One of the first studies to examine sleeping patterns in children born preterm utilized time-lapse
recording in the homes of infants and their parents. The study compared sleeping patterns in infants
born full-term and infants born preterm at seven different ages across the first year, from 2 to 52
weeks (Anders and Keener, 1985). Infants in the preterm group were somewhat heterogeneous: most
were born very preterm, but some of the infants were born extremely preterm and some moderately
preterm. Age was adjusted for infants in the preterm group, so that they were equivalent with infants
in the full-term group in terms of developmental stage, but therefore chronologically older and more
socially experienced. At the youngest ages observed, infants born preterm had slightly higher levels of
active sleep and slightly lower levels of quiet sleep compared to infants born full term. Infants born
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preterm also showed less stability of sleep patterns compared to infants born full term. Overall, how-
ever, sleep-wake organization was similar across the two groups of infants, with a gradual decrease in
active sleep and gradual increase in quiet sleep over the first year of life. Anders and Keener (1985)
argued that prematurity in and of itself is not a risk factor for sleep regulation, and that problems with
sleep regulation in preterm infants may largely reflect immaturity rather than a lasting impairment.
In a longitudinal study of preterm infants while they were still in the hospital, Holditch-Davis
(1990) reported further evidence that problems with sleep regulation are related to maturation.
Because the duration of hospitalization varied across infants, the number of observations per infant
varied. On average infants were observed over a period of 3 or 4 weeks when they were between
29 and 39 weeks gestational age, or in other words were not yet full term. Active sleep was the most
common sleeping state, but decreased across the duration of the study. Quiet sleep increased across
the duration of the study, much like the pattern observed by Anders and Keener (1985). Holditch-
Davis argued that, in addition to state changes, sleep organization increased across the study duration,
before infants reached full-term age. Holditch-Davis also examined relations between sleep and
other functional domains, such as respiration and crying, and reported evidence that regulation is
linked across domains. Importantly, however, Holditch-Davis observed large individual differences
between infants for both sleeping and respiration states. Many of the patterns observed at the group
level, such as the increase in quiet sleep, were not observed at the level of individual infants. Holditch-
Davis argued that the influence of preterm birth on internal regulation is not uniform, and regula-
tion varies considerably across individual infants. At least some evidence indicates that preterm birth
does impact children’s sleep over the longer term. Caravale et al. (2017) compared sleeping patterns
in a heterogeneous sample of 2-year-old children born preterm with those of healthy 2-year-olds
born full term. Children born preterm had more sleep difficulties, including restlessness and dif-
ficulties with breathing. Further research is needed to evaluate the influence of preterm birth on
long-term sleep outcomes.
Infants born preterm have higher rates of feeding difficulties compared to infants born full term.
Sucking and swallowing develop around the beginning of the second trimester of pregnancy, and
preterm infants might therefore be expected to demonstrate normal feeding behavior. Nonetheless,
several studies have documented differences in feeding behaviors between preterm and full-term
infants, including immature patterns of sucking and swallowing. Hafström and Kjellmer (2000) used
an automatic system built into infant pacifiers to observe non-nutritive sucking in a group of infants
born preterm between 26 and 35 weeks gestation.The recordings were made on a weekly basis while
infants were still in the hospital. As in Holditch-Davis’s (1990) study, the duration of hospitalization
varied across infants, and as a result the number of observations per infant varied, but 26 infants had
four recordings over a period of 4 weeks. Sucking was highly variable both within and between
infants, but all infants in the study were capable of sucking. Across infants, the duration and ampli-
tude of sucking was influenced by infant weight and gestational age. Hafström and Kjellmer’s (2000)
results thus indicate a maturational influence on sucking and, by inference, on feeding.
Lau, Alagugurusamy, Schanler, Smith, and Shulman (2000) identified five stages of sucking matu-
rity in infants born preterm, characterized by degree of suction, rhythmicity, and amplitude. Infants
who demonstrated more mature stages of sucking also demonstrated more mature feeding, as indi-
cated by more feeds per day. In another study, sucking also predicted when preterm infants achieved
independent oral feeding. Bingham, Ashikaga, and Abbasi (2010) conducted a prospective study of
sucking and feeding in infants born between 25 and 34 weeks gestation. Infants who showed more
organized and consistent sucking behavior responded to oral feeding at earlier ages.
The severity of prematurity and the presence of co-morbidities both influence feeding. Infants
born at earlier gestational ages are delayed in progressing to independent oral feeding (Jadcherla,
Wang, Vijayapal, and Leuthner, 2010). Similarly, infants with low birth weight, who require respira-
tory support, and who have had gastrointestinal surgery have more feeding difficulties and are slower
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to begin independent oral feeding (Gianni et al., 2015). In such studies, however, it is difficult to
distinguish among the effects of maturity, the effects of impairments or co-morbidities, such as infec-
tion, gastrointestinal problems, or respiratory problems, and indirect effects that result from medical
interventions. In the study conducted by Jadcherla et al. (2010), infants were often fed by a tube
that delivers milk directly to the stomach, and in addition had some form of ventilation, especially
initially and amongst the youngest infants. The youngest infants (those born with a gestational age
of less than 28 weeks) also were the slowest to achieve independent feeding. Parents and medical
staff sometimes have concerns that assisted feeding and ventilation may increase reflux, a common
feeding-related issue for preterm infants, either due to the presence of tubing or to the air pressure
involved in ventilation. However, this is not the case. Newell, Morgan, Durbin, Booth, and McNeish
(1989) conducted a study with infants receiving ventilation and found that infants had less reflux
during ventilation. They proposed that ventilation could actually assist in reducing reflux due to the
pressure involved.
The regulatory problems of infants born preterm also include increased crying and/or fussiness.
One of the first studies to investigate this possibility utilized diaries recorded by parents of 35 infants
born between 27 and 34 weeks gestation (Barr, Chen, Hopkins, and Westra, 1996). None of the
infants in the study had serious medical issues other than preterm birth and low birth weight. Parents
recorded crying and seven other infant behaviors in diaries for a 24-hour period at six time points
between 40 weeks gestational age and 24 weeks corrected age. Infant crying, assessed as duration and
frequency, increased from term to 6 weeks corrected age, and decreased thereafter. Much like term
infants, crying was initially distributed across the 24-hour period and gradually decreased at night,
so that by 12 weeks corrected age nighttime crying was low and remained low. Barr and colleagues
concluded that increases and decreases in crying are largely due to maturation, and pointed toward
the peak observed in preterm infants at 6 weeks corrected age, which is similar to the peak observed
in infants born full term.
If crying is largely due to maturation, the period in which infants cry most—up until about 2
months—is likely to be extended for preterm infants, as they are born earlier and thus require longer
to reach the same stage of maturation. As a result, preterm infants might be expected to cry more
during the initial weeks of life, but to reach the same level of crying as infants born full term around
2 months corrected age. Korja et al. (2008) used the diary method developed by Barr and colleagues
(Barr et al., 1996) to evaluate crying and other behaviors of preterm (N = 30) and full-term (N = 36)
infants. Parents recorded crying and fussing for a 3-day period when their infants were 5 months old
(corrected age). Crying and fussing were combined to create one variable, assessed as duration and
frequency. Preterm and term infants fussed and cried for the same duration per day (M = 82.6 min-
utes and M = 64.9 minutes), but preterm infants fussed and cried more frequently per day (M = 9.0
versus M = 5.5 for full-term infants). Some factor other than maturation thus appears to influence
fussing and crying in preterm infants.
Infants born preterm are usually hospitalized for longer times than are infants born full term,
however, and as a result spend those initial weeks in a different environment, one that differs from
the home environment in terms of light and noise. One of the consequences of developmental care
programs was reduced stimulation, including light and noise, in neonatal intensive care units (Als
et al., 1986). Researchers have considered that consistently reducing light levels in neonatal intensive
care units may, however, deprive infants of valuable environmental cues, such as the cyclical varia-
tions in light that occur each day in a typical home. Guyer et al. (2012) investigated whether cyclical
lighting that simulates day and night reduces crying in preterm infants. Very preterm infants (born
at or before 32 weeks gestational age) were randomly assigned to either cycled or standard lighting
conditions in the hospital ward. In the cycled lighting condition, lights were turned on from 7 a.m. to
7 p.m. and off from 7 p.m. to 7 a.m. In the standard lighting condition, lights were generally dim and
were turned off whenever possible, particularly when the infant was sleeping, but not in a structured
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pattern. Light levels were thus similar for infants in the two conditions at night, but were higher for
infants in the cycled lighting condition during the daytime, because the lights were on continuously
for a 12-hour period. Parents recorded infant crying and sleep patterns at 5 and 11 weeks corrected
age, by which time all infants were at home. No difference was observed in sleeping patterns at either
age across the two conditions. At 5 weeks corrected age, infants who had experienced cycled lighting
in the hospital cried and fussed less than infants who had experienced standard lighting (1.25 versus
2.22 hours fussing and .64 versus 1.11 hours crying). Crying and fussing decreased at 11 weeks cor-
rected age, but still differed between groups. Guyer and colleagues concluded that cycled lighting has
the potential to reduce crying in preterm infants, even when infants are at home and cared for by
parents.Thus, both maturation and environmental conditions influence regulation in preterm infants.
The influence of cycled lighting was restricted to crying and fussing, however, and did not extend
to sleeping, suggesting that the interrelations between structured environmental cues and specific
domains of regulation are not uniform.
Developmental Outcomes in Infancy and Childhood

Disability is a profound consequence of preterm birth. In a study of 6-year-old children in the
United Kingdom and Ireland, only 20% of children born extremely preterm had no disability,
whereas 22% had a severe disability, such as blindness, deafness, cerebral palsy that prevented the
child from walking, and/or severe cognitive or communicative impairments.The remaining children
had either moderate or mild disabilities, including cognitive and physical disabilities (Marlow et al.,
2005). Specialized care following birth, such as assistance with respiration and thermoregulation,
not only reduces mortality rates but also reduces the risks of disability (Howson, Kinney, and Lawn,
2012; Saigal and Doyle, 2008). (Other attempts to mitigate disability are discussed in the section on
intervention studies of parental care that influence outcomes.)
Preterm birth is one of the most important predictors of developmental delays in cognitive and
communicative skills during infancy and childhood (McDonald et al., 2016). At the age of 2, very pre-
term children process linguistic information more slowly (Ramon-Casas, Bosch, Iriondo, and Krauel,
2013) and have smaller vocabularies than do their peers (Foster-Cohen, Edgin, Champion, and Wood-
ward, 2007). At the age of 6, children born preterm (24–33 weeks gestation) make more vocabulary
errors and have poorer grammatical and phonological skills (Guarini et al., 2009). Negative relations
between gestational age and cognitive and communicative skills are not simply due to differences in
maturity: Gestational age is negatively related to cognitive and communicative skills in studies that
correct for gestational age as well as those that match on chronological age. Although some relations
between gestational age and developmental skills attenuate with age, preterm birth remains negatively
related to cognitive skills at 5 years, as indicated by school performance (Quiqley et al., 2012).
Children born preterm are 3–4 times more likely to be diagnosed with a childhood psychiatric
disorder compared to children born full term (Johnson and Marlow, 2011). Numerous studies have
evaluated hypotheses about the causal pathways from preterm birth to psychiatric disorder, including
the possibility that preterm birth biases children toward negative social relationships and/or behavior
problems, which increases the risk of later psychiatric disorders. Infants who were born preterm are
sometimes described as having more challenging or more difficult temperaments, and some research-
ers have pointed toward temperament as a potential risk factor for psychiatric disorder (Cassiano,
Gaspardo, Faciroli, Martinez, and Linhares, 2017; Eisenberg et al., 2001; Rutter, Birch, Thomas, and
Chess, 1964). Documented differences in temperament between preterm and full-term infants are
not uniform, however, and instead vary considerably across ages and study methodology.Washington,
Minde, and Goldberg (1986) asked parents of preterm infants to rate their infants’ temperament using
the Revised Infant Temperament Questionnaire when their infants were 3 and 6 months old and
the Toddler Temperament Scale when their infants were 12 months old. The percentage of preterm
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infants with difficult temperaments differed from a term comparison group at 6 months but not at
12 months. Hughes, Shults, McGrath, and Medoff-Cooper (2002) asked parents of moderately pre-
term infants (24–32 weeks gestation) to rate their infants’ temperament at 6 weeks using the Early
Infancy Temperament Questionnaire, at 6 months using the Revised Infant Temperament Question-
naire, and at 12 months using the Toddler Temperament Scale. Ratings for infants with data at two
of the three time points were compared against standardized norms. At six weeks, preterm infants
were less rhythmic and more distractible compared to the standardized norms. At 6 months, pre-
term infants were less adaptable but did not differ from standardized norms in any other way. At 12
months, preterm infants were less persistent but did not differ from standardized norms in any other
way. Perez-Pereira, Fernandez, Resches, and Gomez-Taibo (2016) asked parents of preterm and full-
term children to rate their infants’ temperament using the Infant Behavior Questionnaire-Revised
when their infants were 10 months old. Preterm infants smiled more and showed less fear—or in
other words, had more positive temperaments—compared to full-term infants, but did not differ in
any other way. Cassiano et al. (2017) suggested that temperament may be related to gestational age
in a more complex manner and/or be influenced by complications and co-morbidities, but in a study
of 100 18- to 36-month-olds born preterm, temperament and behavioral problems were not related
to gestational age or complications (bronchopulmonary dysplasia or retinopathy of prematurity).
Overall, no consistent influence of preterm birth on temperament is apparent. The durability of
belief that preterm infants have more difficult temperaments may reflect increased crying and related
regulatory problems (as described in the section on regulatory problems above). Alternately, tempera-
ment may be influenced by other factors that are also related to preterm birth, but vary between
individuals, such as NICU experience (Cosentino-Rocha, Klein, and Linhares, 2014). Caravale et al.
(2017) reported that 2-year-old children born preterm were higher in negative emotionality and
had more sleep difficulties, such as restlessness and difficulties with breathing, compared to a control
group of healthy 2-year-olds born full-term. Furthermore, sleep difficulties were negatively cor-
related with positive emotionality, and bedtime difficulties were positively correlated with negative
emotionality. Further research is needed to clarify the relations between regulatory problems and
temperament following preterm birth.
Preterm children are more likely to have impairments to attention, executive functioning, and
socioemotional self-regulation compared to full-term children. Cohort studies and meta-analyses
indicate that developmentally the constellation of attention, executive functioning, and self-regulation
is the most significant area of impairment for children following preterm birth (Boyd et al., 2013; van
de Weijer-Bergsma et al., 2008). In social interactions, preterm infants are less active and more pas-
sive compared to full-term infants (Boyd et al., 2013; Brachfeld, Goldberg, and Sloman, 1980). Clark,
Woodward, Horwood, and Moor (2008) compared self-regulation in children born very preterm and
extremely preterm with full-term children.They evaluated self-regulation in children at 2 and 4 years
of age using three observational methods: structured parent–child interactions, cognitive testing, and
parent interviews based on the Emotion Regulation Checklist. For the parent–child interactions,
researchers rated children’s affect, persistence, and quality of transitions between tasks. For the cog-
nitive testing, researchers rated children’s affect and motivation, attention, cooperation, persistence,
and social orientation and engagement. During the interviews, parents rated the children’s ability to
manage their emotions. Gestational age was positively related to self-regulation at both ages: Children
with younger gestational ages at birth received lower self-regulation scores across multiple indicators.
The relation between gestational age and self-regulation was primarily due to differences between
the extremely preterm group and the full-term group, as indicated by effect sizes. Ford et al. (2011)
demonstrated similar relations between gestational age and executive function skills in 7- to 9-year-
old children.
Gestational age at birth also influences language skills throughout infancy and childhood. Chil-
dren born extremely preterm have poorer language outcomes compared to children born full-term,
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and children born moderately preterm perform at a level that is intermediate between the two
groups (Putnick, Bornstein, Eryigit-Madzwamuse, and Wolke, 2017). Furthermore, the level of lan-
guage skills of children in these three groups are stable from 5 months to 8 years, indicating that
the influence of preterm birth on language outcomes is lasting (Putnick et al., 2017). Longitudinal
analyses comparing attention and language skills in children born preterm indicate that impairments
to attention precede and predict impairments to language (Ribeiro et al., 2011).
One of the most promising hypotheses about causal relations between preterm birth and develop-
mental outcomes focuses on attention, self-regulation, and the timing of behavior in social interac-
tions. Infants born preterm show delays in early social interactions, particularly in terms of the ability
to initiate interactions and to respond to the initiations of others compared to full-term infants
(Garner and Landry, 1994; Garner, Landry, and Richardson, 1991; Landry, Smith, Miller-Loncar, and
Swank, 1997; Ulvund and Smith, 1996). Over the past two decades, numerous studies have consid-
ered and evaluated how impairments to the timing of social behavior might influence infants’ inter-
actions with social partners and create a developmental cascade with long-term consequences. The
proposal that problems with attention and self-regulation could change the timing of behavior in
social interactions and subsequently impact developmental outcomes is thus rooted in the divergence
perspective.The next section considers how preterm birth influences parents, and then returns to the
question of how attention, self-regulation, and the timing of social behavior might influence parents’
interactions with preterm children.
Preterm Birth Influences Parents and the Care They Provide

Preterm birth not only influences children, it also influences parents. Some of the ways in which
preterm birth influences parents are part of a constellation of changes that happen during the transi-
tion to parenthood, regardless of whether a child is born preterm or full-term. Other ways in which
preterm birth influences parents and the care they provide are specific to preterm birth and related
risk factors. This section begins by identifying four general principles of parenting that provide a
foundation for considering how preterm birth influences parents, then identifies the psychological
risks for parents associated with preterm birth, and finally discusses theoretical accounts of how pre-
term birth influences parental care for children.
Four Foundational Principles of Parenting

Four broad principles about parents and the tasks of parenting provide a helpful foundation for
identifying and understanding how preterm birth influences parents and the care they provide. First,
parents influence children, not only through reproduction and increasing a child’s chances of survival,
but also through the relationships that they build with children, which form a social, emotional,
and cognitive environment for development. Second, the social and emotional context of parenting
matters, both to parents and to children (Packer and Cole, 2015; Sameroff, 1998). Social and emo-
tional contexts determine a number of factors that predict the quality of parent–child relationships,
including caregiving expectations, stress, confidence, and social support. Third, parental beliefs and
knowledge matter (Sameroff and Siefer, 1983; Sigel, McGillicuddy-DeLisi, and Goodnow, 1992).
Beliefs and knowledge influence how parents engage with the task of parenting (Bornstein, Putnick,
and Suwalsky, 2018a). Beliefs and knowledge shape important aspects of parents’ relationships with
children, including bonding, sensitivity, and stimulation. Relevant beliefs and knowledge include
the attitudes and expectations that parents have about pregnancy, the roles of parents and children,
and knowledge of child development. Fourth, children influence parents (Fiese and Sameroff, 1989;
Lamb and Lewis, 2015; Lerner et al., 2019). Children are not simply the passive recipients of parent-
ing; they are social partners who influence those around them. Children’s temperaments, interaction
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styles, and other specific behaviors influence parents’ behaviors and emotions in a continuous and
dynamic manner.
Psychological Risks for Parents

The birth of a child inevitably involves change, risk, and at least some stress for all parents, even
when they already have children. For parents whose children are born early and have accompanying
biological risks and regulatory problems, the stress may be sufficiently burdensome to lead to distress,
anxiety, and/or depression.
Psychological Symptoms Following Childbirth

Both mothers and fathers of children born preterm report higher levels of stress and negative feelings
compared to children born full term (Ionio et al., 2016; Tooten et al., 2013). The stress associated
with preterm birth begins even before parents see or hold their child for the first time. Arnold and
colleagues interviewed parents of very preterm infants about their first moments together (Arnold
et al., 2013). They asked parents to describe their feelings when they saw and/or touched their baby
for the first time. One 20-year-old mother described her feelings: “You’re so on edge, and you want
to care for them and touch them if you can, or whatever, but also you just feel terrible if you think
you’ve done something wrong.” Another 24-year-old mother recalled, “I thought I’ll go onto the
ward and, thoughts running through my mind of what I was, what I was gonna find, how many tubes
was he gonna have, was he gonna be OK.” Both statements capture the uncertainty and stress that
many parents report after the preterm birth of a child.
Kaplan and Mason (1960) described the stress and negative emotions that mothers experience
during and after a preterm birth as an acute emotional disorder. They interviewed 60 families after
the preterm birth of an infant, both in the hospital and after the infant had been discharged and liv-
ing at home for 2 months. Immediately following the preterm birth of an infant, women reported
feelings of shock, helplessness, failure, and grief.When mothers were discharged but infants remained
in the hospital, mothers reported feeling distant and in some cases did not visit their infants. Once
infants were discharged and taken home, mothers reported feeling increased anxiety. Kaplan and
Mason argued that these negative emotions were the acute effects of preterm delivery and associated
factors, rather than caused by some pre-existing, chronic condition. They predicted that the emo-
tional experiences of mothers in this situation would return to a more typical pattern once they had
processed these emotions and engaged in daily care for their infants. Importantly, however, for some
mothers, the negative emotions associated with preterm delivery led to further difficulties, including
clinically significant levels of anxiety, fear, and depression.
In a quantitative study of maternal mood two decades later, Blumberg (1980) documented a dra-
matic relation between neonatal risk and maternal mood. One hundred mothers who had recently
given birth and whose infants were hospitalized at the time of the study completed measures of
maternal mood, including depression and anxiety, as well as the Neonatal Perception Inventory.
Researchers categorized each infant into one of five risk categories, based on medical records. The
risk categories ranged from no risk, when birth had involved no complications, feeding had com-
menced, and the infant was discharged from hospital together with the mother, to the highest risk
when an infant was born at a gestational age of less than 33 weeks, weighed less than 1,600 grams,
and/or had a severe congenital disorder. Neonatal risk, including preterm birth as well as a range of
other factors, accounted for 61% of the variance in maternal depression and 55% of the variance in
maternal anxiety between the first and fifth days after delivery. Neonatal risk was also associated with
more negative maternal perceptions of infants. Like Kaplan and Mason, Blumberg argued that high-
risk births lead to acute emotional crises for mothers.
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To better understand the influence of preterm birth on the emotional experiences of parents,
longitudinal studies have examined the time course of parental stress and distress beyond hospital
discharge and extending into early childhood. For example, Singer et al. (1999) compared mothers
of high- and low-risk children from 1 month until their children were 3 years old. All of the chil-
dren in the two risk groups were very low birth weight (VLBW), with an average gestational age at
birth of 27 weeks for the high-risk group and 30 weeks for the low-risk group, while children in a
control group were born at term with a weight above 2,500 g. When children were 1 month old,
maternal psychological distress was proportionate to risk: mothers of high-risk infants had the high-
est levels of distress, measured with the Brief Symptom Inventory, a clinically valid assessment tool
designed to evaluate mental health symptoms. Mothers of term infants reported the lowest levels of
distress, and mothers of low-risk infants reported distress levels in between the other two groups.
The relation between maternal distress and risk changed as children grew older. Distress initially
decreased for mothers of children in both risk groups in the months following birth, and continued
to decrease for mothers of low-risk children across the following 3 years. For mothers of high-risk
children, however, distress increased again when their children were 2 and 3 years old and remained
significantly higher compared to the other two groups. Maternal stress, measured with the Parenting
Stress Index (Abidin, 1983), showed a different pattern. Although mothers of high-risk children had
somewhat higher levels of stress at birth, maternal stress was elevated for all three groups at birth, and
generally recovered over the following months and years. As children grew older, however, differ-
ences in maternal stress emerged across the three groups. When children were 1, 2, and 3 years old,
maternal stress was highest for mothers of high-risk children, lowest for mothers of term children,
and in between those two points for mothers of low-risk children. Singer and colleagues attributed
the increase in stress to poorer child outcomes:The degree of risk predicted developmental problems,
which became more evident as children developed, and led to increased maternal stress. The time
courses of parental stress and distress from birth to early childhood thus differ, but both stress and
distress interact with risk. Longitudinal patterns of stress and distress, as well as their interactions with
children’s risk levels, highlight the importance of children’s long-term developmental outcomes on
psychological risks for parents.
The observation that preterm birth leads to increasing maternal stress across development has
been confirmed by other studies. Gray and colleagues compared self-reports of stress for women
whose children were born between 24 and 30 weeks gestational age and women whose children
were born full term.When children were 4 months old (corrected for gestational age at birth), wom-
en’s stress levels did not differ by the birth status of their children (Gray, Edwards, O’Callaghan, and
Cuskelly, 2012). When children were 12 months old (corrected for gestational age at birth), women
whose children had been born preterm reported higher stress levels than those whose children had
been born full term (Gray, Edwards, O’Callaghan, Cuskelly, and Gibbons, 2013). When the same
children were 2 years old (corrected for gestational age at birth), women whose children had been
born preterm again reported higher stress levels than those whose children had been born full term
(Gray, Edwards, and Gibbons, 2017). A longitudinal analysis across the three time points confirmed
that for women whose children had been born preterm, stress increased as their child grew older.
Polic et al. (2016) asked mothers to complete the Parenting Stress Index when their children were
6–12 years old, and again observed an influence of preterm birth on stress. They compared parental
stress across three groups of women: those whose children had been born between 34 and 36 weeks
gestation and admitted to the intensive care unit, those whose children had been born between 34
and 36 weeks gestation and were not admitted to the intensive care unit, and those whose children
had been born full term and had been admitted to the intensive care unit. Both groups of moth-
ers whose children had been born preterm reported elevated levels of stress in comparison to those
whose children had been born full term.
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Evaluating Causes of Psychological Risks

Some researchers have argued that psychological risks for parents, such as stress and distress, are not a
consequence of preterm birth per se or poor developmental outcomes, but are instead due to parental
difficulties in coping with related factors such as hospitalization, medical procedures, and separation
from their child (Schappin,Wijnroks,Venema, and Jongmans, 2013). Several studies have documented
parental difficulties in coping with hospitalization. For example, Arockiasamy, Holsti, and Albersheim
(2008) interviewed fathers whose infants were hospitalized in a NICU for at least 30 days due to
preterm birth and/or illness. The dominant theme that emerged from qualitative analyses of the
interviews was fathers’ sense of a lack of control over the situation. For some fathers, that lack of
control was not inherently negative if, for example, it was complemented by trust in the medical care
staff. For other fathers, their sense of a lack of control caused stress and led them to withdraw from
the parental role. One father described the situation as: “out of my control . . . it was like so frustrating
for me, so I stopped coming to the hospital for a while.” In another study, mothers of preschool-aged
children who were born preterm recalled the judgments and admonishments of hospital staff about
family interactions with infants during their hospital stay (Adkins and Doheny, 2017).
To evaluate whether psychological risks for parents are a consequence of preterm birth per se,
of hospitalization, or of developmental outcomes, researchers have compared parental mood across
groups that vary according to birth status and developmental outcomes. For example, Mehler et al.
(2014) examined the impact of children’s medical and developmental status on psychological risk
amongst parents of moderate and late preterm and full-term infants. Shortly after birth, parents
of preterm infants had higher scores on the Edinburgh Postnatal Depression Scale (EPDS) (Cox,
Holden, and Sagovsky, 1987) than did parents of term infants. As in the study from Singer and col-
leagues described above, parental mood improved with infant age:The EPDS scores of parents whose
infants were born preterm were significantly lower when infants were 3 months old compared to
when infants were born, indicating a decrease in depression, and no longer differed from the EPDS
scores of parents whose infants were born full term. To examine whether infants’ medical and devel-
opmental status accounted for parental depression, Mehler and colleagues compared parents’ EPDS
scores with infants’ motor capabilities, illness severity, and neurological assessments. In their data,
parental mood was not associated with preterm infants’ medical and developmental status, and they
concluded that parents’ psychological risk was associated with preterm birth but independent of
child outcomes, thus supporting the hypothesis that psychological risks for parents are a consequence
of hospitalization rather than preterm birth per se. Importantly, however, the preterm infants in their
sample had a low rate of impairment: Preterm infants did not differ from term infants on assessments
of motor and neurological function, and a relatively small percentage of the preterm infants had
required mechanical ventilation following birth (which is frequently considered a proxy measure
for risk). Because the preterm children’s risks and rates of impairment were low, it would have been
unlikely for the researchers to observe an effect of impairment on psychological risks for parents.
At least some conditions of hospitalization influence psychological risks for parents.Trombini, Sur-
cinelli, Piccioni, Alessandroni, and Faldella (2008) asked parents whose infants were born at less than
31 weeks gestation in one of two hospitals in Bologna, Italy, to complete the Symptom Questionnaire
and the Rapid Stress Assessment three times over a period of 2 weeks in a repeated-measures design.
In one hospital, parents were allowed free access to the unit where their infants were hospitalized
and had contact with specialized support staff, including physiologists who taught infant massage and
clinical psychologists who provided regular support, as well as other health professionals. In the other
hospital, parental access to the neonatal wards was restricted by fixed time schedules. As a result, par-
ents had limited opportunities to interact with their infants and with health professionals. In addition,
the second hospital did not provide any specialized support for parents. Ten days after children were
born, mothers of children in the hospital with unrestricted access and specialized support reported
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lower levels of anxiety, depression, and hostility compared to mothers of children in the hospital with
restricted access and no specialized support (Trombini et al., 2008). The difference between the two
groups of mothers increased over the 2-week study period. Psychological symptoms of stress either
remained stable or decreased for mothers of children in the hospital with unrestricted access and spe-
cialized support. In contrast, anxiety, depression, and hostility increased for mothers of children in the
hospital with restricted access and no specialized support.
Some hospitals have responded to evidence that the conditions of hospitalization influence psy-
chological risks for parents by designing environments that enhance access and support for parents.
For example, integrated care models encourage parents to care for their infants during hospitaliza-
tion, to participate in education and training, and in some cases even to participate in medical rounds
of the hospital ward (Jiang, Warre, Qui, O’Brien, and Lee, 2014). Some hospitals provide specialized
training for professional medical staff on how to facilitate the integration of parents in medical care,
and psychologists and/or peer groups may provide further support for parents. Qualitative evidence
indicates that in integrated care contexts, both parents and professional medical staff are aware of feel-
ings of separation that parents may experience when their preterm infant is hospitalized and are able
to identify actions that promote feelings of closeness for parents (Feeley et al., 2016).
Looking Beyond the Immediate Circumstances of Birth and Hospitalization

Psychological distress and related difficulties in coping differ between individuals as well as according
to circumstances of birth and hospitalization. Holditch-Davis et al. (2015) identified five patterns of
psychological distress in mothers whose infants were born preterm (the average gestational age across
the sample was 27 weeks) and weighing less than 1,750 grams at four hospitals in the United States.
Mothers completed measures of depressive symptoms, anxiety, worry, posttraumatic stress, and paren-
tal stress while their infants were in the hospital but no longer required ventilation. The research-
ers used latent class analysis to assign mothers to one of five categories according to their pattern
of responses: low, moderate, or extreme distress, high NICU stress, or high depression and anxiety.
Mothers completed the measures of psychological distress again when their infants were discharged
and when their infants were 2, 6, and 12 months. The measures of psychological distress included
parental stress, posttraumatic stress symptoms, and perception of the infant.The longitudinal patterns
of psychological distress differed across the five groups, demonstrating not only that patterns of dis-
tress vary across individuals, but also that distress at birth predicts later distress. Mothers in extreme
distress and mothers with high anxiety and depressive symptoms during their infants’ hospitalization
showed elevated levels of distress throughout the study compared to the other three groups. These
two groups were distinct from one another, however, both in terms of the longitudinal patterns of
psychological distress and in terms of their infants. Mothers in extreme distress were considerably
more likely to have infants who were very ill after birth, as indicated by the percentage requiring
mechanical ventilation.This pattern is consistent with the argument that maternal psychological dis-
tress results from infant risk and associated developmental outcomes. Mothers with high anxiety and
depressive symptoms, in contrast, were only slightly more likely to have infants requiring mechani-
cal ventilation compared to mothers with low or moderate distress, indicating some other cause or
causes beyond infant risk and associated developmental outcomes. Psychological risk is thus not only
influenced by infant risk, but by other individual factors that precede and endure after childbirth.
Education and income are closely related and important influences on preterm birth, but surpris-
ingly few studies have investigated how education and income influence psychological risks for par-
ents of children born preterm. Education and income are negatively related to stress during pregnancy:
Women with less education and low incomes have higher levels of stress during pregnancy (Larson,
2007).Voegtline, Stifter, and The Family Life Project Investigators (2010) focused on mothers living
in an economically deprived area in the United States and over-sampled for low-income families.
436
In their sample, mothers of late preterm infants were three times more likely to have symptoms of
depression or anxiety compared to those of full-term infants. Education and income are positively
related to gestational age at birth: Women with more education and higher incomes give birth at
older gestational ages (Blumenshine, Egerter, Barclay, Cubbin, and Braveman, 2010; Goldenberg, Cul-
hane, Iams, and Romero, 2008; Larson, 2007; Rini, Dunkel-Schetter, Wadhwa, and Sandman, 1999;
Ruiz et al., 2015; but see also Bushnik, Yang, Kaufman, Kramer, and Wilkins, 2017). At the country
level, income also predicts mortality following preterm birth: In low-income countries, an estimated
90% of children born preterm do not survive beyond the neonatal period (Blencowe et al., 2012).
Montirosso, Provenzi, Calciolari, Borgatti, and the NEO-ACQUA Study Group (2012) conducted
one of the few analyses examining the influence of socioeconomic status on maternal stress following
preterm birth and other complications leading to infant hospitalization in a NICU. Their measure of
socioeconomic status did not directly evaluate education or income, but occupation. Mothers with
lower socioeconomic status reported higher levels of stress while their infants were hospitalized.
The psychosocial context also influences rates of postpartum depression amongst women who
give birth preterm. Women who report lower levels of social support following a preterm birth are
more likely to be diagnosed with postpartum depression (Hawes, McGowan, O’Donnell, Tucker,
Vohr, 2016;Vigod,Villegas, Dennis, and Ross, 2010). Other psychosocial factors that influence stress,
distress, anxiety, and postpartum depression include a negative childrearing history, stressful life events,
general maternal well-being, maternal mental health problems prior to giving birth, and negative
maternal perceptions of infants (Assel et al., 2002; Hawes et al., 2016; Voegtline et al., 2010; Wood-
ward et al., 2014). Baia et al. (2016) argued that socioeconomic resources and social support may be
important factors in differentiating long-term outcomes for parents following preterm birth, but few
studies have addressed this question yet.
Theoretical Accounts of How Preterm Birth Influences Parental Care

Theoretical accounts of how preterm birth influences parental care draw on three traditions in
research on parenting more broadly. The first tradition emphasizes the importance of parental bond-
ing. The second tradition emphasizes the importance of sensitive and responsive behavior from
parents. The third tradition emphasizes the timing of social interactions and the bidirectional or
transactional nature of development: Children influence parents as well as parents influence children.
Each of these traditions is thus concerned with interactions between parents and children but brings
different assumptions and insights to that focus.
Parental Bonding and Attachment

One of the most influential theories of human development is attachment theory, which states that
close emotional relationships between children and their caregivers form the basis for subsequent
exploration and relationships (Bretherton, 1992; Cummings and Warmuth, 2019; Lamb and Lewis,
2015). In 1983, Martin Richards proposed that preterm birth jeopardizes parents’ feelings of emo-
tional closeness to their children, including bonding and attachment. Richards hypothesized that the
biological and psychological risks associated with preterm birth, as well as physical separation, may
make it difficult for parents to fully engage with their children and as a result may negatively influ-
ence the emotional relationship between parents and children born preterm, including the extent
to which parents feel bonded with their infant following preterm birth. For many parents, practi-
tioners, and researchers, this hypothesis has an intuitive logic (Evans, Whittingham, and Boyd, 2012;
Gonzalez-Serrano, et al., 2012; Kommers, Oei, Chen, Feijs, and Oetomo, 2016). Empirical evidence
as to whether this is indeed the case is mixed, however, and the results of some studies suggest that
preterm birth may even lead to higher levels of parental bonding and attachment.
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Feldman, Weller, Leckman, Kuint, and Eidelman (1999) compared maternal bonding to infants
across three groups: mothers who had given birth to full-term infants, mothers who had given birth
to late preterm infants, and mothers who had given birth to very preterm or extremely preterm
infants. Mothers of full-term infants were discharged from the hospital together with their infants.
Mothers of late preterm infants were all discharged before their infants but were able to hold their
infants within 2 days after birth. Mothers of very and extremely preterm infants were discharged
before their infants and were not able to hold their infants until 12–48 days after birth. All infants
in the last group required intensive care. Feldman et al. (1999) interviewed mothers using the Yale
Inventory of Parental Thoughts and Actions (Leckman et al., 1999) to evaluate maternal bonding to
infants. Bonding was negatively related to gestational age across the three groups: mothers of full-
term infants had the highest bonding scores, and mothers of very and extremely preterm infants had
the lowest bonding scores. Feldman et al. (1999) argued that proximity, separation, and potential loss
all mediated the relation between preterm birth and bonding.
Borghini, Pierrehumbert, Miljkovitch, Muller-Nix, Forcada-Guex, and Ansermet (2006) investi-
gated how preterm birth influences parental bonding using the Working Model of the Child Inter-
view (Vreeswijk, Maas, and van Bakel, 2012; Zeanah and Benoit, 1995), a researcher-administered
semi-structured interview that was designed to measure parents’ perceptions of their children, and
more specifically to evaluate parental bonding and attachment to children. Responses were coded
from recordings, and parents were assigned to one of three attachment categories: balanced, disen-
gaged, or distorted. Mothers completed the interviews when their children were 6 and 18 months
old using corrected age. Fifty of the mothers in the study had given birth to a preterm infant (from
25 to 33 weeks gestation) and 30 mothers had given birth at term. Mothers of children who had a
severe physical, chromosomal, or neurodevelopmental abnormality were excluded, as were mothers
with a history of drug abuse or psychiatric illness. At both 6 and 18 months, balanced attachments
were more frequent amongst mothers of full-term infants compared to mothers of preterm infants.
To further explore this relation, Borghini and colleagues used the Perinatal Risk Inventory to divide
preterm infants into one of two risk groups and then evaluated whether and how risk influenced
maternal attachment to preterm infants. They reported that risk did not impact maternal attachment
to preterm infants at 6 months, but that at 18 months, mothers of high-risk infants (a relative label as
it was based on the range of scores within the study sample) more frequently demonstrated balanced
attachments compared to mothers of low-risk infants (42% versus 17% respectively).The sample size
was relatively small, however, and very high-risk infants were not included as a consequence of the
exclusion criteria.Together, both factors limit the conclusions that can be drawn about the influence
of infant risk on maternal attachment from the study.
Korja, Savonlahti, Haataja, Lapinleimu, Manninen, Piha, Lehtonen, and the PIPARI Study Group
(2009) also used the Working Model of the Child Interview to investigate the influence of pre-
term birth on maternal attachment. In their study, mothers completed the Working Model of the
Child Interview just once, when their infants were 12 months corrected age. Birth status did not
affect maternal bonding and attachment to infants: Balanced attachments were similarly frequent
amongst mothers of full-term infants and mothers of preterm infants. To further examine the influ-
ence of infant and maternal risks on maternal attachment, Korja, Savonlahti, Haataja, Lapinleimu,
Manninen, Piha, Lehtonen, and the PIPARI Study Group (2009) also evaluated relations between
maternal attachment category and several risk factors, including infants’ gestational age at birth, birth
weight, whether infants required ventilation, duration of hospitalization, a standardized measure of
infant development, and maternal mental health. No relations were found. This absence of relations
between risk and maternal bonding and attachment is noteworthy because, in contrast to the fairly
restrictive exclusion criteria used by Borghini et al. (2006), the only exclusion criteria used by Korja
and colleagues (2009) were the native language of the mother, whether the mother had previous
children, multiple births, and known drug or alcohol exposure to the fetus.
438
Studies using parent-report measures to investigate the relations between preterm birth and
parental bonding provide additional evidence that preterm birth does not negatively affect parental
bonding. Hoffenkamp et al. (2012) asked mothers and fathers of very preterm infants, moderately
to late preterm infants, and full-term infants to complete the Pictorial Representation of Attach-
ment Measure (van Bakel, Maas,Vreeswijk, and Vingerhoets, 2013) when infants were 1 day, 1 week,
and 1 month old (chronological, or uncorrected, age) and the Postpartum Bonding Questionnaire
(Brockington, Fraser, and Wilson, 2006; Brockington et al., 2001) when infants were 1 month old
(chronological, or uncorrected, age). Mothers and fathers reported similar feelings of closeness to
their 1-day-old infants regardless of whether their infants were born very preterm, moderate to
late preterm, or full term. When infants were 1 week and 1 month old, mothers of very preterm
and moderate to late preterm infants reported increased closeness compared to when their infants
were 1 day old, whereas mothers of full-term infants reported similar feelings of closeness across all
three ages. A parallel pattern was observed amongst fathers, though somewhat attenuated: Fathers
generally reported feeling greater distance from infants compared to mothers, and fathers of preterm
infants reported increasing levels of closeness across the study, but fathers of full-term infants did not.
Reports of bonding problems on the Postpartum Bonding Questionnaire at 1 and 6 months were
congruent with feelings of closeness: Mothers reported fewer bonding problems than fathers across
all three groups, and parents of the most premature infants reported the fewest bonding problems
(Hall et al., 2015a; Hoffenkamp et al., 2012). Researchers interviewed the same parents when infants
were 6 months old, using the Working Model of the Child Interview (Tooten et al., 2014). Tooten,
Hall, Hoffenkamp, Braeken, Vingerhoets, and van Bakel (2014) noted increased parental fear and
anxiety for preterm infants, but birth status did not affect parental bonding. Balanced attachments
were similarly frequent amongst mothers and fathers of full-term infants and preterm infants.
Studies examining parental bonding during the first year after preterm birth thus have produced
disparate results, even when using the same measures. In some studies the relation between gesta-
tional age and parental bonding is negative (see also Provenzi et al., 2017), in some there is no relation
between gestational age and parental bonding, and in others the relation is positive. Differences in
observed relations may arise from differences in sampling or some other unknown cause.
Sensitive and Responsive Parenting

A related but distinct tradition of research on human development emphasizes the importance of
sensitive and responsive behavior from parents. Sensitive and responsive parenting is attentive, and
supports the child’s interests and skills (Landry et al. 1997). Sensitive and responsive parenting is
engaged and involves touching, talking, or playing with children (Bell and Ainsworth, 1972; Black-
well, 2000). Sensitive and responsive parenting is contingent and acknowledges the needs, signals,
and state of the child promptly (Bornstein, Tamis-LeMonda, Hahn, and Haynes, 2008; Goldberg,
Lojkasek, Gartner, and Corter, 1989; Leerkes and Qu, 2017).
Several studies indicate that parents are more attentive and engaged with preterm infants com-
pared to full-term infants (Bakeman and Brown, 1980; Field, 1977; Minde, Perrotta, and Marton,
1985; but see Brachfeld et al., 1980). Field (1977) compared the activity levels of mothers playing
with their 3.5-month-old infants (corrected age), who were born preterm (born on average at 32
weeks gestation), full term, or postterm. Infants in the two risk groups had both been hospitalized
following birth, but preterm infants had been hospitalized considerably longer (on average one
month, versus two weeks for postterm infants). Mothers of infants born preterm were more active
with their infants, both when their infant was looking at them and when their infant was looking
elsewhere, compared to mothers of infants born full term. Maternal activity was predicted by infant
risk, as indicated by scores on the Neonatal Behavioral Assessment Scale, and did not differ across the
two risk groups (preterm and postterm). Bakeman and Brown (1980) observed mothers and their
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infants who were either born preterm or full term during the first few months of life, and compared
four interactive states: when the mother was active but the infant was not, when the infant was active
but the mother was not, when both were active, and when neither was active. For preterm infants
and their mothers, more of the interaction involved the mother being active when the infant was not,
and less of the interaction involved the infant being active when the mother was not. Minde, Perrotta,
and Marton (1985) found that mothers not only looked at but also talked to infants more at 4 and 8
weeks if their infants were born preterm compared to full term.
Other researchers have reported that parental attention and engagement are proportional to risk:
Parents are more attentive and engaged with infants who have a higher degree of medical risk.
Brachfeld et al. (1980) observed three groups of parents playing with their infants when their infants
were 8 and 12 months old. One group of parents had infants who had been born full term and
healthy, another group of parents had infants who had been born at 31–37 weeks gestation but were
otherwise healthy and were therefore considered low-risk, and a third group of parents had infants
who had generally been born more preterm (26–33 weeks gestation), at a lower gestational weight,
had respiratory distress, and were hospitalized longer. For all of these reasons, infants in the third
group were considered high-risk. In order to ensure that all parent–infant dyads had equivalent social
experience with one another, they observed all groups at the same chronological age. When chil-
dren were 8 months old, parents were more physically close to high-risk preterm infants compared
to low-risk preterm and healthy infants, and touched and showed toys to high-risk preterm infants
more often compared to the other two groups.
Child development researchers and practitioners generally consider parental engagement a posi-
tive indicator of sensitive and responsive parenting that should be promoted, in part because engage-
ment supports optimal cognitive and communicative outcomes for children and protects children
against negative socioemotional outcomes (Bell and Ainsworth, 1972; Blackwell, 2000; Bornstein and
Tamis-LeMonda, 1997; Kotila, Schoppe-Sullivan, and Dush, 2014; Stefana and Lavelli, 2017;Vernon-
Feagans et al., 2008; Weisleder and Fernald, 2013; Woodward et al., 2014). Bell and Ainsworth (1972)
reported that mothers who were more engaged and responsive to their infants’ cries had children
who cried less throughout the first year of life. Kotila, Schoppe-Sullivan, and Dush (2014) also
reported that parents who engaged in more activities with their children such as talking, singing, and
playing had children who expressed less negative affect, and to a lesser extent, more effortful control.
Parents who are more engaged with children during interactions also provide children with richer
language environments, which in turn leads to better language outcomes for children (Vernon-
Feagans et al., 2008; Weisleder and Fernald, 2013).
Although a number of studies thus indicate that parents are more attentive and engaged with
preterm children compared to full-term children, some researchers have argued that parenting fol-
lowing preterm birth is actually less sensitive and responsive and is instead intrusive or controlling
(Flacking et al., 2012; Forcada-Guex, Borghini, Pierrehumbert, Ansermet, and Muller-Nix, 2011; Loi
et al., 2017; Muller-Nix et al., 2004). To support their argument, they point to evidence that parents
of preterm children initiate interactions more frequently, respond to children less frequently, and
exert more control compared to parents of full-term children (Loi et al., 2017; Macey, Harmon, and
Easterbrooks, 1987). As a result, parental behavior is sometimes described as being less contingent on
the interests and actions of preterm children compared to full-term children.
Contingent responding is defined as appropriate as well as timely responding and is considered
a critical aspect of sensitive and responsive parenting (Bornstein et al., 2008; Goldberg, Lojkasek,
Gartner, and Corter, 1989; Leerkes and Qu, 2017). Contingent responding is usually evaluated
through researcher observation and coding of interactions between social partners, and in the case of
parenting studies, between a parent and child. Researchers who take a macro approach to the meas-
urement of contingent responding either assign a rating to the quality of parental behavior across
an entire observation or assign multiple ratings to fixed periods or tasks within an observation and
440
then create an average (Clark et al., 2008; Landry, Smith, Miller-Loncar, and Swank, 1997; Treyvaud
et al., 2009). For example, Clark et al. (2008) observed parents and their 2-year-old children while the
child completed three problem-solving tasks, and for each task assigned parents a score on a 5-point
Likert scale for parental sensitivity, which included timely responding to the child, and parental
intrusiveness, which included directing or controlling the child. To evaluate parental interactions
with their children at 6 and 12 months, Landry, Smith, Miller-Loncar, and Swank (1997) combined
a macro approach in which researchers rated three dimensions of parental responsiveness (positive
affect, warm sensitivity, and contingent responsiveness) with a micro approach in which research-
ers counted the frequency of episodes when the parent stimulated the child’s attention in some
way, and then categorized those episodes as either maintaining, directing, or restricting the infant’s
focus of attention. Different approaches to measurement may lead to contrasting results: Clark et al.
(2008) reported that parents of extremely preterm and very preterm children were less sensitive and
more intrusive compared to parents of full-term children, whereas Landry, Smith, Miller-Loncar,
and Swank (1997) reported that parents of high-risk and low-risk preterm infants did not differ
from parents of full-term infants in responsiveness or the frequency of stimulation (see also Landry,
Chapieski, and Smith, 1986).
Researchers sometimes point toward the psychological risks for parents associated with preterm
birth, such as stress, anxiety, and separation from infants, or to confounding factors such as educa-
tion and income, to explain why parenting might be less sensitive and responsive following preterm
birth. Wijnroks (1999) argued that increased maternal anxiety leads to decreased sensitivity. They
visited the homes of children born preterm three times over a 10-day period when the child had
turned 6 months. They observed mothers playing with their children twice, for five minutes during
each visit, and later coded maternal behavior during the observations in terms of activity, sensitivity,
intrusiveness, and a number of other factors. They also interviewed mothers during the second visit
to evaluate stress and anxiety around the time their children were born. Mothers of preterm children
who reported higher levels of anxiety were more active, more intrusive, and less sensitive during
their observed interactions with children compared to mothers who reported little or no anxiety
(Wijnroks, 1999).
Muller-Nix et al. (2004) argued that the trauma experienced by mothers when their children are
born preterm might lead to a decrease in sensitive and responsive parenting. They observed moth-
ers interacting with their children at 6 and 18 months, and evaluated maternal and child behavior
using the Care Index (Crittenden and Bonvillian, 1984). When children were 18 months, mothers
also completed the Posttraumatic Stress Disorder Questionnaire (Quinnell and Hynan, 1999). Moth-
ers who retrospectively reported higher levels of stress surrounding the preterm birth of their child
were less sensitive and more controlling compared to mothers of full-term children. Mothers who
reported lower levels of stress surrounding the preterm birth of their child showed intermediate
levels of sensitive and controlling behavior with their children. When their children were 18 months
old, the three groups of mothers no longer differed in their levels of sensitive and responsive parent-
ing. Muller-Nix et al. (2004) also argued that infant risk might lead to a decrease in sensitive and
responsive parenting. They used the same Care Index data to compare infants born preterm with
infants born full term, but this time divided the infants born preterm into two groups based on infant
risk factors. They assessed infant risk using the Perinatal Risk Inventory (PERI), which considers
factors such as gestational age, ventilation, and Apgar scores and correlates with standardized devel-
opmental measures of cognitive outcomes (Scheiner and Sexton, 1991). Mothers of high-risk infants
had slightly lower scores for sensitivity and slightly higher scores for controlling behavior compared
to mothers of full-term infants at 6 months (p = .05), but the comparison was not significant across
the three risk groups, and no differences were observed at 18 months.
Overall, consistent evidence indicates that parents are more attentive and engaged with preterm
infants compared to full-term infants. Preterm infants may nonetheless be at risk for less sensitive
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parenting, or more specifically, for less contingent responding from parents. The higher levels of
stimulation that are characteristic of parents interacting with preterm infants may at times be intru-
sive or controlling. Importantly, however, the existing evidence does not consistently support the
claim that intrusive or insensitive parenting is characteristic of parents of children born preterm.
Evidence of the influence of stress and anxiety on parenting is more consistent: Parents who report
higher levels of stress and anxiety appear to be more likely to interact with children in a manner that
is controlling or insensitive. The next section considers the importance of expanding the question
to include the child in definitions as well as evaluations of social interactions between parents and
children born preterm.
Timing and the Bidirectional Nature of Social Interactions

A third theoretical tradition in human development emphasizes the dynamic, bidirectional influences
between social partners in all relationships and in parent–child relationships in particular (Fiese and
Sameroff, 1989; Lerner et al., 2019). According to this tradition, because children influence parents as
well as parents influence children, the contributions that children make to social interactions influ-
ence how parents interact with children. Children thus influence their own development, in part
through their contributions to social interactions with their parents and other people.
Most human interactions are characterized by remarkable temporal coordination from the earli-
est months of life onward, whether in the turn-taking of vocal exchanges or the shifts of attention
to follow a social partner (Bornstein, Putnick, Cote, Haynes, and Suwalsky, 2015; Hilbrink, Gattis,
and Levinson, 2015; Jaffe, Beebe, Feldstein, Crown, and Jasnow, 2001; Perra and Gattis, 2010, 2012).
Bornstein Putnick, Cote, et al. (2015) examined the frequency and timing of vocalizations from
mothers and their 5-month-olds in their homes in 11 countries. The frequency of vocalizations
for both mothers and infants differed dramatically across countries, with infants in some countries
vocalizing more than twice as much as infants in other countries, and mothers in some countries
vocalizing more than four times as much as mothers in other countries. Despite these differences
in the frequency of vocalizations across countries, the coordination of timing between mothers and
infants was relatively similar across countries.To evaluate the coordination of timing between mater-
nal and infant behaviors, Bornstein, Putnick, Cote, et al. (2015) calculated the extent to which the
vocalizations of one social partner were contingent on the vocalizations of the other social partner.
In 9 of the 11 countries, mothers were more likely to vocalize within 2 seconds of the end of their
infants’ vocalizations compared to the rest of the 50-minute observation. In other words, mothers’
vocalizations were contingent responses to their infants’ vocalizations. In half of the countries, infants
were more likely to vocalize within 2 seconds of the end of their mothers’ vocalizations compared to
the rest of the observation. Mothers’ responses to infants’ vocalizations were thus more consistently
contingent, but many infants’ responses to their mothers’ vocalizations were also contingent, and in
both cases across diverse cultural settings.
One hypothesis about how timing influences parents and the care they provide for children fol-
lowing preterm birth is that because children born preterm are less active and are slower to respond
to the initiations of others (as described above in the section on developmental outcomes in infancy
and childhood), their parents and other social partners may become more active, in particular in
terms of attempts to solicit or direct attention (Garner, Landry, and Richardson, 1991; Landry, 1986;
Landry, Chapieski, and Schmidt, 1986). The increased activity levels of parents in turn influence their
children, not only in the immediate social context but also in terms of subsequent cognitive and
communicative outcomes. Landry and colleagues conducted a longitudinal study of attention devel-
opment and maternal attention-directing strategies at 6, 12, and 24 months across three groups of
children: low-risk preterm, high-risk preterm, and full term (Garner, Landry, and Richardson, 1991;
Landry, 1986; Landry, Chapieski, and Schmidt, 1986). Researchers used a micro-coding approach that
442
considered the frequency, timing, and type of parental stimulation, as well as child attention, explo-
ration, and communication. Preterm birth influenced child attention from the earliest observations
onward. At all three ages, children in the high-risk group showed more passive looking than low-risk
and full-term children (Garner, Landry, and Richardson, 1991). At 12 and 24 months, children in the
high-risk group also showed less active attention, as indicated by functional play, compared to low-
risk and full-term children (Garner, Landry, and Richardson, 1991). Preterm birth also influenced
interactive behaviors for both partners, but the onset of those differences was later than the onset
of differences in child attention. When children were 6 months, they and their mothers spent equal
amounts of time—nearly half of the 2-minute observation—sharing attention to the same object
regardless of gestational age and risk status (Landry, 1986). At 12 months, risk status influenced the
frequency of mothers’ attention-directing: mothers of high-risk children directed their children’s
attention more frequently than did mothers of low-risk and full-term children (Landry, Chapieski,
and Schmidt, 1986). Garner, Landry, and Richardson (1991) argued that the observed differences in
mothers’ attention-directing strategies across risk groups reflected an adaptive and effective response
to children’s attentional capacities. Low-risk preterm, high-risk preterm, and full-term children were
equally likely to respond to their mothers’ attention-directing strategies at 12 months, further sup-
porting the argument that mothers’ attention-directing strategies were adaptive and effective (Landry,
Chapieski, and Schmidt, 1986).
A second hypothesis about how timing influences parents and the care they provide following
preterm birth is that because children born preterm have problems with internal regulation (as
described above in the section on developmental outcomes in infancy and childhood), their affective
states and behavior are less temporally regular and predictable compared to children born full term.
As a result, the social interactions between parents and children born preterm are less coordinated,
which in turn negatively influences children’s outcomes (Feldman, 2006, 2007, 2009; Lester, Hoff-
man, and Brazelton, 1985). Lester, Hoffman, and Brazelton (1985) developed a multi-step analytic
procedure for characterizing the fluctuations between behavioral states for parents and children,
and then comparing those fluctuations or periodicities to evaluate the similarity of state changes
across social partners. In the first step, mothers of 3-month-old infants (20 term, 20 preterm tested
at corrected age) sat directly facing their infants and played with them for 3 minutes. Mothers and
infants repeated the same procedure again when infants were 5 months. Researchers then rated the
states of mothers and infants separately by assigning a state score between 1 and 13 to each second
of the 3-minute interaction. The scores referred to a range of behaviors such as avoid, avert, elicit,
play, and talk. The scoring system thus treated qualitatively different behavioral states as quantitative
values along a scale representing negative versus positive affect. The researchers used spectral analysis
to identify oscillations, or temporal patterns of behavioral state changes within an individual. Finally,
the researchers used cross-spectral analyses, a cross-correlation technique, to compare the temporal
patterns of behavioral state changes across mothers and infants and to evaluate the extent to which
state changes cohered across the interaction partners, or in their words, were synchronized. Lester,
Hoffman, and Brazelton (1985) argued that the behaviors of mothers and infants differed from
chance at both 3 and 5 months, or in other words that the behavior of both partners followed a
temporal organization of periodic shifts between states. Although the patterns of behavioral states
for term and preterm infants did not differ significantly, Lester, Hoffman, and Brazelton (1985) also
argued that the behaviors of preterm infants were more variable, and that developmental shifts as
well as dyadic synchrony differed for preterm versus term infants.The temporal organization of term
infants’ behaviors increased from 3 to 5 months, but the temporal organization of preterm infants’
behaviors did not. In addition, the similarity of behavioral changes, or synchrony, between mothers
and infants increased for dyads with a term infant from 3 to 5 months, but did not increase for dyads
with a preterm infant. Lester, Hoffman, and Brazelton (1985) argued that temporal coordination of
behavior between social partners relies on the predictability of the behavior of each individual, and
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that preterm infants were more variable in their individual behavior, as well as less coordinated or
synchronous with social partners.
Cohn and Tronick (1988) argued that the associations between infant and maternal behaviors
observed by Lester, Hoffman, and Brazelton (1985), and observed in their own data as well, reflected
bidirectional influences between mother and infant that were driven by dependencies, or what they
called stochastic organization, rather than periodicities. In a study with full-term infants at 3, 6, and 9
months of age, they used the same state coding system as did Lester, Hoffman, and Brazelton (1985).
Rather than coding each second of their 2-minute interactions independently, as Lester, Hoffman,
and Brazelton (1985) had done, they coded changes in state and then generated scores for each sec-
ond based on the continuous state data. They evaluated the subsequent time series for every mother
and infant, and found little evidence of periodic cycles in the behaviors of infants at 3, 6, or 9 months
or in the behaviors of their mothers. They did, however, find evidence of dependencies between
the behaviors of infants and mothers at all three ages. The behaviors of mothers accounted for
about one-third of the variance in the behaviors of infants at all three ages. The behaviors of infants
accounted for over one-half of the variance in the behaviors of mothers at all three ages.
The methods and ideas developed by Lester, Hoffman, and Brazelton (1985) and Cohn and
Tronick (1988) have influenced numerous studies of how preterm birth affects parents and the care
that they provide. Feldman (2006) described synchrony as social rhythms, and proposed that the
rhythms of social interactions are influenced by the biological rhythms of individuals, including
biological processes such as heart rate and sleep cycles. Feldman (2006) compared the temporal
organization of behaviors for three groups of mother-child dyads: mothers with high-risk preterm
infants (born before 30 weeks gestation), mothers with low-risk preterm infants (born between 34
and 36 weeks gestation), and mothers with full-term infants. When all infants were 3 months cor-
rected age, researchers filmed mothers and infants playing together for 5 minutes in their homes and
later applied the coding and analysis procedures developed by Lester, Hoffman, and Brazelton (1985)
and Cohn and Tronick (1988). Cross-correlations, an indicator of the similarity of the timing and
valence of behavioral state changes across social partners, ranged from .13 for the dyads with high-
risk preterm infants to .18 for dyads with full-term infants, with dyads with low-risk preterm infants
in the middle. The cross-correlations for the two groups of dyads with preterm infants differed sig-
nificantly from the cross-correlations for dyads with full-term infants, but did not differ from each
other. Importantly, biological variables collected from the preterm infants during the neonatal period
predicted the degree to which mother-infant behaviors were coordinated: a hierarchical regression
revealed that both sleep cycles and vagal tone were significant predictors of cross-correlations in the
interactions at 3 months. Feldman (2006) concluded that basic biological processes such as heart
rate and sleeping influence the quality of social interactions through the temporal organization of
behavior. Other researchers using different methods to evaluate temporal relations in social interac-
tions have reported that full-term infants have more symmetric and sequential interactions with
their mothers compared to very preterm and extremely preterm infants (Doiron and Stack, 2017;
Sansavini et al., 2015). However, Poehlmann et al. (2011) reported a negative rather than positive
relation between early biological variables and the quality of mother-infant interactions, indicating
that further research is needed to evaluate the causal relations between individual and dyadic states.
Evidence from a range of studies supports the broad argument that children born preterm influ-
ence their parents and the care they provide, in particular in terms of the temporal coordination
of social interactions. Current evidence does not clearly establish whether the contributions that
children born preterm make to social interactions are simply slower, and thus lead to increased but
effective parental attempts to solicit and guide attention, or are disorganized or perturbed, and may
thus make it difficult for parents and children to have temporally coordinated interactions. Existing
evidence also does not clearly distinguish between accounts of synchronicity that emphasize perio-
dicities in behavior within as well as across social partners and accounts that emphasize contingencies
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across social partners. The wide variety of methods and contrasting analytic approaches used in dif-
ferent studies make it difficult to compare and evaluate different accounts of how timing influences
interactions between children born preterm and their parents. Future research should utilize methods
that make it possible to compare the relative and temporal contributions that parents and children
make to social interactions, as well as their antecedents.
Parental Care Influences Outcomes for Children Born Preterm

Parents influence children’s developmental outcomes through their care, their relationships, and the
environments for development that parents and children build together. This section considers two
types of evidence about when and how parents influence the developmental outcomes of children
born preterm: observations and interventions. Observational studies allow researchers to examine
the relations between complex, real-life factors that vary between individuals and in many cases are
difficult to manipulate. As a result, observation studies have stimulated theory formation and guided
the design of interventions addressing parental care and developmental outcomes following preterm
birth. Interventions allow researchers to simultaneously test causal hypotheses and, in the ideal
circumstances, also improve outcomes for children born preterm.
Observational Studies of Parental Care and Developmental Outcomes

Observational studies of parental care following preterm birth have yielded numerous insights about
how parental care varies between individuals and because of psychosocial factors. Observational
studies have also improved understanding of how parental care influences children’s developmental
outcomes following preterm birth. Some observational studies have examined the effects of parental
care following preterm birth, following the model parental care → child outcomes. Other obser-
vational studies have investigated hypotheses about more complex causal chains, for example birth
status → psychological risks for parents → parental care → child outcomes. The most complex
observational studies have sought to identify both parent and child factors that result from preterm
birth, how those factors interact, and how those interactions influence children’s outcomes. Such
studies have considered multiple and potentially simultaneous causal relations, including bidirectional
relations, following models such as birth status → biological risks/regulatory problems for chil-
dren ←→ parental care ←→ child outcomes. Prospective longitudinal studies have made especially
valuable contributions to scientific knowledge about parenting following preterm birth. The most
beneficial studies have used both children’s and parents’ behavior to evaluate specific, clearly defined
hypotheses about the causal pathways from preterm birth to developmental outcomes.
Relations Among Preterm Birth, Parental Bonding and Attachment,

and Developmental Outcomes
Numerous researchers have proposed that preterm birth may disrupt parental bonding, either due to
the unexpected nature of a preterm birth, higher levels of stress, or longer periods of hospitalization, and
as a consequence, influences children’s developmental outcomes indirectly through parental care, either
in terms of socioemotional functioning or cognitive or communicative development (Borghini et al.,
2006; Evans et al. 2012; Feldman,Weller, Leckman, Kuint, and Eidelman, 1999; Forcada-Guex, Borghini,
Pierrehumbert, Ansermet, and Muller-Nix, 2011; Gonzalez-Serrano et al., 2012; Kommers et al., 2016).
Although evidence regarding the relations between preterm birth and parental bonding is inconsistent
(as described in the section on parental bonding and attachment above), several observational studies
have included developmental outcomes for children in their examinations of relations between preterm
birth and parental bonding and thus allow researchers to examine these hypotheses further.
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Korja and colleagues evaluated parent and infant behaviors at home, mother-infant interactions
during a clinic visit, and maternal attachment for families with preterm (N = 38) and term (N = 45)
infants. When infants were 5 months old (corrected age), parents recorded infant crying, fussing,
sleeping, waking, and feeding, and their own soothing behaviors, defined as holding, caretaking, and
moving around with the infant (Korja et al., 2008). When infants were 6 and 12 months old, moth-
ers and infants played together in a standardized play setting, and researchers coded both maternal
and infant behaviors, thus providing an indicator of both parental care and child outcomes (Korja
et al., 2010; Korja et al., 2008). When infants were 12 months old, researchers interviewed mothers
to evaluate maternal attachment (Korja et al., 2010; Korja et al., 2009). All assessments for preterm
infants occurred at corrected ages. At 5 months preterm, infants cried more frequently compared to
full-term infants (described in the section on regulatory problems above). At 5 months, parents also
held preterm infants more compared to full-term infants (M = 198.3 and M = 140.2 minutes per
day, respectively), which Korja and colleagues interpreted as an adaptive response to more frequent
infant crying. At 6 months, preterm and full-term infants did not differ from each other in interaction
behavior, but at 12 months, preterm infants were more sober and withdrawn and had lower-quality
play and attention skills compared to full-term infants. Neither birth status nor infant biological risk
influenced maternal attachment. In addition, the relations between maternal attachment and devel-
opmental outcomes did not differ according to birth status: Maternal attachment related positively to
both mother and infant interaction behavior, such that mothers with balanced attachments had more
positive involvement and communication with infants, and their infants had less sober and withdrawn
mood and better play and attention skills, regardless of whether infants were born preterm or full term.
Forcada-Guex et al. (2011) compared maternal stress and maternal bonding and attachment with
interaction patterns for mothers and their preterm (N = 47) or term (N = 25) infants. When infants
were 6 months old (corrected age for preterm infants), the researchers evaluated maternal bonding and
attachment using the Working Model of the Child Interview, and evaluated dyadic interaction patterns
from a 10-minute mother-infant play session. As in the studies from Korja and colleagues, interaction
coding considered both maternal and infant behaviors, thus providing an indicator of both parental
care and child outcomes. When infants were 18 months old, the researchers evaluated maternal stress
during the neonatal period retrospectively using the Perinatal Posttraumatic Stress Disorder Question-
naire (Quinnell and Hynan, 1999). Balanced attachments were more common amongst mothers of
full-term infants than mothers of preterm infants (also reported in an earlier paper by Borghini et al.,
2006, as described above in the section on theoretical accounts of how preterm birth affects parental
care). Interactions with a sensitive mother and cooperative infant were more common amongst dyads
with a full-term infant than a preterm infant. Interactions with a controlling mother and compliant
infant were more common amongst dyads with a preterm infant in which the mother had experi-
enced higher levels of stress during the neonatal period. Forcada-Guex et al. (2011) concluded that
preterm birth influences maternal attachment, and that both preterm birth and maternal stress influ-
ence the quality of interactions for both mothers and children. Their conclusions are supported by a
study that compared maternal bonding and attachment with interaction quality in early infancy using
very different methods. Provenzi et al. (2017) examined maternal bonding using a self-report scale (the
Maternal Post-Natal Attachment Scale, Condon and Corkindale, 1998) and their 3-month-old infants’
regulatory abilities using the Face-to-Face Still-Face procedure (Tronick, Als, Adamson,Wise, and Bra-
zelton, 1978).Very preterm (N = 33) infant-mother dyads had poorer bonding compared to full-term
(N = 28) infant-mother dyads. Birth status interacted with bonding quality in terms of influence on
infants’ regulatory abilities. Full-term infants whose mothers had higher-quality bonding demonstrated
regulatory behaviors that very preterm infants did not. The results of Forcada-Guex et al. (2011) and
Provenzi et al. (2017) are thus inconsistent with the results of Korja and colleagues.
In a retrospective study with a diverse group of children born preterm (N = 96) or full term
(N = 90) and their mothers, Gonzalez-Serrano et al. (2012) evaluated the relations between preterm
446
birth, maternal stress, maternal attachment, and children’s outcomes at 2 years using the Bayley Scales
of Infant Development (Bayley, 2006). Mothers of preterm children reported higher levels of stress
than did mothers of full-term children, but did not differ in attachment and bonding. Although
children born preterm scored lower on the mental scale of the Bayley Scales of Infant Development,
indicating poorer cognitive outcomes at 2 years, and poorer maternal attachment was associated with
poorer cognitive outcomes overall, the results did not support the causal model of preterm birth →
parental distress → parental attachment → child outcomes.
Researchers in the Netherlands conducted a prospective longitudinal study as part of a randomized
control trial for a parenting intervention, but were able to evaluate the relations between birth status,
parental bonding and attachment, and developmental outcomes from the observational data collected
as part of their overall design (Tooten et al., 2012). Their pre-registered hypothesis can be summarized
as preterm birth → parental stress/distress → parental bonding → parent–child interaction → child
outcomes. The overall design involved both mothers and fathers from 231 families whose children
were born very preterm, moderately preterm, or term. When their infants were 1 and 6 months old
(all assessments refer to chronological postpartum age), mothers completed the Perinatal Posttraumatic
Stress Disorder Questionnaire, the Edinburgh Postnatal Depression Scale, and the State-Trait Anxiety
Inventory (Spielberger, Gorsuch, Lushene,Vagg, and Jacobs, 1983) to allow the researchers to evaluate
maternal distress (Hall et al., 2017). When infants were 6 months old, mothers completed the Working
Model of the Child Interview to allow the researchers to evaluate maternal bonding (Hall et al., 2017;
Tooten et al., 2014).When the children were 1 day, 1 month, 6 months, and 24 months old, researchers
recorded parent–child interactions to evaluate maternal sensitivity, intrusiveness, and withdrawal (Hall
et al., 2015a, 2015b). When children were 24 months old, researchers evaluated child attachment using
a standardized observational measure. Mothers of preterm children reported higher levels of distress
compared to mothers of full-term children, but did not differ from mothers of full-term children in
maternal bonding or in maternal sensitivity, intrusiveness, and withdrawal (Hall, et al., 2017; Hall et al.,
2015b). Children born preterm did not differ from children born full term in attachment quality.
Although the results did not support the hypothesized model of preterm birth → parental stress/distress
→ parental bonding → parent–child interaction → child outcomes, maternal bonding was associated
with parenting quality, and parenting quality was associated with child attachment, all in a predictable
and positive manner, irrespective of birth status (Hall et al., 2015b). Hall et al. (2017) proposed that psy-
chological distress following preterm birth could at least in some circumstances play an adaptive rather
than disruptive role in the relations between preterm birth, distress, attachment, and child outcomes.To
support their argument, they pointed to the results of a latent class analysis, which revealed five distinct
groupings of maternal distress and parenting quality. Mothers who reported high maternal distress and
were rated as having either high- or medium-quality parenting were more likely to have a preterm than
full-term infant. Hall and colleagues argued that although preterm birth often leads to higher levels
of distress, that distress can lead to increased commitment to infant care and thus to better parenting.
In sum, studies investigating the influence of preterm birth on parental bonding and child out-
comes have yielded mixed results. The overall pattern of results does not support the claim that the
psychological risks for parents that are associated with preterm birth have a negative impact on
bonding and child outcomes. Instead, the results of multiple studies indicate that the influence of
parental bonding and caregiving behavior on child outcomes is similar for children born term and
preterm: high-quality parental bonding and care lead to positive child outcomes.
Relations Among Preterm Birth and Biomedical Risks, Sensitive and

Responsive Parenting, and Developmental Outcomes
Researchers have articulated two hypotheses about the relations between preterm birth, sensitive and
responsive parenting, and developmental outcomes. Some researchers have argued that preterm birth
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is associated with less sensitive and less responsive parenting, which in turn negatively impacts devel-
opmental outcomes (described above in the section on sensitive and responsive parenting), while
other researchers have argued that sensitive and responsive parenting is an important protective factor
that mitigates the risks associated with preterm birth (Flacking et al., 2012; Forcada-Guex et al., 2011;
Garner, Landry, and Richardson, 1991; Landry, 1986; Landry, Chapieski, and Schmidt, 1986; Loi et al.,
2017; Muller-Nix et al., 2004). For the most part, researchers investigating both proposals have taken
a transactional perspective and have thus considered sensitive and responsive parenting as a potential
mediator or moderator of the relation between birth status and developmental outcomes. Many
researchers have also considered how sensitive and responsive parenting might also be influenced by
other variables, such as sociodemographic factors or child behaviors.
Several observational studies indicate that sensitive, responsive parenting influences developmen-
tal outcomes. Landry, Smith, Miller-Loncar, and Swank (1997) conducted an observational study of
parenting at 6 and 12 months and its influence on children’s cognitive, communicative, and social
skills from 12 to 36 months. Children in the study were either born preterm and with one or more
severe complications (high risk), preterm and with less severe complications (low risk), or full term.
Notably, parents of infants in the three risk groups did not differ in the key behaviors that were
considered potential predictors of children’s outcomes: warm responsiveness, maintaining attention,
directing attention, and restricting attention. Individual parents did differ in these behaviors, allowing
Landry, Smith, Miller-Loncar, and Swank to examine the predictive role of those behaviors. Parental
maintaining-attention behaviors had a positive influence on children’s cognitive and communicative
development, whereas parental restrictiveness had a negative influence on children’s cognitive and
communicative development. The positive influence of parental maintaining-attention behaviors
was particularly strong for the development of social initiating amongst high-risk infants. Parental
directing of attention, by comparison, had both positive and negative influences on children’s devel-
opment. In particular, high-risk children whose mothers were more directive were more capable in
social responding, but their social skills developed more slowly across the duration of the study. Based
on their findings, Landry et al. (1997) argued that moderate levels of directiveness provide the best
support for the development of high-risk children following preterm birth.
Sensitive and responsive parenting also influences longer-term developmental outcomes follow-
ing preterm birth.Treyvaud et al. (2016) observed children who had been born at less than 30 weeks
gestation and their primary caregiver, and then evaluated a range of indices of children’s cognitive
and communicative outcomes at 7 years. Caregiver sensitivity at 2 years predicted fewer behavior
difficulties and better cognitive skills at 7 years. Caregiver intrusiveness at 2 years predicted more
behavior difficulties, poorer executive function, and poorer cognitive skills at 7 years.
Poehlmann and Fiese (2001) examined the relations between risk, responsive parenting, and chil-
dren’s cognitive outcomes. They observed three groups of infants with their mothers at 6 months
(corrected age): full-term infants (gestational age 37–42 weeks, N = 44), low birthweight preterm
infants (gestational age less than 27 weeks, N = 20), and very low birthweight infants (gestational age
less than 27 weeks, N = 20). Researchers used a macro-coding approach that considered reciprocity
and positive affect from both mothers and infants during the interaction, and produced a summed
score that reflected the overall quality of the interaction. When infants were 12 months (corrected
age), the research team assessed developmental abilities using the Bayley Scales of Infant Develop-
ment. Risk scales for the mother and infant assessed sociodemographic risk factors for the mother
and biomedical risk factors for the infant during the neonatal period. Infant risk was considerably
higher for the two preterm groups, compared to the full-term group, and proportional to birth
weight. Poehlmann and Fiese (2001) did not report whether birth status influenced interaction qual-
ity or cognitive outcomes, but interaction scores for full-term and low birthweight preterm infants
were similar, while the scores for very low birthweight preterm infants were slightly higher (indicat-
ing poorer interaction quality). Cognitive outcomes for low birthweight and very low birthweight
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preterm infants were similar, while the scores for full-term infants were slightly higher (indicating
better cognitive outcomes). Infant biomedical risk during the neonatal period predicted interaction
quality at 6 months, and interaction quality at 6 months predicted children’s cognitive outcomes at
12 months. Interaction quality fully mediated the association between infant biomedical risk and
children’s cognitive outcomes. Maternal risk did not predict outcomes. Poehlmann and Fiese (2001)
argued that interactions shape developmental outcomes, and that sensitive and responsive parent-
ing can protect infants against birth status and associated risks and lead to positive developmental
outcomes.
In a later longitudinal study of children born preterm, Poehlmann et al. (2011) observed the oppo-
site relation between infant risk and interaction quality. Poehlmann et al. (2011) observed maternal
interactions with children born preterm from 4 to 24 months and used a macro-coding scheme that
distinguished between maternal and infant contributions to interaction quality.The coding evaluated
factors such as infant attention, maternal sensitivity, and both infant and maternal affect.When infants
were 4 months, infant risk was negatively related to maternal interaction quality: Mothers of higher-
risk infants had higher scores for affect and engagement, greater sensitivity, and less intrusiveness, and
this relation persisted over the duration of the study. Infant risk was also negatively related to infant
interaction quality at 4 months: Higher-risk infants had higher scores for affect and social and com-
municative competence, but this relation did not persist over time. Maternal and child interaction
qualities covaried over time, supporting the hypothesis that the relations between parental care and
child outcomes are bidirectional and mutually reinforcing.
Clark et al. (2008) investigated the influences of both biomedical risk and quality of parenting on
self-regulation skills in children at 2 and 4 years following preterm birth. They used magnetic reso-
nance imaging to evaluate biomedical risk in terms of white matter abnormalities and parent–child
interactions to evaluate sensitivity and intrusiveness. Children’s self-regulation was positively related
to gestational age: Children born at later gestational ages had fewer problems with self-regulation.
Biomedical risk and quality of parenting also predicted self-regulation: Children with higher bio-
medical risk and lower quality of parenting had more self-regulation problems.
Many studies investigating outcomes following preterm birth exclude infants with serious medi-
cal complications in order to have a more uniform sample. Wade, Madigan, Akbari, and Jenkins
(2015) took an alternate approach, including all mothers who gave birth to an infant of greater
than 1,500 grams birth weight, had at least two children under the age of 4 years, and could speak
English. They created a cumulative index of biomedical risk that involved one point for each of 10
potential risk factors, including preterm birth. Researchers filmed mother-infant interactions in the
home when infants were 18 months old, and later rated maternal sensitivity, mutuality, and positive
control. Researchers also evaluated children’s developmental outcomes at 18 months, including joint
attention, empathy, cooperation, and self-recognition. Both biomedical risk and responsive parent-
ing influenced developmental outcomes. Furthermore, responsive parenting moderated the relation
between biomedical risk and social cognition skills in 18-month-old infants (see also Poehlmann
et al., 2012, where parental care led to different outcomes for children who were prone to distress).
Observational studies thus consistently indicate that sensitive and responsive parenting influences
children’s outcomes positively in preterm as well as full-term children. Some evidence indicates that
preterm birth is associated with less responsive parenting, but in other studies preterm birth and
associated infant risks are associated with more sensitive and responsive parenting, rather than less.
Overall, consistent evidence supports the claim that sensitive and responsive parenting is a protective
factor that can mitigate the risks associated with preterm birth and promote positive outcomes for
children. Many observational studies have been motivated by transactional models of development
and have demonstrated evidence of bidirectional influences of parent and child behaviors through
extensive longitudinal data. The macro-coding approach adopted by most of these studies allows
inferences about influences of parent and child behaviors across different measurement periods, but
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does not provide insight into the interplay of parent and child behaviors in a single observation.
Micro-coding approaches that evaluate the dependencies between behaviors, such as contingencies,
are a promising direction for future research investigating the relations between sensitive and respon-
sive parenting and child outcomes.
Intervention Studies of Parental Care That Influence Outcomes

Interventions seeking to improve parental care and developmental outcomes for children born pre-
term have been influenced by different theoretical perspectives on preterm birth, as well as by differ-
ent traditions of research on parenting. The earliest interventions were influenced by the maturation
perspective on preterm development, and as a result focused on providing stimulation to infants dur-
ing hospitalization. Later interventions were influenced by the divergence perspective, and as a result
have generally been applied during early infancy in an effort to address risk factors that may change
children’s developmental trajectories. More recent interventions have also increasingly focused on
the transactional nature of development, and as a result have considered how children born preterm
influence their parents as well as how parents influence children born preterm.
Stimulation Interventions
The earliest interventions targeting developmental outcomes for children following preterm birth
emphasized stimulation for infants, in most cases delivered by hospital staff rather than parents (Leib,
Benfield, and Guidubaldi, 1980; Oehler, Eckerman, and Wilson, 1988; Scarr-Salapatek and Williams,
1973; Solkoff,Yaffe,Weintraub, and Blase, 1969). Interventions emphasizing stimulation are grounded
in the maturation perspective: Stimulating infants during hospitalization mitigates the effects of
the hospital environment and supports normal maturational processes, such as physical growth and
mental development. One stimulation intervention included visual and tactile stimulation, in the
initial period following preterm birth, including a mobile above the incubator and gentle touch to
the extremities during feedings (Leib et al., 1980). As infants’ health status improved, the interven-
tion additionally included kinesthetic and auditory stimulation, such as rocking, talking, and singing.
When they were discharged from the hospital, infants who had received the intervention had higher
scores on the Neonatal Behavioral Assessment (Als, Tronick, Lester, and Brazelton, 1977) but showed
no difference in weight gain compared to infants who had received standard care. At 6 months, the
treatment group again had a developmental advantage, indicated by scores on the Bayley Scales of
Infant Development, but did not differ in physical growth.
The effects of stimulation interventions are equivocal, with some studies demonstrating benefits
for physical growth, and other studies demonstrating benefits for developmental skills, but inconsist-
ent results overall. An evaluation of one stimulation intervention revealed an interesting negative
consequence, which provided a valuable insight into the unforeseen consequences of stimulation to
preterm infants. Oehler et al. (1988) stimulated preterm infants in the hospital in three ways: talk-
ing in a soothing voice, stroking the infant’s extremities, chest, back, or head, and a combination
of talking and stroking simultaneously. The immediate effects of stimulation included increases in
visual attentiveness and other positive behavioral changes, but also included agitation and avoidance
cues. The negative effects of stimulation were most notable when infants were stimulated with talk-
ing and stroking simultaneously and amongst high-risk infants. Stimulation thus appeared to have
both positive and negative consequences, and in some cases to be overstimulation. This observation
contradicted one of the primary assumptions motivating stimulation interventions, that because
hospital care deprives infants of sensory stimulation, hospitalized preterm infants need more stimula-
tion. Stimulation models and theories remain influential, in specific interventions, such as those that
focus on massage and feeding (Dieter and Emory, 1997; Fucile, Gisel, McFarland, and Lau, 2011;
450
Hernandez-Reif, Diego, and Field, 2007; Scafidi et al., 1990), as well as informing components of
broader interventions.
Skin-to-Skin Contact
In 1988, Whitelaw, Heisterkamp, Sleath, Acolet, and Richards conducted a randomized control trial in
London of a low-cost intervention that had been developed in Colombia to address high mortality
rates following preterm birth. They called the intervention skin-to-skin contact, or kangaroo care, and
it has become the best-known intervention for infants following preterm birth. Mothers of hospital-
ized very low birthweight, preterm infants were encouraged to hold their infants against their skin on
their chests (in the study from Whitelaw and colleagues, the average amount of skin-to-skin contact was
36 minutes per day, but subsequent studies have involved near-constant contact). Infants in the study
had a cardiac or respiration monitor but did not require oxygen.When they were 6 months old, infants
in the intervention condition cried less and had breastfed for longer. Whitelaw et al. (1988) proposed
that skin-to-skin contact facilitates bonding between mothers and their preterm infants and thereby
improves regulatory functions such as crying and breastfeeding. However, mothers in the skin-to-skin
contact condition did not differ from mothers of comparable infants receiving standard care in terms of
stress, distress, and psychological symptoms at hospital discharge or when their infants were 6 months old.
Ample evidence indicates that skin-to-skin contact increases breastfeeding rates and decreases
the time to begin exclusive breastfeeding amongst children born preterm (Boundy, et al., 2016; Oras
et al., 2016; Whitelaw et al., 1988). Skin-to-skin contact also decreases infant mortality rates and
several other risk factors including hypothermia, hyperthermia, sepsis, hypoglycemia, and the chance
of hospital readmission following discharge (Boundy et al., 2016).
The claim that skin-to-skin contact facilitates bonding or otherwise supports the emotional expe-
riences of parents when children are born preterm has a strong appeal for researchers, practitioners,
and parents alike, but the existing evidence does not clearly support the claim (Holditch-Davis,
White-Traut, Levy, O’Shea, Geraldo, and David, 2014; Morelius, Ortenstrand, Theodorsson, and
Frostell, 2015; Tessier et al., 1998; Whitelaw et al., 1988). Similarly, and perhaps relatedly, the claim
that preterm birth jeopardizes parents’ feelings of emotional closeness to their children has motivated
numerous interventions, including those that focus on skin-to-skin contact (Tessier et al., 1998) and
longer-term interventions that provide detailed feedback and guidance to parents on their interac-
tions with children (Evans,Whittingham, Sanders, Colditz, and Boyd, 2014). Although preterm birth
increases parental stress and distress, it does not appear to jeopardize bonding and attachment (as
described in the section on how preterm birth influences parents).
Feldman, Weller, Sirota, and Eidelman (2002) proposed that skin-to-skin contact not only improves
breastfeeding and physiological factors, but also improves long-term developmental outcomes for chil-
dren born preterm by influencing internal regulation.They used a longitudinal design to compare multi-
ple outcome variables for two groups of children born preterm: One group received skin-to-skin contact,
and the other group did not. Infants in the skin-to-skin contact condition showed more organized sleep-
wake cycles in the period from 32 weeks gestation to term, increased levels of attention at 3 months,
and more time sharing attention with their mothers at 6 months compared to the control group. Infants
in the two groups did not differ on measures of emotion regulation at 3 months. Feldman et al. (2002)
argued that skin-to-skin contact improves state regulation in infants born preterm, which in turn leads
to improvements in attention and self-regulation in more demanding situations as the infant matures.
Feldman, Rosenthal, and Eidelman (2014) again evaluated multiple outcome variables when the children
in their intervention study were 10 years old. Skin-to-skin contact during the neonatal period was no
longer related to sleep organization when children were 10, but it was related to executive function and
the reciprocity of interactions between children and their mothers. Feldman et al. (2014) argued that
self-regulation was the causal link between skin-to-skin contact and positive developmental outcomes.
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Parent Training Programs

A number of interventions seek to improve developmental outcomes in infancy and childhood by
helping mothers adjust to caring for their preterm child, increasing sensitive and responsive parent-
ing, and improving the quality of bidirectional processes involved in social interactions. In these
interventions, researchers or practitioners guide parents through a reflective process during the neo-
natal period and onward. The programs provide information about infant capabilities, infant cues,
and a range of appropriate responses.The facilitators do not simply convey knowledge, they also pro-
vide opportunities for parents to reflect on and evaluate their infants’ behaviors as well as their own.
The Mother-Infant Transaction Program was one of the first parent training programs for par-
ents of children born preterm (Achenbach et al., 1990; Achenbach, Howell, Aoki, and Rauh, 1993;
Rauh, Achenbach, Nurcombe, Howell, and Teti, 1988). The intervention began while infants were
still hospitalized and aimed to improve maternal knowledge of and sensitivity to infant cues as
well as to increase sensitive and responsive parenting. The evaluation of the intervention included
the target group of low birthweight infants with an average gestational age at birth of 32 weeks, a
control group of low birthweight infants with an average gestational age at birth of 32 weeks, and a
comparison group of normal birthweight infants with an average gestational age at birth of 40 weeks.
Rauh, Achenbach et al. (1988) reported that the intervention improved mothers’ adjustment to their
infant rapidly, increasing their self-confidence and decreasing their judgments of infant difficulty.The
children were assessed at 6, 12, 24, 36, and 48 months, but no cognitive and communicative ben-
efits for children were observed until children were 3 years old. The benefits, however, were lasting.
At 4 years, the children in the intervention group had dramatically better scores on the McCarthy
Scales of Children’s Abilities than children in the preterm control group and were comparable to
the normal birthweight, full-term children. At 7 and 9 years, the children in the intervention group
had higher scores on the Mental Processing Composite of the Kaufman Assessment Battery for
Children than did children in the preterm control group and were again indistinguishable from the
normal birthweight, full-term children (Achenbach et al. 1993; Achenbach et al., 1990). Nordhov
et al. (2010) reported a similarly positive influence of the Mother-Infant Transaction Program on
the cognitive outcomes of preterm children in a larger study when children in the treatment group
were 5 years old but not 3 years old. The collective evidence thus indicates that the Mother-Infant
Transaction Program has a positive influence on developmental outcomes during childhood, but that
the benefits are not immediate (but see Landsem et al., 2015).
The Playing and Learning Strategies intervention (PALS) built on previous observational research
indicating that responsive, contingent parenting supports the social and cognitive development of
children, both in immediate outcomes, such as sharing attention with parents, and in long-term
outcomes (Garner et al., 1991; Landry, 1986; Landry et al., 1986; Landry, Smith, and Swank, 2006;
Landry, Smith, Swank, Assel, and Vellet, 2001). A facilitator/researcher visited 264 mothers in their
homes on a weekly basis starting when their infant was 6 months old (Landry, Smith, and Swank,
2006). Infants were either preterm and very low birthweight or full term, and half from each group
were assigned to either an intervention or control condition. In the intervention condition, the
facilitator introduced four types of responsive behavior, asked mothers to reflect on their previ-
ous behavior with their children, encouraged mothers to review and evaluate their video-recorded
behavior, and assisted them in planning future behavior. In the control condition, the facilitator
primarily asked mothers about their children’s development, including evaluation of day-to-day
issues as well as developmental milestones, but did not give advice on how to facilitate children’s
development. Researchers evaluated infant outcomes at 12 months based on interactions with their
mothers as well as interactions with an unfamiliar researcher. The intervention improved maternal
responsiveness as well as related infant outcomes, including early communication skills, cooperation,
and affect. Other studies have also demonstrated positive effects of parent training programs during
452
infancy, as long as training for parents is structured, encouraging, and specific (Steinhardt et al., 2015;
White-Traut et al., 2013).
Recent interventions incorporate elements from multiple approaches. For example, the Family
Nurture Intervention combines skin-to-skin contact with interaction guidance about how to speak
to and interact with babies following preterm birth (Welch et al., 2015). The Family Nurture Inter-
vention has been tested in a randomized control trial with families of 150 preterm infants, half of
whom received the intervention and half of whom received standard care. At 18 months, children in
the intervention condition performed better on measures of attention, cognition, communication,
and social skills. Welch and colleagues (2015) argued that the intervention targeted regulatory prob-
lems by improving homeostatic mechanisms that are influenced by contact with caregivers, while at
the same time improving caregiver awareness and behavior.
In 1988, Rauh, Achenbach, Nurcombe, Howell, and Teti argued that interventions seeking to
mitigate the negative effects of preterm birth and low birth weight had suffered from three important
limitations. First, many interventions were designed without detailed understanding of the develop-
mental needs and trajectories of children born preterm. Second, interventions motivated by concerns
about bonding and attachment not only supported mother-infant relationships, but also increased
infant stimulation more broadly, thus making it difficult to draw strong causal inferences about the
validity of claims about bonding and attachment in development following preterm birth. Third,
many interventions sought to address the active role that infants play in social interactions, influenc-
ing their parents and other social partners as well as their own development, but began too late in
development. In the intervening years, researchers have developed and evaluated developmentally
informed, causally informative, and temporally sensitive interventions. Overall, parent training pro-
grams are the interventions most clearly based on these three factors and with the strongest empirical
evidence. Nonetheless, it is still unclear why the positive effects of some parent training programs on
children’s outcomes are delayed for several years, and evaluations of parent training programs have
sometimes yielded contradictory results. In addition, researchers still do not have a clear understanding
of the causal processes and pathways linking the risks associated with preterm birth to positive
or negative developmental outcomes for children. Further evidence from longitudinal studies that
consider the effects of interventions on parents as well as children is needed. As Benzies et al. (2013)
argued, interventions designed to influence outcomes for children born preterm need to identify and
measure the influence on parents to understand more fully how the intervention works.
Emerging Questions and Future Directions in Research on Parenting

Children Born Preterm
Research on parenting children born preterm has made important contributions to our under-
standing of how parenting influences child health and development as well as how child health and
development affects parenting. Careful consideration of theoretical frameworks and assumptions has
been especially beneficial in helping researchers generate specific hypotheses about causal influences
and design interventions to test hypotheses and mitigate the negative impact of preterm birth. New
themes are emerging that will guide future theorizing as well as empirical tests of those theories.
How Does Preterm Birth Influence Fathers and How Do Fathers Influence
Developmental Outcomes?
Developmental scientists and medical practitioners are giving increasing attention to the impacts of
preterm birth on fathers as well as mothers, and of paternal care on children’s outcomes following
preterm birth. Few studies of parenting following preterm birth have included sufficient numbers
of fathers to allow comparisons between mothers and fathers. Some evidence indicates that fathers
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Merideth Gattis
report less stress than mothers do following preterm birth, but also more distance from infants dur-
ing hospitalization and early care (Baia et al., 2016). Other studies have identified unique concerns
of fathers following preterm birth, such as feelings of loss of control or higher levels of hostility and
anger (Arockiasamy et al., 2008; Ionio et al., 2016).The ways in which preterm birth impacts parental
feelings of closeness and bonding may differ for fathers and mothers, although the evidence is still
very limited, and in at least some cases, fathers and mothers respond similarly to preterm birth (Hall
et al., 2015a; Hoffenkamp et al., 2012; Tooten et al., 2014; Tooten et al., 2013). Future studies should
also investigate triadic interactions in two-parent families following preterm birth, including not
only the social exchanges that take place when multiple family members are present together, but
also the ways in which psychological risks and support interact across parents and children following
the birth of a preterm child.
How Do Parental Attitudes, Beliefs, and Knowledge Influence

Developmental Outcomes Following Preterm Birth?
Despite decades of research on psychological risks for parents following preterm birth, surprisingly
little research has investigated the influence of parental attitudes and beliefs about the parental role
on their adjustment following preterm birth. Parenting cognitions influence how parents interact
with their child and the care they provide, including caregiving practices such as breastfeeding and
cognitive stimulation (Bornstein, Putnick, and Suwalsky, 2018a; Winstanley and Gattis, 2013). Some
research indicates that the experience of caring for a child following preterm birth influences parent-
ing cognitions. Winstanley et al. (2014) examined maternal attitudes and beliefs shortly after giving
birth preterm (N = 41) or term (N = 64) and again when their infants were 5 months old (chrono-
logical age) using the Concepts of Development Questionnaire (Sameroff and Feil, 1985) and the
Baby Care Questionnaire (Winstanley and Gattis, 2013). In the neonatal period, mothers who had
given birth preterm and mothers who had given birth full term reported similar attitudes and beliefs,
but the beliefs of mothers who had given birth preterm changed over the ensuing months, indicating
that the experience of caring for a child born preterm can influence parental beliefs.
Beliefs and knowledge are important because they shape parents’ relationships with children.
Some evidence indicates that knowledge of development is associated with higher-quality parent–
child interactions and better outcomes for children following preterm birth (Dichtelmiller et al.,
1992; Veddovi, Gibson, Kenny, Bowen, and Starte, 2004). Knowledge of development influences
the quality of parent–child interactions (Bornstein et al., 2017; Veddovi et al., 2004) and plays an
important role in the identification of early developmental delays (Smith, Akai, Klerman, and Keltner,
2010). Further research is needed to better understand how the experience of caring for a child born
preterm influences parents’ beliefs and knowledge and how their beliefs and knowledge influence
their care for children.
Are Physiological Regulatory Problems Related to Cognitive and

Emotional Forms of Self-Regulation?
Several lines of evidence point toward regulatory problems as an important and durable consequence
of preterm birth that interacts with other environmental factors, including factors as diverse as hos-
pital lighting, parenting quality, and early sociocognitive skills. Although some evidence indicates that
early regulatory problems with sleeping, feeding, and crying are a consequence of maturation and
should therefore resolve with age, other evidence indicates that early regulatory problems with sleep-
ing, feeding, and crying may persist or even increase across development (Bilgin and Wolke, 2016).
Early regulatory problems may lead to divergent trajectories of development and as a result influ-
ence diverse outcomes for children born preterm. Several research groups are beginning to examine
454
relations between regulatory functions that are more obviously physiological, such as respiration,
heart rate, feeding, and sleep, and regulatory behaviors that are more cognitive, such as affect regula-
tion, attention to social partners, social reciprocity, and executive function. Future studies will benefit
from a more detailed consideration of how early regulatory functions influence parenting behavior
and may thereby indirectly influence developmental outcomes, as well as considering potential direct
relations between both types of regulation.
Measurement and Design Issues

Close attention to measurement and design can improve the quality and consistency of inferences
about parenting children born preterm. One consequence of the maturation perspective on develop-
ment following preterm birth is that most studies have evaluated families with children born preterm
at corrected ages in order to ensure that preterm and full-term children are at the same stage of
maturation. Such designs introduce an additional difference, however, in terms of social experience.
When children born preterm are tested at corrected ages, they and their parents have more social
experience together. Future studies need to consider the importance of social experience in choos-
ing testing ages, and where possible consider alternative control groups.
The dyadic context of parent–child interactions is a key feature of the majority of research
investigating parenting following preterm birth. Moore et al. (2013) argued that there is still no
consensus on how to empirically evaluate the individual and dyadic components of behavior within
interactions. A critical issue is how to evaluate the relations between the behaviors of each individual
in a way that accurately captures the contextual nature of behavior as well as the independent con-
tributions of each social partner. Moore et al. (2013) argued that considerations of timing and the
bidirectional nature of social interactions should consider other interactive concepts in addition to
synchrony and pointed to the importance of behavioral flexibility in particular. Another alternative is
for researchers to adopt a micro-coding approach that focuses on specific behaviors from each social
partner independently, and to later combine those codes to evaluate contingencies between behav-
iors across social partners (Bornstein, Putnick, Cote, 2015). Contingencies based on micro-coding
allow researchers to more carefully evaluate the timing of behavior in social interactions and related
hypotheses about the influence of preterm birth on temporal coordination.
Risk and Resilience

Stronger evidence from studies of children with varying levels of risk is needed to evaluate when and
how risks associated with preterm birth interact with psychological functioning in parents as well as
developmental outcomes (Aylward, 1992). Conclusions about how risk influences both parents and
outcomes for children born preterm are often limited by sampling issues, in particular by using low-
risk samples and small samples. Risk is also influenced by parental histories. Studies using latent class
analysis point to the importance of detailed and accurate identification of parental histories, includ-
ing parental mental health (Holditch-Davis et al., 2015; Poehlmann and Fiese, 2001). The number of
potential causal variables involved in developmental outcomes following preterm birth means that
studies of parenting and development following preterm birth require larger samples that include a
wider range of gestational ages and risk factors. Differences in sampling and exclusion criteria across
studies also limit conclusions about risk and parenting children born preterm. Many studies compare
a narrow range of gestational ages, contrasting for example children born extremely preterm with
children born full term or contrasting children born moderately preterm with children born full
term. Studies that consider a range of developmental outcomes and compare families across a wide
range of child gestational ages are needed to accurately identify the relations between gestational
age at birth, psychological risks for parents, and children’s outcomes. Fully identifying the causal
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pathways from the risks associated with preterm birth to developmental outcomes will consider not
only regulatory problems, but also the ways in which children born preterm and their families are
resilient (Beeghly and Tronick, 2011; Poehlmann et al., 2011).
Contexts of Development
The majority of studies investigating parenting preterm children have been conducted in a small
number of countries and cultures, limiting scientific knowledge of how sociocultural contexts
influence parenting following preterm birth. Sociocultural contexts influence attitudes and beliefs
about the parental role, birth and risk, developmental expectations, and specific caregiving behaviors
(Bornstein, Putnick, Lansford, Deater-Deckard, and Bradley, 2015; Harkness et al., 2011; Obradovic,
Yousafzai, Finch, and Rasheed, 2016). Future research needs to consider the influence of sociocul-
tural context on the attitudes and beliefs of parents toward preterm birth and how those interact with
parental behaviors and developmental expectations for children. Several prominent hypotheses may
depend on socioeconomic factors, such as local mortality rates and the availability of medical care
and social support. For example, discrepant findings with respect to hypotheses about how preterm
birth impacts parental bonding and attachment may depend on the medical care and social support
available to parents (Borghini et al., 2006; Korja et al., 2009). Research investigating parenting and
child development following preterm birth in low-income settings has yielded important evidence
about mortality rates, risk factors, and basic improvements to care (Blencowe et al., 2012). Future
studies should address the need for research on how preterm birth influences parents in low-income
settings, and how parental care can mitigate the potentially negative consequences of preterm birth
with specific sociocultural contexts. The contexts of preterm birth also influence the feasibility and
applicability of interventions. Although skin-to-skin contact was developed as an intervention spe-
cifically for low-income contexts where medical provision was limited, the majority of research
investigating the efficacy of skin-to-skin contact as an intervention and the long-term effects of its
application have been conducted in higher-income countries, where medical provision is sometimes
extensive and may involve long-term hospitalization of infants following preterm birth (Boundy
et al., 2016; Oras et al., 2016; Whitelaw et al., 1988). Future research should facilitate and evaluate
the development of low-cost interventions that are feasible in low-income settings, where medical
provision and parent education may be limited.
Conclusions
Preterm birth affects children, both immediately after birth and over the long term. Having a preterm
child affects parents by increasing psychological risks and by influencing interactions between parents
and children. Parental care influences developmental outcomes in part because of bidirectional influ-
ences between parents and children. Interventions targeting increased knowledge and awareness of
development following preterm birth lead to better long-term developmental outcomes for children.
Acknowledgments
This chapter is dedicated to Shoba Cherian, in memory of her competence and compassion as a cli-
nician and researcher. I thank Marc H. Bornstein for stimulating discussions about preterm children
and their parents and for his many helpful suggestions.
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14
PARENTING BEHAVIORALLY
INHIBITED AND SOCIALLY
WITHDRAWN CHILDREN
Paul D. Hastings, Kenneth H. Rubin, Kelly A. Smith,
and Nicholas J. Wagner
Introduction
All children are essentially criminal.
—(Diderot, 1713–1784)
A child is a curly, dimpled lunatic.

—(Emerson, 1803–1882)
Having children is like having a bowling ball installed in your brain.

—(Mull, 1978)
A glance at the quotations offered above would lead one to assume that parenting is not a simple
matter. For hundreds of years, writers of philosophy, fiction, and comedy have portrayed the child
as a significantly stressful addition to the family unit. Nevertheless, it is also the case that the arrival
of an infant usually brings a great deal of joy and enthusiastic anticipation. Or to offer yet another
observation: “My mother had a great deal of trouble with me, but I think she enjoyed it” (Mark
Twain, in Byrne, 1988, p. 301).
Most people would agree that children challenge their parents.Yet, parents often meet that chal-
lenge with acceptance, warmth, responsiveness, and sensitivity. At times, however, parents meet the
challenge of childrearing in unaccepting, unresponsive, insensitive, neglectful, and/or hostile ways.
It may be that ecologically based stressors produce such negative childrearing behaviors (e.g., lack
of financial resources, parental separation and divorce, lack of social support), or perhaps child char-
acteristics evoke negative parenting beliefs, affects, and behaviors. Also, perhaps parents themselves
have experienced particularly negative childrearing histories and model the behaviors of their own
parents and family culture or norms in rearing their own children (Covell, Grusec, and King, 1995).
It is our belief that when parents think about childrearing and child developmental trends in ways
that deviate from cultural norms, and/or when they interact with and respond to their children in
psychologically inappropriate ways, they will develop negative relationships with their children. We
also believe that when parent–child relationships and parent–child interactions within the family are
negative, it does not augur well for normal child development.
Thus, our chapter is focused on the parent–child relationships and interactions of one group
of children who are known to deviate from their age-mates vis-à-vis their social, emotional, and
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Paul D. Hastings et al.
behavioral profiles. Typically, this particular group of children has been referred to as behaviorally
inhibited, socially withdrawn, socially anxious, or shy. Our focus is on childhood behavioral inhibi-
tion and social withdrawal because these early-emerging behaviors often precede and portend one
of the most common classes of serious mental health difficulties in childhood—internalizing problems
(Zahn-Waxler, Klimes-Dougan, and Slattery, 2000).
It is our intention to examine the extant literature concerning the parents of children who can be
identified as behaviorally inhibited during the toddler period and as socially withdrawn from early
childhood through early adolescence. After a brief note on research design and measurement in this
field, we then proceed to defining and contrasting the constructs of social and emotional compe-
tence and incompetence; as one might expect, behavioral inhibition and especially social withdrawal
are viewed as manifestations of social and emotional incompetence. Then, we briefly describe a
number of theories that have drawn parents into the developmental equation in which pathways
to children’s behavioral overcontrol are predicted. Thereafter, we describe research in which (1) the
quality of the parent–child relationship, (2) parental beliefs or ideas about the development of social
competence and withdrawal, and (3) parenting practices are associated with the expression of child-
hood behavioral inhibition and social withdrawal. In doing so, we examine factors that may influence
the types of parent–child relationships, parental beliefs, and parenting behaviors that are associated
with the development of behavioral inhibition and social withdrawal.
Defining Behavioral Inhibition and Social Withdrawal

The early study of social withdrawal was hampered by the lack of both conceptual and definitional
frameworks (Rubin and Asendorpf, 1993). The lack of conceptual clarity was contributed to by the
frequent and interchangeable use of a variety of (not well-differentiated) terms (e.g., shyness, with-
drawal, reticence, behavioral inhibition, isolation). However, there has since been a more concerted
effort to delineate a consistent typology of terms (Rubin, Coplan, and Bowker, 2009). Behavioral
inhibition has been defined variously as (1) an inborn bias to respond to unfamiliar events by showing
anxiety, (2) a specific vulnerability to the uncertainty all children feel when encountering unfamiliar
events that cannot be assimilated easily, and (3) one end of a continuum of possible initial behavioral
reactions to unfamiliar objects or challenging social situations (Kagan, Reznick, and Snidman, 1987;
Stevenson-Hinde, 1989). These definitions highlight some common elements: Behavioral inhibition
is (1) a pattern of responding or behaving, (2) possibly biologically determined, such that (3) when
unfamiliar and/or challenging situations are encountered, (4) the child shows signs of anxiety, distress,
or disorganization.
Inhibition in infancy and toddlerhood is often a precursor of social withdrawal in early and mid-
dle childhood. Social withdrawal is a behavioral phenomenon that involves the child isolating himself/
herself from the peer group. In this regard, social withdrawal is viewed as emanating from such
internal factors as social anxiety and wariness in the company of familiar peers, such as classmates
(Rubin et al., 2009).
Behavioral Inhibition and Social Withdrawal as Risk Factors

To casual observers, inhibited or withdrawn children may not seem to warrant much concern. Their
quiet, controlled demeanors could be seen as veritable models of childhood compliance and proper
school decorum.They are not disruptive, and thus their potential social or emotional difficulties may
go undetected or ignored by the typical harried caregiver or educator (Coplan and Rudasill, 2016).
Nevertheless, it is the case that professionals have persisted in regarding psychological overcontrol and
its behavioral manifestations in childhood as comprising a major category of disorder (Zahn-Waxler
et al., 2000) and as warranting intervention (Chronis-Tuscano et al., 2015). Moreover, the primary
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Parenting Behaviorally Inhibited Children
behavioral manifestations of overcontrol—behavioral inhibition and social withdrawal—become

increasingly salient to caregivers and peers with increasing child age (Rubin et al., 2009). As such,
the display of behavioral inhibition during the toddler period and socially withdrawn and reticent
behavior during childhood and adolescence makes interaction effortful for others and contributes to
the development of distant and sometimes difficult relationships (Gazelle and Druhen, 2009; Rubin
et al., 2006). Furthermore, from a developmental perspective, it has been proposed that peer interac-
tion represents a social context within which children learn to consider the perspectives of others
and coordinate others’ perspectives with their own (Rubin, Bukowski, and Bowker, 2015). Thus,
children who consistently avoid or withdraw from such interactions and learning experiences may
be at major risk for failing to develop those social and social-cognitive skills and emotion regulation
competencies. Not only is there evidence that behaviorally inhibited and socially withdrawn chil-
dren are lacking in social and social-cognitive competence (Rubin et al., 2015), but with increasing
age they come to recognize their shortcomings and express strong feelings of loneliness and negative
self-regard (Salmivalli, Ojanen, Haanpää, and Peets, 2005; see Rubin et al., 2009, for an extensive
review). Consequently, researchers have asked whether the quality of parent–child relationships and
the experience of particular parenting styles contribute to the development of behavioral inhibition
and social withdrawal in childhood.
Measurement and Design in Studies of Behaviorally Inhibited

and Socially Withdrawn Children
In studies of the socialization of behavioral inhibition and social withdrawal, parenting has most
often been assessed using parent self-report measures; less frequent but still widely used are obser-
vational procedures of parent–child interactions. Alternative procedures, such as youth-report or
spouse-report measures of parenting are less common, as are the kinds of multi-method measure-
ment of parenting (e.g., questionnaires and observations) that are often recommended by experts
in the field (Zeman, Klimes-Dougan, Cassano, and Adrian, 2007). To the extent that multi-method
studies have been pursued, the correspondence between independent sources of information on
parenting behavior has tended to be modest (Hastings, Kahle, and Nuselovici, 2014; McShane and
Hastings, 2009). This level of agreement may be attributable to many factors, including parents’
introspective accuracy, their reactions to being observed, and the effectiveness of observational pro-
cedures for eliciting subtle or infrequent but potentially influential aspects of parenting. As well, a
wide variety of questionnaires, interviews, observational contexts or tasks, and coding systems have
been used to quantify parenting beliefs and behaviors in these studies. Echoing Bornstein’s (2016)
observations about measurement of parenting more broadly, there has not been much consensus or
consistency regarding the optimal measurement of parenting as it pertains to the development of
wary and reticent children. Each may be seen as an important implement in the toolkit of parenting
researchers, with greater confidence in research emerging when findings are replicated across studies
with varying methods and measures. Identifying such replication can be challenging, though, when
the equivalence or comparability of the measures has yet to be determined.
Again paralleling other aspects of socialization research (Hastings, Utendale, and Sullivan, 2007),
most studies of the parents of inhibited and socially withdrawn children have utilized single-time-
point, non-experimental designs. These have been useful for identifying which aspects of parenting
are, or are not, associated with children’s inhibited and withdrawn characteristics and other aspects
of their psychosocial adjustment, but of course they cannot provide any evidence of causality or
directionality in the relations between parenting and children’s functioning (Bornstein, 2016). Fortu-
nately, increasing numbers of developmental scientists are pursuing longitudinal studies and includ-
ing repeated assessments of parent and child measures across time, and we draw heavily on these
studies in our review. There have been markedly fewer studies with designs that can provide the
469
strongest confidence in causal effects of parenting on the development of inhibited and withdrawn
children, such as interventions and adoption studies, and we examine these separately from the non-
experimental studies that comprise the bulk of the literature.
Definitions and Theories of Social and Emotional Competence

There may be as many definitions of social competence as there are students of it; as such, the defi-
nitions offered must be taken as reflecting the personal biases of the present authors. We begin by
making three assumptions. First, it seems reasonable to assume that social competence is both desir-
able and adaptive. Second, an equally reasonable assumption is that socially wary or withdrawn children
are lacking in social skills. Third, drawing on the first two assumptions, we believe that the demonstration
of childhood behavioral inhibition and social withdrawal is maladaptive and not conducive to normal social and
emotional growth and well-being.
At least two themes can be recognized in approaches to the study of social competence. One
theme is focused on social effectiveness. This functional approach emphasizes the child’s ability to meet
her or his needs during social interaction. A second theme emphasizes the extent to which the child’s
interactions with adults and peers are positive and appropriately supportive and responsive. Taken
together, these themes have led us to define social competence as the ability to achieve personal goals
in social interaction while simultaneously maintaining positive relationships with others over time
and across settings (Rubin and Rose-Krasnor, 1992). Socially competent behaviors would be organ-
ized around the demonstration of sustained positive engagement with peers, marked by positive,
regulated emotions. Thus, the consistent demonstration of friendly, cooperative, altruistic, successful,
and socially acceptable behavior over time and across settings is likely to lead one to judge the actor
as socially competent. Furthermore, the display of socially competent behavior in childhood results
in the formation and maintenance of high-quality friendships, acceptance and likeability in the peer
group, and successful adolescent and adult outcomes (Rubin et al., 2015).
By contrast, the reasonably consistent demonstration of social withdrawal in the company of
peers, of unassertive or inappropriate social strategies to meet social goals, and of relatively high rates
of unsuccessful social outcomes have been judged as social incompetence (Stewart and Rubin, 1995).
Furthermore, socially wary and withdrawn children’s friendships are of lesser quality than those of
their more sociable and socially skilled age-mates (Rubin,Wojslawowicz, et al., 2006), and their repu-
tation in the peer group elicits more rejection and victimization (Oh et al., 2008). If one believes that
the attainment of social competence is adaptive, then socially withdrawn children display behaviors,
emotions, and social cognitions that could be considered maladaptive, thereby placing these children
at risk for the development of psychological difficulties. It is now well established that childhood
behavioral inhibition and social withdrawal increase the likelihood of manifesting subsequent prob-
lems of an internalizing nature (Rubin et al., 2009).
Having reached these conclusions, one may ask, “How do children acquire social competence, or
in the case of behavioral inhibition and withdrawal, social incompetence?”
Parents and Social Competence: Developmental Theory

According to Hartup (1985), parents serve at least three functions in the child’s development of social
competence. First, the parent–child relationship is a context within which many competencies nec-
essary for social interaction develop. It furnishes the child with many of the skills required to initiate
and maintain positive relationships with others, such as language skills, the ability to control impulses,
and so forth. Second, the parent–child relationship constitutes and confers emotional and cognitive
resources that allow the child to explore the social and non-social environments. It is a safety net
permitting the child the freedom to examine features of the social universe, thereby enhancing the
470
development of problem-solving skills. Third, the early parent–child relationship is a forerunner of

all subsequently formed extrafamilial relationships. It is within the parent–child relationship that the
child begins to develop expectations and assumptions about interactions with other people and to
develop strategies for attaining personal and social goals (Bowlby, 1969; Cassidy and Shaver, 2016).
In keeping with these functions, both classical theorists and contemporary researchers have impli-
cated parents and the quality of parent–child relationships in the development of adaptive and mala-
daptive social behaviors. Ethological adaptations of early psychoanalytic models (Ainsworth, 1973)
have provided a rationale for the production of overcontrolled behaviors arising through the con-
struct of “internal working models.” Bowlby (1973) proposed that the early mother-child relation-
ship lays the groundwork for the development of internalized models of familial and extrafamilial
relationships. These internal working models were thought to be the product of parental behavior,
specifically, parental sensitivity and responsivity (Groh, Fearon, et al., 2014). Given an internal work-
ing model that the parent is available and responsive, it was proposed that the young child would
feel confident, secure, and self-assured when introduced to novel settings. Thus, felt security has been
viewed as a highly significant developmental phenomenon that provides the child with sufficient
emotional and cognitive sustenance to allow the active exploration of the social environment. Explo-
ration purportedly results in play (Cheyne and Rubin, 1983), which, in turn, leads to the development
of problem-solving skills and competence in both the impersonal and interpersonal realms (Rubin
and Rose-Krasnor, 1992). From this perspective, then, the association between security of attach-
ment in infancy and the quality of children’s social skills is attributed, indirectly, to parental sources
(Thompson and Goodvin, 2016).
Alternatively, the development of an insecure infant-parent attachment relationship has been
posited to result in the child developing an internal working model that interpersonal relationships
are rejecting, neglectful, or unreliable. In turn, the social world is perceived as a battleground that
must either be attacked or escaped from (Bowlby, 1973). Thus, for the insecure and wary/anxious
child, opportunities for peer play and interaction are nullified by the child. When the socially wary
child defies peer group norms of sociability and social competence, she or he becomes salient to the
peer group at large. Oftentimes, this increased negative salience results in the child’s exclusion and
isolation, thereby resulting in the child’s forced (by the peer group) lack of opportunities to benefit
from the communication, negotiation, and perspective-taking experiences that will typically lead to
the development of a normal and adaptive childhood. Consequently, social and emotional fearfulness
prevail to the point at which the benefits of peer interaction are practically impossible to obtain.
Finally, behaviorists suggested that parents shape children’s social behaviors and emotional reac-
tions through processes of conditioning and modeling (Maccoby, 2007). Children’s tendencies to
directly imitate adult communicative, prosocial, aggressive, and even socially anxious and withdrawn
behaviors have been reported consistently in the literature (Aktar, Majdandžić, de Vente, and Bögels,
2013; Williamson, Donohue, and Tully, 2013), and social behaviors have been described as responsive
to reinforcement principles (Baer and Sherman, 1964; Csapo, 1983). A strong link between parental
socialization techniques and the display of child behavior in non-familial settings has been central to
proponents of social learning theory.
Summary
Almost all major psychological theories that address the development of children’s social and emo-
tional development in general, and more specifically the development of competent and adaptive
behaviors versus incompetent and maladaptive behaviors (e.g., social withdrawal), place a primary
responsibility on parental attributes and behaviors, as well as on the quality of the parent–child rela-
tionship. Historically, these theories have provided the undercarriage for a quickly growing corpus of
data concerning the nexus of parent–child relationships,“parenting” behaviors, and child “outcomes.”
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Attachment Relationships, Social and Emotional Competence, and

Behavioral Inhibition and Social Withdrawal
One of the most important contributions of parents to children’s early social development is the for-
mation of a parent–child attachment relationship based on the quality of the caregiving that they pro-
vide to their infants. According to Bowlby’s (1969, 1973) theory of attachment, infants who receive
consistently warm, responsive care from their parents form secure attachment relationships with
their parents (type ‘B’ attachment), coming to view themselves as valuable and deserving of care, and
expecting their social partners to be trustworthy and supportive. By contrast, children who receive
inconsistent or harsh caregiving believe themselves to be undesirable and unworthy of care, and they
expect others to be untrustworthy and rejecting. As a result, insecure children may be more likely
to be socially wary, and their lack of social self-efficacy and anticipation of rejection may prevent
them from approaching others frequently or investing significant effort into building relationships
with peers. Children with insecure avoidant attachments (type ‘A’ attachment) stemming from harsh
and rejecting parenting may perceive the social world as hostile and choose to either act aggressively
or avoid social interaction (Cassidy, 1994). Meanwhile, children with insecure ambivalent attach-
ments (type ‘C’ attachment) due to inconsistent, unpredictable caregiving may not be able to rely on
caregivers to support self-regulation processes and may become emotionally dysregulated in social
situations, leading to anxiety-driven social withdrawal (Spangler and Schieche, 1998).Thus, Bowlby’s
theory predicts that secure attachment in infancy generates positive internal working models of rela-
tionships that lead to social competence and high-quality peer relationships, whereas insecure attach-
ment styles may predispose children to demonstrate socially incompetent, withdrawn behaviors.
There is considerable empirical support for linkages between secure attachment of parent–child
relationships and the demonstration of competent social behaviors and peer relationships throughout
childhood. For example, a meta-analysis demonstrated that securely attached children display better
social skills with and are more accepted by peers than insecurely attached children (Groh et al., 2014).
Thus, secure attachment is strongly associated with the ability to effectively engage in positive social
interactions with peers.
Initial support for the hypothesized relations between insecure attachment status and the display of
wary-fearful behavioral inhibition and/or socially withdrawn behavior derived from several sources.
To begin with, infants with ambivalent-insecure attachments (or ‘C’ babies) had been described as
more whiney, easily frustrated, and socially inhibited at 2 years than their secure age-mates (Fox and
Calkins, 1993). Children classified at 1 year as ‘C’ babies have been described at 4 years as lacking in
confidence and assertiveness (Erickson, Sroufe, and Egeland, 1985) and at 7 years as passively with-
drawn (Renken, Egeland, Marvinney, Sroufe, and Mangelsdorf, 1989).
Spangler and Schieche (1998) reported that of the 16 ‘C’ babies they identified in their research,
15 were rated by their mothers as behaviorally inhibited. When the behaviorally inhibited toddlers
were faced with novelty or social unfamiliarity, they became emotionally dysregulated and retreated
from unfamiliar adults and peers. Furthermore, confrontation with unfamiliarity brought with it
increases in hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenocortical (HPA) activity, a physiological cue of distress
(Spangler and Schieche, 1998).This observation was paralleled by a report that behaviorally inhibited
toddlers with insecure attachments have stronger HPA reactivity in the Strange Situation and in the
Risk Room (a set of novel social events designed to assess inhibition) than do securely attached tod-
dlers or insecurely attached but not inhibited toddlers (Nachmias, Gunnar, Mangelsdorf, Parritz, and
Buss, 1996).Thus, it appears that both insecure attachment status and behavioral inhibition may serve
as early impetuses for the development of distressed responses that could contribute to socially fearful
and withdrawn behaviors in childhood.
The specific relation between ‘C’ status and behavioral inhibition or social withdrawal has not been
entirely consistent. Rather, findings support either negative relations between security of attachment
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and social withdrawal, or positive associations between insecurity (both avoidant (A) and ambivalent
(C) status) and social withdrawal. For example, children who demonstrate secure attachment with
their mothers in infancy display less observed social withdrawal with peers in middle childhood
than do insecurely attached children (Bohlin, Hagekull, and Rydell, 2000). And Bohlin, Hagekull,
and Andersson (2005) reported that behaviorally inhibited toddlers are at risk for becoming socially
withdrawn during middle childhood, but only if they had an insecure attachment relationship with
their primary caregiver in infancy. Relatedly, Seibert and Kerns (2015) reported that young children
with avoidant attachments engage in more socially withdrawn behavior as elementary schoolers than
either securely or ambivalently attached children. Booth-LaForce and Oxford (2008) demonstrated
that insecure toddlers are described by their teachers as more shy throughout the elementary school-
age period. During adolescence, youth who have insecure attachments with their primary caregivers
are more likely to be nominated by peers as being socially withdrawn than are youth with secure
attachments (Dykas, Ziv, and Cassidy, 2008).
Culture, Attachment, and Social Withdrawal

Importantly, the associations between attachment security, social competence, and social withdrawal
have been demonstrated to be consistent across a variety of countries and cultures by several studies.
For instance, in a study of Portuguese preschoolers, Verissimo, Santos, Fernandes, Shin, and Vaughn
(2014) found that attachment security was positively associated with social competence, peer accept-
ance, and the frequency of engaging in peer interactions. Similarly, Israeli elementary school children
who report secure attachment to their mothers are rated by teachers as more socially competent with
peers (Scharf, Kerns, Rousseau, and Kivenson-Baron, 2016). Among school-age Chinese children,
self-reported secure attachment is associated with greater peer-reported sociability and less shyness,
whereas avoidant and ambivalent attachment are related to higher levels of peer-reported shyness
(Chen, 2012; Chen and Santo, 2016a). Swedish children with ambivalent attachment status are rated by
teachers as less sociable than are securely attached children (Rydell, Bohlin, and Thorell, 2005). Like-
wise, during early adolescence, self-reported lower attachment security is associated with elevated lev-
els of self-reported shyness in Finland (Ojanen, Findley-Van Nostrand, Bowker, and Markovic, 2017).
Thus, research conducted beyond the borders of the United States and Canada has robustly replicated
the finding that insecure attachment relationships are associated with socially incompetent behavior
and the demonstration of socially withdrawn behavior throughout childhood and adolescence.
The Buffering Effect of a Secure Attachment Relationship

In addition to predicting the extent to which children are socially withdrawn, the attachment rela-
tionship may serve as a moderator of relations between social withdrawal and negative socioemotional
outcomes. Specifically, a secure attachment relationship may buffer socially withdrawn children from
developing such internalizing symptoms as anxiety and depression, whereas an insecure attachment
may increase the risk of social and emotional difficulty. For example, Gullone, Ollendick, and King
(2006) found that social withdrawal was positively associated with depressive symptoms, but that
this association was significantly weaker among securely attached children. Likewise, Peter (2016)
showed that socially withdrawn children who were securely attached to both mothers and fathers
reported low levels of self-critical rumination (a tendency to focus on negative aspects of the self,
which is related to depressive symptomology). However, withdrawn children who had an insecure
attachment relationship with either parent engaged in higher levels of self-critical rumination that
increased over time.
In a sample of Dutch children, Muris, van Brakel, Arntz, and Schouten (2011) found that insecure
attachment exacerbated the relation between socially inhibited behavior and anxiety symptoms;
473
socially inhibited children with insecure attachments reported the highest levels of anxiety. Similarly,
Chen and Santo (2016b) reported that among Chinese elementary school children, an insecure
attachment moderated the relations between social withdrawal and peer difficulties, such that with-
drawal was more strongly associated with peer victimization at high levels of avoidant attachment and
more strongly associated with peer rejection at high levels of ambivalent attachment.
Taken together, these findings suggest that a secure attachment relationship may operate as a
protective factor that helps socially withdrawn children cope with the negative social and emotional
consequences of withdrawn behavior, whereas an insecure attachment relationship may render with-
drawn children particularly susceptible to internalizing problems and peer difficulties.
Summary
The quality of attachment relationships that children develop with their primary caregivers seems
to play a significant role in children’s ability to engage comfortably and effectively with peers and
adults. Securely attached children generally become sociable, socially competent, and well-liked by
peers. Insecurely attached children are at risk of having difficulty interacting with peers and ulti-
mately withdrawing from peer interactions. Furthermore, among children who do display with-
drawn behavior, attachment security appears to buffer children against negative social experiences
and emotional difficulties, whereas insecure attachment exacerbates the risk of socioemotional prob-
lems associated with withdrawal. Thus, by providing children with their earliest social experiences
and fostering the development of secure or insecure internal working models of social relationships,
parents seem to shape children’s strategies for navigating their social world and may steer them either
toward or away from the development of social withdrawal.
Parents’ Beliefs About Adaptive and Maladaptive Behaviors

The internal working models that guide children’s expression of competent and incompetent, or
adaptive and maladaptive, emotional and behavioral expressions, are generally construed as resid-
ing within the minds of children. Parents also have internal working models of relationships. These
models have been framed within the constructs of parental beliefs, ideas, and cognitions about the
development, maintenance, and dissolution of relationships and about the behaviors that might con-
tribute to the quality of relationships.
Parental beliefs comprise the ways in which parents think and feel about their children and them-
selves as parents. They include the causal explanations or attributions parents make for children’s
behavior, the socialization goals they have while parenting, the strategies they consider appropriate
to use with children (Hastings and Grusec, 1998), their sense of efficacy or competency as parents
(Schuengel and Oosterman, 2019), and the emotions they experience in the context of childrearing
(Leerkes and Augustine, 2019). These dynamic belief systems contribute to how parents respond to
children’s behaviors during interactions and to broader aspects of childrearing, such as the ways in
which parents establish the home environment (Bugental and Goodnow, 1998). They are also con-
textually bound and malleable, as parental beliefs change adaptively across childrearing situations, and
children’s behaviors and characteristics contribute to parental beliefs (Hastings and Rubin, 1999).
Reviews of the influences of parental beliefs (Hastings, Nuselovici, Rubin, and Cheah, 2010) have
highlighted the significance of this domain for understanding socialization processes.
There is evidence that parents’ beliefs concerning child development in general, and the devel-
opment and maintenance of adaptive and maladaptive behavioral and emotional styles in particular,
contribute to, predict, and partially explain the development of socially competent and incompetent
behaviors in childhood. To this end, research concerned with parents’ ideas about children’s soci-
oemotional development represents an examination of the parents’ own “inner working models” of
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relations among social skills, emotion regulation, and social relationships. Not only do belief systems
contribute to how parents contingently respond to their children’s behaviors, they also influence
the ways in which parents establish broader aspects of the childrearing environment (Rubin and
Chung, 2006). Many researchers believe that parenting behaviors are cognitively “driven” (Bornstein,
Putnick, and Sawalsky, 2017; Rubin, Hemphill et al., 2006) and that these cognitions are themselves
influenced by such factors as parents’ education, socioeconomic status, and ethnicity (Bornstein,
2016); cultural contexts (Mesman, van IJzendoorn, et al., 2016); child gender, age, developmental
level, and temperament (Putnam, Sanson, and Rothbart, 2002); and parents’ own history of parent–
child relationships (Grusec, Hastings, and Mammone, 1994). In this section, we tackle these issues
and consider how parents’ beliefs are associated with children’s social competencies and the lack
thereof—specifically, social withdrawal.
Parents’ Beliefs About Social Competence and Social Withdrawal

In general, parents tend to view their children optimistically and forecast healthy developmental
outcomes for them. Rubin, Hymel, and Mills (1989) found that mothers who considered the devel-
opment of social skills to be very important had children who were observed to demonstrate social
competence in their preschools. These children more frequently initiated peer play, used appropriate
kinds of requests to attain their social goals, were more prosocial, and were more successful at gaining
peer compliance than their age-mates whose mothers did not place a high priority on the develop-
ment of social competence. Parents of socially competent children believe that, in early childhood,
they should play an active role in the socialization of social skills via teaching and providing peer
interaction opportunities (Rubin, Hemphill, et al., 2006). When these parents are asked to think
about their young children displaying shyness or social withdrawal, they report feeling surprised or
confused, expect the behavior to be transitory and situationally caused (Dix and Grusec, 1985), and
say that they would engage with the child in supportive and indirect ways, such as planning future
play dates (Rubin and Mills, 1991).
However, parents whose preschoolers display socially incompetent behaviors, such as social with-
drawal, are less likely to endorse beliefs in the importance of social skills (Rubin et al., 1989). They
are more likely to attribute the development of social competence to internal factors (“Children
are born that way.”), to believe that incompetent behavior, once attained, is difficult to alter, and
to believe that interpersonal skills are best taught through direct instructional means (Rubin et al.,
1989).When mothers of socially withdrawn children are asked specifically about their children being
shy with peers, they report emotions such as disappointment and guilt and suggest direct interven-
tion strategies, such as involving themselves in the situation to change their children’s immediate
behavior (Mills and Rubin, 1990).
To a large extent, research on how parents feel about, think about, and consequently deal with
children’s social wariness and withdrawal is guided by information-processing approaches to the
study of parenting problems (Rubin et al., 1989). According to Bugental (1992), parenting may be a
source of considerable stress, especially if the child is viewed as a “problem.” The “problematic” child
who demonstrates difficult behaviors may evoke rather different parental emotions and cognitions
than would the “typical” child when she or he demonstrates the identical maladaptive behaviors. In
the case of typical children, the production of social withdrawal and wariness may activate parental
feelings of concern and puzzlement. These affective responses are regulated by the parent’s attempts
to understand, rationalize, or justify the child’s behavior and by the parent’s knowledge of the child’s
social skills history and the known quality of the child’s social relationships at home, at school, and
in the neighborhood. Thus, in the case of non-problematic children, the evocative stimulus produces
adaptive, solution-focused parental ideation that results in the parent’s choice of a reasoned, sensitive,
and responsive approach to dealing with the problem behavior (Bugental and Happaney, 2002). In
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turn, the child views the parent as supportive and learns to better understand how to behave and feel
in similar situations as they occur in the future. As such, a reciprocal connection is developed between
the ways and means of adult and child social information processing.
Mothers of extremely withdrawn preschoolers tend to think about children’s social development
in ways that differ considerably from mothers of non-withdrawn children. Expressions of social fear-
fulness in the peer group may evoke parental feelings of worry, guilt or embarrassment, and perhaps
with increasing child age, a growing sense of frustration (Rubin and Mills, 1990, 1992). The parent
may be overcome by a strong belief that the child is vulnerable and must be helped in some way
(Burgess, Rubin, Cheah, and Nelson, 2005). When asked to indicate how a variety of social skills
might best be learned by their preschooler, mothers of withdrawn children were more likely to sug-
gest that they would tell their child directly how to behave and they were less likely to believe that
their children learn best by being active participants in, and processors of, their social environments
(Rubin and Mills, 1990, 1992).This pattern of parental beliefs appears to be a direct response to their
perceptions of their child’s social wariness and fearfulness. Mothers and fathers who view their tod-
dlers as socially wary and shy are less likely to suggest that they would encourage their child’s inde-
pendence at age 4 years (Rubin, Nelson, Hastings, and Asendorpf, 1999). Furthermore, mothers of
behaviorally inhibited toddlers endorse overly protective childrearing strategies (Chen et al., 1998).
And if mothers of inhibited toddlers do endorse overprotective strategies, when their children are of
preschool age, they react to scenarios in which their children demonstrate withdrawal by suggesting
that they would deal with their children’s problematic behaviors through direct, authoritarian means
(Hastings and Rubin, 1999). Taken together, the lack of encouragement of independence combined
with attitudes pertaining to overprotectiveness may minimize children’s opportunities to explore the
environment, think about alternate perspectives, or engage in social “planning.”
The body of literature reviewed herein has contributed to the development of a theoretical model
which suggests that parents of socially withdrawn children perceive them as vulnerable. We have
painted a portrait of mothers (and fathers; Rubin et al., 1999) of socially withdrawn preschoolers as
having beliefs that endorse overprotective parenting strategies. If such an endorsement is realized in
parental behavior, it would assuredly be detrimental to the child’s developing senses of autonomy
and social efficacy, as well as their social competence and positive self-regard (Rubin et al., 2009).
Parental Beliefs and Children’s Age

Parents’ beliefs, perceptions, and attitudes change as their children grow older (McNally, Eisenberg,
and Harris, 1991; Mills and Rubin, 1992). Parents recognize that advances in social skills occur with
age, and therefore they think that older children must be held more responsible than younger chil-
dren for their undesirable behaviors. For example, with increasing age of the child, mothers tend to
react to socially inappropriate behaviors with increasing negative affect, interpreting the behavior as
more internal and dispositional, endorsing stricter and more punitive responses (Dix, 1991; Dix and
Grusec, 1985). Regarding social withdrawal specifically, and consistent with the notion that belief
systems are influenced by parents’ experiences of rearing children, inhibited or fearful toddlers have
parents who become less encouraging of their children’s autonomy and independence over the sub-
sequent 2 years (Rubin et al., 1999). Furthermore, mothers who perceive their toddlers to be more
fearful are more likely to report that they would respond to preschoolers’ reticent behaviors by get-
ting directly involved in their peer interactions (Hastings and Rubin, 1999). Given the emotions and
attributions we have already noted in mothers of inhibited and withdrawn young children, it may be
that in attempting to regulate their own reactions to their children’s behaviors, these mothers choose
to “keep their house in order” by overregulating their children’s activities.
During elementary school (5–9 years), mothers of withdrawn children have described their
affective reactions to social withdrawal as involving less surprise and puzzlement than mothers of
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non-withdrawn children. These findings are themselves unsurprising given the stability of with-
drawal from the early to middle years of childhood (Asendorpf, 1993). Furthermore, Mills and Rubin
(1992) found a number of changes in the ways that mothers appraised displays of withdrawal, in the
strategies they chose to deal with those behaviors, and in the beliefs that they had about how children
learn social skills. Although mothers of withdrawn elementary schoolers also attributed withdrawal
to internal personality traits in their children, they no longer suggested that they would react to dis-
plays of withdrawal in a power assertive manner (Mills and Rubin, 1993). For example, from the ages
of 4 to 6 years, displays of withdrawal became less easily excused as reflecting immaturity or as being
caused by sources external to the child (e.g., “Other children would not allow my child to join them
in play.”). Instead, there was an increase in the extent to which mothers attributed these behaviors
to internal dispositional characteristics. These trait attributions were associated with an increase in
mothers’ beliefs that they would not respond to their child’s demonstration of social withdrawal in
peer play situations. These findings suggest that, during early childhood, the parent may make active
efforts to deal with the child’s social wariness and withdrawal; however, in time, the parent judges her
or his efforts to be fruitless. It is important to note that neither pattern of socialization, overprotec-
tiveness in the preschool years nor neglect or dismissing of school-aged children, would be adaptive
in helping shy and withdrawn children develop greater social competence.
Cultural Considerations
There is now substantial evidence that parents’ cultural identities, experiences, and values help to
shape parenting beliefs and subsequent interactions with their children (Bornstein, Putnick, and
Sawalsky, 2017; Cheah, Leung, and Zhou, 2013). Consistent with a bioecological perspective (Bron-
fenbrenner and Morris, 2006), parenting beliefs and practices operate within the context of the sur-
rounding community and culture, and parents’ beliefs are shaped by these contexts.
Research in Western cultures typically identifies autonomy and assertiveness as being valued, and
social withdrawal and shyness in children is considered maladaptive and undesirable (Rubin, Oh,
Menzer, and Ellison, 2011). Yet, some variability across Western countries has been noted (Rubin,
Hemphill, et al., 2006). For example, Italian mothers report less strong emotional responses and
more internal attributions for children’s shyness than Canadian mothers (Schneider, Attili, Vermigli,
and Younger, 1997), and Turkish mothers report the use of indirect strategies and empathic goals in
response to social withdrawal (Özdemir and Cheah, 2015). Yet, more attention has been given to
contrasting between parents in Western versus Eastern countries. East Asian countries have been
viewed as sharing a traditional value system based in Confucianism, in which the family is identi-
fied as the fundamental unit of society (Cheah and Park, 2006). In earlier studies of Chinese parents,
researchers found that although self-restraint was encouraged, individualism or self-promotion was
discouraged (King and Bond, 1985), and that inhibited and withdrawn behaviors in children were
viewed as appropriate and valued (Chen, Rubin, and Sun, 1992). Cheah and Rubin (2004) reported
that Chinese mothers endorsed external causal attributions for preschoolers’ socially withdrawn
behavior and direct socialization goals focused on instilling long-term values and group-focused
ideals; in contrast, European American mothers focused on internal attributions and the immedi-
ate psychological state of the child. In recent work in urbanized China, however, researchers have
reported that, much as is the case in Western cultures, mothers reported that they would respond to
children’s withdrawal, reticence, and solitary behaviors with coercion, directiveness, and overprotec-
tion (Rubin, Hemphill, et al., 2006). This appears to be a reflection of a cultural shift toward more
Western-style values in urban China (Chen, Cen, Li, and He, 2005).
Although East Asian, Confucian-based cultures such as Japanese, Mainland Chinese, and South
Korean populations share some traditional values (Cho and Shin, 1996) and are often grouped
together in cross-cultural research comparing Western and Eastern cultures, research has revealed
477
variation between them in parenting beliefs.The socialization goals and parenting strategies of South
Korean mothers may be more like European American mothers than those of Chinese mothers (Park
and Cheah, 2005). For example, in response to scenarios within which their children are described
as behaving in a socially withdrawn manner, Chinese mothers typically suggest promoting the child’s
functioning for the betterment of the peer group, whereas South Korean and European American
mothers prioritize goals of making the child feel happy and self-confident (Cheah and Rubin, 2004;
Cheah and Park, 2006). However, differences between South Korean mothers’ parenting beliefs and
the beliefs of mothers from Western cultures exist, for example, in the extent to which social with-
drawal is attributed to internal versus external causes (Cheah and Rubin, 2004).
It is clear from the reviewed literature that culture provides a key contextual source of informa-
tion that may influence the ways in which parents think about their children’s behaviors (Bornstein
and Cheah, 2006). Importantly, cultures can change as they develop, and cross-cultural research on
parents’ beliefs and practices should continue to leverage longitudinal designs and diverse measure-
ment strategies.
Summary
A picture is emerging of the beliefs of parents of inhibited and socially withdrawn children. Parents
who perceive inhibited and socially withdrawn behavior to be undesirable, but attributable to dispo-
sitional sources that are indicative of vulnerability, are likely to respond in emotional and behavioral
ways that could perpetuate the very behaviors that they wish to change in their children.With young
inhibited and withdrawn children, parents are likely to feel worried or anxious about the behaviors
and to plan on directly intervening in their children’s social interactions; with older children, parents
are likely to feel more frustrated and helpless to change their children’s tendencies. Ultimately, nei-
ther of these mindsets would be to the benefit of their children.
Parenting Behaviors with Behaviorally Inhibited and

Socially Withdrawn Children
The past two decades have borne witness to a notable increase in the amount of research being
conducted on the parenting behaviors experienced by behaviorally inhibited and socially with-
drawn children.The use of longitudinal studies with repeated measures, adoption samples, genetically
informed designs, and experimental procedures have helped to bring greater clarity to the questions
of whether parenting behaviors are causal contributors to the development of inhibited and with-
drawn children. To the limited extent that there was empirical study of the childrearing behaviors of
parents of inhibited and withdrawn children in the latter third of the twentieth century, this work
was heavily informed by Baumrind’s (1967, 1971) research on parenting styles. She observed that,
relative to the socially comfortable and competent preschool-aged children of authoritative parents
who balanced authority with responsiveness, the children of highly controlling but unresponsive and
inflexible authoritarian parents tended to be socially anxious, unhappy, and insecure in the company of
their peers. Other researchers have similarly reported that children whose parents use authoritarian
childrearing practices tend to have low self-esteem and lack spontaneity and confidence with peers
(Lamborn et al., 1991). Booth-LaForce and colleagues found that during early adolescence, maternal
restrictiveness and power assertion predicted a trajectory of increasing anxious withdrawal over a
4-year period (Booth-LaForce et al., 2012).
The kind of parental control that is typically captured in assessments of authoritative and authori-
tarian parenting styles can be characterized as behavioral control, or the use of “rules and conse-
quences” to manage children’s behavior. A few years prior to Baumrind’s reports, other socialization
researchers suggested that social anxiety in children might be particularly engendered by another
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parental approach to control: manipulating children’s emotions, threatening their security in the
parent–child relationship, restricting their self-directed activities, and undermining their autonomy
(Schaeffer, 1959). Attention to this psychological control of children resurfaced toward the end of the
twentieth century through the efforts of Barber (Barber, Olsen, and Shagle, 1994), Rubin (Mills and
Rubin, 1998), and others. A growing body of research suggests that this intrusive and manipulative
control by parents appears to diminish children’s sense of self-efficacy and ability to cope with chal-
lenges and increase children’s dependence on parents (Hastings et al., 2010).
Psychological Control and the Development of Shy

and Withdrawn Children
Much research has been focused on an aspect of psychological control that we have characterized as
overprotective or oversolicitous parenting (Rubin, Hastings, Stewart, Henderson, and Chen, 1997). Over-
protective parents tend to restrict their children’s behavior and actively encourage dependency. For
instance, overprotective parents encourage their children to maintain close proximity to them, and
they do not reinforce risk-taking and active exploration in unfamiliar situations. Parents of socially
wary or fearful children may sense their children’s difficulties and perceived helplessness, and then
might try to support their children directly either by manipulating their children’s behaviors in a
highly directive fashion (e.g., telling the child how to act or what to do) or by actually intervening
and taking over for the child (e.g., joining play with potential playmates; intervening during peer or
object disputes). For example, Rubin and colleagues (1997) observed that mothers who were highly
affectionate, controlling, and shielding when such behaviors were neither appropriate nor sensitive—
such as during free play and snack time—had toddlers who were more inhibited and clingy when
interacting with unfamiliar peers and adults. Furthermore, inhibited toddlers who experienced this
intrusive overprotection were, 2 years later, likely to be socially reticent with unfamiliar peers (Rubin,
Burgess, and Hastings, 2002). For toddlers whose mothers were not overprotective, toddler inhibition
did not predict preschool reticence. Coplan and colleagues (2008) and Degnan and colleagues (2008)
later replicated similar concurrent and predictive associations across the toddler to early elementary
school-age periods in independent samples.
Parental involvement, assistance, and affection are not typically thought of as maladaptive chil-
drearing behaviors, but it is the exaggerated, intrusive, and contextually inappropriate expressions of
these behaviors that are the hallmarks of overprotective parenting. Rubin, Cheah, and Fox (2001)
illustrated this effectively when they observed maternal warmth, proximity, and control with pre-
schoolers in two contexts: during a challenging teaching task on an activity that was beyond the
child’s developmental level and during free play with age-appropriate toys.The former context is one
in which preschoolers may need such solicitous behaviors from mothers to stay calm and engaged,
whereas the latter context is not. Mothers were not consistent in their displays of solicitous behaviors
across the two contexts, and it was only mothers’ solicitous behavior in the non-challenging free play
task that predicted preschoolers’ socially reticent behavior with unfamiliar peers. In fact, the same
maternal behaviors in the stressful teaching task predicted less reticent behavior with unfamiliar
peers.The extent to which maternal solicitousness during free play—that is, inappropriate and exag-
gerated intrusive control—was detrimental to children’s social competence was further demonstrated
in longitudinal analyses showing that this maternal behavior predicted increases in children’s reticent
behavior among unfamiliar peers from 4 to 7 years (Cheah, Rubin, and Fox, 1999).
Subsequent studies have provided support for the contribution of parental overprotection to chil-
dren’s socially withdrawn characteristics. Hastings and colleagues (2008) found that mothers’ over-
protective behavior at home predicted preschoolers’ socially reticent behavior with familiar peers at
preschool and unfamiliar peers in the laboratory, but only for children with lower baseline parasym-
pathetic influence over cardiac activity, or with stronger parasympathetic reactivity to a cognitive
479
challenge. The parasympathetic nervous system is an important component of the capacity to regu-
late one’s state of autonomic arousal, and both low baseline and strongly reactive parasympathetic
activity have been posited as biomarkers of poor emotion regulation and greater susceptibility to
psychological distress (Beauchaine, 2015). Thus, this study suggested that physiologically vulnerable
children might be prone to manifesting inhibited and wary behaviors when mothers are highly over-
protective. Furthermore, preschoolers’ social wariness predicted mothers’ reports of more anxiety
symptoms and teachers’ reports of poorer social skills 4 years later (Hastings, Kahle, and Nuselovici,
2014), but only for those children who, as preschoolers, also had both highly overprotective mothers
and low baseline parasympathetic control. The combination of an external, exacerbating socializa-
tion agent and an internal, dispositional vulnerability, therefore, contribute to socially withdrawn
preschoolers following a trajectory toward maladaptive social-emotional functioning.
Others studies have shown more direct associations between overprotective parenting and chil-
dren’s inhibited or withdrawn tendencies. For example, McShane and Hastings (2009) found that
mothers reported more overprotective responses to children’s peer interactions when their pre-
school-aged sons displayed more anxious behaviors during free play at preschool. Hudson and
colleagues found that maternal overinvolvement was concurrently associated with preschoolers’
inhibited behavior toward unfamiliar stimuli and people (Hudson, Dodd, and Bovopoulos, 2011a)
and predicted mothers’ reports of inhibition 2 years later (Hudson, Dodd, Lyneham, and Bovopoulos,
2011b). Similarly, with early elementary school-aged children, Muris and colleagues (2011) found
that parental overprotection predicted mother-reported inhibited behavior over 1 year. Studies such
as these accord with an additive model of risk, suggesting that parental overprotection, or intrusive
overcontrol, may increase the likelihood of shy tendencies in all children, not just temperamentally
or physiologically susceptible children.
In addition to the intrusive and solicitous nature of overprotection, there is another, and perhaps
more pernicious, facet to psychological control: parental criticism, derogation, rejection, and emo-
tional coldness. Such actions serve to undermine children’s sense of self-worth and their confidence
in the security of a loving parent–child relationship. In one of the first studies to report this link,
LaFreniere and Dumas (1992) observed that anxious and withdrawn preschoolers and kindergarteners
had mothers who responded critically to their children’s negative behaviors and affect, but were unre-
sponsive to positive behaviors and affect. Mills and Rubin (1998) found that similar behaviors were
characteristic of mothers of anxious and withdrawn kindergarten to elementary school-age children.
As with overprotection, some studies suggest additive contributions of maternal critical control to
children’s social withdrawal, and other studies support an interactive model of critical control being
particularly insidious for vulnerable children. As examples of the former, Wagner and colleagues
(2016) reported that mothers who were negative, intrusive, and insensitive during the first year of
infants’ lives reported that their children were more withdrawn at 3 years, and Booth-LaForce and
Oxford (2008) found that mothers’ unsupportive and hostile behaviors toward preschoolers pre-
dicted greater social withdrawal, loneliness, peer exclusion, and unpopularity across the elementary
school-age years. In accord with interactive models of vulnerability, Hane and colleagues (2008)
reported that negativity from mothers of preschoolers magnified the link between preschoolers’
reticent behavior and their social withdrawal at 7 years, and Davis and Buss (2013) found that kinder-
garteners’ temperamental shyness was only associated with reticent behavior toward unfamiliar peers
when mothers responded negatively and unsupportively to children’s negative emotions.
Some investigators have examined both overprotective and critical aspects of psychological con-
trol in the same studies to determine whether they have distinct or convergent relations with chil-
dren’s inhibition and withdrawal. Although the predictive effects of overprotection were stronger,
Rubin and colleagues (2002) found that maternal criticism and negativity similarly enhanced the
stability of inhibited, reticent behavior over 2 years. In their report, McShane and Hastings (2009)
noted that maternal overprotection, but not critical parenting, was associated with children’s anxious
480
tendencies at preschool. Overall, at least in early childhood, the available evidence points toward
somewhat stronger ties between children’s withdrawn and anxious characteristics and mothers’ over-
protective parenting than is the case for mothers’ critical and derisive parenting.
Beyond Social Withdrawal: Parenting Behavior and the Development of

Internalizing Problems and Disorders
Behaviorally inhibited, shy, and socially withdrawn children are at risk for developing internalizing
problems and disorders, such as social anxiety (Rubin et al., 2009). There is some evidence that this
risk may be increased by, or conveyed through, parental psychological control. There are robust
associations between maternal psychological control and children’s anxiety symptoms and disorders
(Degnan, Almas, and Fox, 2010; van der Bruggen, Stams, and Bögels, 2008), and several of the afore-
mentioned studies indicated that parents’ psychological control was related to children’s internalizing
problems and anxiety symptoms in ways that were similar to its relations with children’s reticence
and wariness (Hastings et al., 2008, 2014; Hudson et al., 2011a).
Bayer and colleagues (2006) reported that maternal overprotection at 2 years was prospectively
predictive of children’s internalizing difficulties at 4 years, independent of the associations that tod-
dlers’ inhibited temperament had with both parenting and internalizing problems. Similarly, Mills
and colleagues (2012) reported that more critical mothers reported more internalizing problems in
their preschool-aged children, and in the same sample an aggregate of critical, punitive, and unsup-
portive parenting of preschoolers predicted more mother-reported (but not teacher-reported) inter-
nalizing problems 4 years later, especially for highly inhibited boys (Hastings et al., 2015). Muris and
colleagues (2011) distinguished parents’ overprotective behaviors from their feelings of worry and
anxiety about childrearing (e.g., “You are scared when your child does something on his/her own,”
p. 161); only the latter was predictive of children’s anxiety symptoms 1 year later. Finally, Lewis-
Morrarty and colleagues (2012) found that an index of stable inhibition from infancy to 7 years
predicted symptoms of social anxiety disorder in adolescence, but only for children of mothers who
exhibited high levels of intrusive overcontrol at 7 years; maternal intrusive overcontrol also directly
predicted the increased likelihood of youth having diagnoses of social anxiety disorders. This study
suggests that adolescence is a period of heightened risk for the emergence of clinical anxiety prob-
lems for inhibited or withdrawn children with psychologically controlling parents.
Positive Parenting: What Can Parents Do to Attenuate Children’s

Inhibition and Withdrawal?
Fortunately, researchers have not only looked at what parents do with their children that serves to
exacerbate their inhibited and wary tendencies. There is considerable evidence that appropriately
engaged parents, who guide their shy and wary children’s autonomous actions through low-power
control, can help to promote greater social confidence and competence (Hastings et al., 2010). Typi-
cally, this evidence is seen in studies that measure maternal sensitivity, supportiveness, encouragement,
structuring, and scaffolding, or more broadly, an authoritative parenting style. Maternal supportiveness
and respect for children’s autonomy have been found to be concurrently associated with (McCabe,
Clark, and Barnett, 1999) and prospectively predictive of (Booth-LaForce and Oxford, 2008) less
socially withdrawn behavior with peers at school. Similarly, among preschoolers, maternal support-
iveness has been found to be concurrently (Hastings et al., 2008) and prospectively (Bayer et al., 2006;
Wagner et al., 2016) associated with having fewer internalizing problems and being less withdrawn.
The benefits of positive parenting may be particularly strong for temperamentally vulnerable chil-
dren. Chen, Zhang, and colleagues (2014) found that higher maternal supportiveness diminished the
associations between temperamental inhibition and being more shy and less socially competent, in a
481
sample of toddlers from families living in urban centers in China. Davis and Buss (2013) reported that
when mothers made more supportive responses to kindergarteners’ displays of negative emotions, shy
children were less likely to be reticent in the presence of unfamiliar peers, occupying themselves with
constructive solitary play activities instead. Similarly, in analyses of a large sample of families from the
NICHD Study of Early Child Care and Youth Development, responsive, stimulating, and structuring
maternal behaviors toward infants were found to predict fewer withdrawn behaviors in early child-
hood specifically for temperamentally slow-to-warm-up infants (Grady, Karraker, and Metzger, 2012).
It is important to note, though, that such parental behaviors need to be enacted sensitively and appro-
priately. Kiel and colleagues (2016) reported a curvilinear relation between maternal encouragement
to approach novelty and inhibited toddlers’ anxiety during separation; compared to children with
mothers who were either protective and shielding, or were too pushy and insistent, inhibited toddlers
of gently encouraging mothers showed the least separation distress (also see Bornstein and Manian,
2013, for the benefits of moderate versus high maternal contingency). The benefits of positive par-
enting for shy and wary children may even extend beyond children’s sociability and mental health.
Low-power control techniques, such as the use of reasoning to elicit compliance from toddlers, have
been found to predict the development of greater morality and conscience specifically in fearful and
inhibited toddlers (Augustine and Stifter, 2015; Kochanska, 1997; Kochanska, Aksan, and Joy, 2007).
The evidence from these studies is both encouraging and practical, especially insofar as the poten-
tial to translate research into practice is concerned. Those practitioners who focus on parenting to
promote well-being in inhibited and withdrawn children need not only to tell parents what not to do
(do not use psychological control). They also need to provide parents with what they can and should
do; that is with instruction on alternative, effective childrearing practices that will foster the positive
growth of their children.
Causal Effects of Parenting on the Development

of Inhibited and Withdrawn Children
We have been interpreting the findings of the preceding studies as supportive of a model in which
parenting behavior is a determinant of children’s social development. However, even with robust
sample sizes, longitudinal designs including repeated measures, and analyses of transactional relation-
ships between parents and children over time, these studies cannot be taken as convincing proof of
the causal effects of parenting on children’s social withdrawal. For that, one would need to see con-
sistent findings in studies that include experimental, intervention, or genetically informed designs.
(Although the third are not as robust tests of causality as the first two, they serve to rule out the
potential for genetic factors accounting for observed associations between parenting behavior and
child shyness, wariness, or sociability, such as the genetic relatedness of parents and children or evoca-
tive effects of children’s genetic traits.)
The Cool Little Kids program was developed as a modularized 6-week parent-training interven-
tion for families of young, behaviorally inhibited children (Rapee, Kennedy, Ingram, Edwards, and
Sweeney, 2005).The central aim of the intervention is to decrease parental overprotection and simul-
taneously to increase parents’ encouragement of child independence. Relative to inhibited children
of parents in control groups, greater reductions in anxiety symptoms and diagnoses have been docu-
mented in inhibited children of parents who received the intervention in small-group classes (Rapee,
Kennedy, Ingram, Edwards, and Sweeney, 2010), even, for girls, up to several years later as adolescents
(Rapee, 2013). Similar benefits within early childhood were observed when the parenting modules
were delivered in an individualized online format (Morgan, Rapee et al., 2017). However, changes
in the targeted parenting behaviors have not yet been shown to account for treatment effects on
children’s inhibition or anxiety, so it is difficult to discern the precise mechanism of effect for this
promising intervention.
482
Grady and Karraker (2014) used a “bug in the ear” procedure to manipulate the statements of
mothers toward their shy toddlers during a peer interaction task. Each temperamentally shy tod-
dler was paired with two non-shy, same age and same-gender peers; the mothers of the non-shy
peers sat in the room but were instructed not to interact with the children. The mothers of shy
children were given instructions to issue five warm, praising statements in a minute, or five state-
ments encouraging social interaction and suggesting ways to play with the other children, and shy
children’s play behaviors were observed in the subsequent minute. Compared to their play prior
to manipulation, shy children displayed less reticent behavior in the minute following encourag-
ing statements, but not following warm statements. Thus, gentle or low-power maternal control
through encouragement and guidance can have immediately observable effects on shy toddlers’
reticence with peers.
Chronis-Tuscano, Rubin, and colleagues (2015) reported on a pilot study of the efficacy of an
intervention program (“The Turtle Program”) targeting both parents’ childrearing and extremely shy
or inhibited preschooler’s social and emotional competence. Parents received an 8-week program
based on parent–child interaction therapy (PCIT) for social anxiety disorder, while at the same time,
preschoolers received social skills and emotion regulation skills training in small groups of extremely
shy or inhibited age-mates. Notably, the parent component incorporated exposure practice with the
child peer group during treatment so that each parent was coached, via a “bug-in-the-ear” device,
in vivo. During this parental coaching, other parents observed from a separate room (via streamed
video) for the purpose of vicarious learning. Compared to families in a waitlist control condition, the
Turtle Program increased maternal sensitivity and positive affect and decreased children’s inhibition,
internalizing problems, and anxiety symptoms as reported by mothers and teachers. In a subsequent
report based on the same sample, children in the treatment group were observed, in their preschool
settings, to have demonstrated increases in social initiations toward and social play with peers (Bar-
stead, Danko, et al., 2017). However, given that the multimodal treatment program delivered train-
ing in effective childrearing behavior for parents and training in self-regulation and social skills for
children, it is difficult to discern whether the positive effects of the intervention can be attributed
specifically to the parent-training component.
Guimond and colleagues (2012) utilized a sample of monozygotic twins to examine how differ-
ential parental treatment of genetically identical children predicted the development of their social
behaviors. Mothers and fathers reported on their overprotective and harshly punitive behaviors
toward each twin at 30 months, and at kindergarten age, twin pairs were observed in a cooperative,
shared-toy task with two familiar peers. Boys displayed more reticence if they experienced more
overprotective behaviors from mothers or fathers, compared to their genetically identical brothers.
Van der Voort and colleagues (2014) used an adoption study to examine how parenting behavior
toward children who were genetically unrelated to their parents was predictively related to inhi-
bition and internalizing problems in adolescence. More maternal sensitivity during a challenging
puzzle task at 7 years predicted less mother-reported inhibition at 14 years, after accounting for the
stability of both inhibition and sensitivity. In turn, lower adolescent inhibition predicted less anxious-
depressed behavior in the youth.
Together, this small set of studies has provided clearer evidence for the causal effects of both posi-
tive parenting (sensitivity, encouragement) and psychological control on the social behaviors and
adjustment of inhibited, shy, and wary children. The findings from these experimental, intervention,
and genetically informed designs are largely consistent with those of the correlational and longi-
tudinal studies considered previously. Even while acknowledging the genetic, temperamental, and
biological factors that contribute to the initial etiology of inhibited and socially wary tendencies
(Hastings and Guyer, 2015; Rubin and Burgess, 2002), it is reasonable and defensible for develop-
mental scientists to state that the ways in which parents interact with and rear their children will have
effects on the stability and sequelae of those tendencies.
483
The Parenting of Fathers of Inhibited and Withdrawn Children

In the preceding sections, we noted associations reported in a few studies between paternal parent-
ing and children’s shy and wary characteristics (Guimond et al., 2012; Rubin et al., 1999). Although
there have been far fewer investigations of fathers’ behavior than there have been of mothers’, the
existing evidence is sufficient for drawing tentative conclusions (Hastings et al., 2010).To begin with
the conclusion, fathers’ critical and harsh parenting, as well as their sensitive, structuring, and encour-
aging parenting, share similar relations with child inhibition and withdrawal as do such behaviors by
mothers, whereas evidence for the deleterious effects of fathers’ overprotection is somewhat mixed.
Multiple studies have indicated that stricter or stronger behavioral control, more criticism and
negativity, and less supportiveness from fathers is associated with preschool- to elementary school-
aged children’s socially withdrawn behaviors with peers and their being less socially competent or
liked by peers (Hastings et al., 2008; McDowell, Parke, and Wang, 2003; McShane and Hastings,
2009; Miller, Murry, and Brody, 2005; Rah and Parke, 2008). McShane and Hastings (2009) also had
fathers report on their overprotective parenting, but did not find it be robustly associated with young
children’s social anxiety or internalizing problems. Curiously, Hastings and colleagues (2008) found
that preschoolers’ parasympathetic regulation, as measured by respiratory sinus arrhythmia (RSA),
moderated the associations between fathers’ supportive and overprotective parenting and children’s
inhibition, wariness, and internalizing problems—but in patterns opposite to what was observed for
mothers’ parenting. As the authors observed, “weak vagal suppression demarcated children suscepti-
ble to the protective overcontrol [and supportiveness] of fathers but not that of mothers” (p. 59). It is
possible that individual differences between children may make them more responsive or susceptible
to the influences of fathers versus mothers, an idea that warrants further investigation.
Summary
Numerous lines of inquiry have shown that behaviorally inhibited and socially withdrawn children
are more likely than socially competent children to experience intrusive, overprotective, critical,
and unsupportive parenting from their mothers and fathers. These parenting behaviors are likely to
perpetuate and exacerbate children’s inhibited and withdrawn tendencies and may contribute to the
emergence of more debilitating internalizing problems. One may ask, then, why is it that parents
would engage in such inappropriate actions with their inhibited and withdrawn children?
Determinants of Intrusive, Overprotective, Critical,

and Unsupportive Parenting
Knowing that the actions of parents have direct consequences for the development of inhibited and
withdrawn children, it behooves us to consider factors that may lead parents to engage in childrearing
behaviors that are detrimental to the well-being of their children. Children’s withdrawn characteristics
have been found to predict parenting behavior. For example, McShane and Hastings (2009) reported
that preschoolers’ displays of anxiety at preschool predicted increases in fathers’ overprotective parent-
ing in the subsequent year, whereas preschool teachers’ reports of internalizing problems predicted
increases in mothers’ critical parenting. In a longitudinal study using molecular genetics, Propper and
colleagues (2012) noted evocative effects of girls’ genotypes on maternal sensitivity. Independent of
mothers’ genotypes, girls with what is considered to be an “at-risk” polymorphism of the dopamine
receptor gene DRD4 had mothers who displayed less sensitive parenting in infancy and toddlerhood.
Five years later, teachers described girls with this DRD4 polymorphism as shyer and more lonely,
and maternal sensitivity partially mediated the association between genotype and teachers’ reports.
Analogously, in a three-wave longitudinal study with young adolescents, Van Zalk and Kerr (2011)
484
found that youth-reported shyness in grade 7 predicted youth reports of greater intrusive overcontrol
and rejection, and less warmth, from parents in grade 8. In turn, parents’ intrusive overcontrol in grade
8 predicted greater shyness in grade 9. These studies parallel the studies of child effects on parental
beliefs examined previously, and they show that children’s shy, withdrawn, and anxious characteristics
can result in parental behavior that may result in a self-sustaining “vicious cycle.”
Of course, not all parents of inhibited or withdrawn children respond to their children’s wary
traits or reticent behaviors with intrusive, overprotecting, or critical parenting behaviors. In their
adoption study, van der Voort and colleagues (2014) observed that withdrawn behavior in middle
childhood predicted greater maternal sensitivity during parent–child observations in adolescence.
The concurrent associations between mothers’ overprotective or oversolicitous parenting and inhib-
ited or withdrawn behavior in toddlers and preschoolers are rather modest (Hastings et al., 2008;
Rubin et al., 1997). What is it that distinguishes between parents who respond to shy, wary children
in ways that are likely to maintain or exacerbate their wary tendencies and those who enact more
sensitive and appropriate encouragement of their children’s autonomy and self-assurance?
Intrapersonal Factors
Parental beliefs about children’s social characteristics contribute to parental behavior. Parents who
believe (1) that social behaviors are attributable to stable factors that are internal to the child; (2) that
direct parental involvement is the best way to manage children’s social behaviors with peers; (3) that
they are responsible for—and feel guilty, worried, and embarrassed by—children’s displays of reti-
cence; and (4) that wary children are vulnerable, are likely to behave in ways that further undermine
the development of social competence in shy children. Perhaps it is not surprising that parents who
think and behave in these ways are themselves likely to have anxious tendencies, neurotic personali-
ties, and internalizing disorders (Coplan, Arbeau, and Armer, 2008; Mills et al., 2012; Murray et al.,
2014). In a 20-year longitudinal study, Grunzeweig and colleagues (2009) found that women who
had been evaluated as more withdrawn by peers in school were likely to exert more intrusive con-
trol during interactions with their own toddler- to kindergarten-aged children. Additional studies
suggest that mothers’ physiological capacities for effective emotion regulation may also contribute
to their parenting. Kiel and Buss (2013) reported that mothers who showed stronger adrenocortical
reactivity to parent–child interactions, as demonstrated by increased salivary cortisol after the inter-
action relative to before, engaged in more intrusive control with more inhibited toddlers. Root and
colleagues (2016) observed that mothers who were themselves more shy and anxious reported using
more overprotective parenting with preschoolers only when they also had lower baseline parasym-
pathetic activity. Both stronger adrenocortical reactivity and weaker parasympathetic regulation have
been associated with subclinical and clinical levels of anxiety problems (Hastings and Guyer, 2015),
such that these studies are consistent with behavioral characterizations of parents who are most prone
to using psychological control with their shy and wary children.
Relationship and Contextual Factors

Socioeconomic, contextual, and relationship processes have been shown to shape the childrearing
behaviors of parents. Economic stress due to lack of financial resources creates feelings of frustration,
anger, and helplessness that can be translated into less than optimal childrearing styles (Bornstein,
2016; Magnuson and Duncan, 2019). Stressful economic situations predict parental negativism and
inconsistency (Elder,Van Nguyen, and Caspi, 1985).Thus, parents who are financially distressed gen-
erally tend to be more irritable and moody than parents who have few financial difficulties (Acker-
man, Izard, Schoff,Youngstrom, and Kogos, 1999). They are less nurturant, involved, child-centered,
and consistent with their children (Elder et al., 1985). Economic stress also increases interparental
485
conflict and parents’ feelings of being unsupported by their spouse. Researchers have reported con-
sistently that spousal discord and marital dissatisfaction predict negative parental attitudes about chil-
drearing as well as insensitive, unresponsive parenting behaviors (Emery, 1982; Jouriles et al., 1991),
including the use of psychological control, as seen in a sample of immigrant Chinese American and
Korean American mothers by Cheah and colleagues (2016).
Although family income or socioeconomic status has not often been the focus of developmen-
tal scientists who study the parents of inhibited and socially withdrawn children, a few reports have
indicated that more attention to the economic resources of families is warranted. In a large sample of
families with preschool-aged children in Canada, Mills and colleagues (2012) observed less supportive
and more punitive parenting behavior by mothers, more negative maternal emotionality, and more
preschooler internalizing problems in families experiencing more socioeconomic stress, as reflected
in low income, low occupational status, and low parental education. Intriguingly, independent of the
positive association between temperamental inhibition and internalizing problems, they also found that
the association between socioeconomic stress and children’s internalizing problems was fully medi-
ated by mothers’ positive parenting. In a follow-up report, Hastings and colleagues (2015) found that,
4 years later, internalizing problems were elevated in children who came from families who had been
experiencing more socioeconomic stress in the preschool period, and were most elevated for girls who
had been highly temperamentally inhibited as preschoolers. The authors suggested that this was con-
sistent with Zahn-Waxler’s model (Zahn-Waxler et al., 2000) of the multiple dispositional and envi-
ronmental factors that increase girls’ susceptibility for developing problems of anxiety and depression.
Conger and colleagues (2007, 2010) proposed a comprehensive model of family stress processes
that charts the interconnections of material hardship, economic stress, strained marital relationships,
parent distress, poor parenting behavior, and child risk for emotional, social, and behavioral problems.
Roper and colleagues (2016) applied the family stress model in a study of shyness and reticence in
Romanian preschool-aged children, and their observations were largely consistent with the model.
With significant mediation between each link in the chain, parents experiencing more economic
hardship reported more depression, more depressed parents engaged in more marital conflict, parents
who experienced more conflict used more psychological control, and the use of psychological control
predicted teachers’ reports of children’s shy and reticent behavior with peers. Analogously, Booth-
LaForce and Oxford (2008) observed a similar chain of relations in their longitudinal analyses of more
than 1,000 families from the NICHD Study of Early Child Care and Youth Development. Lower
family income and less maternal education during infancy were predictive of children displaying
increasing levels of social withdrawal across grades 1–6, and the link between families’ socioeconomic
stress during infancy and children’s social withdrawal in the elementary school years was accounted
for by lower maternal sensitivity, less secure mother-child attachment relationships, and poorer child
self-regulation during the preschool years. Patterns of findings such as these illustrate the need to
understand the childrearing behaviors of parents of inhibited, socially withdrawn and shy children
as occurring within a complex matrix of intrapersonal, relationship, and socio-contextual influences.
Future Directions in the Study of the Parents of Behaviorally Inhibited

and Socially Withdrawn Children
In this chapter, we have attempted to describe the family as a complex system that is influenced
by its constituent members and by external, socio-ecological forces. Interactions between family
members are bidirectional and mutually influential (Cowan, Powell, and Cowan, 1998). This con-
ceptualization of the family as a transactional system represents an evocative starting point for future
studies of the development of behavioral inhibition and social withdrawal. What we know about
the parents of behaviorally inhibited and withdrawn children fails to capture some of the very sim-
plest tenets of a transactional model of family systems. For instance, relatively little is known about
486
paternal contributions to problems of psychological overcontrol in children. Although some studies

have indicated that fathers’ parenting “matters,” there have been few examinations of the relative
contributions of paternal versus maternal beliefs and parenting behaviors to the prediction of inter-
nalizing forms of behavior in boys and girls. Furthermore, how the qualities of father-son versus
father-daughter attachment relationships and mother-son versus mother-daughter attachment rela-
tionships contribute to the prediction of inhibition, withdrawal, and internalizing behavior problems
is unknown. There has been even less consideration of how the parenting in other family structures,
such as those with grandparent or same-sex parent caregivers, is related to inhibition and withdrawal
(Patterson, Farr, and Hastings, 2015). In short, a plethora of questions remains to be addressed vis-
à-vis the breadth of existing parent–child relationships and family interactive patterns to more fully
understand the etiology of inhibited, withdrawn, shy behaviors and their sequelae in children.
Another relative unknown is the degree to which parents can influence the development, mainte-
nance, and amelioration of social withdrawal at different points in the span of childhood. Are parents bet-
ter able to influence child behavior during the early rather than mid to late years of childhood? Parents
believe they are more influential in contributing to social developmental outcomes during early than late
childhood (Mills and Rubin, 1992). Moreover, with increasing child age, parents increasingly attribute
child maladjustment to internal, dispositional characteristics of the child (Mills and Rubin, 1993). Clearly,
parents think about and interact with their children in different ways at different points in childhood.
A catalogue of beliefs and behaviors within and across situations (e.g., at home or in public; free play or
during structured activities) for parents of socially competent children and parents of inhibited, with-
drawn children during the early, middle, and later years of childhood would be invaluable. This “map-
ping” of within-group and across-group, cross-age parental characteristics should be on the agendum of
those interested in the developmental course of maladaptive behavior and its prevention or intervention.
Additionally, researchers have only begun to examine the motivations that underlie socially with-
drawn behavior in childhood and adolescence (Coplan and Weeks, 2010). For example, researchers
have contrasted children who display social withdrawal because they appear to be shy versus those
who appear to be unsociable. In the former case, it is suggested that shy children have conflicted
interests in engaging their peers in social interaction—they are caught between strong motivations
to approach and avoid their peers. In the latter case, unsociable children have been described as hav-
ing a low motivation to approach others whilst not being particularly motivated to avoid their peers
(Coplan, Prakash, O’Neil, and Armer, 2004). Researchers have rarely distinguished between the
motivations that may underlie the expression of solitude in the company of peers in their studies of
parent and parent–child relationships. There is a wealth of opportunity to discover the characteristics
of the parents of different “types” of withdrawn children.
Finally, it is by now well established that behavioral inhibition in early childhood and shy, with-
drawn behavior during the childhood and early adolescent years are associated with and predictive of
anxiety problems (Rubin et al., 2009). These findings have influenced researchers and practitioners to
develop interventions directed at altering parental behavior in an effort to prevent or ameliorate the
negative effects of behavioral inhibition and socially reticent, withdrawn behaviors (Chronis-Tuscano
et al., 2015). Yet, these parent-directed interventions are few and far between, generally located in
Western cultures, and rarely, if ever, directed to a wide range of ethnic groups within Western countries.
In summary, many questions remain to be addressed in future studies of the parents of behav-
iorally inhibited and socially withdrawn children. We have provided some initial leads concerning
where we think the immediate research “action” should be.
Conclusions
Behavioral inhibition, social withdrawal, and psychologically overcontrolled behavior problems
in childhood derive from a complex mix of ecological factors, child characteristics, parent–child
487
relationships, and parental beliefs and behaviors. In these conclusions, we attempt to put the pieces
of the developmental puzzle together by suggesting a conceptually based pathway that may serve as
a model for the future study of the relations among parent–child relationships, parenting, and the
development of social withdrawal in childhood (see also Rubin et al., 2009).
This pathway begins with newborns who may be biologically predisposed to have a low threshold
for arousal when confronted with stimulation and novelty. Under conditions of novelty or uncer-
tainty, some babies demonstrate physical and physiological changes that suggest that they are “hyper-
arousable” (Fox and Calkins, 1993; Kagan, Reznick, and Snidman, 1987)—a characteristic that may
make them extremely difficult to soothe and comfort. Some parents find infantile hyperarousability
to be aversive or worrisome (Kagan, Reznick, Clarke, Snidman, and Garcia-Coll, 1984); conse-
quently, under some circumstances, parents may react to easily aroused and wary babies with insensi-
tivity, a lack of responsivity, and perhaps overprotectiveness. Each of these parental responses can also
be triggered by environmental and personal stressors, and each predicts the development of insecure
parent–infant attachment relationships. Thus, an interplay of endogenous, socialization, and early
relationships factors, co-existing under an “umbrella” of negative setting conditions, will lead to a
sense of felt insecurity. In this way, the internal working models of insecurely attached, temperamen-
tally inhibited children may lead them to “shrink from” (Bowlby, 1973, p. 208) their social milieux.
Children who are socially inhibited, and who shrink anxiously away from their peers, preclude
themselves from the positive outcomes associated with social exploration and peer play. Thus, one
can predict a developmental sequence in which an inhibited, fearful, insecure child avoids interacting
with others, including withdrawing from her or his social world of peers. In so doing, the child fails
to develop those skills derived from peer interaction and, therefore, becomes increasingly anxious
and isolated from the peer group. With age, social reticence or withdrawal becomes increasingly
salient to the peer group (Rubin et al., 2009). This deviation from age-appropriate social norms is
associated with the establishment of negative peer reputations.Thus, by the mid to late years of child-
hood, social withdrawal and anxiety are strongly correlated with peer rejection (Rubin et al., 2015).
Given their reticence to explore their environments, socially withdrawn children may demonstrate
difficulties in getting social “jobs” done or social problems ameliorated. Sensing the child’s difficulties
and perceived helplessness, parents may try to aid them very directly either by manipulating their
child’s social behaviors in a power assertive, highly directive fashion or by actually intervening and
carrying out the child’s social interchanges themselves. Such overcontrolling, overinvolved socializa-
tion strategies have long been associated with social withdrawal in childhood. Parental overdirection
is likely to maintain rather than ameliorate the problems associated with withdrawal. Being overly
directive does not help the child deal first-hand with social interchanges and dilemmas, it prevents
the development of a belief system of social self-efficacy, and it perpetuates feelings of insecurity
within and outside of the family. Thus, overcontrolled social incompetence may be the product of
the joint interactions between inhibited temperament, insecure parent–child relationships, overly
directive and overprotective parenting, and family stress. A fearful, wary, inhibited temperament may
be deflected in a pathway toward the development of social competence by responsive and sensitive
caregiving and by a low-stress environment. Conversely, inhibited temperament is not a necessity
for the development of an internalizing behavior pattern. Parental intrusive overcontrol, especially
when accompanied by familial stress and lack of social support, may deflect the temperamentally
easy-going child toward a pathway of internalizing difficulties.
The pathway just described represents a useful heuristic for studying the etiology of social with-
drawal in childhood. It is also suggestive of the indirect and direct ways that parents may contribute
to the development and maintenance of social withdrawal. However, it should certainly not be taken
as the only route to the development of overcontrolled psychological disorders in childhood. It is also
important to note that in other cultures, each developmental pathway with its connections between
withdrawn behavior and parenting, and potential outcomes, might look quite different. Thus, we
488
welcome the research community’s support in providing alternative and international perspectives,
as well as empirically derived information at an international level, concerning relations among
parent–child relationships, parenting cognitions and behaviors, and the ontogeny of childhood social
withdrawal.
Acknowledgments
Authors Rubin, Smith, and Wagner were supported by National Institute of Mental Health grant
R01MH 103253, “A Multi-Component Early Intervention for Socially Inhibited Preschool Chil-
dren” (PIs Kenneth H. Rubin and Andrea Chronis-Tuscano) during the preparation of this chapter.
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15
PARENTING AGGRESSIVE
CHILDREN
Tina Malti, Ju-Hyun Song, Tyler Colasante, and Sebastian P. Dys
Introduction
Parenting children with challenging, disobedient, and aggressive behaviors has never been easy. Con-
temporary views on how to rear children who display such behaviors are heavily influenced by
social, cultural, and historical constructions of childhood and ideas about normative and atypical
development. This is particularly true when it comes to questions surrounding discipline. Themes
of strong-willed children who prove difficult to discipline can be found in children’s books, art, and
scientific literature across cultures and time. In the early nineteenth century, fairy tales often depicted
scenes of temper tantrums, disobedience, and aggression, as well as a range of parental reactions—
from mild discipline to harsh punishment and even abandonment. The children’s book Shockheaded
Peter (Hoffmann, 1845) depicts a series of tales about children, each ending with a clear message
conveying the disastrous consequences of not obeying parental rules. Sucking your thumb when told
not to, for example, may lead to getting it cut off by the tailor. Parents today would certainly find such
tales disturbing, but, at the time, they were meant to advise parents on childrearing.
In psychology, the powerful role of parents in a child’s obedience to and internalization of soci-
etal rules can be traced back to psychoanalytic theory. Theorists traditionally conceptualized parents
as authority figures and “ideal” children as those who would follow parental rules. With increas-
ing emphasis on attachment and the quality of parent–child relationships, the notion of nurturing
became central to ideas of minimal prerequisites for children’s healthy development and behavioral
adaptation (Winnicott, 1953). Research on parenting children with aggressive behaviors has evolved
considerably over the past few decades, resulting in considerable knowledge about effective strategies
to steer children away from such conduct across development.
In this chapter, we discuss contemporary views and research on the influences of parenting on
aggression and antisocial behaviors from early childhood to adolescence, with a dimensional approach
emphasizing control- and support-related parenting behaviors. First, we define the key concepts
of childhood aggression and parenting. We then move to theories linking parenting and children’s
aggression, followed by an overview of major empirical findings on this topic. Here, we discuss mech-
anisms underlying associations between parenting and children’s aggression and their implications for
parenting practices. Next, we discuss the current state of parenting interventions for reducing child-
hood aggression. We conclude with promising future directions for research in this area.
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Parenting Aggressive Children
Definitions of Key Terms in Parenting and Child

and Adolescent Aggression
Aggression in Childhood and Adolescence

In the field of developmental psychopathology, aggression is often discussed under the umbrella term
of externalizing behavior, which encompasses all antagonistic acts—aggressive, defiant, disruptive,
hyperactive, and impulsive—toward the child’s environment. Aggression per se refers to behaviors
that intentionally cause physical or psychological harm and/or distress to others, oneself, or objects
in the environment, although it centers on harming others (Krahé, 2013). In childhood, common
examples of aggression include hitting, biting, and teasing; in adolescence, these behaviors usually
become refined, manifesting in relational aggression and cyberbullying.
Aggression has been deconstructed into many subtypes over the years, such as overt, covert,
physical, relational, reactive, and proactive (Malti and Rubin, 2018), although the latter two have
garnered significant attention from researchers because they offer both a description and an explanation
of aggressive subtypes. Specifically, reactive versus proactive subtypes describe aggressive behaviors that
are more versus less emotionally charged, respectively, and explain such acts as chiefly stemming from
provocation or self-interests, respectively (Dodge, Coie, and Lynam, 2006).
Developmental Trajectories of Aggression

Across one’s lifespan, physical aggression is believed to be highest in the preschool years (Tremblay
et al., 2004). Such acts are apparent as early as the first year, peak in the second year, and decline
from the third year onward (dubbed the “early childhood aggression curve”; Alink et al., 2006). This
normative decline likely stems from the onset and insurgence of core social-emotional skills, such as
emotion regulation, theory of mind, and moral motivation (Eisenberg, 2000; Malti, 2016). Relational
aggression, however, tends to emerge and peak later in development, as social-cognitive skills sharpen
and social networks broaden (Eisner and Malti, 2015; Malti and Rubin, 2018).
Despite these normative trends, there are still significant intraindividual differences in patterns of
aggression from childhood to adolescence. Children tend to follow one of four trajectories: high-
stable (~10%), low-stable (~50–60%), high-/moderate-decreasing (~20%), or low-increasing (~10%;
Bongers, Koot, van der Ende, and Verhulst, 2004). These trajectories aptly capture the distinction
between childhood- and adolescent-onset aggression made in Moffitt’s (1993, 2003) developmental
taxonomy. Childhood-onset aggression (i.e., the high-stable trajectory) tends to persist across the
lifetime and predict long-term maladjustment, whereas adolescent-onset aggression (i.e., the low-
increasing trajectory) tapers off into adulthood and more often relates to concurrent adjustment
issues.
Reactive and proactive aggression appear to follow trajectories largely similar to those of general-
ized aggression (Barker, Tremblay, Nagin,Vitaro, and Lacourse, 2006; Cui, Colasante, Malti, Ribeaud,
and Eisner, 2016; Fite, Colder, Lochman, and Wells, 2008). For example, children followed three
trajectories of reactive and proactive aggression from age 7 to 12: high-decreasing (25%/11%), low-
increasing (8%/8%), and low-stable (59%/81%), and some showed a high-stable trajectory (8%)
of reactive aggression only (Cui et al., 2016). The overlap of these trajectories—particularly that
proactively aggressive children were also high in reactive aggression and not vice versa—aligns with
the notion that subtypes of aggression co-occur substantially within the same child (Card and Lit-
tle, 2006). Exactly which aggressive course a child will follow likely depends on his or her ability to
navigate social conflicts, quality of parenting, and interrelations thereof.
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Parenting
From a developmental perspective, it has often been argued that parenting involves two core dimen-
sions: control and support (Maccoby and Martin, 1983; Paulussen-Hoogeboom, Stams, Hermanns,
and Peetsma, 2007; Smetana, Campione-Barr, and Metzger, 2006). The control dimension encom-
passes regulating children’s behaviors through rules and supervision (e.g., discipline). Negative forms
of control include asserting power over or psychologically controlling and overreacting to children
in ways that hinder their abilities to explore and express their own ideas and feelings. Such strategies
likely impede children’s autonomy and social-emotional development. Conversely, setting fair and
consistent limits for children is considered a positive form of control, which is essential for teaching
them to regulate their impulsive or destructive behavior.
The support dimension comprises parental warmth and involvement, which are critical to form-
ing a positive parent–child relationship. This is particularly important for parents of aggressive chil-
dren because support erodes their oppositional tendencies, increasing the chances they will be open
to their parents’ discipline and values (Maccoby, 2015).
As children move into adolescence, parents and adolescents may face new challenges, such as
renegotiating the balance between parental control and children’s autonomy. Nevertheless, devel-
opmental research on aggression has to date heavily focused on and emphasized the importance
of intervening early in life to disrupt children’s problematic behavioral pathways (Eisner and Malti,
2015). For this reason, we primarily focus on early parent–child relations in this chapter.
Central Theoretical Issues in Parenting Aggressive Children
Meta-Level Theories: Social Learning Theory and Attachment Theory

Longitudinal studies suggest that children with high risk for persistent aggressive behavior can be
identified by their temperamental factors and observed behaviors as early as age 3 (Campbell et al.,
2006; Shaw, Gilliom, Ingoldsby, and Nagin, 2003). Identifying early-onset aggression is valuable
because maladaptive parenting practices and children’s problem behaviors tend to be more mal-
leable in the early years (Shaw and Taraban, 2017). The quality of the early parent–child relation-
ship has implications for children’s long-term behavioral adjustment. For example, children who
experience highly directive and negative parent–child interactions are at a higher risk for impaired
self-regulation and escalating patterns of coercive interactions with others (e.g., parents, siblings,
and peers) that may significantly impair their social lives (Olson, Choe, and Sameroff, 2017; Smith
et al., 2014). The strength of the link between parenting and children’s aggression tends to diminish
from childhood to adolescence as children gain cognitive skills and autonomy, become less reactive
to parental emotion socialization, and are more influenced by peer interactions (Dodge, Greenberg,
Malone, and The Conduct Problems Prevention Research Group, 2008; Johnson, Hawes, Eisenberg,
Kohlhoff, and Dudeney, 2017). However, the importance of early parental socialization for the onset
and maintenance of children’s aggressive behavior has gained more robust support in recent years
(Boldt, Kochanska, and Jonas, 2017; Shaw, 2013). Social learning theory and attachment theory are
the two most established approaches to explaining how the early parent–child relationship shapes the
development of childhood aggression.
Social Learning Theory

The social learning perspective—based on observational learning ideas—assumes that children learn
aggressive strategies by imitating parents’ harsh and punitive disciplines, and that parents implicitly
communicate the idea that these behaviors are acceptable (Bandura, 1973; Dodge, Pettit, Bates, and
498
Valente, 1995). Patterson’s (1982) coercion theory extends this idea by emphasizing the bidirec-
tionality of negative interactions between parents and children. A coercive cycle is characterized
by an escalating pattern of hostile exchanges between the reactive child and his or her parents. This
cycle impedes the child’s emotion regulation, which then provokes parents to respond with hostil-
ity (Dadds and Rhodes, 2008). Parents’ use of hostility during such exchanges reinforces disruptive
behaviors, which can lead children to use aggressive behavior outside the family context (Dishion
and Patterson, 2016; Pardini, 2011). The social information processing model also suggests that chil-
dren who often engage in harsh parent–child interactions tend to experience higher hostile attribu-
tion bias in ambiguous social situations, which, in turn, increases their aggressive (re)actions (Crick
and Dodge, 1994).
Attachment Theory
Attachment theory emphasizes the role of the parent–child relationship in forming children’s cog-
nitive and affective psychological schema through which they construct their social experiences,
known collectively as an internal working model (Bowlby, 1969). Internal working models are
believed to lay the groundwork for how children organize thoughts, feelings, and behaviors in their
relationships with others. The attachment relationship is also thought to function as the emotional
context for parents’ communication of rules and regulation of children’s aggression across childhood
and adolescence.
Infants differ in their sense of attachment security based on their caregiver’s responsiveness to
their needs. Sensitive and responsive caregivers foster a sense of security and comfort, which fosters
the development of competent self-regulation and sensitivity to others’ needs (e.g., sympathy; Hast-
ings, Miller, and Troxel, 2015). In contrast, caregivers who show low sensitivity and responsiveness
are likely to form insecure attachment relationships with their infant, which leads to a distrustful
internal working model, little motivation to comply with the caregiver’s requests, and poor emotion
regulation in the infant (Aguilar, Sroufe, Egeland, and Carlson, 2000). Children who are insecurely
attached to their caregivers tend to lack coherent solutions for resolving distress and thus resort to
aggressive strategies. Upon being reacquainted with their parents after a separation, for example,
children with disorganized attachment used punitive-controlling behavior to gain their attention
and involvement (Main and Cassidy, 1988), and such children have been rated as more aggressive in
middle childhood (Bureau and Moss, 2010). Attachment insecurity is a significant proximal risk for
developing aggression, as it may increase children’s tendency to approach social situations with anger
and mistrust (Dodge and Coie, 1987). A meta-analytic review found a robust negative link between
attachment security and childhood behavior problems among those up to 12 years of age (Fearon,
Bakermans-Kranenburg, van IJzendoorn, Lapsley, and Roisman, 2010).
A plethora of research has documented that both negative parenting behaviors and insecure
infant attachment are key factors contributing to aggressive behaviors in childhood and adolescence.
It is still unclear, however, whether attachment is an independent predictor of disruptive behavior,
because some parenting characteristics are likely to underlie both attachment insecurity and the
development of aggressive behaviors (Fearon et al., 2010). Some researchers have argued that the
continuous quality of parental care may be the driving force behind persistent effects of early attach-
ment security on later behavioral problems (Belsky and Fearon, 2002). Alternatively, attachment
security has been shown to moderate the effects of parenting behaviors on children’s aggression. For
example, children who experienced early coercive parenting were more likely to engage in later
behavioral problems, but only if they were insecurely attached to their caregivers (Boldt et al., 2017;
Kochanska, Barry, Stellern, and O’Bleness, 2009). It is likely that insecurely attached aggressive chil-
dren perceive negative parenting behaviors through the lens of their internal working model, which
is constructed based on their early attachment relationships (Bowlby, 1969).
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Social learning perspectives and attachment theory have helped delineate the social-cognitive
processes and emotional mechanisms underlying the link between dimensions of parenting and
children’s aggressive behavior. Researchers have also turned to understanding how specific parent-
ing practices contribute to aggression through various pathways and psychological processes. In the
following sections, we discuss the central research findings regarding the control and support dimen-
sions of general parenting quality, followed by specific parenting practices that are relevant to the
development and maintenance of aggression in childhood and adolescence.
Research Findings in Parenting and Child and Adolescent Aggression
Parenting Dimension: Control

Parental control can take form as a wide range of behaviors. It can vary in its degree (e.g., harsh versus
uninvolved), parent–child mutuality (e.g., power assertion versus induction), and target (e.g., psycho-
logical versus behavioral; Barber, 1996). Here, we examine parental control as it relates to children’s
aggressive behavior with an emphasis on degree of control and parent–child mutuality.
Harsh and Uninvolved Parenting

Harsh and overreactive parenting exacerbates children’s aggressive behavior. Parents who misman-
age their frustration toward their children by yelling, threatening, spanking, or criticizing (Reuben
et al., 2016) often increase anger and distress in children (Scaramella and Leve, 2004). In turn, these
children may become hyper-vigilant to threat cues and misinterpret others’ intentions as hostile
(Dodge et al., 1995). This pattern can lower their threshold for acting aggressively toward others.
For example, experiencing harsh maternal discipline at 17 months predicted children’s proactive
and reactive aggressive behaviors at age 6 independent of their negative emotionality (Vitaro, Barker,
Boivin, Brendgen, and Tremblay, 2006).
As a form of punitive parenting, corporal punishment has also been associated with increas-
ing aggressive behaviors (for a review, see Gershoff, 2002), even after controlling for initial levels
of aggression and its reciprocal effect on parenting (Maguire-Jack, Gromoske, and Berger, 2012).
Children can become excessively aroused if they chronically experience corporal punishment or
overreactive parenting, which interferes with their internalization of prosocial parental messages
(Gershoff, 2002). Similarly, as an extreme form of harsh parenting, physical abuse has been strongly
linked to increased risks for aggression and later antisocial behavior (for a narrative review, see Gil-
bert et al., 2009). A meta-analytic and conceptual review reported that both children and adolescents
show higher relational aggression when they experienced harsh parenting from mothers and fathers,
potentially through compromising their positive sense of self, attachment security, and emotion regu-
lation skills (Kawabata, Alink, Tseng, van IJzendoorn, and Crick, 2011).
Neglectful and uninvolved parenting styles have also been associated with the development of
aggression, as a lack of control provides insufficient guidelines for children to regulate their impulses.
In general, this association appears to be relatively small in magnitude, but tends to be larger among
children from economically disadvantaged families (Kawabata et al., 2011). Researchers have pro-
posed that parental monitoring reduces the negative impacts of neighborhood risks (e.g., violence,
residential instability, and limited social networks) on the development of aggression. For example,
among low-income families in impoverished neighborhoods, children who received low mater-
nal monitoring in toddlerhood were more likely to show higher externalizing problems at age 5
(Supplee, Unikel, and Shaw, 2007). Therefore, those interested in understanding the development
of aggression should consider parenting practices in the context of distal influences (e.g., neighbor-
hood risk).
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Discipline
Perhaps the component of parental control most central to children’s aggression is discipline. By the
time they are 2, children regularly receive discipline from their parents for harming others—by some
estimates, more than 10 times a day (Hoffman, 2000; Parens, 1979). Parents are particularly equipped to
impact their children’s moral internalization because of their biosocial connection, existing relationship,
and opportunities to monitor their social behaviors (Kuczynski and Grusec, 1997; Pratt et al., 2017).
There are three primary approaches to parental discipline: (1) power assertion, (2) love with-
drawal, and (3) induction. Power assertion typically involves threatening or using force or depriving
children of possessions or privileges (Hoffman and Saltzstein, 1967). Although power assertion typi-
cally enables parents to quickly change children’s immediate behavior, its frequent use appears to
hinder children’s moral development (Brody and Shaffer, 1982; Janssen, Janssens, and Gerris, 1992). Its
reliance on power and force may (1) build resentment toward those in positions of power, (2) prompt
children to act with force when they want to change another’s behavior, and (3) foster a moral
orientation centered on external detection and punishment (Eisenberg and Valiente, 2002). Power
assertion is most commonly used with boys and in families that are large or low in social status (Ball,
Smetana, Sturge-Apple, Suor, and Skibo, 2017; Chen, Wu, Chen, Wang, and Cen, 2001).
Love withdrawal involves removing attention or emotional support from children. This may be
expressed directly—for example, by showing children dislike—or indirectly—for instance, by show-
ing children less affection.When parents use power assertion, children tend to feel anger and fear over
punishment; when parents use love withdrawal, children tend to feel anxiety over their relationship
with their parents (Hoffman, 1983). Historically, most theorists believed love withdrawal was unas-
sociated with moral development.
Induction involves showing children their behavior was wrong by prompting children to recog-
nize how their actions caused another’s distress. By underscoring others’ distress, induction arouses
children’s empathy; by connecting one’s actions to the victim’s distress, it arouses children’s feelings of
responsibility and by extension, complex negative emotions, such as guilt. Children’s negative feelings
can reduce aggressive behavior as they may prompt children to consider the consequences of acting
aggressively in future social conflicts.Through this reflection, children may arouse anticipatory moral
emotions, motivating them to refrain from aggressing (Malti and Krettenauer, 2013).
In most cases, studies have found positive relationships between parental power assertion and chil-
dren’s antisocial and aggressive behavior. Most studies show that parents who use power assertion have
children who show more antisocial and aggressive behavior (Chen et al., 2001; Kochanska, Brock,
and Boldt, 2016). By comparison, there are very few studies examining love withdrawal: parents’ use
of this technique seems unrelated to many aspects of their children’s moral development (Krevans
and Gibbs, 1996; Patrick and Gibbs, 2012), although it may elicit more relational aggression (Casas
et al., 2006). Overall, parents who use induction seem to have children who behave less aggressively
and antisocially (Choe, Olson, and Sameroff, 2013; Kerr, Lopez, Olson, and Sameroff, 2004). These
relations are, however, moderated by variables including parents’ and children’s characteristics (e.g.,
gender and temperament), socioeconomic status, and the situation eliciting the discipline encounter
(Kochanska et al., 2016; Towe-Goodman and Teti, 2008).
These inconsistent effects have been accounted for by two primary explanations. The first sug-
gests that the optimal disciplinary approach may involve a blend of techniques. For instance, because
parental inductions require children to feel sufficient pressure to attend to their parents’ message
(Hoffman, 2000), some degree of power assertion may be necessary to compel children to attend.
Moreover, the success of any given approach may depend on timing. For instance, in highly arous-
ing situations, it may be preferable for parents to use inductions well after children have transgressed,
when both parents and children are calm.This notion may explain why parents use more command-
ing than reasoning when children are highly emotional and distracted (Chapman, 1979).
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A second explanation shifts focus from parents toward children. It argues that the effect of discipline
depends on (1) the degree to which children accurately perceive their parents’ messages and (2) how
willing children are to comply with those messages (Grusec and Goodnow, 1994). First, children
more accurately interpret parental messages that are developmentally appropriate, clear, frequent,
and consistent (Grusec, 2002).These qualities help children understand and keep salient how parents
wish to change their behavior. Second, children are more likely to comply with parental messages
that are—among other characteristics—reasonable, motivating, and non-threatening (to children’s
self-esteem and relationships with their parents).Thus, the ostensible link between parents’ use of dis-
ciplinary strategies and children’s moral development may result from children being more percep-
tive and receptive to messages from one disciplinary style (e.g., induction) over another (e.g., power
assertion). In support of this notion, across cultures, children tend to prefer inductive discipline, with
many children believing that other strategies, such as love withdrawal, harm their self-worth (Helwig,
To, Wang, Liu, and Yang, 2014; Siegal and Cowen, 1984). Furthermore, individual differences in how
well children interpret and internalize messages from each disciplinary approach may explain some
inconsistencies between these approaches and moral outcomes.
To date, many studies have measured disciplinary techniques in response to children’s global
behavior, not just their transgressions. This approach may muddy the link between these techniques
and aggression, as children regard parental control over issues involving aggression and fairness as
more justified compared to control over personal issues (e.g., with whom children can be friends,
what kind of clothes they wear). Furthermore, research examining all three disciplinary techniques
is scarce, and more studies ought to consider new approaches to testing optimal blends of discipline
techniques for reducing children’s aggressive behavior. Lastly, future studies should consider children’s
active roles in disciplinary encounters in conjunction with the characteristics of their parents and
the situations at hand.
Parenting Dimension: Support

As components of the support dimension, warmth and sensitivity have received substantial atten-
tion in the literature on parenting and children’s social-emotional outcomes (Eisenberg et al., 1998;
Gottman et al., 1996; Katz et al., 2012). Warm and sensitive parenting, which is at the core of secure
parent–infant attachment relationships, is believed to help children modulate arousal and internalize
skills for self-regulation (Chang, Olson, Sameroff, and Sexton, 2011). Such aspects of parenting are
especially fundamental during infancy and early childhood as children transition from heavy reli-
ance on caregivers for external regulation of arousal to more independent forms of self-regulation
(Brownell and Kopp, 2007). When toddlers and preschoolers experience lower levels of responsive
parenting, they display more disruptive behaviors (Kochanska and Kim, 2013); when they experience
sensitive caregiving, they exhibit more self-regulation and less externalizing problems across child-
hood and adolescence (Bernier, Carlson, and Whipple, 2010; Haltigan, Roisman, and Fraley, 2013).
Besides promoting abilities to modulate arousal, warm and responsive parents can prevent or
alleviate children’s disruptive behaviors through several other processes. According to attachment
theory, a warm and sensitive relationship with the caregiver enhances children’s willingness to com-
ply with the parents’ requests and fosters a prosocial schema of emotional connectedness with oth-
ers (Eisenberg et al., 1998; Kochanska and Murray, 2000; Laible and Thompson, 2002). From the
social learning perspective, parents can also model competent negotiation and conflict-resolution
skills through supportive parenting behaviors, helping children manage interpersonal problems with-
out relying on aggressive or noncompliant strategies (Stormshak, Bierman, McMahon, and Lengua,
2000). Also, children who experienced more supportive parenting at age 6 were, 1 year later, less
likely to judge hypothetical moral transgressors as deserving punishment, suggesting that positive
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parenting behaviors contribute to more mature moral development in children (Malti, Eisenberg,
Kim, and Buchmann, 2013), which can reduce aggression (Eisner and Malti, 2015).
Specific Parenting Practices and Aggression

In addition to the general parenting domains of control and support, the literature focuses on specific
parenting practices for emotion socialization (Johnson et al., 2017). Emotion socialization is defined
as a process by which parents or other socializing agents (e.g., peers) transfer skills and knowledge
for regulating and expressing emotional arousal in socially acceptable ways (Eisenberg et al., 1998). It
is important to understand the role of emotion socialization given that emotional deficits are at the
core of childhood externalizing problems, including aggression. Such deficits arise when poor regu-
lation is combined with extremes of arousal (i.e., underarousal and overarousal), which are tempera-
mentally based as well as shaped by early parenting (Morris, Silk, Steinberg, Myers, and Robinson,
2007; Rothbart, Sheese, Rueda, and Posner, 2011). Thus, specific parenting behaviors influencing
children’s emotional experiences, such as reactions to children’s emotions and emotional coaching,
play important roles in the progression of childhood aggression (Johnson et al., 2017).
Reactions to Children’s Negative Emotions

Parental reactions to children’s negative emotional arousal provide children with information about
how they should manage emotions in distressing situations. The socialization of negative emotion
is particularly relevant because anger sits at the core of aggressive behavior (Cole, Teti, and Zahn-
Waxler, 2003). Indeed, a review of maternal reactions to children’s negative emotions and conduct
problems found that parents who display unsupportive responses (e.g., punitive, minimizing, and
dismissing) were more likely to have children with conduct problems compared to parents who
show supportive responses (e.g., emotion-focused reactions, problem-focused reactions, and expres-
sive encouragement; Johnson et al., 2017). This result aligns with well-established literature suggest-
ing that supportive reactions to children’s distress are conducive to their emotion regulation and
effortful control (Davidov and Grusec, 2006), whereas unsupportive reactions are related to increased
negative emotion expression and dysregulated arousal (Eisenberg, Fabes, and Murphy, 1996; Fabes,
Leonard, Kupanoff, and Martin, 2001). Therefore, the link between unsupportive parental reactions
and children’s aggression is likely mediated by children’s capacity for regulating negative emotions.
Emotion Discussion and Coaching

Parents can teach children about emotions indirectly, through their reactions to children’s expressed
emotions, or directly, by discussing emotional experiences and coaching children how to cope with
negative emotions. The discussion of negative emotions has been found to involve frequent refer-
ences to the causes of emotions and others’ perspectives (Lagattuta and Wellman, 2002; Laible, 2011),
which can help reduce aggressive behaviors. Indeed, preschoolers who discuss emotions with their
mothers show less physical aggression (Garner, Dunsmore, and Southam-Gerrow, 2008); likewise,
preschoolers who show competent perspective-taking abilities show lower hostile attribution bias
(Choe, Lane, Grabell, and Olson, 2013).
Emotion coaching, which is guided by parents’ own meta-emotion philosophy (i.e., awareness
of emotions, beliefs about emotional expression), also affects how parents resolve conflicts and build
intimacy with their children (Gottman, Katz, and Hooven, 1996). For this reason, social learning-
based programs have introduced emotion coaching for parents as a way to help them discuss emo-
tions with their children more effectively (Gottman et al., 1996).
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Parenting and Aggression From Childhood to Adolescence

Parenting practices that have been identified as maladaptive in childhood (e.g., harsh discipline,
corporal punishment, low warmth, and lack of supervision) are similarly related to aggression in
late childhood and adolescence (Fearon et al., 2010; Kawabata et al., 2011). In longitudinal studies
of boys, poor parental supervision and low involvement were related to higher conduct problems
in both childhood and adolescence (Burke, Pardini, and Loeber, 2008), and adolescents’ perceptions
of greater parental nurturance predicted a decrease in aggression between 10 and 15 years (Arim,
Dahinten, Marshall, and Shapka, 2011). A noticeable developmental shift is that parental influences
on children gradually diminish through adolescence, whereas children’s influences on parenting
behavior simultaneously increase. This shift in flow of effects may result from children’s cognitive
maturation and influences from other socializing agents (e.g., peers; Collins and Laursen, 2004; Kerr,
Stattin, and Özdemir, 2012). For example, adolescents’ physical and relational aggression were both
positively related to their perceptions of mothers’ psychologically controlling parenting 2 years later,
but not vice versa (Albrecht, Galambos, and Jansson, 2007). In a study with a clinic-referred sample
of adolescents using repeated measures from 7 to 12 years of age, boys’ conduct problems influenced
poor parental supervision more strongly than parental supervision impacted boys’ conduct problems
(Burke et al., 2008). Some researchers also suspect that parents’ negative (e.g., harsh) discipline may
be more susceptible to changes in adolescent conduct problems (as opposed to their positive parent-
ing [e.g., warmth]), and thus warmth may have a steadier effect on adolescent behavior (Arim et al.,
2011). The transition from childhood to adolescence (i.e., around 10–12 years) may be a particularly
important period for exploring the role of parenting on aggression.
Bidirectional Interactions Between Parent and Child

Although characteristics such as warmth, sensitivity, and power assertion have been useful for describ-
ing individual differences in parenting behaviors, growing evidence supports the reciprocal nature of
parent–child dyads. From a more interactive perspective, both children and parents contribute to the
quality of their interactions as one party reacts to the other’s characteristics and vice versa (Kuczynski,
Parkin, and Pitman, 2015; Sameroff, 2010). In such dialectical interactions, parents and children act
on their own interpretations of the situation. Accordingly, parents often parent their aggressive child
using a range of approaches, engaging in dynamic problem solving in response to their constantly
developing children.
Supporting empirical findings show that maternal ratings of children’s behavior problems in
preschool and kindergarten positively predict punitive and hostile (i.e., physical) forms of maternal
discipline at school entry, which are associated with increases in children’s behavior problems (Choe,
Olson, and Sameroff, 2013; Snyder, Cramer, Afrank, and Patterson, 2005). Also, children who display
a more irritable temperament at fifth grade elicit higher levels of inconsistent discipline from their
parents 1 year later (Lengua and Kovacs, 2005). Another study using latent growth models found that
higher initial levels of children’s aggression at age 10 were associated with longitudinal increases and
decreases in parental overreactivity and warmth, respectively, and vice versa (De Haan, Prinzie, and
Deković, 2012). Collectively, these studies support the bidirectionality of parent–child interactions
across childhood, which is often overlooked in research and intervention practices.
Child-Level Characteristics as a Moderating Mechanism

Parenting does not operate in isolation, but in conjunction with child characteristics (Bates and
Pettit, 2015). In this section, we outline major child-level characteristics that are likely to influence
the extent to which parenting strategies combat children’s aggression.
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Temperament
One mechanism that inherently factors into parenting and childhood aggression is individual chil-
dren’s predispositions. Children neither interpret, experience, nor react to a similar parenting envi-
ronment in the same way. Instead, child characteristics amplify, dampen, or modify the influence of
parenting approaches on aggressive behavior. For example, among those with low effortful control
early on, children did not show high externalizing problems at school entry if they experienced early
maternal warmth (Reuben et al., 2016). Meanwhile, children with difficult temperaments showed
a steeper decrease in externalizing problems from age 2 to 5 if their mothers were highly sensitive
(Mesman et al., 2009). These findings suggest that children with higher temperamental risks may
benefit more from the protective effects of positive parenting. At the same time, emotionally reactive
and overaroused children tend to be more vulnerable to coercive parenting behavior due to dysregu-
lated emotional responses, which can lead to increased aggression (Scaramella and Leve, 2004). For
instance, children show higher externalizing behavior at school entry only if they display moderate to
high levels of externalizing behavior and receive negative parenting in their preschool years (Combs-
Ronto, Olson, Lukenheimer, and Sameroff, 2009). A meta-analysis on the moderating effects of
temperament (including children under 18 years) found that expected associations of both negative
and positive parenting with externalizing problems were stronger for children who have high levels
of negative emotionality (Slagt, Dubas, Deković, and van Aken, 2016). Also, temperamentally fear-
less boys who experience low positive parenting at age 2 are more likely to show moral emotional
deficiencies (i.e., callous-unemotional behavior, which is predictive of antisocial behavior; Frick, Ray,
Thornton, and Kahn, 2014) 2 years later (Waller, Shaw, and Hyde, 2017). Collectively, both affective
overarousal and underarousal can alter the nature of parenting effects on aggression.
Gene X Environment
An expanding body of research attempts to understand the moderating effects of genetic variants
on the link between parents’ behaviors and children’s aggressive behaviors (Caspi et al., 2002; Hyde,
2015). Because genetic variants are related to differential functioning of the neural systems underly-
ing motivational, emotional, and reward processes (e.g., dopaminergic and serotonin systems), they
can shape children’s susceptibility to parenting practices. For example, a meta-analytic review of the
moderating effect of monoamine oxidase-A (MAOA) variation on the link between childhood mal-
treatment and aggressive behavior in childhood and adolescence found that early adversity predicts
antisocial outcomes more strongly for boys with a low-activity MAOA genotype (Byrd and Manuck,
2014). Due to the small effect sizes of single genetic variants, however, a trend in this area of research
is to use polygenic risk or plasticity scores by combining information regarding multiple genetic
variants (Chabris, Lee, Cesarini, Benjamin, and Laibson, 2015). For example, 4- to 8-year-old boys
who have higher polygenic plasticity scores based on multiple dopaminergic genes show the greatest
reductions in externalizing behavior after a parenting intervention program (Chhangur et al., 2017).
Gender
Compared to girls, boys are reported to have a higher risk for conduct problems as early as age 4,
which has led some researchers to suspect that boys generally have a greater risk for maladjustment
during early childhood, given their higher rates of other difficulties, including language delays, learn-
ing disabilities, inattention, and impulsivity (Shaw, 2013). Alternatively, boys may be more vulnerable
to early negative parenting relative to girls, leading to more aggression. For example, among 5- to
10-year-olds, inconsistent discipline is only related to higher conduct problems for boys (Tung, Li,
and Lee, 2012). Such findings may be related to early gender differences in the development of
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adaptive social-emotional skills for stress regulation; boys tend to engage in confrontational aggres-
sive behavior when faced with social stressors, whereas girls are more likely to seek social support
to manage distress (Taylor et al., 2000). Some evidence suggests that boys display poorer effortful
control than girls in childhood (e.g., Else-Quest et al., 2006), which may limit their abilities to use
adaptive cognitive and emotional skills and thereby regulate their frustration during negative disci-
plinary encounters (Tung et al., 2012). It is difficult, however, to draw firm conclusions about such
gender differences due to limited empirical work on parenting and conduct problems focusing on
girls (De Haan et al., 2012).
Moral Emotions
Children’s capacity to feel other-oriented concern and/or express self-conscious emotions follow-
ing transgressions (e.g., guilt) may moderate the effects of parenting on aggression (Malti, 2016). For
example, 4- to 8-year-old boys with conduct problems combined with low empathy and guilt (assessed
using a measure of callous-unemotional [CU] characteristics) were less affected by a parent training
intervention on discipline than children with conduct problems alone (Hawes and Dadds, 2005). It may
be the case that children with moral emotional deficiencies are more malleable to parenting interven-
tions even earlier in development (Shaw, 2013). Also, because aggressive children who have low moral
emotions are less responsive to negative parental punishment, supportive parenting strategies may be
more effective (Frick et al., 2014).The affective quality of the parent–child relationship can be particu-
larly important for the internalization of parental and societal rules (Fowles and Kochanska, 2000) and
conduct problems (Schneider, Cavell, and Hughes, 2003) in children who are relatively underaroused
and indifferent to parents’ limit setting (Pasalich, Dadds, Hawes, and Brennan, 2011). Thus, fostering
warmth in parent–child relationships—by responding to them sensitively—may be the most promis-
ing target of interventions for reducing aggressive behaviors in children with low empathy and guilt.
Parenting as a Mediating Mechanism

Effects of contextual or other proximal factors on aggression are mediated by parenting quality. Here,
we focus on poverty, family adversity, and parental psychopathology as developmentally salient fac-
tors for children’s aggression and how their effects are mediated through parenting.
Low Socioeconomic Status

A family’s socioeconomic status (SES) can impact their children’s development directly—by the
kinds of opportunities children have—or indirectly—through the type of parenting that children
receive (Lareau, 2002; Magnuson and Duncan, 2002). Children from low SES families directly
encounter many environmental risk factors—such as community violence—and lack many protec-
tive factors—such as healthy peer relations—for behaving aggressively (Cooley-Quille, Boyd, Frantz,
and Walsh, 2001; Miller-Johnson et al., 2002). Indirectly, SES-related disadvantages compromise par-
ents’ psychological functioning and childrearing (for a review, see Shaw and Shelleby, 2014). Besides
financial hardships, families with low SES experience more violence, less calm and stable living
situations, and more parental incarceration (Duncan and Brooks-Gunn, 2000). Relatedly, parents
who face economic difficulties are more likely to experience mental illness, marital issues, and self-
medication with drugs or alcohol (Barnett, 2008; Bøe et al., 2014). The struggle of facing such chal-
lenges and meeting their family’s basic needs bleeds through into the practices of low SES parents;
they are usually less able to provide adequate warmth, consistency, and supervision for their children,
shortcomings which lead to more conduct problems for their children (Conger, Conger, and Martin,
2010; Shaw and Shelleby, 2014).
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Despite the multidimensional influence of SES on children’s aggressive behavior, parenting can
buffer this relationship. Parents with better emotional well-being and those who use more positive
parenting have children who show less aggressive behavior (Bøe et al., 2014). The influence of par-
enting, however, can only go so far; parents’ use of positive childrearing may have no influence on
childhood aggression under circumstances of high violence or extreme poverty (Kliewer et al., 2004;
Labella, Narayan, McCormick, Desjardins, and Masten, 2017).
In summary, low SES poses many challenges to parents and children—hurdles which often harm
parents’ childrearing and increases children’s aggression. Parents who maintain their emotional well-
being and use positive parenting practices can mitigate the effects of low SES; however, this appears
to hold true only for those facing less severe violence or poverty.
Family Adversity
Independent from dealing with poverty, parents who experience family conflict and distress can
increase early aggressive behavior in children through negative parenting practices (Averdijk, Malti,
Ribeaud, and Eisner, 2012; Shaw, Hyde, and Brennan, 2012). Family conflict and hostility between
parents can interfere with sensitive parenting and “spill over” to their relationships with children;
parents experience emotional distress from marital conflict, which can transfer anger and tension
to their parenting, thereby increasing children’s aggressive tendencies (Margolin, Christensen, and
John, 1996; Stover et al., 2012). Some studies also suggest that children and adolescents tend to be
highly sensitive to parental conflict itself, which directly increases risks for internalizing and aggres-
sive problem behaviors (Rhoades, 2008). Others consider harsh parenting, poor limit setting, and
less sensitive parenting as potential mediating mechanisms of the link between family conflict and
children’s aggression (Buehler and Gerard, 2002). That is, family risk factors can increase parental
life stress, lower parental efficacy, and negatively impact the quality of the parent–child relationship
(Davies, Sturge-Apple, Cicchetti, Manning, and Vonhold, 2012). Mothers who report high levels of
distress are observed as being more hostile, more intrusive, and less responsive toward their toddlers
in everyday interactions (Campbell et al., 2004). Moreover, they often rely on power assertive tech-
niques to handle disruptive behaviors (Gershoff, 2002; Rijlaarsdam et al., 2013).
Caregiver Psychopathology
Caregivers who suffer from psychopathology are at a risk for engaging in higher punitive or incon-
sistent discipline, more critical parenting, and poorer child monitoring (for a meta-analytic review, see
Lovejoy, Graczyk, O’Hare, and Neuman, 2000). For example, Davies and colleagues (2012) showed
that parental antisocial personality is a risk factor for toddlers’ aggression, both directly and indirectly
through interparental aggression and unresponsive parenting and while controlling for sociodemo-
graphic disadvantages. In addition, mothers who are depressed tend to display insensitive parenting
and build an insecure attachment relationship with their child (Elgar, McGrath,Waschbusch, Stewart,
and Curtis, 2004). Depressive mothers also use less inductive discipline and lower warmth, which
can hamper children’s self-regulatory capacities and other-oriented emotions that can protect against
the emergence and maintenance of aggressive behaviors (Choe et al., 2013; Hoffman, 2000; Malti,
Sette, and Dys, 2016).
Cultural Considerations for Parenting Aggressive Children

The sociocultural perspective conceptualizes the role of parental socialization as a mediator of the
links between culture and child development (Chen, Fu, and Zhao, 2015; Cole and Tan, 2015). Soci-
etal values are internalized by parents, reflected in their socialization beliefs, goals, and practices, and
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translated into children’s development. From early on in development, parents evaluate children’s
behaviors (e.g., social initiative, self-control) based on culturally defined social competences and
respond accordingly to regulate these behaviors to match societal expectations (Chen and French,
2008). In this section, we discuss between- and within-culture variations in values and parental
socialization and their links to children’s emotional and behavioral development related to aggression.
In examining cross-cultural differences and similarities, the individual–collectivism spectrum has
been used to describe the relationships between individuals and societies (Markus and Kitayama,
2001). Although individualism and collectivism coexist in every society, their balance differs across
cultures. More individualistic, self-oriented societies, including European and North American coun-
tries, emphasize autonomy and self-assertion. In these cultures, self-focused emotions, such as anger,
pride, and disgust, are more accepted by parents because they imply autonomous expressions of the
self, which provide emotion coaching opportunities for parents to gradually scaffold their regulation
(Friedlmeier, Corapci, and Cole, 2011). On the other hand, collectivistic, group-oriented societies,
such as East Asian countries, place greater value on controlling the self and maintaining close ties
with others, while less appreciating social initiative as it may interfere with interpersonal harmony
(Friedlmeier et al., 2011). Collectivistic parents also talk with their child about others’ emotions more
than the child’s own emotions and emphasize emotion display rules and interpersonal sensitivity while
promoting the expression of other-oriented emotions, such as sympathy, to foster interpersonal com-
petence (Chan, Bowes, and Wyver, 2009; Wang, 2006).
In cultures where expression of individual needs and desires are considered highly important,
aggressive behavior facilitating goal achievement might be more accepted than in cultures where
group dependency and harmony are emphasized. Indeed, a meta-analysis comparing levels of aggres-
sion across cultures found that individualistic cultures showed higher levels of aggression than col-
lectivistic cultures both in children and adults (Bergeron and Schneider, 2005). Nonetheless, some
evidence suggests that overall levels of violence tend to be higher in cultures where caregivers fre-
quently use physical discipline, which is often the case in collectivistic cultures (Lansford and Dodge,
2008).Thus, it may not be a simple main effect of individualism or physical discipline that determines
the level of aggression in children in a given culture, but rather a combination of multiple factors at
family and cultural levels affecting parental socialization goals and parent–child relationships.
Although parents want their children to become competent at emotional and behavioral control
regardless of culture, they have different beliefs about the optimal level of emotional control, which
is reflected in their reactions to children’s expressions of negative emotion and aggressive behavior.
Parents in individualistic cultures, such as European and American mothers, report disappointment
by their child’s aggression, whereas parents in collectivistic cultures, such as Chinese mothers, report
higher anger in response to such behavior (Cheah and Rubin, 2004; Friedlmeier et al., 2011). Simi-
larly, parents in highly group-oriented cultures tend to be less tolerant of their children’s aggressive
behaviors in a hypothetical conflict situation (e.g., hitting back when s/he was hit by a peer) and
more likely to intervene, whereas parents in more self-oriented cultures are more likely to allow or
ignore such acts (Hackett and Hackett, 1993).
Because of different societal values and socialization goals, aggressive children are regarded as
more disruptive and problematic in some types of cultures—namely collectivistic—and are thus
more often regulated by parents and teachers through harsh and controlling disciplines (Bergeron
and Schneider, 2005). Both parents and children from group-oriented cultures often perceive harsh
parenting as a legitimate parental assertion of authority. This is partly because such parents consider
promoting children’s remorse over violating social norms and empathy for others as moral duties
of their own (Gershoff et al., 2010; Wang, 2006). Thus, acknowledging differences in perceptions of
harsh parenting across cultures is important because whether such parenting is perceived by children
as normative or abusive can result in different consequences for children’s adjustment (Dwairy and
Achoui, 2010; Lansford et al., 2010). Parental warmth seems to be more consistently related to lower
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aggression in children of different cultures. A meta-analytic review of children’s perceived parental

warmth and psychological adjustment between the ages of 9 and 18 across 16 countries found that
children who perceived higher parental warmth showed lower hostility and aggression—without
significant cross-national heterogeneity (Khaleque, 2013). What seems universal, then, is that harsh
parenting in the absence of warmth is detrimental for children’s adjustment and linked to more
aggression (Cole and Tan, 2015; Lansford et al., 2010).
Besides cross-national cultural differences, there are within-nation cultural differences as a func-
tion of economic status and social class. For example, low-income parents exhibit more open disap-
proval of anger and harsher parental control to “toughen” their children or enforce compliance and
are motivated by the need to protect their children from neighborhood risks (Cole and Tan, 2015;
Hill and Herman-Stahl, 2002; Kelley, Power, and Wimbush, 1992). Therefore, the links between par-
enting practices and child and adolescent aggression need to be understood within as well as between
cultural contexts, while considering contextual influences on socialization goals and consequences to
move beyond simply listing cultural differences in parenting childhood aggression.
In summary, a society’s or subculture’s values influence family environments and interactions
among family members and thus contribute to children’s sociability and self-control, including their
aggressive behavior. At the same time, cultural norms and traditions affect the relations between par-
enting and child and adolescent aggression.
Practical and Methodological Considerations in Studying Parenting and

Child and Adolescent Aggression
Parenting Interventions
Several meta-analyses and reviews have been conducted on the efficacy and effectiveness of parent-
ing interventions for reducing children’s aggression and related conduct problems (Dretzke et al.,
2009; Gardner, Montgomery, and Knerr, 2016; Knerr, Gardner, and Cluver, 2013; Tarver, Daley,
Lockwood, and Sayal, 2014; van Aar, Leijten, Orobio de Castro, and Overbeek, 2017). Such interven-
tions are typically directed at parents and parent–child interactions, and focus on aspects of parenting
recognized as protective against childhood aggression, such as limit setting, positive discipline, and
warmth (Kaminski et al., 2008). As a successful example,The Incredible Years program aims to reduce
conduct problems in children, ranging from infants to school age, with group-based sessions that
focus on strengthening parent–child interactions, reducing harsh discipline, and fostering parents’
abilities to promote social, emotional, and language development (e.g., through emotion discussions
and inductive strategies; Webster-Stratton and Reid, 2010).
A meta-analysis of 57 randomly controlled trials showed sizeable decreases in aggression in favor
of parenting intervention groups (Dretzke et al., 2009). Brief and sometimes self-administered pro-
grams, which have become increasingly popular as traditional parenting interventions experience
low participation, high attrition, and rare implementation by non-psychologists, have yielded sig-
nificant reductions in parent-reported externalizing outcomes across eight studies (Tully and Hunt,
2016; for a meta-analysis of self-administered interventions, specifically, see Tarver et al., 2014).
Most parenting intervention studies examine children younger than 12 years of age (Dretzke et al.,
2009), likely because parenting programs are most effective up to and including middle childhood
(Ogden and Hagen, 2008). A few factors may explain this developmental sensitivity. First, younger
children may be more dependent on their parents, thus boosting the efficacy of parenting-focused
interventions in the younger years (Ogden and Hagen, 2008). Second, existing parenting programs
may be designed for younger children—either inadvertently or advertently—thus prompting the
need for explicit developmental tailoring (for a similar argument, see Malti, Chaparro, Zuffianò, and
Colasante, 2016). Most parents who take part in intervention studies are self-referred (Dretzke et al.,
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2009), so it is difficult to determine whether the results of such studies generalize to a broader range
of families. For example, parents who are unaware of their resources or unmotivated to seek help are
unlikely to enroll in intervention studies (for a review of parenting programs in low- and middle-
income countries, which are less common in comparison to high-income countries, see Knerr et al.,
2013). Nonetheless, some parenting programs are effective across cultures, suggesting that extensive
cultural adaptation may not be necessary for success (Gardner et al., 2016). As for real-world implica-
tions, it remains unclear whether intervention-related mean-level reductions in children’s external-
izing behavior reflect clinically meaningful outcomes (Dretzke et al., 2009). More studies are needed
to assess the relations between such behavioral changes and other indicators of well-being (e.g.,
academic functioning). In a similar vein, a meta-analysis of 40 randomly controlled trials revealed sus-
tained effects 3 years after parenting interventions (van Aar et al., 2017). However, despite significant
heterogeneity in post-intervention change (i.e., most interventions evidenced declines or stability in
child disruptive behavior over time, but others evidenced inclines), none of the tested moderators
(i.e., intervention characteristics) explained such differences.
The main (related) conclusions of the meta-analyses and systematic reviews conducted to date
have been the need to compare different parenting programs and to gain a better understanding
of mechanisms of change. In the Dretzke et al. (2009) analysis, heterogeneity across studies that
compared programs precluded meaningful conclusions regarding the relative efficacy of distinct
programs and/or aspects of their delivery. For similar reasons, Tully and Hunt (2016) were unable to
meta-analytically quantify the results of the brief interventions they reviewed to compare them with
longer interventions. Thus, it appears the rapid expansion of group-based parent-training programs
has preceded evidence for their relative efficacy.This issue should be investigated further because such
“light touch” interventions are more cost-effective, have more upside for adherence and scalability,
and can be offered as the first step of a tiered approach that provides more intensive interventions to
those who need it the most (Haaga, 2000).
With respect to understanding mechanisms of change, a component-focused meta-analysis found
that—after controlling for differences in research design—parenting intervention components
focused on helping children communicate emotions and helping parents maintain consistent disci-
pline were associated with larger effect sizes, whereas those based on problem solving and promoting
children’s cognitive, academic, and social skills tended to yield smaller effects (Kaminski et al., 2008).
Other studies have employed more complex statistical techniques to better understand the condi-
tions under which interventions are most likely to be effective. For example, Stoltz et al. (2013a) used
mediation, moderation, and moderated mediation analyses to explore how, for whom, and under
which circumstances an intervention (i.e., Stay Cool Kids; see Stoltz et al., 2013b) reduced children’s
aggression. The intervention was associated with less aggressive behavior through an increase in
maternal involvement, but this was only the case for children with less extreme scores on extraver-
sion (i.e., for whom the intervention worked under the abovementioned circumstances), presumably
because less extraverted children are more inclined to inhibit their behavior under proper instruction
from parents (Tackett, 2006).
Interventions like the ones discussed here could follow a number of avenues to improve their pro-
grams and evaluations. One such opportunity is to systematically test and compare individual inter-
vention strategies to broaden our understanding of the mechanisms through which these strategies
exert a desired influence. For instance, do programs helping children communicate their emotions
reduce aggression by improving children’s emotional awareness, expressive vocabulary, self-esteem, or
all three? Deepening this understanding will allow program developers to customize more systemati-
cally intervention programs based on children’s characteristics (also see Child-Level Characteristics as a
Moderating Mechanism in this chapter).
Although there has been an increasing call to tailor programs based on children’s developmental
level—and not simply their chronological age (see Malti et al., 2016)—less attention has been paid to
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tailoring based on parent and family characteristics. Parents of lower socioeconomic status are more
likely to use inconsistent or suboptimal discipline approaches (Hoff, Laursen, and Tardif, 2002). Fit-
ting intervention approaches to such parents’ characteristics and needs may improve their trust and
commitment to the program, thus reducing their children’s aggression.
Last, program evaluators ought to more rigorously consider the ecological validity of their sam-
ples. For instance, most parents who participate in intervention programs are self-referred (Dretzke
et al., 2009) and likely differ from their non-participating counterparts in terms of parental awareness
and involvement. For these samples, observed intervention effects may not translate to families facing
more severe community challenges, such as poverty, gang violence, and drug abuse. Essentially, those
families most in need of interventions might not benefit from them. For these reasons, interven-
tion scientists need to be especially creative in findings ways to recruit low SES families, perhaps by
embedding their programs into ongoing, widespread community practices (Shaw, 2013).
Methodological Considerations in Parenting Aggressive Children

Parenting research in general faces a number of pressing methodological issues. Here, we high-
light a few that we believe are most pertinent to research on parenting aggressive children. First,
sophisticated statistical techniques should be adopted on a larger scale. It is important for the field
to continue moving beyond unidirectional parent-to-child and child-to-parent effects and assess
the bidirectional complexities of parent–child interactions around aggressive outbursts (Kuczynski
et al., 2015). Children’s aggressive behavior and facets of parenting should be represented as latent
variables in longitudinal frameworks to assess their true reciprocal relations across time (reducing
measurement error; see Zuffianò, Colasante, Buchmann, and Malti, 2017). It may also be interesting
to consider triadic reciprocal effects between children and both parents (Gordon and Feldman, 2008).
Given the importance of consistent parenting for aggressive children (Grusec, 2002; Lovejoy et al.,
2000), such effects may be particularly impactful when parents have discrepant parenting styles or
are “first timers” and therefore have styles that are fluid or in formation; Don, Biehle, and Mickelson,
2013). Incorporating developmental theory and findings into the design of such studies is also neces-
sary to increase the likelihood of capturing age-graded processes when they are most likely to occur
(e.g., peaking physical aggression in early childhood [Tremblay et al., 2004] and heightened relational
aggression in early adolescence [Eisner and Malti, 2015]; also see Deković, Stoltz, Schuiringa, Man-
ders, and Asscher, 2012). A developmental approach could also help explain the relative susceptibility
of children’s aggressive behaviors to parenting across time and the likely flow or direction of effects
between parents and children in different developmental periods. Finally, the bounty of moderating
and mediating variables discussed in—and beyond—this chapter suggests that less direct analytic
approaches (e.g., ones assessing conditional indirect effects) are needed to capture the complex reality
of parenting childhood aggression.
Second, the design of parenting measures and interventions should be sensitive to cultural (and
socioeconomic) differences in parenting, including varying perceptions of children’s aggressive
behavior (see Tamis-LeMonda, Briggs, McClowry, and Snow, 2008). For example, the Parenting
Dimensions Inventory—developed with European-American parents—yielded psychometrically
sound subscales with both American and Japanese samples, although clusters of Japanese moth-
ers had dimensional profiles that could not be captured by Baumrind’s traditional parenting styles
(Power, Kobayashi-Winata, and Kelley, 1992). Similarly, while some parenting interventions have
shown promising effects across cultures (Gardner et al., 2016), the exact mechanisms of change—or
routes to success—underlying positive intervention effects may differ between cultures (also see
Cultural Considerations for Parenting Aggressive Children in this chapter). Understanding and account-
ing for these cultural nuances could enhance the cultural precision of interventions (Stewart and
Bond, 2002).
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Third, the relative dominance of self-reported questionnaire responses in parenting studies leaves
them susceptible to validity issues—and this may be amplified when it comes to reporting aggressive
(i.e., less socially desirable) behaviors. Observational methods address the recall-related limitations of
self-reports because parent–child interactions are recorded as they occur, which allows for the added
strength of real-time dyadic measurement (Kuczynski et al., 2015), but they are still susceptible to
desirability biases (Gardner, 2000). Ecological momentary assessments with electronic and web-
based technologies (e.g., smartphones and tablets) allow for real-time collection of audio, video, and
self-reported data in the comfort of participants’ natural environments, which enhances ecological
validity (Gordon and Feldman, 2008). Still, parents with the most aggressive children may be too
preoccupied and/or stressed to complete momentary assessments. Missing data should be carefully
scrutinized and addressed. It may also be beneficial for the self-reported components of such studies
to be designed with fewer items to report and/or less intensive reporting schedules (e.g., daily versus
hourly; see Colasante, Zuffianò, and Malti, 2016).
Future Directions in Parenting Aggressive Children

Much progress has been made in the study of parenting effects on aggression in children and ado-
lescents; nonetheless, several research areas warrant further exploration. A first question is how dif-
ferential parenting styles and parent–child interactions contribute to the emergence of aggression,
including its intensity during different developmental periods (e.g., early childhood versus mid-
adolescence), distinct trajectories of overt aggression and its various subtypes (e.g., highly stable ver-
sus decreasing or low stable), and over extended periods (i.e., long-term outcomes).
A second question is how social-emotional processes at multiple levels of analysis (i.e., including
physiology, subjective experience, and interactions) mediate the links between parenting and the
development of children’s aggressive behavior. Recent developmental psychophysiological research
is beginning to provide a richer picture of the physiological and affective foundations of childhood
aggression (Colasante and Malti, 2017). In addition, there is evidence that parenting styles affect chil-
dren’s and adolescents’ emotion regulation (Morris et al., 2007). Integrating these research efforts will
yield beneficial information regarding the mechanisms underlying the role of parent–child interac-
tions in shaping children’s aggression.
A third question concerns the role of children’s genetically based differences and how they affect
their experiences in the parent–child relationship.This genetic vulnerability becomes especially intrigu-
ing from the perspective of cross-context comparisons. It is already known that certain children are
more susceptible to experiences of destructive parenting (Belsky and Pluess, 2009), which affects later
aggressive behavior (Caspi et al., 2002). However, less is known about whether genetic moderation
effects in the relation between parenting and aggression differ across national contexts, and if so, why.
Ultimately, research on the moderators and mediators of the parenting-childhood aggression link
can help disentangle the risk and protective factors that parenting interventions should target when
trying to reduce aggression in childhood and adolescence. For example, risk factors in the family
and wider social contexts—such as poverty, criminal neighborhoods, and lacking economic and
social resources—negatively affect parents’ caregiving. By identifying such central risk and protective
factors, intervention strategies and techniques can be tailored accordingly and may more effectively
enable parents to respond to their children with the control and support necessary to promote
healthy behavioral development.
Last, future research on the transportability of rigorous parenting interventions across different
contexts is warranted. To date, it is not clear if the same programs and strategies that have shown
evidence in one context are equally effective in different contexts. Because parental cultural beliefs,
cultural norms and practices, and potential program developer biases are factors that can be assumed
to influence program effectiveness, more research on transportability across countries and diverse
512
communities is necessary (Malti, Noam, Beelmann, and Sommer, 2016; Sundell, Beelmann, Hasson,
and von Thiele Schwarz, 2016). This research may involve tailoring to known risk and protective
factors in a specific context, as well as coherence between program content and program adminis-
tration, such as sensitivity to diverse family populations when promoting parenting skills (Kumpfer,
Magãlhaes, Xie, and Sheetal, 2016).
Conclusions
Aggressive behaviors in childhood and adolescence can have substantial and enduring negative effects
on children themselves, families, and society.Thus, it is widely acknowledged that a better understand-
ing of the risk and protective factors, including parenting and the wider family context, for child-
hood aggression is important. Over the last century, conceptions about how to rear children with
challenging behaviors have arguably changed. What has remained constant is that parenting children
with aggression is not an easy task. This chapter reviewed central theories and research on parenting
and aggression in childhood and adolescence and discussed issues in parenting intervention research.
Developmental research over the last half century has generated fundamental knowledge regarding
associations between parenting and aggressive behavior in childhood and adolescence. There is also
evidence for parental contributions to developmental trajectories of aggression. In addition, research
on psychological, social, and genetic processes that link parenting and aggression in childhood and
adolescence has been conducted. This research includes factors such as children’s social-cognitive
development, resources in the family environment, and genetic susceptibility to the effects of par-
enting. Taken together, these findings have contributed to the development of interventions that
aim to help caregivers reduce and prevent aggression and related behavior problems in children and
adolescents. Future research linking parenting and trajectories of aggression, as well as exploring
mechanisms that potentially underlie these associations, will generate more in-depth information on
how and why parenting affects children’s and adolescents’ aggression. This research will be benefi-
cially integrated with efforts to enhance parenting and the quality of parent–child relationships. This
can help intervention research further utilize evidence regarding how differences in parenting and
children’s experiences matter for intervention efficacy. Ultimately, this agendum will generate more
knowledge regarding when, how, and for whom particular intervention strategies and practices work.
Acknowledgments
We thank Anisha Aery, University of Toronto, for editorial assistance with the chapter.This work was
supported by a New Investigator Salary Award and Foundation Grant from the Canadian Institutes
of Health Research (CIHR) awarded to Tina Malti (Grant Number: FDN-148389), and funds from
the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC) to Tyler Colasante, and
the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC) to Sebastian Dys.
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16
PARENTING AND AUTISM
SPECTRUM DISORDER
James B. McCauley, Peter Mundy, and Marjorie Solomon
Introduction
Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is a complex neurodevelopmental disorder with variable expression
that is defined by the presence of social, communicative, and behavioral challenges. Individuals with
ASD exhibit repetitive behaviors or restricted interests and have enduring difficulties in communi-
cating and interacting with other people. These characteristics can create unique challenges for par-
ents and families of children with autism. For instance, children with ASD can be unusually reactive
to sensory stimulation or resistant to changes in preferred activities, either of which can disrupt the
typical schedule of daily activities. Parents’ adjustments to these behaviors can lead to increased daily
family stress and isolation due to hesitancy to participate in the typical range of social or community
activities outside the home (Schaaf, Toth-Cohen, Johnson, Outten, and Benevides, 2011).
Parents and siblings may also face difficulties developing a sense of relatedness with children with
ASD. A core symptom of ASD is an impairment of joint attention defined as a decreased tendency
to spontaneously share experience with others through eye contact and positive affect (Kasari, Sig-
man, Mundy, and Yirmiya, 1990; Mundy, Sigman, Ungerer, and Sherman, 1986). This symptom does
not appear to impact child-parent attachment (Capps, Sigman, and Mundy, 1994). However, greater
intensities of this symptom are associated with parent reports of a decreased sense of relatedness
and intersubjectivity with their children (Mundy, Sigman, and Kasari, 1994). Thus, the symptom
profiles associated with ASD can be expected to have unique effects on parents and families (Crid-
land, Jones, Magee, and Caputi, 2014; Karst and Van Hecke, 2012; Woodman, Smith, Greenberg, and
Mailick, 2015). Observations such as these raise the possibility of a significant role for family process
research in understanding factors that influence the course of development of children with autism
(Osborne, McHugh, Saunders, and Reed, 2008). Parents may also need assistance to best acclimate
to the complications of ASD to maintain optimal quality of life for their children and themselves
(A. H. Solomon and Chung, 2012). Despite the difficulties and unique parenting challenges, it is fair
to say that research on parenting and family process is not a prominent part of the contemporary
literature on ASD.
There are at least three reasons that parenting and family research has not been emphasized in
the contemporary literature. The modern history of research on autism began with a misinformed
hypothesis that suggested that parenting played a primary role in the etiology of autism (Bettelheim,
1967). Although evidence did not support this hypothesis (Rimland, 1964), the negative repercus-
sions of this erroneous idea had a chilling effect on better informed and more useful approaches to
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this important topic. Another reason for scant family research is that it became increasingly clear
after the 1970s that ASD has a biological neurodevelopmental etiology (Abrahams and Geschwind,
2008; Gliga, Jones, Bedford, Charman, and Johnson, 2014). The biological nature of ASD suggested
to many that research on family process is unlikely to be of significant impact if the prognosis of ASD
was driven by genetic factors. However, research on other conditions with biological neurodevel-
opmental etiologies belies that notion. A case in point, research on schizophrenia, has long indicated
that studies of family process research can inform understanding individual differences in prognosis
and treatment response (Pitschel-Walz, Leucht, Bäuml, Kissling, and Engel, 2001). Indeed, to some
significant extent the communication systems school of family therapy grew out of seminal research
on schizophrenia (Bateson, Jackson, Haley, and Weakland, 1956). Finally, the intellectual disability
and the social-cognitive deficits associated with ASD suggest that the importance of family process
research may only apply to a small subset of affected children. However, epidemiological research
now indicates that 68% of second grade children with ASD are verbally fluent and functioning in
the borderline to above-average range of intelligence (Christensen et al., 2016). Moreover, data have
begun to accumulate that family factors affect the outcome of children with ASD regardless of intel-
lectual disability or social cognitive status (Karst et al., 2015; Woodman et al., 2015).
To support the next generation of research on the role of parenting and family factors in research
on ASD, this chapter reviews the current understanding of the transactional relation between the
impact of symptoms of ASD on family and how family process can impact the child’s development.
To provide a theoretical foundation for this chapter, it is useful to consider two models of ASD
and development. The first is the moderator model of autism (Burnette et al., 2011; Mundy, 2016;
Mundy, Henderson, Inge, and Coman, 2007). The development of ASD is characterized by a wide
range of individual differences or heterogeneity of outcomes (Jeste and Geschwind, 2014).The mod-
erator model of autism assumes that heterogeneity is the interaction of multiple syndrome-specific,
largely biological etiological factors, with syndrome nonspecific environmental and biological factors
(see Figure 16.1). The syndrome-specific path of this model involves the interaction among mul-
tiple causal processes, which involve multiple major genetic determinants and variable expressivity
as well as penetrance of gene expression caused by largely unknown epigenetic gene-to-gene and
Ae1
ICP1
MP1 Ae2
MP2
Ausm
ICP2 Modifiers
Taxon MP3
Ae3
MP4
ICP3
Ae4
Figure 16.1 Heterogeneity in autism may arise from at least two sources: syndrome-specific initial causal
processes (ICPs) and non-syndrome-specific modifier processes (MPs).Varied constellations of genetic and neu-
rodevelopmental ICPs contribute to differences in ASD expression at different ages across the course of autism
in individuals. In addition, phenotypic variability in the expression of autism at any age (Ae1, Ae2, . . .) may
be caused by the interactions of the ICPs of autism with non-syndrome-specific MPs, such as variation in the
temperament dimensions of avoidance and approach tendencies associated with the behavioral inhibition and
activation systems respectively (Burnette et al., 2011)
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Parenting and Autism Spectrum Disorder
gene-to-environment interactions. The interactions of these biological factors alone gives rise to
some portion of the heterogeneity of ASD (Geschwind, 2011). Complicating matters, the moderator
model suggests that processes not specific to the biological etiology of ASD also have a significant
effect on the heterogeneity of ASD. For example, the symptoms of ASD may vary in interaction with
dimensions of temperament that are not necessarily specific to the syndrome (Burnette et al., 2011;
Schwartz et al., 2009).The literature reviewed in this chapter indicates that parenting and family fac-
tors may be considered another major non-etiological moderator of the course and outcome of ASD
across children (Osborne et al., 2008; Tunali and Power, 2002; Zaidman-Zait et al., 2014).
The second model that helps to organize information on ASD and development is derived from
transactional models of development (Sameroff and Mackenzie, 2003). Recognition of the transac-
tional or dynamic nature of causal processes in family interactions emphasizes some of the impor-
tance of advancing research on parenting and family factors on ASD. A model of the role of these
transactional processes is illustrated in Figure 16.2. The left side of this model depicts (1) the non-
recursive or reciprocal effects of the characteristics of a child with ASD and the level of parent stress
and coping and (2) their reciprocal causal paths with the child’s response to intervention during the
preschool, elementary school, or high school period of development. A non-exhaustive list of exam-
ples of research that inform the assumptions of this component of the model include (1) observa-
tions of the bidirectional nature of parenting stress and the behaviors problems of children with ASD
Child Characteriscs CHILD OUTCOMES

• Language/Cognion • Social-Communicaon
• Externalizer
• Adapve
• Internalizer
• Hypo/Hyper Responses
• Cognive
• Sleep • Stress & Comorbidity
• GI Health
Intervenon for
ASD
Diagnosis Ausm Spectrum
Disorder
Parent Stress & Coping Parent-Family Outcomes

• Stress • Family Funconing
• Internal Resources • Parent-Child Relaons
• External Resources • Parent Efficacy
• Coping • Parent Stress and
• Appraisal, Beliefs Mental health
• Efficacy
Figure 16.2 A rationale for more studies on parenting and family process in research on ASD is illustrated in
this model of causal pathways between parenting/family factors, intervention responses and effects, and child
outcomes. The left side of the model illustrates assumptions pertinent to early, preschool intervention parent-
ing stress and that child characteristics have reciprocal causal relations, which can both affect and be affected
by early intervention. However, with exceptions (Keen et al., 2010), early intervention research rarely includes
the resources for the robust examination of these putative effects. The right side of the illustration reflects a
modification of the model proposed by Karst and Van Hecke (2012). The assumptions of this model explicitly
call for more precise measures of parenting and family functioning (e.g., coping) to be measured as outcomes of
intervention and moderators of intervention in school-aged children and youth with ASD. Studies illustrating
this approach to research on parenting and family function in ASD research are rare, but increasing (Blackledge
and Hayes, 2006; Karst et al., 2015; Solomon et al., 2008)
525
(Zaidman-Zait et al., 2014), (2) the negative impact of parent stress on early intervention for children
with ASD (Osborne et al., 2008), and (3) studies that suggest that intervention for parents can reduce
stress (Keen, Couzens, Muspratt, and Rodger, 2010).
The remaining causal paths illustrated in the model suggest that three factors interact in a reciprocal
fashion with longer-term outcomes of children with ASD. These include (1) child characteristics, (2)
parent and family stress, coping, and related outcomes, and (3) the interventions provided for children
with ASD. Examples of observations that suggest these presumptive reciprocal causal paths include
(1) a child-focused social-skills intervention can have significant effects on parent stress, efficacy, and
the executive functioning of families (Karst et al., 2015), (2) parental and family variables can moder-
ate treatment effects in 8- to 13-year-old children with ASD (de Veld et al., 2017), (3) parent–child
interaction therapy can have positive effects on adaptability of children with ASD aged 5–12 years as
well as on parent perceptions of children and parent positive affect (M. Solomon, Ono, Timmer, and
Goodlin-Jones, 2008), and (4) treatments that impact parents’ appraisal and beliefs about parenting
children with ASD may facilitate family coping (Blackledge and Hayes, 2006;Tunali and Power, 2002).
The model depicted in Figure 16.2 is only a conceptual starting place for the discussion of current
and future directions of parent/family studies in research on ASD, as the current literature is neither
sufficiently comprehensive nor rigorous. Nevertheless, the expansion of research on family processes
holds the promise of improving lifespan support and outcomes for individuals with autism.
As a final introductory note, the changes in the diagnosis and measurement of autism make it
difficult to summarize with clarity a literature that is still emerging. The diagnostic requirements
and measurement for autism have steadily changed throughout the last few decades to reflect a
refined distinction from other disorders with clear genetic components and improved classification
of behavior. A major shift within autism research occurred in the early 1980s, as the term infantile
autism was acknowledged for the first time in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders
(DSM) and was officially distinguished from childhood schizophrenia (American Psychiatric Asso-
ciation [APA], 1980). By the late 1980s, the term infantile autism was replaced with autism disorder,
and a checklist of criteria was developed to standardize the diagnosis (APA, 1987). The most recent
change with the DSM-5 eliminated a distinction between Asperger’s disorder and autism spectrum
disorder, while also allowing clinicians and researchers to declare comorbidity between ASD and
attention deficit hyperactivity disorder to be identified (APA, 2013). The diagnosis of ASD is com-
monly assessed with a standardized interview with a clinician with the use of the second edition
of the Autism Diagnostic Observation Schedule(ADOS-2; Lord, Rutter, DiLavore, Risi, Gotham and
Bishop, 2012). The ADOS-2 relies on clinician observations of restricted and repetitive behaviors
and of social affect, for which the interview is modulated to account for varying levels of language
and cognitive abilities. Researchers and clinicians will also use structured interviews with parents,
such as the Autism Diagnostic Interview-Revised (ADI-R; Rutter, Le Couteur, and Lord, 2003),
and use parent questionnaires, such as the Social Communication Questionnaire (Rutter, Bailey, and
Lord, 2003), to corroborate diagnoses of ASD. Each of these measurement tools have strengths and
weaknesses, and there is little consensus on best practices outside of recommendations for a multiple
method approach (Ozonoff, Goodlin-Jones, and Solomon, 2005).
To better understand the status of parenting/family research, this chapter is topically organized as
follows. We begin with a brief review of the history of the misinformed hypothesis about the role of
family process in the etiology of autism.This component of the review recognizes that family process
does not play a fundamental in the etiology of autism. Nevertheless, around the world the need to
continue to work toward decreasing processes that stigmatize some families of children with autism
remains. The second section of the chapter follows with an overview of the many factors that are
associated with stress in the families and lives of parents rearing children with ASD. A discussion of
the variables related to the coping and resilience in the face of stress follows with notations to the
emerging cross-cultural literature on coping. The third section of the chapter examines studies of
526
the processes of parenting and family interactions with respect to the development of children with
autism. Here, research on transactions of parenting and family processes and autism interventions are
considered. This section also focuses on the shifting nature of parenting across the preschool, school-
age, and adult periods of development of the family member with ASD.
Historical Views on Parenting Children With Autism

Over the past seven decades, perceptions about the nature and etiology of autism have shifted
between the current model of autism as caused by biological processes, perhaps in interaction with
environmental factors, and the notion that the latter are the singular cause of autism (Strathearn,
2009). In this section of the chapter, we discuss an initial model of autism that proposed that family
process caused autism.
This initial conceptualization of the role of family processes in autism was problematic.Without the
advantage of evidenced-based science, psychodynamic theory led to a misconstrual of the role of par-
enting in the etiology of ASD. Kanner (1943) originally described what he called early infantile autism as
likely arising from innate biological processes, as many of the symptoms were pervasive from an early
age. However, the psychodynamic perspective (the zeitgeist perspective in psychology at the time) was
not aligned with a biological perspective on psychiatric conditions. A major pillar of psychodynamic
theory was that the experiences a child has in the early years with caregivers was foremost among fac-
tors that gave rise to individual differences in psychological and behavioral differences in development
(Frank, 1965; Cohler and Paul, 2019). Moreover, Kanner (1949) was tasked by his contemporaries
with clearly differentiating ASD from “organic” disorders such as Heller’s disease, schizophrenia, and
aphasia. As a result, Kanner adopted elements of the psychodynamic approach and suggested that some
personality characteristics of the parents, such as a lack of warmth displayed by mothers and fathers or
their mechanical approach to parenting, may be responsible for characteristics of ASD:
They lacked the warmth which the babies needed. The children did not seem to fit into
their established scheme of living. The mothers felt duty-bound to carry out to the letter
the rules and regulations which they were given by their obstetricians and pediatricians.
They were anxious to do a good job, and this meant mechanized service of the kind which
is rendered by an over conscientious gasoline station attendant.
(Kanner, 1949, p. 425)
To his credit, Kanner (1949) recognized inconsistencies in this hypothesis, for example by stating
that it was not clear “why some of these parents have been able to rear children who did not with-
draw” (p. 426). Nevertheless, many psychiatrists began to emphasize that a lack of parental engage-
ment was the source of autistic behavior in children. Kanner himself remained more equivocal about
the role of parenting (see Rimland, 1964). In The Empty Fortress, Bettelheim (1967) suggested the
extreme and very unfortunate comparison between the type of care that led to ASD and his and
others’ experiences as victims in the Dachau concentration camp:
I believe the initial cause of withdrawal is rather the child’s correct interpretation of the
negative emotions with which the most significant figures in his life approach him. This in
turn, evokes rage in the child until he begins—as even mature persons do—to interpret the
world in the image of his anger. All of us do that occasionally, and all children do it more
than occasionally.The tragedy of children fated to become autistic is that such a view of the
world happens to be correct for their world; and this is at so early an age that they lack any
other, more benign experience to counterbalance it.
(Bettelheim, 1967, p. 66)
527
Commonly referred to as the “refrigerator mother theory,” the conception of parents of chil-
dren with autism as aloof or uncaring was subsequently adopted by the medical community. Many
psychiatrists and medical professionals considered autism to be an entirely functional and reversible
condition caused by psychologically absent mothering, and supported the need for children with
severe autistic behaviors to receive active and intrusive treatment focusing on physical stimulation
in structured environments (Bettelheim, 1974; Goldfarb, 1961; Kaufman, Rosenblum, Heims, and
Willer, 1957; Kysar, 1968; Ward, 1970).
The psychodynamic view of ASD had many untoward effects on research and clinical practice for
ASD. Not the least of these was that the refrigerator mother theory led to scapegoating parents (Kysar,
1968; Schopler, 1971). However, by the mid-1960s data from empirical group comparison studies of
parent behaviors and attitudes did not support this characterization of parents of children with ASD.
Frank (1965) pointed out that variations of the parenting etiology hypothesis had been applied to
many types of atypical development including schizophrenia, but that 40 years of research failed to
provide compelling evidence for the assumption that parenting is a causal factor of symptom presenta-
tion. More directly, a comparison between family factors of parents of young children with autism or
with dysphasia (a language disorder characterized by deficiencies in the production of speech) revealed
no differences between groups in amount of family separation, problems of finance, parental mental
state, or interpersonal relationships (A. Cox, Rutter, Newman, and Bartak, 1975). Studies of parental
attitudes and childrearing practices also reported only minimal differences between parents of children
with autism, with typical development, and with other developmental conditions (Anthony, 1958;
Cantwell, Baker, and Rutter, 1978; Holroyd and McArthur, 1976; Pitfield and Oppenheim, 1964).
A third set of studies employing observational methods of family interactions also called into
question the narrative that autism was caused by poor parenting. Byassee and Murrell (1975) found
no differences between families of typically developing children and children with autism in interac-
tion patterns and agreements during a choice-making activity. Using parent interviews and home
observations, Cantwell, Baker, and Rutter (1979) found similar interaction patterns between families
of children with autism and families of children with dysphasia. These studies foreshadowed work
in the late 1980s and early 1990s that described very minor differences in attachment behaviors
between dyads affected by autism or other clinical and developmental disorders (Rogers, Ozonoff,
and Maslin-Cole, 1991; Shapiro, Sherman, Calamari, and Koch, 1987; Sigman and Mundy, 1989; Sig-
man and Ungerer, 1984).
The psychodynamic view had the initial dominant voice in describing the etiology of autism,
but researchers eventually returned to the hypothesis that ASD was the result of atypical biological
developmental processes that affected sensory and perceptual systems (Anthony, 1958; Ornitz and
Ritvo, 1968; Rimland, 1964; Rutter, 1968). A new neurodevelopmental model of autism took hold as
the prevailing etiologic model by the late 1970s (Cohen, Caparulo, and Shaywitz, 1978; Damasio and
Maurer, 1978). Today, researchers recognize that the etiology of autism is complex with genetic and
prenatal environmental factors affecting the development of the brain at different stages, leading to
the development of the heterogeneous behavioral phenotypes of individuals with autism (Belmonte
et al., 2004; Lyall, Schmidt, and Hertz-Picciotto, 2014).
During the shift of focus toward more rigorous clinical research, parents began to voice their
perspectives. Park (1967) described how she reared and taught her daughter within this historical
context and how she challenged the medical establishment’s conclusions about autism. Her book
empowered parents to question psychodynamic interpretations of autism and to form advocacy net-
works. Between early 1990 and 2006, parents formed foundations with clinicians and researchers that
helped to fund vast amounts of research at academic institutions. Foundations such as the National
Alliance for Autism Research, Cure Autism Now, and Autism Speaks raised public awareness of
autism and lobbied Congress to leverage funding from private donations with increased public
spending for advancing autism science and parent resources.
528
In the 1940s when autism was first recognized, psychological (e.g., operant learning theory)
and psychiatric models of development (psychodynamic theory) primarily emphasized the role of
responses to environmental factors in shaping human development. It is perhaps not surprising then
that a misleading model of family process causation in autism held sway for the first 3 decades of the
discovery of the nature of autism. At this point in the science of ASD, though, it is important to dis-
tinguish between claims that parent behaviors cause autism behavior and claims that parent behaviors
may influence the course, expression, or prognosis of autism in children. The former claim has never
been empirically supported, but the latter is less controversial. Nonetheless, a complete understand-
ing of how families can moderate the course or expression of autism is not yet at hand. Of course, it
is also important that to recognize that the effects of autism on a child’s development can moderate
the course of family functions and functioning. Consequently, it is not surprising that a sizable por-
tion of the contemporary literature on parenting and family process in research on ASD has focused
on family stress and resilience.
Parent and Family Stress, Resilience, and Coping With Autism

There are substantial but varying levels and sources of stress for families and parents with children
with autism. Viewing the family as a system allows researchers to probe how the behaviors of one
member of the family can reorganize the dynamics of the whole system (M. J. Cox and Paley, 1997;
Kerig, 2019). Several researchers have called for the adoption of a family systems perspective for
framing investigations of autism and parenting (Bristol, 1985; Cridland et al., 2014). How families
adapt to the challenges associated with children with autism can create a wide variance in both fam-
ily functioning and child behavior. For example, a child with increasing tendencies toward aggression
can exacerbate parenting stress and marital conflict as negative interactions in the family become
more frequent. Another family in a similar situation may rely on spousal support for coping, leading
to increased closeness in their relationship.
The family systems perspective provides a dynamic view of children’s development as affected
by interactions or transactions between parents on children and children on parents. The gradual
recognition and adoption of this perspective has led to recognition of the importance of studying
the reciprocal effects of stress in families of children with ASD. For example, if left unchecked, fam-
ily/parent stress can moderate and even reduce effects of behavioral improvement for some children
with autism in early intervention (Osborne et al., 2008). Conversely, parent-implemented interven-
tions that bolster a sense of parenting efficacy can lead to reductions in perceived stress in parents
(Keen et al., 2010). Thus, researchers have begun to recognize the need to better understand levels
of stress and quality of family functioning because they may moderate intervention effectiveness
and important outcomes of intervention effectiveness for children with ASD (Karst and Van Hecke,
2012).The dynamic and transaction process of stress in families with children with ASD often begins
with the diagnostic process.
Impact of the Diagnosis

Families encounter emotional and institutional barriers when seeking or accepting a diagnosis for
their child. Receiving a diagnosis of ASD can be an especially arduous process. Whereas some child-
hood disabilities feature distinct physiological indicators present at birth or in the postpartum period,
the behavioral concerns present in autism are variable, and many are not apparent until toddlerhood
or later. Researchers have demonstrated efficacy and stability in the diagnosis of ASD in 24-month-
old children and can reliably observe behaviors characteristic of ASD as early as 12 months in
infant siblings of children with ASD, who are a high-risk sample (A. Cox et al., 1999; Ozonoff
et al., 2010). However, parents often need resources and persistence when discussing concerns with
529
their pediatricians to attain an early diagnosis. Parents from higher socioeconomic or educational
backgrounds bring concerns to their doctors at an earlier age (Moh and Magiati, 2012), and more
ethnically diverse families receive diagnoses much later (Daniels and Mandell, 2014). Many parents
with children eventually diagnosed with autism voice their concerns about their child to their
pediatricians within the child’s first 2 years (De Giacomo and Fombonne, 1998), and their concerns
are informative for later diagnoses (Ozonoff et al., 2009). Yet, parents’ reports of their concerns
about their children’s development may not initially be acted on by medical professionals (Caronna,
Augustyn, and Zuckerman, 2007; Howlin and Moore, 1997; Ozonoff et al., 2010; Zuckerman, Lindly,
and Sinche, 2015). This delay is problematic because a lost opportunity for early identification can
delay the types of earlier intervention that can have tremendous effects on development in multiple
domains (Estes et al., 2009; Reichow, 2012).
Parents often report that the diagnostic process could be easier and less complicated (Osborne and
Reed, 2008). Autism spectrum disorders are difficult for clinicians to diagnose due to heterogeneity
and severity of behaviors. For some parents, receiving a diagnosis can be a source of relief, as it offers
a causal explanation for their concerns (Midence and O’Niell, 1999). For others, the ambiguity of
their child’s symptoms can lead to stressful encounters with pediatricians or uncertainty of how to
proceed. Parents of children with higher levels of symptoms report lower stress during the diagnostic
process than parents of children with fewer symptoms (Siklos and Kerns, 2007). Parents and clinicians
may more easily observe problems when children are more severely affected by autism, but parents
may experience barriers attaining an acceptable diagnosis for a more verbally or cognitively skilled
child.
Alongside some of these institutional barriers, the diagnostic process comes with emotional bur-
dens that are tied to parents’ identity, expectations, and newfound fears. The reception of a diagnosis
can mirror emotional processes accompanying grief, including shock, denial, guilt, adaptation, and
acceptance (Blacher, 1984; Seligman and Darling, 1989). According to the ambiguous loss framework,
the diagnosis of autism confers emotional challenges associated with expectations and caregiver
identity (Boss, 2007; Boss and Greenberg, 1984). Parents report having to adjust their expectations of
their child’s future functioning to be more realistic (Luther, Canham, and Cureton, 2005). In addi-
tion, parents must come to the realization that their role as caregiver is likely to be more involved
and challenging throughout their child’s development (O’Brien, 2007). Most parents of children
with autism are resolved to the diagnosis or have come to accept the new status of their child and of
their role and expectations (Poslawsky, Naber,Van Daalen, and Van Engeland, 2014). However, parents
who do not employ this type of cognitive reappraisal can face significant challenges coping with par-
enting tasks and developing positive relationships with their child (Marvin and Pianta, 1996). They
demonstrate less sensitivity during interactions with their children (Feniger-Schaal and Oppenheim,
2013). In addition, parents expressed reluctance to pursue a diagnosis to maintain their perspective
that their child is “normal” (Russell and Norwich, 2012). The need for social support from spouses,
family members, and support groups is highest immediately after receiving a diagnosis to help resolve
feelings (Seligman and Darling, 1989).
Rearing a child with a diagnosis of a lifelong disorder is considered an ambiguous loss for parents
(Boss, 2007). Ambiguous loss, defined as a loss without closure or certainty, is one example of psy-
chological stress endured by parents of children with disabilities, including parents of children with
ASD. Parents lose expectations for their children to approach normative milestones at the same time
as other same-aged children and can feel emotional distress on the realization of lifelong caregiving
responsibilities. Parents of children with autism and other disabilities can invest many of their own
resources into their children, at times at the cost of their own care. Constant caregiving can cause
dissolution of self-identity separate from their child in a process which has been dubbed “identity
ambiguity” (Boss and Greenberg, 1984). The process by which the boundaries of a parent’s iden-
tity dissolve is likely enhanced due to caregiving demands that occur in multiple contexts. In the
530
household, parents face a variety of challenges associated with routines, which can have profound
impacts on parent stress and efficacy (Dabrowska and Pisula, 2010; Karst and Van Hecke, 2012) and
on the quality of the marital relationship (Hartley, Papp, Blumenstock, Floyd, and Goetz, 2016;
Hock, Timm, and Ramisch, 2012). In the school and broader community, parents must be consistent
advocates for additional services for their child (Ryan and Cole, 2009) and must address stigma by
reframing the negative or unusual perceptions of others into positive presentations of their children
(Gray, 2002; Rocque, 2010). Processes such as ambiguous loss and identity ambiguity help researchers
identify cognitive mediators between individual characteristics and family processes. For example,
O’Brien (2007) found that high levels of identity ambiguity predict increased levels of depressive
symptoms and perceptions of child-related stress.
Stigma
Although the causal role of parenting in the etiology of autism has been widely rebuked, families of
children with autism continue to report feeling stigmatized, scrutinized, and blamed for their child’s
behavior by both community members and extended family members (Gray, 2002; Hinshaw, 2005;
Neely-Barnes, Hall, Roberts, and Graff, 2011). The science says that complex biological processes,
rather than parenting, cause autism; however, the specifics of the biological causes remain ambiguous.
This ambiguity can be an additional source of stress because it is human nature to strive to under-
stand the causes (meaning) of traumatic events (C. G. Davis, Nolen-Hoeksema, and Larson, 1998).
Self-blame and guilt can arise in parents of children with autism if they view their child’s condition as
caused by their past choices or behaviors (Dale, Jahoda, and Knott, 2006).These feelings of guilt may
be associated with negative parent ratings of self-efficacy (Kuhn and Carter, 2006), which in turn
promotes parental fatigue (Giallo, Wood, Jellett, and Porter, 2013), depression, and anxiety (Hastings
and Brown, 2002).
Cross-cultural research in China, Iran, Pakistan, India, and Korea has also captured how parents
can be stigmatized and blamed for their child with autism and how cultural barriers impede a family
from receiving appropriate care (Dehnavi, Malekpour, Faramarz, and Talebi, 2011; McCabe, 2007;
Minhas et al., 2015). In China, families of children formally diagnosed with autism can be confronted
by public schools that refuse to admit the children (McCabe, 2007; K Tait, Mundia, and Fung, 2014).
Chinese parents report making personal sacrifices to provide education to their children and feeling
the need to hide or reject the diagnosis of their child due to embarrassment and shame (McCabe,
2007; Kathleen Tait, Fung, Hu, Sweller, and Wang, 2016). To combat this perceived stigma, a parent-
to-parent group was found to boost acceptance and emotional support among parents of children
with autism in China (McCabe, 2008).
Parents have a pivotal role in de-stigmatizing and reframing autism to others. Many parents report
becoming advocates and activists for autism (Ryan and Cole, 2009) and express positive beliefs about
their child’s abilities to others (Russell and Norwich, 2012).There is general acceptance of the medi-
cal etiology of autism in parents, but some have rejected clinical or societal attempts to “normalize”
autism and instead urge others to respect the cognitive differences among children (Langan, 2011).
How these different approaches and attitudes toward stigma and autism affect parent mental health,
parent interactions with their child, and parent tendency to seek intervention for their children is
currently unknown.
Economic Impact
Financial stress is a prominent source of disruption in positive family processes (Conger, Conger,
and Martin, 2010), and parenting a child with autism is associated with enduring financial costs.
These include insurance premiums and copays for treatments and services, prescription medicine,
531
lost employment time and opportunities for both parents and children with autism, residential and
respite care, and voluntary interventions and treatments (Ganz, 2007). Children with autism often
have greater numbers of hospital visits and can pay higher amounts in health care related fees (Croen,
Najjar, Ray, Lotspeich, and Bernal, 2006). Depending on local laws, some costs can be offset by gov-
ernment assistance. In U.S. dollars (using year of publication exchange rates), the annual per capita
costs to support individuals on the spectrum are estimated to be over $17,000 in the United States
(Lavelle et al., 2014), close to $40,000 in the United Kingdom (Knapp, Romeo, and Beecham, 2009),
and over $65,000 in Sweden (Järbrink, 2007). When therapy is not covered by insurance or govern-
ment programs, families can end up forfeiting retirement benefits or declaring bankruptcy to afford
therapy for their child (Sharpe and Baker, 2007).
Lost employment time and opportunities affect both parents, but mothers of children with autism
report significant adversity in attaining and maintaining work. D. L. Baker and Drapela (2010) found
that mothers of children with autism report not taking employment opportunities, working fewer
hours, taking absences, or being reprimanded at work for time missed to care for their child. One
study estimated the costs associated with lost or interrupted employment to be $18,720 annually for
caregivers of children with autism and $1,896 annually for caregivers of adults in the United States
(Buescher, Cidav, Knapp, and Mandell, 2014). Parents also invest time and resources in caregiving
activities and interventions that draw them away from their careers.
Impact on Marital Satisfaction

Spousal interactions and support are important moderators of many parent outcomes. The specific
stressors involved with rearing a child on the autism spectrum can create opportunities for strain and
growth in couple relationships. In terms of mean level differences, couples with a child with autism
have overall decreased marital satisfaction (Benson and Kersh, 2011; Bristol, 1987) and higher rates of
divorce than do parents of typically developing children (Hartley et al., 2010). However, the extent of
marital problems may be overestimated or more contextually nuanced, as in a nationally representa-
tive sample showing that children with autism have no increased risk for living with parents who
are separated or divorced (Freedman, Kalb, Zablotsky, and Stuart, 2012). Limited qualitative evidence
suggests that challenges associated with parenting a child with autism help some couples become
more intimate and committed to each other (Hock et al., 2012).
The spousal relationship can have considerable effects on the functioning of families of children with
autism. Decreased marital satisfaction in families of children with autism can negatively impact percep-
tions of parenting efficacy (Benson and Kersh, 2011) and exacerbate parenting stress and internalizing
symptoms (Bristol, 1987; Lickenbrock, Ekas, and Whitman, 2011; Weitlauf,Vehorn, Taylor, and Warren,
2014). Spousal support is central to a family member’s ability to cope, and the effectiveness of how
spouses provide this support may moderate how having a child with autism impacts the relationship. For
example, higher levels of perceived social and emotional support are associated with greater relationship
satisfaction for couples with a child with autism (Ekas,Timmons, Pruitt, Ghilain, and Alessandri, 2015).
On a daily level, rearing a child with autism can be associated with multiple difficulties that
require couples to communicate and solve problems together effectively, such as during a child’s
presentation of problem behaviors. Hartley et al. (2016) examined diaries of parents of children with
autism over 2 weeks for problem-solving interactions. They found that couples most frequently
engaged in problem-solving interactions about their child with autism compared to other topics.
However, couple interactions that were associated with higher levels of distress were not primarily
due to child behaviors, but rather surrounding topics that all parents find distressing, such as commu-
nication, commitment, and habits. This evidence suggests that having a child with autism might not
be the origin of a couple’s distressing interactions, but could create more opportunities for distressing
interactions to occur, thus exacerbating the existing problems between partners.
532
Parenting Stress and Effects on Child Behavior

Parenting stress is broadly conceptualized as stress that arises out of the daily demands associated
with parenting (Deater-Deckard, 1998). Researchers consistently find that mothers and fathers of
children with autism can harbor more parenting stress than parents of typically developing chil-
dren and parents of children with other developmental delays, such as Down syndrome (Bristol
and Schopler, 1983; Dumas, Wolf, Fisman, and Culligan, 1991; Estes et al., 2009; Hayes and Watson,
2013; Koegel et al., 1992; J. L. Sanders and Morgan, 1997; Wolf, Noh, Fisman, and Speechley, 1989).
Some have suggested that the specific behavioral profile associated with autism provokes greater
amounts of parenting stress in these families (Seltzer, Abbeduto, Krauss, Greenberg, and Swe, 2004),
and autism symptoms are associated with increased ratings of parenting stress (Bebko, Konstantareas,
and Springer, 1987; Hastings and Johnson, 2001; Szatmari, Archer, Fisman, and Streiner, 1994). Spe-
cifically, delays in social responsiveness and social communication appear to be the symptoms with
the strongest relations to ratings of parenting stress for both mothers and fathers (N. O. Davis and
Carter, 2008; Kasari and Sigman, 1997).
Parents often find social interactions with their children inherently rewarding, and if their chil-
dren do not give feedback in terms of laughing, smiling, or calming down after they are upset, this
could cause parents to feel they have a lack of control in or a lack of reward from parenting tasks
and consequently feel more stressed. However, specific problem behaviors outside of the core fea-
tures of autism—such as aggression, self-injury, and conduct problems—also have strong relations
to increased parenting stress (Beck, Hastings, Daley, and Stevenson, 2004; Blacher and McIntyre,
2006; N. L. Freeman, Perry, and Factor, 1991; Konstantareas and Homatidis, 1989). When describing
parenting stress as an outcome, researchers need to continue distinguishing between core features of
autism, such as social communication deficits, and problem behaviors to specify whether the phe-
nomenon affects all families with children with autism, as targeted treatments for aggression differ
from treatments for social responsiveness.
Researchers have started to address two major limitations in the current parenting stress literature.
First, much of the data examining parenting stress and child behavior is cross-sectional, making it
difficult to determine the direction of the associations or whether the associations are bidirectional.
Lecavalier, Leone, and Wiltz (2006) found evidence for bidirectional associations between conduct
problems, such as defiant or aggressive behaviors, and parenting stress over a 1-year period. Second,
different measurement tools and conceptualizations of parenting stress have been used in the litera-
ture. Much of the literature on parenting stress in families with children with autism uses the short
version of the Parenting Stress Index (PSI-SF; Abidin, 1995). The PSI-SF includes subscales for (1)
child behaviors, reflecting perceptions of temperamental characteristics and compliance, (2) parent
distress, reflecting perceptions of competence, social support, and restrictions on other life roles, and
(3) dysfunctional interactions, reflecting perceptions about interactions with children.These subscales
comprise the PSI-SF total score, but studies have used this measure differently when assessing parent-
ing stress. For example, some studies have used the total score of the PSI when making claims about
parenting stress, whereas others only use the parent distress subscale. Using the total score could be
troublesome when examining whether child behaviors relate to parenting stress as both measures
include information about child characteristics. Specifying stress caused from parenting tasks allows
for more refined analyses on the mechanisms involved.
Overcoming both limitations, Zaidman-Zait et al. (2014) used longitudinal data and latent factors
of the PSI-SF to investigate the temporal associations between parenting stress and child behaviors.
Noting concerns about the psychometric properties of the PSI-SF in parents of children with autism
(Zaidman-Zait et al., 2010), a factor analysis was used on PSI-SF responses and five latent factors
emerged, but the team focused on two factors derived from the parent subscale to model relations to
child externalizing behavior. The first factor, general distress, included items that described stress as a
533
product of a parent’s individual characteristics, such as isolation. The second factor, parenting distress,
included items that described stress specifically derived from parenting tasks and feelings. Parental
general distress predicted later child externalizing behaviors, but child behavior did not predict later
general distress. In terms of stress specific to parenting, there was evidence of lagged relations in
which externalizing behaviors predicted stress, which then predicted more externalizing behaviors.
Parenting stress is thus a predictor and an outcome of child behavior problems, but more studies are
needed to examine how parenting stress changes parenting behaviors or interactions with children.
For example, parenting stress could lead to increased hostility in the parent–child interaction, which
could evoke more aggressive or self-injurious behaviors.
Stress and Mental Health of Parents

Sources of stress may vary, but negative consequences of stress may be substantial: Compared to the
general population, parents of children with autism have increased risks for developing depression
and anxiety (Benson, 2006; Bitsika and Sharpley, 2004; Estes et al., 2009; Hastings and Brown, 2002;
Montes and Halterman, 2007; Sharpley, Bitsika, and Efremidis, 1997; Wolf et al., 1989), experience
more physical health problems (Eisenhower, Baker, and Blacher, 2009; Giallo et al., 2013), and report
lower personal well-being (Blacher and McIntyre, 2006).
Researchers have examined the specific correlates of mental health problems in parents and find
inconsistent evidence on whether child characteristics are predictors of parent internalizing symp-
toms or well-being. There is some evidence that with increasing age and decreasing symptoms of the
child, the well-being of parents may improve (Barker et al., 2011). Yet other studies find no associa-
tion between age or autism severity and parenting stress (McStay, Trembath, and Dissanayake, 2014;
Peters-Scheffer, Didden, and Korzilius, 2012) or that spousal relationship quality and parenting stress are
stronger predictors of maternal depression than child behavior problems (Weitlauf et al., 2014). These
inconsistencies may be due to the reliance on cross-sectional data to explain age-related phenomena.
Longitudinal evidence suggests that maternal well-being improves, and distress decreases, with increased
age of the child, but that many mothers remain at elevated levels of distress (Lounds, Seltzer, Greenberg,
and Shattuck, 2007). In this study, the declines in behavioral problems, but not autism severity, were
related to decreasing anxiety and depressive symptoms for mothers.The improvement in maternal well-
being may be a product of decreased time spent managing disruptive or destructive behaviors.
There are important distinctions between mothers and fathers when looking at the relations
between child characteristics, parenting stress, and mental health. Father-child relationship quality
is more associated with child characteristics, such as symptom severity, than mother-child relation-
ship quality (Hartley, Barker, Seltzer, Greenberg, and Floyd, 2011). In addition, mothers experience
more anxiety and depressive symptoms but report more positive perceptions of their children than
do fathers (Hastings et al., 2005). These parent differences might reflect differences in the willing-
ness to empathize or accept children with autism between mothers and fathers or in the levels of
engagement with the daily activities associated with rearing a child with autism. After learning of a
diagnosis of autism, fathers can become less involved with the caregiving activities (Bristol, Gallagher,
and Schopler, 1988; Rodrigue, Morgan, and Geffken, 1992).Yet other evidence shows that, although
both mothers and fathers report similar amounts of parenting burden, mothers report feeling closer
to their child with autism (Hartley et al., 2011). For mothers, a sense of closeness and positive experi-
ences are related to decreased parenting stress (Kayfitz, Gragg, and Orr, 2010). Many fathers express
concerns about the struggle to remain as an engaged partner in rearing a child with autism, alongside
worries that they have limited time outside of work to become involved with treatments or consulta-
tions with professionals (Meadan, Stoner, and Angell, 2015). Family-oriented treatment approaches
need to consider the role of both spouses in training programs to help offset the increased burden on
mothers and the decreased positivity in fathers.
534
Parents of children with autism have genetic similarities to their children, which further obscure
reports of mental health problems. Parents of children with autism may have similar behavioral fea-
tures as their children, such as increased social anxiety, referred to as the broader autism phenotype
(Piven, Palmer, Jacobi, Childress, and Arndt, 1997). The broader autism phenotype is noteworthy
when considering how parenting stress relates to mental health problems. Parents of children with
autism may have the same genetic risks for developing depression and anxiety as their children or
may have reduced capabilities to access social support networks or coping skills (Ingersoll and Ham-
brick, 2011). Interventions at the family level that teach strategies for coping could confer mental
health benefits to both children and parents.
Coping and Resilience

Not surprisingly, the evident stress of caring for a child affected by ASD is common across nations
and cultures. Studies from India, China, and Taiwan (Divan,Vajaratkar, Desai, Strik-Lievers, and Patel,
2012; Lin, Orsmond, Coster, and Cohn, 2011; Wang, Michaels, and Day, 2011) report data on par-
enting stress that is comparable to the reports of parents in the United States, United Kingdom,
Australia, and Europe (Bayat, 2007; Higgins, Bailey, and Pearce, 2005; Kuhaneck, Burroughs, Wright,
Lemanczyk, and Darragh, 2010; Ruiz-Robledillo, De Andrés-García, Pérez-Blasco, González-Bono,
and Moya-Albiol, 2014). Importantly, beyond simply documenting the types and levels of parenting
stress, a literature has begun to accumulate on coping and individual differences in resilience across
caregivers of children with ASD (Table 16.1). An immediate goal of this research is to understand
the degree to which individual differences in coping and resilience affect child, parent, and family
outcomes. Longer-term goals of the research are to inform intervention development to (1) reduce
the negative effects of stress on parent physical and emotional health, (2) improve the quality of life
for all members of the family of child with ASD, and (3) potentiate the capacity of parents to be more
active and effective participants in treatment and advocacy for children with ASD.
The last goal may be especially important to the development of effective, comprehensive lifespan
approaches to intervention for ASD. Parents play a vital role in providing effective and comprehen-
sive intervention for their children with ASD across the lifespan (Green et al., 2017; Kasari et al.,
2014; Ruppert, Machalicek, Hansen, Raulston, and Frantz, 2016). However, little is known about
how individual differences in parenting stress and coping may affect parent’s implementation of
intervention for children and adults with ASD, or how and when parent participation in interven-
tion affects parent stress, coping, and resilience (Grindle, Kovshoff, Hastings, and Remington, 2009;
McConachie and Diggle, 2007; Ruppert et al., 2016).
Studies have examined the demographic characteristics of parents implementing interventions
and reported that, in U.S. studies, parent demographics may not be representative of the U.S. popula-
tion (Robertson, Sobeck,Wynkoop, and Schwartz, 2017), and those demographic characteristics may
be associated with differences in treatment adherence (Carr et al., 2016). However, few studies have
yet to systematically study parent coping and resilience as explicit outcomes, mediators, or modera-
tors of parent-implemented intervention for children with ASD (Karst and Van Hecke, 2012). This
may be an important gap in the current literature.
Parent attributions are central to coping and resilience (Table 16.1), and attributions can have
significant moderating effects on stress, motivation, effective problem solving, and effective parenting
(Azar, Reitz, and Goslin, 2008; Bugental and Corpuz, 2019; Dunn, Burbine, Bowers, and Tantleff-
Dunn, 2001; Dweck and Leggett, 1988; M. R. Sanders, Markie-Dadds, and Turner, 2003; Weiner,
2010). Consequently, in research protocols that enlist parents as interventionists, parent attributions
that affect coping may be an important target for intervention, and/or an important factor to con-
sider in terms of a measure of intervention response.
535
Table 16.1 Cross-cultural studies of coping in parents and families of children with ASD*
Study Method Nation Participants Primary Stress & Coping Methods
Kuhaneck et al., 2010 Focus Group, No Child Data UK 11 mothers Coping: Intentional stress relief (e.g., exercise, socializing); Planning ahead;
Sharing responsibilities; Gathering knowledge; See the child, not the
label; Gratitude for positives.
Divan et al., 2012 Interview, Child Data, Parent Data India 7 mothers Stress: Diagnosis shock & disbelief; Withdrawal from socializing; Neglect of
1 father family relations; Health & mental health problems.
2 couples Coping: External professional advice; Religious support; Traditional Indian
medicine; Sharing experience with others.
Tunali and Power, 2002 Interview, Standardized Measures, USA 29 Mothers Stress: Difficulty understanding child behavior.
Group Comparison, Parent Data, w/ASD child Coping: Place less emphasis on career success; More leisure time with
Child Data 29 Mothers family; Less emphasis on others’ opinions; More emphasis on spousal
w/TD child support; More tolerance of ambiguity.
Bayat, 2007 Three open-ended questions USA 167 Parents Stress: Meeting daily goals; Behavior problems; Financial effects of ASD
Child & Parent on the family, parents’ personal lives, and their child; Problems; Fights
Data with the system; Acceptance; Careers on hold; Worries about the future;
Depression vs. love & adjustment; Child has no friends.
Coping: Making meaning of adversity; Becoming more compassionate;
Spiritual & belief system; Affirmation of strength; Becoming an
advocate; Child as source of pride and honor.
Family Effect Ratings: 30% Negative, 28% Positive, 8% Neither, 34% Both.
Ratings of Effect on Parents: 21% Negative, 39% Positive, 6% Neither, 34%
Both.
Higgins et al. 2005 Family Australia 53 Parents Stress: Financial; Marital relationship; Withdrawal from socialization; Lack
Adaptability and Cohesion of understanding; Child behaviors ranked from least to most stressful
Evaluation Scales (FACES II), (repetitive behavior, withdrawal behavior, misbehavior in public,
Coping Health Inventory for aggression).
Patients (CHIP) Coping: Self-Esteem; Optimism; Spousal support; Marital happiness;
Child and Parent Data Family cohesion; Family adaptability.
Hastings et al. 2005 28 items UK 48 mothers Preschool Coping: Active avoidance; Planning/problem focused coping;
Brief Cope Inventory, Hospital 41 fathers Change of perspective & humor; Comfort in religion/dissociation.
Anxiety and Depression Scale, 26 mothers School Age Coping Active avoidance was associated with higher parent
Child & Parent Data 20 fathers ratings of anxiety, depression & stress. Change of perspective & humor
was associated with less evidence of depression.
Preschool Coping: Active avoidance; Planning/problem-focused coping;
Change of perspective & humor; Comfort in religion/dissociation.
School Age Coping: Active avoidance was associated with higher parent
ratings of anxiety, depression & stress. Change of perspective & humor
was associated with less evidence of depression.
Ruiz-Robledillo et al. General Health Questionnaire, Brief Spain 40 Mothers Coping-BRCS Items: I look for creative ways to alter difficult situations;
2014 Resilient Coping Scale (BRCS), 27 Fathers Regardless of what 67 Youth and happens to me I believe I can control
Medical Outcomes Study Social my young adults reactions; I believe I can grow in positive ways by
Support Survey, Stressful Life dealing with difficult situations; I actively look for ways to replace losses
Events General Form, Caregiver I encounter in life.
Burden Inventory, Barthel Index of Results: Parent self-ratings on BRSC, 31% higher resilience, 25% medium
dependence on Caregiver, Autism resilience, 44% lower resilience. Higher resilience associated with lower
Quotient. Child & Parent Data morning cortisol, better perceived physical and emotional health, and
more emotional and tangible social supports (see study for details about
mediators).
Wang et al. 2011 COPE Scale, Questionnaire on China Parents (93%) Stress: Caregivers of children with ASD reported
Resources and Stress (QRS) (PRC) Grand Parents reported more stress from parent & family problems and child
ASD = 137 characteristics on the QRS
IDD = 135 than did parents of children with IDD.
DD = 52 Coping: Parents of children with ASD were less likely to use denial and
Physical = 44 behavioral disengagement, and more likely to use planning than parents
of children with IDD.
Lin et al. 2011 Family Adaptation & Cohesion Taiwan 76 Mothers Coping: Full COPE scales; Problem focused (planning, positive
Scales (FACES II), Center USA 325 Mothers reinterpretation, of competing activities); Emotion focused (denial,
for Epidemiological Studies venting emotions, mental and behavioral disengagement).
Depression scale, Profile of Mood Results: Cultural/national differences were for problem- and emotion-
States Anxiety Subscale, Autism focused coping as well as family adaptation and cohesion. In addition
Behavior Checklist, Antonucci to cultural factors, problem-focused coping was positively related to
Convoy Model of Social Support, family functioning and emotional coping was negative related to family
COPE Scale, Child & Parent Data functions.
(Continued)
Table 16.1 (Continued)
Study Method Nation Participants Primary Stress & Coping Methods

Abbeduto et al. 2004 COPE Scale, Positive Affect Scale, USA 235 Mothers Coping: Problem Focused: Active coping; Planning; Suppression of
Depression Scale, Pessimism Scale, ASD = 174 competing activities; Positive reinterpretation; Growth. Emotion Focused:
Child and Parent Data Fragile X = 22 Denial; Behavioral disengagement; Mental disengagement.
DS = 39 Results: ASD mothers reported more pessimism and depression than DS
(Down syndrome) mothers; ASD mothers reported less reciprocated perceived closeness
than fragile X and DS mothers. Parent report of problem-focused
coping positively related to parent report of mother-child relationship
quality (including reciprocated closeness) and negatively related to
pessimism and depression. Emotion-focused coping displays the opposite
pattern of associations.
Sivberg 2002 Two measures of meaningfulness & Sweden Parents Coping: Confrontation; Distancing; Self-control social support; Accept
purpose in life, Family ASD = 66 responsibility; Escape; Problem solving; Reappraisal.
Relations Scale, Ways of Coping Control = 66 Results: The groups were significantly different on most of the meaning
Questionnaire of life, family relations, and coping measures. There was little evidence
Child & Parent Data associations between differences in coping and measures of family
relations and meaningful/purpose of life. However, later dimensions
were associated.
Montes and Halterman Parenting Stress Index, Interview USA Parents Mothers of children with ASD reported more stress and more frequently
2017 Questions: Parent—Child ASD = 364 reported fair to poor mental health. Mothers of ASD were more likely
Relations, Coping with Con = 61408 to report close relationship and better coping with parenting after
Parenting, Parent Support, Family adjusting for reports of child’s social skills and demographic variables.
Communication & Violence, Child ASD was not associated with lower social support for parenting, how
Prosocial Skills, Parent Data serious family disagreements were handled, or household violence.
Smith et al. 2008 COPE scale, Depression Scale, USA Mothers Coping: See Abbeduto et al. 2004.
Profile of Mood States, Scales of ASD Toddlers Results: Lower levels of emotion focused coping was associated with
Psychological Well Being N = 151 better maternal well-being, regardless of child symptoms. Coping style
ASD Teens moderated the impact of adolescent symptoms.
N = 201
* Table does not provide an exhaustive annotation of studies of coping in parents of children with ASD.
The range of individual differences that parents express with regard to the impact of caring for a
child with ASD and coping with stress is illustrated in the results of two studies. Bayat (2007) inter-
viewed 167 parents of children with ASD and found nearly equal proportions of parents reporting
negative, positive, or both types of effects on their family or themselves as a parent (see Table 16.1).
In terms of coping, Ruiz-Robledillo et al. (2014) used the Brief Resilience Scale (B. W. Smith et al.,
2008) to assess coping in parents of youth and young adults with ASD (Table 16.1). Together, 31%
of the parents gave evidence of higher resilience/lower stress, 44% had higher stress/lower resilience,
and 25% fell in an intermediate group.
Coping in research on parents with children with ASD refers to a variety of cognitive and behav-
ioral strategies parents use to manage their stress (Table 16.1). Folkman and Lazarus (1980) differenti-
ated between problem-focused and emotion-focused styles of coping.These two styles of coping have
been measured in several studies of parents with ASD (Table 16.1) using measures such as the COPE
scale (Carver, Scheier, and Weintraub, 1989), which measures problem-focused (PF) and emotion-
focused (EF) coping with items rated on a 4-point scale from don’t do this at all to do this a lot. The PF
subscales include items for Reinterpretation and Growth (e.g., “I try to grow as a person as a result of
experience.”); Active Coping (e.g., “I’ve been concentrating my efforts on doing something about my
situation.”); Positive Reframing (e.g., “I’ve been trying to see things in a different more positive light.”);
Acceptance (e.g., “I’ve been learning to live with things.”); Planning (e.g., “I’ve been trying to come up
with a strategy about what to do.”); and Suppression of Competing Activities (e.g., “I focus on dealing
with this problem, and if necessary let other things slide a little.”). The EF subscales include items for
Behavior Disengagement (e.g., “I give up the attempt to get what I want.”); Mental Disengagement (e.g.,
“I daydream about things other than this.”); and Denial (“I say to myself ‘this isn’t real.’ ”).
Lin et al. (2011) used these scales to examine coping in mothers of children with ASD in Taiwan
and the United States. Mothers in Taiwan reported significantly greater frequency of use of prob-
lem- and emotion-focused coping than did mothers in the United States. Nevertheless, emotion-
focused coping was associated with reports for more negative family functioning by parents in both
countries. Other researchers have also reported evidence that emotion-focused coping is related to
increases in perceived stress and depression for parents of children with autism (Abbeduto et al., 2004;
Dabrowska and Pisula, 2010; Dunn et al., 2001; Hastings et al., 2005; Smith, Seltzer, Tager-Flusberg,
Greenberg, and Carter, 2008). Alternatively, problem-focused coping reportedly is associated with
beneficial effects for parents (Abbeduto et al., 2004; Dabrowska and Pisula, 2010; Dunn et al., 2001),
although at least one study reported inconsistent effects in this regard (Pottie and Ingram, 2008).
Parents of children with autism may use more avoidance and fewer problem-solving strategies than
do mothers of typically developing children (Sivberg, 2002). However, at least one study reported that
parents of children with ASD are more likely to use problem-focused and less likely to use emotion-
focused coping than do parents of children with intellectual and developmental disabilities (Wang
et al., 2011). Current data also suggest that coping may change with the age of children. L. E. Smith,
M. M. Seltzer, et al. (2008) reported longitudinal data that suggest that behavioral disengagement may
become a more common coping method for parents of adolescents relative to their coping with tod-
dlers. In another longitudinal study, Benson (2014) reported that parental reports of stress tended to
increase as children with ASD moved into adolescence, regardless of the coping style reported by par-
ents. However, parents engaging in cognitive reframing, especially of adolescents’ problematic behav-
iors, was related to a more positive sense of efficacy and to less distress. Parental reports of increased
use of disengagement were associated with their reports of a decreased positive sense of parenting.
This type of descriptive data is an essential starting point for research on the impact of parent
stress and coping on the outcomes of ASD. It remains to be seen, however, if intervention to support
coping and resilience in parents can contribute to a new multi-pronged approach to intervention
for ASD. Noteworthy first steps in that direction have begun to appear in the literature. Cogent
discussions of why family systems concepts of ambiguous loss, resilience, and traumatic growth are
539
important to research and intervention for autism have been published (Cridland et al., 2014; A. H.
Solomon and Chung, 2012). In addition, data on parent and family outcomes in child-focused inter-
ventions have begun to appear in the ASD treatment literature. Studies have reported positive effects
of training parents to implement intervention on parent mental health (Tonge et al., 2006), parent
perceptions and shared positive affect with their ASD children (M. Solomon et al., 2008), and the
effect of the Program for Education and Enrichment of Relational Skills (PEERS) on parent efficacy
and family functioning (Karst et al., 2015).
Another set of studies has explored intervention methods that specifically target parent coping and
resilience. A professionally administered parent-focused program to reduce parent stress and improve
parent self-efficacy after diagnosis with 2- to 4-year-olds was reported to be more effective than a
self-directed video-based intervention (Keen et al., 2010). Bekhet (2017) reported a feasibility study
of an online positive thinking intervention for caregivers of children with ASD. Some evidence of the
efficacy of Riding the Rapids, a group-delivered support intervention for parents of children with ASD
and other disabilities, has been reported in non-randomized controlled study (Stuttard et al., 2014).
Finally, Blackledge and Hayes (2006) argued for the applicability of Acceptance and Commit-
ment Therapy (ACT) to address stress and improve coping among parents of children with ASD.
ACT is a mindfulness-based cognitive behavioral therapy that emphasizes acceptance of unpleasant
emotions and thoughts while serving to clarify personally held values and goals to facilitate moving
toward those values and goals. A meta-analysis of 19 randomized control trials provided evidence for
the effects of ACT in the treatment of anxiety, depression, and chronic medical disabilities (Powers,
Vörding, and Emmelkamp, 2009). Blackledge and Hayes (2006) reported preliminary evidence for
the positive impact of a 2-day (14-hour) ACT workshop on stress and mental health in 20 caregiv-
ers that was retained 3 months after the workshop. One of the noteworthy characteristics of ACT is
that it appears to target key elements of positive focused coping that descriptive studies suggest are
related to better parent and family outcomes (Table 16.1). So this approach, along with others such
as Riding the Rapids and PEERS, has clear potential to address parent stress, coping, and resilience as
part of an intervention for ASD. However, much more research, including randomized control trials
of interventions, will be needed to more fully appraise this potential.
Summary
The increased risk for economic, marital, community, and mental health stress among parents with
ASD seems intuitive. Consequently, some may dismiss research on stress in parents of affected chil-
dren as simply descriptive studies of the obvious. However, to do so would be incorrect. Parents
play a vital if not the most central role in the intervention and optimization of the development of
children with autism. Their capacity to play this role pivots on their resiliency to the multivariate
nature of the stress of raising an affected child. Therefore, understanding stress and resiliency among
parents is a fundamental topic of intervention research for children with ASD. In this regard, we have
begun to understand that (1) there are significant individual differences among parents in their stress
resiliency, (2) resilient parents adopt a common set of cognitive, metacognitive, and social community
supports, and (3) this common set of resiliency processes is apparent across cultural, ethnic, and racial
groups of parents. Finally, the field has begun to recognize that the development of systematic inter-
ventions to increase resiliency among a greater proportion of parents may be a singularly important
ancillary to all treatments for children affected by ASD.
Parent–Child Interactive Process and Autism

Stress, coping, and resilience are important foci for research on parenting children with ASD. How-
ever, to understand parenting of children with ASD it is also necessary to understand how the
540
social-communication and cognitive characteristics of ASD may affect the dynamic process of car-
egiver-child interactions across the lifespan.
In early childhood, children diagnosed with autism have delays in the development of many
social and communicative skills when compared to typically developing children.These skills include
using eye contact (Sterling et al., 2008), imitating others (Rogers, Hepburn, Stackhouse, and Wehner,
2003), establishing joint attention (Mundy et al., 1986), developing receptive and expressive commu-
nication (Pickles, Anderson, and Lord, 2014; Tager-Flusberg, 1989), identifying emotions (Hobson,
Ouston, and Lee, 1988), forming and recalling autobiographical memories (Lind, 2010), develop-
ing emotion regulation (DeGangi, Breinbauer, Roosevelt, Porges, and Greenspan, 2000; Loveland,
2005), and theory of mind (Baron-Cohen, Leslie, and Frith, 1985). Children are learning and honing
these skills during their interactions with their parents, so they are inextricably tied to the context
of parent–child relationships (Thompson, 2006). Apart from studies of language development and
joint attention, few studies have examined the longitudinal associations between these problem areas
and family processes, such as with the quality of the parent–child relationship. In this section of the
chapter, we provide a review of research findings that contribute to our current understanding of
parent–child interactions in families of children with autism.
Attachment
Attachment theory describes how early relationships can have enduring effects on child develop-
ment. According to attachment theory, infants need to develop a sense of security (calming emo-
tional state) in the presence of at least one primary caregiver to learn how to regulate their emotions
in novel or challenging situations. Individual differences in the degree to which infants attain a sense
of a consistent, safe, and calming influence with a primary caregiver are thought to influence their
subsequent development of emotion regulation as well as expectations and perceptions of future
interactions with others (Ainsworth, Blehar, Waters, and Wall, 1978; Bowlby, 1973).
The psychodynamic view lent itself to the perception of autism as a disorder of attachment as that
construct emerged in the developmental literature of the 1970s. Coincidentally, clinical researchers in
the 1970s began to observe clear indications of separation distress, which is a sign of attachment, in
children with autism who were hospitalized for medical or behavioral treatments (Sigman, personal
communication). These preliminary observations motivated a sequence of studies using the Strange
Situation attachment paradigm (Ainsworth et al., 1978) to examine the response of children with
ASD to systematic separations and reunions with caregivers.
In assessments with the Strange Situation, young children with autism displayed more comfort-
seeking behaviors and physical contact after separations from their parents than from strangers (Capps
et al., 1994; Sigman and Mundy, 1989; Sigman and Ungerer, 1984). Moreover, these and other studies
(Rogers et al., 1991) indicated children with children with autism did not differ from children with
other developmental disorders in terms of behavioral evidence of secure or insecure attachment clas-
sifications. Sufficient subsequent studies enabled meta-analytic methods to reveal a more nuanced
picture of attachment in ASD. Rutgers, Bakermans-Kranenburg, van IJzendoorn, and Berckelaer-
Onnes (2004) reported that, across 16 studies, children with ASD displayed more evidence of inse-
cure attachment, such as lack of response to their caregiver’s departure and/or avoidance on return
or were less easily consoled on reunion with parents, or inconsistent disorganized responses to sepa-
ration and reunion. However, this effect was moderated by IQ such that more evidence of insecure
attachment was evident in children with ASD and intellectual disabilities, but not evident in children
without intellectual disability (Rutgers et al., 2004). Higher rates of insecure attachment had been
observed in children with intellectual disability but without ASD in previous research (B. E.Vaughn
et al., 1994). This combination of findings suggested that evidence of atypical attachment in ASD
might be more a consequence of comorbid intellectual disability than ASD per se.
541
Similar research has indicated that attachment security in children with ASD is moderated by
the intensity of social symptoms (Rutgers et al., 2004; van IJzendoorn et al., 2007) and that some
children with ASD may be less likely to approach or seek comfort from their parents on reunion
(Grzadzinski, Luyster, Spencer, and Lord, 2014). However, several studies have also reported that
relationships between parents and their children with ASD have similar attachment characteristics
to parents and children with typical development, as observed by child and parent report (Baum-
inger, Solomon, and Rogers, 2010; Chandler and Dissanayake, 2014; Keenan, Newman, Gray, and
Rinehart, 2016).
Observations of attachment to parents in children with ASD were fundamental to clarifying the
nature of the social disturbance in this syndrome. Attachment is a transactional relationship between
the parent and child (Sameroff and Mackenzie, 2003). Both children’s actions and parental sensitivity—
the abilities to interpret and respond to a child’s physical and emotional needs and the awareness
and response of children to parent sensitivity—are central to the development of secure attachments
(Ainsworth et al., 1978). Observations that children with ASD were no more disturbed in attachment
than were children with intellectual disabilities indicated that children with ASD retained a capacity
to respond to a fundamental aspect of caregiving and social behavior. This pattern of findings was
inconsistent with the notion that ASD was characterized by “a pervasive lack of responsiveness to
others” (APA, 1980). Instead, ASD began to be perceived in terms of heterogeneity of social presenta-
tion and specific rather pervasive atypicalities of social responsiveness and development (Mundy and
Sigman, 1989). Although evidence of attachment varied within children with the diagnosis of ASD,
evidence of more optimal attachment was related to symbolic play development (Naber et al., 2008)
and more parental sensitivity but also more child social initiations (Capps et al., 1994).
However, characteristics of infants eventually diagnosed with ASD may help to explain some of
the observed variations in attachment relationships in the ASD population. Research has captured
atypical acoustic features and differences in adult responses in the recordings of infants that were
later diagnosed with ASD as compared to typically developing infants (Esposito and Venuti, 2009),
and these atypical vocalizations have been observed during the separation phase of the Strange
Situation paradigm in infants at higher risk for developing ASD (Esposito, del Carmen Rostagno,
Venuit, Haltigan, and Messinger, 2014). When listening to the cries of infants later diagnosed with
ASD, studies have found that adults perceive more distress in these cries than in typically develop-
ing infants or infants with developmental delays (Esposito, Nakazawa, Venuti, and Bornstein, 2013;
Esposito,Venuti, and Bornstein, 2011), use more effortful processing from areas in the brain involved
with comprehension and emotion to interpret the cries of infants with ASD as compared to typically
developing infants (Venuti, Caria, Esposito, De Pisapia, Bornstein, and de Falco, 2012), and experi-
ence more physiological arousal (Esposito, Valenzi, Islam, and Bornstein, 2015). The perceptions of
atypical infant distress may then influence atypical, slower, or non-optimal parent responses. Indeed,
mothers of 13-month-old infants later diagnosed with ASD themselves vocalized more often in
response to cries than did mothers of typically developing children, who used more rocking or pat-
ting behaviors (Esposito and Venuti, 2009). Although more research is needed, these studies have at
least three distinct implications: (1) infant cries may be an early biomarker for the later development
of ASD, (2) the difficulties and distress adults experience when listening to the cries of infants with
ASD may be the first experience of parenting stress or of low parent self-efficacy, and (3) atypical
infant vocalizations may have enduring effects on the development of the parent–child attachment.
Research also demonstrated that parent knowledge, perception, and attributions about their
child’s behavior had an impact on their sense of the attachment relationship. Siller, Swanson, Gerber,
Hutman, and Sigman (2014) observed that after teaching parents how to notice and interpret com-
munication from the child during play activities, there were increases in maternal perceptions of
secure attachment. In addition, mothers who demonstrated greater insight into the nature of their
child’s problems and who were more accepting of their child’s diagnoses of autism were more likely
542
to have securely attached children (Oppenheim, Koren-Karie, Dolev, and Yirmiya, 2008). Further-
more, Oppenheim, Koren-Karie, Dolev, and Yirmiya (2012) reported that maternal sensitivity medi-
ated the link between mother’s insightfulness and their child’s attachment behavior.
In summary, most young children with autism develop attachment relationships with their parents
(but attachment may be moderated by IQ and related symptom severity), and a subset of children
demonstrates more disorganized or insecure attachment styles. However, there is little evidence of
autism-specific effects on child-caregiver attachment. It is not yet clear to what degree differences
in child behavior associated with cognitive development affect parent behavior in the dynamics of
attachment formation in children with ASD. However, the presence of attachment in many children
with ASD argues for a significant transactional impact of parent and child behavior in the develop-
ment of children with ASD. Some of the literature on attachment suggests that some aspects of parent
coping (acceptance) may be integral to optimal transactional parent–child development in caregiving
for ASD. Bringing research on parent coping together with the study of child attachment may be a
revealing combination in future research.
Parent–Child Interactions
Beyond the paradigmatic confines of the attachment literature is an equally rich literature on several
other facets of parent–children interactions in the modern study of ASD.
One specific characteristic of ASD is that affected children do not employ as much attention to
caregivers or social partners as do children with other developmental disabilities or typical develop-
ment (Dawson et al., 2004; Kasari, Sigman, and Yirmiya, 1993; Klin, Jones, Schultz, Volkmar, and
Cohen, 2002; Mundy et al., 1986). This developmental disturbance impairs their ability to adopt a
common perspective, or point of reference with other people. Difficulty in adopting or recognizing a
common point of reference significantly impairs the capacity of children with ASD to adopt a com-
mon point of focus with parents in interactions, to learn from instruction provided by parents (Bald-
win, 1995), and to spontaneously share experience with their parents (Mundy, 2016). This specific
dimension of the social disturbance of ASD is referred to as “joint attention.” Joint attention distur-
bance is fundamental to the nature of autism (Mundy, Sullivan, and Mastergeorge, 2009), its diagnosis
(Gotham, Risi, Pickles, and Lord, 2007), and the difficulty parents can experience in interacting with
children. Of course, like all aspects of the phenotype, children with ASD vary in the growth and
development of joint attention (Kasari, Paparella, Freeman, and Jahromi, 2008; Mundy, Sigman, and
Kasari, 1990). Not surprisingly, perhaps, individual differences in joint attention in ASD have been
observed to be associated with parent ratings of child social relatedness (Mundy et al., 1994).
Given our understanding of joint attention impairment in ASD, it is also not surprising that
parents find it difficult to engage or teach new behaviors to their young children with ASD during
play. Because joint attention is a major symptom dimension of autism (Gotham et al., 2007), autism
severity has been related to lower quality of parent–child interactions, including less dyadic com-
munication, coordination, and emotional expression (Beurkens, Hobson, and Hobson, 2013). Chil-
dren with autism also focus more on objects than play partners (Kasari, Gulsrud, Wong, Kwon, and
Locke, 2010).These child characteristics may make it hard for parents to keep children engaged as an
equal social partner without controlling the behavior of their children. Along this line of reasoning,
Doussard-Roosevelt, Joe, Bazhenova, and Porges (2003) found that parents of children with autism
used more physical contact and fewer attempts to engage using verbalizations than did parents of
children without autism. Less direct approaches to managing a child’s attention may be critical to
facilitating engagement and interaction with children with ASD. Imitating or mirroring the behav-
ioral acts of young children with ASD appears to increase their joint attention (Dawson and Adams,
1984; Tiegerman and Primavera, 1984). Scaffolding joint attention by parents through imitation is
possible, but without additional support, parents of children with autism have difficulties achieving
543
levels of sophisticated play with their children comparable to those observed typical parent–child
dyads (S. Freeman and Kasari, 2013). Freeman and Kasari (2013) also found that parents of children
with autism were more controlling and used more suggestions during play than did parents of chil-
dren with typical development, but these behaviors led to less parent–child joint engagement with
toys during play with their children.
Parents may use more control during interactions with their children with autism because control
can lead to more compliance. Indirect commands, in which parents give polite requests or sugges-
tions for their children to change their behavior, have been observed to be followed by compliance
for children with typical development but to noncompliant behavior in higher functioning children
with ASD (Bryce and Jahromi, 2013). Parents of children with ASD who use direct commands
receive the most compliance from their children, but overall children with ASD have lower rates of
compliance than do children with typical development.
Nevertheless, parent’s ability to regulate attention without physical prompting may be beneficial
for later peer interactions for preschool-aged children with autism. Meek, Robinson, and Jahromi
(2012) reported that parent’s use of lower control attention regulation was predictive of higher joint
engagement in their children, which was positively related to social competence with peers 1 year
later. In a sequence of studies, Siller and Sigman (2002, 2008) examined the extent to which the
tendency of parents to adopt the focus of attention of their children with ASD, or direct the attention
of their child during object play, was related to their children’s rate of word learning. They found
that following rather than directing the attention of their children to refer to objects during play
predicted gains in their children’s verbal communication skills (Siller and Sigman, 2008). The effects
reported by Siller and Sigman are not specific to children with ASD. Rather they mirror work by
Tomasello and colleagues that demonstrate how language learning in typically developing children is
optimized through gaze following to recognize the manifest interest of their children and providing
learning opportunities congruent with the current interest of the child (Tomasello, Carpenter, Call,
Behne, and Moll, 2005).
The results from various studies of parent–ASD child interactions support research on the effec-
tiveness of child-directed approaches to intervention, such as pivotal-response training (Hardan et al.,
2015; Koegel and Kern Koegel, 2006). Moreover, they have informed a new generation of early
intervention research. Recognition of joint attention as central to problems in learning and related-
ness in children with ASD has led many researchers to develop targeted and effective treatments
for this dimension of development (Murza, Schwartz, Hahs-Vaughn, and Nye, 2016). One of these,
Joint Attention, Symbolic Play, Engagement, and Regulation (JASPER; Goods, Ishijima, Chang, and
Kasari, 2013), has been examined in numerous randomized controlled trials that provide evidence
for its efficacy. JASPER provides parents with a new child-focused approach to parenting that begins
with mirroring or imitation of the child and using that as a pivot to scaffold increased joint atten-
tion, sharing of experience, and elements of referential cognition necessary to improving children’s
response to language learning opportunities.
Kasari et al. (2015) compared parent-implemented JASPER with a parent-psychoeducational
intervention (PEI) that included a stress reduction module. JASPER was superior to PEI in facilitat-
ing child-parent joint engagement and child play. Positive effects also generalized to the child’s initia-
tion of joint engagement in their preschool classroom. Alternatively, PEI was superior to JASPER
in parents’ reports of reductions in child-related stress. This is one of several studies to examine the
effects of parent-implemented early intervention on parent stress (McConachie and Diggle, 2007)
but one of the few to compare the effects of different intervention methods. Although the effect size
of the group differences in stress was small, these results at least raise questions of whether it may be
useful to consider the addition of stress reduction modules to child-focused interventions as a more
comprehensive family approach to early intervention. Perceived stress reduction, though, is only one
of many parent measurement dimensions to consider as outcomes, mediators, and/or moderators of
544
intervention. For example, joint attention was associated with parent’s ratings of the relatedness of
their children with ASD. It may be that a parent-implemented joint attention intervention impacts
parents’ sense of relatedness to their children and/or reduces distress about their effectiveness as
parents without mitigating their perceptions of the concrete nature of the stress of parenting a child
with significant behavioral challenges.
Parent-Implemented Interventions
In general, parent education programs and parent-implemented interventions have the potential to
alleviate psychological distress of parents (Keen et al., 2010). As with JASPER, they may be especially
effective in facilitating the development of socially relevant skills in children (Ingersoll and Gergans,
2007), and they offer an especially useful approach where community services for children with
ASD are not plentiful (Brookman-Frazee,Vismara, Drahota, Stahmer, and Openden, 2009). However,
parent-delivered interventions can also lead directly to positive changes in parent–child interactions.
For example, interventions focused on families and relationships have been related to increases in
maternal emotional responsiveness during parent–child interactions, which then predicted improve-
ments in child social development (Mahoney, Boyce, Fewell, Spiker, and Wheeden, 1998; Mahoney
and Perales, 2003). Other studies have found that parent-implemented interventions elicited more
patterned interactions of sustained positive affect between parents and children (M. Solomon et al.,
2008;Vernon, Koegel, Dauterman, and Stolen, 2012).
Some research has reported that parent-implemented interventions are not as effective as therapist-
implemented interventions in improving child outcomes (McConachie and Diggle, 2007; Rog-
ers et al., 2012). Yet, there have been calls to reconsider how parent-implemented interventions are
developed or to include more relevant parenting outcomes when testing intervention effectiveness
(Brookman-Frazee, Stahmer, Baker-Ericzen, and Tsai, 2006; Karst and Van Hecke, 2012; Stahmer and
Pellecchia, 2015). For example, it may be beneficial to develop interventions that coach parenting skills
that can be implemented incidentally in varied situations, rather than didactically or in a curriculum-
based fashion (Stahmer and Pellecchia, 2015). This view conforms to elements of the literature on
parent–child interactions, which describe the benefits of unstructured play time with parents over
structured activities for children with ASD (Blacher, Baker, and Kaladjian, 2013). Younger children
may especially benefit from unstructured play time with their parents to develop stronger language
and communicative skills when didactic or behavioral interventions may not yet be appropriate.
As an example of incorporating family-level outcomes, Keen et al. (2010) conducted a 6-month
parent intervention focused on providing education surrounding parenting stress and competence.
In addition to parent gains in self-efficacy, children made more gains in social communication and
adaptive behaviors when their parents received professional support after the recent diagnosis of
their child, compared to children whose parents received the information on videos. By employing
parent and children measures, this study illustrates how parent interventions may improve child and
family functioning. Future studies of parent interventions will no doubt include a wider variety of
outcomes than just parent stress measures. Measures of change in parent coping, resilience, attribu-
tions of child behaviors, and direct observations of parent–child interactions can all be useful. Indeed,
all may be necessary because there are currently too few studies with adequate research designs to
clarify how different parent coaching or parent-implemented interventions impact parenting and the
interactions of families affected by ASD (McConachie and Diggle, 2007).
Of course, in addition to examining how parent-implemented interventions for children affect
parenting, the converse is also true. However, few studies of interventions are specifically designed
to improve parenting of children with ASD. One example is from a report of a randomized control
study of the Stepping Stones Triple P (SSTP) Positive Parent Program with families of 59 4- to
8-year-old children with ASD (Whittingham, Sofronoff, Sheffield and Sanders, 2009). SSTP is a
545
version of the evidence-based Triple P Parent program designed to improve behavioral develop-
ment for children with disabilities through changes in parenting practices. Triple P involves teaching
parents to use descriptive praise, planned ignoring, and other strategies, and SSTP incorporates addi-
tional strategies to address social-communication behavior in children with ASD. Whittingham et al.
(2009) reported moderate to strong size of treatment effects for the SSTP intervention on measures
of child behavior problems, parental negative reactivity, inconsistent reactivity, over-reliance on talk-
ing, as well as parent efficacy and satisfaction. These are promising results for the impact of direct
intervention with parenting process variables for both parents and children with ASD. Clearly, the
literature on parenting in ASD would benefit from more studies of this kind.
Summary
Family process research with preschool children with ASD has been revealing with regard to funda-
mental questions about the nature of autism as well as its diagnosis and intervention. Kanner (1949)
used the phrase “a persistent lack of responsiveness” to describe the social behavior of children with
ASD (p. 418). Later, APA (1980) instantiated the phrase “a pervasive lack of responsiveness to others”
as the primary description of the social symptoms of ASD. That narrow representation of the social
symptom picture of autism held until social interaction studies, and most importantly parent–child
attachment studies, indicated that the social impairment of autism were not pervasive, but much
more nuanced (Mundy and Sigman, 1989b).
Parent–child interaction studies, as well as other experimental studies, indicated that children with
autism were not as socially engaged as other children were. Social engagement was defined as paying
attention to the same referent, or joint attention to objects and events. These observations help turn
the field from the notion of pervasive social impairments to the understanding that problems with
social attention, especially joint attention, were a central feature of the social symptoms of autism.
Joint attention is central to intersubjectivity, or a sense of shared experience between two of
more people. Not surprisingly, then, it became apparent that problems in joint attention during
parent–child interactions might be fundamental to a lack of sense of relatedness that parents and others
experience in interaction with children with ASD (Mundy et al. 1994). Perhaps most importantly,
recent research has revealed that joint attention impairments are malleable in many children with
ASD, and parent–child interaction interventions can be fundamental in effecting change in joint
attention development. Change in this pivotal aspect of parent–child interaction not only improves
children’s social engagement and ability to learn from other people, but also has a positive impact on
parent well-being. As noted earlier, the latter, as well as the former, can have significant long-term
benefits for children with autism. The evidence from these studies has contributed to the realization
that family-level outcomes, as well as child-level outcomes, are important to measure in any inter-
vention for children with ASD, and especially parent-implemented interventions.
Family Processes and Autism in Adolescence and Adulthood

Parenting and family process changes with age of all members of the family. One pivotal period of
change for all occurs during children’s transition from childhood to adolescence (Barber, Maughan,
and Olsen, 2005). As is the case for many children, adolescence can be particularly problematic for
individuals with autism spectrum disorder. An increased emphasis on social interactions outside the
family among typically developing peers can accentuate the social problems experienced by these
children. Changes in social demands of adolescents can be difficult to accommodate. Compared to
adolescents with typical development, adolescents with autism have significant difficulties establish-
ing and maintaining peer relationships, report feeling more lonely, and experience more frequent
victimization from peers (Bauminger and Kasari, 2000; Bauminger et al., 2008; Cappadocia, Weiss,
546
and Pepler, 2012; Zablotsky, Bradshaw, Anderson, and Law, 2013). Parents are uniquely situated to
provide opportunities for children to meet and to support the development of friendships in middle
childhood and adolescence.
These observations notwithstanding, there is a paucity of evidence-based details about the ado-
lescent development of children with ASD and the parenting of these adolescents (Seltzer, Shattuck,
Abbeduto, and Greenberg, 2004). In general, modest improvements in cognitive and social behaviors,
including emotion regulation, are a general tendency in ASD adolescent development (Seltzer et al.,
2004). Nevertheless, mothers of ASD adolescents report more arguments, more attempts to avoid
arguments, more childcare chores, and less leisure time, yet similar levels of positive interactions with
their children, than mothers in a national sample (Smith et al., 2010). There is clear evidence of sig-
nificant associations between parent behavior, stress, and emotional status and adolescents’ behavior
(Baker et al., 2011; Lounds et al., 2007; Orsmond, Seltzer, Greenberg, and Krauss, 2006). However,
insufficient data are currently available to understand causal paths among these associations. One
study suggests that the level of ADHD symptomology may be an especially important moderator
of parent–child relationships in adolescents with ASD (McStay, Dissanayake, Scheeren, Koot, and
Begeer, 2014). Hartley et al. (2011) also observed that fathers’ parenting could be more affected by
the behavioral characteristics of adolescents than mothers’.
In adulthood, gaining and maintaining employment appear to be significant challenges for indi-
viduals with autism. In a study of 66 emerging adults that had exited high school, 61% of the adults
with ASD were reported to be living with their parents. There was also variance in the distribution
of these adults’ daily activities, as 14% were in post-secondary degree programs, 6% had competi-
tive employment, 12% had supported employment, 56% were in adult day services, and 12% were
engaged in no regular activities (Taylor and Seltzer, 2011b). Although many individuals with ASD
pursue post-secondary education in the years after high school, an alarming 29% are described as dis-
engaged (Wei, Wagner, Hudson, Jennifer, and Shattuck, 2014). These individuals were not employed
or in school, or they withdrew from those activities in the years after high school. When these
individuals become employed, the jobs may have low wages: Data from individuals accessing federal
vocational rehabilitation programs indicate that emerging adults with ASD earned an average of
$8.39 per hour in 2010 (Migliore, Butterworth, and Zalewska, 2012). Adults with autism, especially
women, continue to show difficulties and even declines in vocational independence into middle
adulthood (Taylor and Mailick, 2014). Beyond low employment and education levels, adults with
autism are also at risk for a variety of physical and mental health challenges, including functional
deterioration, epilepsy, increased mortality at younger ages, and affective disorders (Howlin, 2000).
Many challenges faced by adults with autism prominently affect families. Relatively few institu-
tional supports focus on increasing independence after high school (Howlin, Goode, Hutton, and
Rutter, 2004), compelling parents of children with autism to retain caregiving responsibility for their
whole life (Seltzer, Greenberg, Floyd, Pettee, and Hong, 2001). About 70% of young adults in their
early 20s with autism have never lived outside the home (Roux, Shattuck, Rast, Rava, and Anderson,
2015), and about a third of individuals with ASD in their 30s live with their parents, who themselves
are approaching retirement age (Krauss, Seltzer, and Jacobson, 2005). Because parents of adolescents
and adults with autism are central sources of support and continuing care, it is vital to examine
how family processes and factors can influence behavioral problems, autism symptoms, and adaptive
behavior during the transition to increased independence.
Relational Factors and Young Adult Outcomes

Many studies of parent–child relationships in families with children with autism use the Five-Minute
Speech Sample (Magaña et al., 1986). During this task, originally designed as part of the Camber-
well Family Interview (C.Vaughn and Leff, 1976), parents are given 5 minutes to speak about their
547
child and their relationship. These speech samples are recorded, transcribed, and coded for indices of
warmth (e.g., expressions of interest, empathy, and concern), praise (e.g., number of positive state-
ments about the child), and expressed emotion, a combination of expressions of criticisms and emo-
tional overinvolvement (e.g., expressions of self-sacrifice or emotional displays during the recording).
This task yields information about parents’ perceptions of the parent–child relationship, which are
then examined as predictors of child functioning. In addition to the Five-Minute Speech Sample,
researchers often use questionnaires to assess parental perceptions of parent–child relationship quality
in families of children with autism. For example, some studies have used the Positive Affect Index
(Bengtson and Schrader, 1982), which includes items about parental perceptions of trust, fairness,
affection, and understanding in the parent–child relationship.
Studies have found interesting associations between these indices of family relational factors and
changes in autism symptoms. Greenberg, Seltzer, Hong, Orsmond, and MacLean (2006) found bidi-
rectional relations between increased criticism and increased internalizing, externalizing, and asocial
behavioral problems over an 18-month period in families of adolescents and young adults with
autism. Studies have also found evidence for bidirectional associations between higher levels of
positive relational factors, such as mother-child relationship quality, warmth, and praise, and autism
symptoms, namely reductions in repetitive behaviors and social reciprocity impairments (J. K. Baker,
Seltzer, and Greenberg, 2011; L. E. Smith, J. S. Greenberg, et al., 2008; Woodman et al., 2015). These
results illustrate how positive dyadic interactions can lead to improvements in child behavior. How-
ever, Baker et al. (2011) found that family-level adaptability was beneficial to both maternal depres-
sion and child behavior problems more so than the mother relationship for adolescents with autism.
The results of this study emphasize the importance of teaching families how to generate solutions
to new problems, to compromise, and to be flexible with roles within a family system perspective.
Although the Five-Minute Speech Sample and questionnaires assessing the parent–child rela-
tionship provide useful and informative results, they rely on parent perceptions of relationships. It is
common in studies of family relationships in typically developing youth to rely on the child’s percep-
tion of relationship quality or support. For example, typically developing adolescents who perceive
high amounts of support from their parents are less likely to associate with deviant peers and engage
in problem behaviors (Goldstein, Davis-Kean, and Eccles, 2005). Allowing individuals with ASD
to provide their perceptions about family relationships will be an important undertaking in future
family research. In addition, future research would benefit from using observational measures in
parent–child dyads to better capture family processes. For example, Kim and colleagues (2001) utilized
the Iowa Family Rating Scales (Melby et al., 1998) to observe hostility and angry coercion exhib-
ited independently by parents and children with typical development during a discussion task and
a problem-solving task. The results illustrated the longitudinal reciprocation of negativity between
parents and adolescents and how these processes predicted similar negativity in early romantic rela-
tionships as the individuals reached adulthood. Researchers of families with autism could use similar
approaches to examine the reciprocal nature of warmth and support and how those processes could
lead to optimal outcomes in young adulthood.
Parenting Practices and Expectations

In some of the literature on family environment predicting problem behaviors in typically develop-
ing youth, the focus has been on parenting practices. Parenting practices rated by mothers or fathers
have important and wide-ranging influences on indices of successful child development, including
achievement, externalizing and internalizing psychopathology, deviant behaviors, and peer relation-
ships (Belsky and Pluess, 2009; Engels, Deković, and Meeus, 2002; Schneider, Cavell, and Hughes,
2003; Spera, 2005). The literature describing parenting behaviors or childrearing practices by parents
548
of adolescents with autism is scarce. One study examined how parents of children and adolescents
with autism living in Belgium and the Netherlands rated their use of positive parenting, punishment,
discipline, rewards, and rules (Lambrechts, Van Leeuwen, Boonen, Maes, and Noens, 2011). Parents
of youth with typical development reported higher use of harsh punishment than did parents of
children with autism. Another study looked at similar parenting behaviors in over 900 mothers of
children and adolescents with higher functioning autism or typical development also living in Bel-
gium and the Netherlands (Maljaars, Boonen, Lambrechts,Van Leeuwen, and Noens, 2014). Mothers
of youth with autism reported setting fewer rules and using less discipline compared to mothers of
youth with typical development. There was less reported use of reinforcement and problem solving
by parents of typically developing youth in adolescence compared to younger children, but there was
no observed differences in the use of material reinforcement by age reported by mothers of youth
with autism. These two studies suggest that parents of youth and adults with ASD may use more
positive strategies for managing behaviors, such as reinforcement, and less punishment or discipline.
However, much more empirical work is needed to examine how these practices influence child
outcomes and whether certain parenting practices are more adaptive or developmentally appropriate
in families of children with autism.
Finally, parent expectations help to explain the connections between family context, child func-
tioning, and young adult outcomes for individuals with autism. Using structural equation modeling,
Kirby (2016) found that parent expectations for their children mediated prospective relations from
family background and child functioning to young adult outcomes. Child functioning in social, aca-
demic, and adaptive domains was one important predictor of parental expectations that their children
would live independently or attain paid work, which was a strong predictor of children achieving
these outcomes. These associations illustrate how higher functioning individuals with autism may
achieve independence by more readily shaping parental expectations.
Changing Relationships
Studies have reported positive parent–child relationship quality and high levels of maternal affection
for young adults with autism (Lounds et al., 2007; Orsmond, Seltzer, Greenberg, Krauss, and Floyd,
2006). Yet, longitudinal evidence regarding the quality of parent–child relationships as individuals
with autism transition into adulthood is more troublesome. Taylor and Seltzer (2011a) examined
maternal perceptions of the mother-child relationships longitudinally during and after their children’s
high school exit. During high school, both positive affect toward children and expressed warmth
increased with time while the subjective burden of childrearing decreased. After high school, there
was significant weakening in these positive trajectories that was not explained by changes in maladap-
tive behavior or residential status. The reported relationship variables declined especially for mothers
of individuals with autism who did not have concurrent intellectual disability and for mothers of sons
with autism. The authors reasoned that worsening relationships experienced by mothers of children
with autism but not intellectual disability may reflect several possibilities. First, mothers may attrib-
ute behavioral problems as being under control of their children when they are higher functioning,
as seen in studies of younger children with autism (Hartley, Schaidle, and Burnson, 2013). Second,
mothers of higher functioning adolescents with autism may have high expectations of their children
(Kirby, 2016), which may attenuate if their children become disengaged from school or work. Third,
the authors reasoned that adults with autism may be spending more time at home than adolescents
who attend school for most of the day, which may strain parents’ opportunities to have time for leisure
activities independent of their child. As each of these explanations has vastly differently implications
for improving the quality of parent–child relationship throughout adolescence and young adulthood,
more research is needed to determine the underlying mechanisms of a plateauing relationship quality.
549
Care for Older Adults With Autism

In any caregiving context, caregivers can experience both subjective burden for caring for the daily
needs of another individual on top of their own needs and satisfaction from providing the care.These
ambivalent feelings have been frequently observed in family caregivers of individuals with dementia
or other terminal illnesses (Balducci et al., 2008; Shim, Barroso, and Davis, 2012). The current lit-
erature describes similar processes in families of adults with autism. These studies describe parenting
experiences for adults with autism and intellectual disability as well as adults with autism who are
higher functioning who may be considered disengaged from normative adult roles (Wei et al., 2014).
Parents of young adults with autism living at home frequently report they enjoy their children’s com-
pany, yet also frequently report constraints due to problematic behaviors (Krauss et al., 2005). Parents
of children living away from home frequently endorse that children gain more opportunities for
personal growth outside the home. Individuals with autism living with family caregivers have limited
access to socialization experiences outside the family, and caregivers feel that they need more sup-
port to reduce stress and plan for the future when the young adult continues to live at home (Graetz,
2010). Families of adults with autism may be acutely aware that their ability to care for their sons
and daughters depends on the health and longevity of parents and that planning for the future helps
to increase the positive experiences of parenting. In a study of parents of adults with autism, parent
reports of increased long-term future planning, such as setting up a trust for their child, was related
to increased caregiving satisfaction (Burke and Heller, 2016). In addition, community involvement
led to increased caregiving reported by parents, highlighting the need for caregivers to have social
and vocational activities that are distinct from caregiving activities. In a qualitative study, Hines, Bal-
andin, and Togher (2014) interviewed 16 older parents of adults with autism.These parents described
difficulties maintaining care of their children, themselves, and other family members. These parents
frequently described avoidance toward changing routines to placate anticipated behavioral problems
in their children. This avoidance on the part of the parents of adults with autism could potentially
lead to stagnated development and lack of new opportunities for learning, despite parents’ good
intentions to avoid additional stress. Currently, services for adults with autism and their families are
scarce, but this evidence suggests the need for developmentally appropriate strategies for teaching
parents how to provide their children new opportunities for growth while managing the mental
health concerns that occur in both children and parents.
Summary
The early onset of ASD has focused many of the associated research and clinical efforts on the early
childhood period of development. We know less about school-aged development and less still about
the adult development of affected individuals. One thing we do know, however, is that children with
ASD go on to become adults with ASD (Brugha et al., 2011), and parents remain a primary if not
singular source of support after secondary school.We can also expect a neurodevelopmental disorder,
such as autism, to continue to develop and change not only in the preschool period, but also in the
school-aged and adult periods of development. Therefore, it’s reasonable to expect that a life-span
approach to intervention will most likely be needed to address the gamut of developmental needs
of many people with ASD and allow them to realize their full potential. In adults, as with children,
we can expect parents to play a major role in adult intervention for people with ASD. The past
30 years of research has revealed that parent intervention has a significant benefit for other adults
with chronic mental health conditions such as schizophrenia (Pitschel-Walz et al., 2001). We can
reasonably expect the same will hold true for adults with ASD. However, the brevity of the research
reviewed in this section of the chapter indicates we have just begun to scratch the surface of this area
of research. As a field, we must redouble our efforts to understand the adult development of ASD
550
in the interactive context of the family to become much more effective in lifespan approaches to
treatment and support.
Future Directions for Research on Families Affected by Autism

The chief limitation in the literature on families of children with autism is that there are not enough
investigations of parenting and family processes. By looking to the rich theoretical and empirical
work on family processes in typical development, researchers can design studies with families of
children with autism that can identify child- and family-level strengths that help promote successful
adaptation.
Three general ideas should be considered when designing these studies of families with children
with autism. First, research on families of children with autism may be well advised to apply transac-
tional approaches (Sameroff and Mackenzie, 2003). These approaches can help describe how varying
levels of child characteristics and parent behaviors interact to predict child outcomes. One common
application of this approach is to examine how positive parenting practices protect children from
developing internalizing or externalizing problems when they are at high risk, often defined by
genetic or temperamental characteristics (Belsky and Pluess, 2009). Children with autism have been
characterized as having more negative affect than children with typical development, so it may be
fruitful to examine how parenting behaviors interact with these characteristics to influence internal-
izing symptoms.The transactional approach may be especially important to investigations of children
with autism due to the wide heterogeneity and variance of the behaviors observed, and it conforms
to appeals for research to examine moderators of the phenotypical variability observed with autism
(Mundy et al., 2007).
Second, research on family processes in autism should strive to incorporate measures that cap-
ture the perspective or behaviors of the child. Parent perspectives can provide important infor-
mation about family functioning and family factors, but they could be distorted by parents’ own
psychopathology (Bitsika, Sharpley, Andronicos, and Agnew, 2015). By using child perspectives and
observational approaches, we can better approximate child behaviors in the context of relationships
and better acknowledge that children with ASD are active participants in the development of their
relationships (Sroufe, Egeland, Carlson, and Collins, 2005).
Third, more cross-cultural research is needed. To date, cross-cultural research on families of chil-
dren with autism has described that parents from different cultures can experience similar parenting
stressors and use similar coping mechanisms, but more research is needed on both family functioning
and family interactions. Not only will this research be informative for the specific needs of families
of children with autism within different communities, it also has the potential to help us understand
different theories of ASD and development. For example, the biological etiology of ASD may inform
hypotheses that there should be minimal differences between cultures on interactions between an
individual with ASD and a family member. However, a transactional approach may generate hypoth-
eses that cultural differences should be expected, explaining some of the heterogeneity in behaviors
exhibited by individuals with ASD.
Conclusions
Parents are the most proximal influence on children with ASD. This review has illustrated the vari-
ous ways in which parents promote the development of their children with autism. Parent behaviors
influence the development of attachment relationships (Oppenheim et al., 2012), improve child
social behaviors (Meek et al., 2012) and communication skills (Siller and Sigman, 2002), and buffer
children from the development of maladaptive behaviors (Woodman et al., 2015). Despite evidence
for increased stress in families of children with autism (Hayes and Watson, 2013), these families can
551
display resiliency (Bayat, 2007), and many parents demonstrate high amounts of warmth and affec-
tion for their children Smith et al., 2008). Characterizations of parents have improved drastically in
accuracy and detail since the early psychogenic origins of family research in autism, but there are
myriad needs and opportunities for a new generation of studies to elucidate how family processes
influence the development of children with autism.The importance of additional research is empha-
sized by a small but growing experimental intervention literature on the malleability of parenting
and how the effects of changes in parenting variables are associated with outcomes for children with
ASD (Bekhet, 2017; Blackledge and Hayes, 2006; Karst and Van Hecke, 2012; Karst et al., 2015; Keen
et al., 2010; Stuttard et al., 2014; Whittingham et al., 2009).
Acknowledgments
Preparation for this chapter was facilitated by the National Institute for Mental Health Grant No.
R01 MH106518–01A1. We thank Adrienne Nishina, Aubyn Stahmer, Ana-Maria Iosif, and Sarah
Mahdavi for their comments on an earlier version of this chapter.
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17
PARENTING CHILDREN WITH
INTELLECTUAL DISABILITIES
Robert M. Hodapp, Ellen G. Casale, and Kelli A. Sanderson
Introduction
Rearing a child with intellectual disabilities (ID) challenges any parent. Besides the child’s cognitive
difficulties, children with ID often have associated motor, medical, psychopathological, and other
disabilities. So too must one consider the parents’ emotional reactions and concerns. Parents of these
children must cope with having produced an “atypical” child, a child who looks and acts differently
from age-mates. Such parental concerns reoccur throughout the child’s life, culminating in the issue of
how the adult with intellectual disabilities will live when parents can no longer provide in-home care.
And yet, as difficult as such parenting issues often are, many parents cope successfully with rearing
a child with intellectual disabilities. Families vary in their styles of coping; specific child characteris-
tics influence parental and familial reactions; and many formal and informal supports protect parents
from depression and hopelessness. Some parents even note how parenting their child with ID has
made them more empathetic, tolerant of differences, and attuned to the truly important things in life.
Before reviewing issues involved in parenting a child with intellectual disabilities, three prelimi-
nary concerns must be addressed. First, we note the area’s connections to the parenting of children
without intellectual disabilities. Theories of parenting derive from those used to conceptualize par-
enting of typically developing children, and most studies compare parents of children with intellec-
tual disabilities to parents of typically developing children. But many perspectives used to understand
parenting typical children have only gradually been adopted within studies of parents of children
with ID. In certain instances, parenting studies within intellectual disabilities have yet to be influ-
enced by some of the newest ideas from typical parenting and development.
A second issue concerns the nature of the studies themselves. Many studies—particularly those of
the 1960s and 1970s—examined parents and families of children who were “disabled” or “mentally
retarded.” The prevailing view was that parents react in a similar way to a child with any disability.
Only gradually have studies examined parents of children with specific disability conditions, or with
specific types of intellectual disabilities. As a result, parenting studies vary widely: some examine par-
ents of children with disabilities; others children with intellectual disabilities; still others children with
a specific type of intellectual disability (e.g., Down syndrome; fragile X syndrome).
Third (and related), one must address issues of etiology. In the recent past, researchers have begun
to appreciate the effects on behavior of many different genetic disorders of intellectual disabilities
(Dykens, Hodapp, and Finucane, 2000). Such etiologies differentially affect intellectual, cognitive,
and adaptive strengths and weaknesses, proneness to specific maladaptive behaviors, and trajectories
565
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of speeded or slowed development over the childhood years (Hodapp and Dykens, 2012). But if
children are prone to exhibit particular etiology-related behaviors, might not parents and others in
the child’s environment also respond in predictable ways? Studies have only begun to examine such
possibilities.
This chapter touches on these issues while examining both old and new work in parenting
children with intellectual disabilities. We begin with the history of studies on parental reactions to
rearing children with intellectual disabilities, the nature of interactions between mothers and these
children, and characteristics of such families. Following this discussion, we tackle such theoretical and
methodological issues as how one conceptualizes the family of a child with intellectual disabilities,
between-group versus within-group studies, and the role of the child’s cause of intellectual disabili-
ties on family functioning. Examining more recent studies, we then return to maternal and paternal
reactions, mother-child interactions, and the effects of pre-existing parent and family characteristics
on parent–family functioning. The chapter ends by providing more practical information and direc-
tions for future research.
History of Studies of Parenting Children With Intellectual Disabilities

In studies of parents, parent–child interaction, and family characteristics, a clear history emerges. To
this day, this history sets the tone for parenting studies of children with intellectual disabilities.
Parents of Children With Intellectual Disabilities

Parents of children with any type of disability have traditionally been considered as prime candidates
for emotional disorders. Comparing parents of children with intellectual disabilities, with emotional
disorders, and with no impairments, Cummings, Bayley, and Rie (1966) found that mothers of 4- to
13-year-old children with intellectual disabilities were more depressed, more preoccupied with their
children, and had greater difficulty in handling their anger toward their children than did mothers of
typically developing children. Similarly, compared to fathers of typically developing children, fathers
of children with intellectual disabilities were also more likely to show increased rates of depression;
these fathers also scored lower in dominance, self-esteem, and enjoyment of their children with ID
(Cummings, 1976; see also Erickson, 1969; Friedrich and Friedrich, 1981). The marital couple may
also be adversely affected by the presence of a child with disabilities. In both Gath’s (1977) study of
children with Down syndrome and Tew, Payne, and Lawrence’s (1974) study of children with cerebral
palsy, families of children with disabilities were less likely to be intact than were families with same-
aged typically developing children. Presumably, difficulties in dealing with the birth and increased
demands of the child with disabilities lead to increased risks of parental break-up (Hagamen, 1980).
A second strand more specifically examines why parents are affected and which psychologi-
cal mechanisms are involved in their reactions. The orientation of most such studies involves the
so-called “maternal mourning reaction.” Drawing on Freud’s work on mourning and melancholia,
Solnit and Stark (1961) proposed that mothers (the main parent in psychoanalytic models) mourn
the birth of any type of “defective” infant.This mourning was thought to be akin to the grieving that
occurs in response to a death, with the death being the loss of the mother’s fantasy of the idealized,
perfect infant. Solnit and Stark (1961) felt that maternal mourning occurs in response to the birth
of a child with any cognitive, motor, social, or physical deficit. Although not perfect, the mourn-
ing model did highlight the time-bound nature of the mourning process, the idea that one works
through one’s mourning reaction over the first few years of the child’s life.
Influenced by Solnit and Stark’s model, later workers examined mothers of children with dis-
abilities to determine the nature and course of maternal mourning. Most workers hypothesized that
there are essentially three stages of maternal mourning (see Blacher, 1984, for a review). Directly after
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Parenting Children With ID
birth (or diagnosis), mothers experience shock, involving the dissociation of their knowledge from
their feelings about having given birth to a child with disabilities. Mothers say things like “I found
myself repeating ‘It’s not real’ over and over again” (Drotar, Baskiewicz, Irvin, Kennell, and Klaus,
1975, p. 712). The second stage involves “emotional disorganization,” which manifests itself as either
anger toward others or depression (that is, anger toward oneself). The third and final stage involves
“emotional re-organization.” Having worked through their feelings of shock and anger-depression,
mothers come to appreciate and love their child with disabilities. Parents now realize that the birth
of the child with disabilities was “nothing I had done” and that their child is “very special” (Drotar
et al., 1975, p. 713). Parents set about to act in the child’s best interests, as they increasingly accept the
child’s strengths and limitations.
In contrast to this stage-model of mourning, Olshansky (1962, 1966) noted that the metaphor of
working through a grief reaction is inadequate and that parents continue having strong emotional
reactions as the child gets older. He noted that most parents “suffer chronic sorrow throughout their
lives. . . . The intensity of this sorrow varies from time to time for the same person, from situation to
situation, and from one family to the next” (1962, pp. 190–191). Olshansky asked that practitioners
change their clinical practices to accommodate long-term reactions that can occur at various points
over the child’s lifetime. He noted that, in contrast to the Solnit and Stark (1961) view, the problem
of parenting a child with intellectual disabilities “is clearly both in and outside of the [parents’] psy-
che” (p. 21).
Two additional themes are also implicit within the Solnit and Stark (and even the Olshansky)
views of parental reactions (Hodapp and Ly, 2005). The first is that the parent in almost every case
was the mother. Given an essentially Freudian perspective, Solnit and Stark, Olshansky, and most
parenting researchers considered the mother as the main—almost the sole—parent of children with
intellectual disabilities. In addition, both the mourning model and Olshansky’s chronic sorrow view
spoke little of variations among parents of children with intellectual disabilities. Little attention was
also paid to which external or internal factors might influence reactions from one mother to another.
Parent–Child Dyads
Given this background of either stage-like or recurrent maternal mourning of children with intellec-
tual disabilities, interactional researchers during the 1970s searched for differences in various paren-
tal behaviors between dyads with children who did and did not have intellectual disabilities. As a
rule, the earliest studies found such differences. Buium, Rynders, and Turnure (1974) and Marshall,
Hegrenes, and Goldstein (1973) found that, compared to mothers of same-aged typically developing
children, mothers of children with Down syndrome provided less complex verbal input and were
more controlling in their interactive styles.
But not all studies found such differences in maternal input. Rondal (1977) and Buckhalt,
Rutherford, and Goldberg (1978), for example, observed that mothers of children with intellectual
disabilities behaved similarly to mothers of typically developing children. Rondal (1977) noted that,
when children with Down syndrome and typically developing children were matched on the child’s
mean length of utterance (MLU), “None of the comparisons of mothers’ speech to normal and to
Down Syndrome children led to differences that were significant or close to significant” (p. 242)
between the two groups. Rondal (1977, p. 242) concluded that “the maternal linguistic environment
of DS children between MLU 1 and 3 is an appropriate one.”
What could lead to such divergent findings from one study to another? Most differences were
undoubtedly caused by methodological factors. In general, when the child with intellectual disabili-
ties has been matched to a typically developing child on chronological age (CA), mothers of children
with intellectual disabilities have been found to interact differently. But children with intellectual dis-
abilities are, by definition, functioning below typically developing age-mates; CA matching may thus
567
be inappropriate. A more appropriate strategy might be to match mother-child dyads on the child’s
mental age (MA) or the child’s level of language (MLU).The issue of what constitutes an appropriate
matching variable (and for which outcomes) continues to be debated.
Characteristics of Families of Children With Intellectual Disabilities

A final area of investigation has been the characteristics of families of children with disabilities, the
ways in which these families are similar to or different from families of children without intellectual
disabilities. In a classic work, Farber (1959) identified several differences between families of children
with and without intellectual disabilities. He noted that the child with intellectual disabilities increas-
ingly violates the family’s rules concerning appropriate family roles. Whereas the infant with intel-
lectual disabilities plays the “infant role,” at later ages the child with intellectual disabilities continues
being “a little kid.” The rights and responsibilities typical of middle childhood or the teen years are
generally not passed on to the child with intellectual disabilities.
Several implications arise from this lack of movement in the roles undertaken by these chil-
dren. First, typically developing siblings assume different roles than would normally be expected.
Farber (1959) identified the “role tensions” experienced by typically developing siblings, par-
ticularly by the oldest daughter. As older girls are the traditional caregivers in Western society,
oldest daughters more often perform household jobs and supervise younger children, thereby
freeing their mothers to care for the child with intellectual disabilities (Kramer and Hamilton,
2019). Probably due to their inability to enjoy their childhood years and increased familial
responsibilities, oldest daughters were thought to more often display depression and other psy-
chopathology (Lobato, 1983).
The child with intellectual disabilities’ social role stagnation also does not allow these fami-
lies to move through a normal family life cycle. Like individual children, families also develop.
They undergo changes in dynamics from the couple’s early years of marriage, to the 3-, 4-,
or more person family rearing young children, to dealing with one or more child’s growing
independence. In later years, families must cope with their child’s breaking away and parental
negotiation of the “empty nest syndrome” to grandparenthood for the parents and a new fam-
ily cycle for the now married children (Carter and McGoldrick, 1988; Combrinck-Graham,
1985; Duvall, 1957; Demick, 2019). But Farber (1959) noted that, when rearing children with
more significant levels of intellectual disability (i.e., IQs below 50), parents are never allowed to
grow up along with their children, thus forcing parents to become stuck in issues of parenting
younger children.
Alongside Farber’s work on family roles, early (and subsequent) studies delineated basic demo-
graphic differences between families with and without children with intellectual disabilities. The
differences, while expectable, are nonetheless interesting. Families that are more affluent cope bet-
ter with rearing a child with disabilities than do those making less money (Farber, 1970; Hoff and
Laursen, 2019); two-parent families cope better than one-parent families (Beckman, 1983; see also
Weinraub and Kaufman, 2019, in this edition; and women in better marriages cope better than those
in troubled marriages (Beckman, 1983; Friedrich, 1979; Ganong and Coleman, 2019). In addition,
families are less likely to use social supports when children are older (Suelzle and Keenan, 1981),
even as the childcare needs of such children increase due to the child’s becoming taller, heavier, and
(sometimes) more difficult to manage.
As the initial work of a new field, studies of parents, interactions, and familial integration set the
stage for the explosion of parenting work. These earlier studies provided basic information about
how parents react emotionally and how they interact with their children, as well as how families
respond to the child with intellectual disabilities. More importantly, this early work provided themes
that continue to organize parenting research.
568
Theoretical and Methodological Issues in Parenting the Child With

Intellectual Disabilities
Six interrelated themes cut across both earlier and later work on parents, interactions, and the larger
family unit.
From Pathology to Stress-Coping: Examining the Models Used to

Conceptualize Parenting
The earliest work on families of children with intellectual disabilities considered parents, interactions,
and families as a whole in terms of psychopathology. Parents were examined for psychiatric problems
and for expressed or latent anger and other negative emotions (e.g., as on the Minnesota Multiphasic
Personality Inventory [MMPI]; Erickson, 1969). Interactions between parents and children with
intellectual disabilities were examined to determine how such interactions differed from interactions
between mothers and typical children, and differences were considered as evidence of deficient inter-
actions. Divorce, role tensions, stuck family cycles for families as a whole—all reflect the dominant
pathology focus of parenting research during the 1960s and 1970s (Hodapp and Ly, 2005).
Gradually, however, researchers shifted from considering the child as a cause of psychopathology
to a stressor on the family system (Crnic, Friedrich, and Greenberg, 1983). This change in perspec-
tive is important, for although stressors can be detrimental, they are not always so. In some situations,
stressors can strengthen mothers and fathers—as individuals or couples—and families as groups.
Events such as moving, caring for an ill family member, or experiencing a natural disaster can thus
often be hard on the family as a whole and on individual members, but such events can also draw
family members closer together. In a similar way, the stress-and-coping perspective allows for a
more positive, albeit realistic, orientation toward the problems and strengths of these families, setting
the stage for studying the positive reactions of many families to rearing their child with disabilities
(Dykens, 2006; Hastings, 2016; Taunt and Hastings, 2002).
The stress-coping perspective also led to borrowing models from other areas. Specifically, to help
explain potential variations among families of children with intellectual disabilities, McCubbin and
Patterson’s (1983) ABCX model was adapted by family researchers into a Double ABCX model.
Briefly stated, the Double ABCX model hypothesizes that the effects of the “crisis” of having a child
with intellectual disabilities (“X” in the model) is due to specific characteristics of the child (the
“stressor event,” or A), mediated by the family’s internal and external resources (B) and by the family’s
perceptions of the child (C). But children with intellectual disabilities and their effects on families
also change over time. Characteristics of the child change as the child gets older, the family’s internal
and external resources may change, and so too may the family’s perceptions of the child. Hence, the
“Double” in the Double ABCX model.
Such stress-coping perspectives and models also led to better measurement of parenting stress.
In examining the extant literature, parenting stress is most frequently measured via a parent report.
Lessenberry and Rehfeldt (2004) conducted a meta-analysis to determine which tools are most
often used to measure stress in parents of children with disabilities. Their search yielded seven such
instruments, most notably the Parenting Stress Index (PSI; Abidin, 1997). In a broader examination
of the literature, both the PSI and the Questionnaire for Resources and Stress (QRS; Holroyd, 1976)
frequently appear. But a number of other parent-report measures exist, with the entire list possibly
including up to 20 different parent-stress measures (Hodapp and Casale, in press).
Beyond such parent-report measures, developments in technology have led to direct physiologi-
cal measures of stress. Such physiological measures include ambulatory blood pressure (Foody, James,
and Leader, 2014); electrodermal activity (Ruiz-Robledillo and Moya-Albiol, 2015); cortisol salivary
biomarkers (Foody et al., 2015; Seltzer et al., 2010; Seltzer et al., 2009; Dykens and Lambert, 2013);
569
and blood immune parameters (Pariante et al., 1997; Gallagher, Phillips, Drayson, and Carroll, 2009a,
2009b). Additionally, researchers have looked at other biological markers, including chromosomal
telomere shortening (Epel et al., 2004). In future years, we can expect the development of additional
biological or physiological measures.
The Double ABCX model, with increasing theoretical and measurement specification, has served
researchers well. Most importantly, the model helps explain both negative and positive consequences
of rearing a child with intellectual disabilities (Minnes, 1988). For all families, children displaying
fewer emotional problems and requiring less physical caregiving may help parents and families to
adjust more positively. In the same way, families with few internal or external resources are more
likely to be negatively affected by the child with intellectual disabilities; families with more resources
should do better.
The Child’s Meaning to the Parents

As scientists in many fields are discovering, human beings are “meaning-makers,” creatures obsessed
with deriving meaningful understandings of human events (Bruner, 1990).Yet until recently, the role
of meaning—of what the child with intellectual disabilities means to the parents—has rarely been
examined. This focus on meaning can best be seen in examinations of interactions between children
with intellectual disabilities and their parents. A common finding is that such interactions are both
the same and different from interactions between typical child-mother dyads (see next section).
Many interactive differences appear due to the different meanings of the child with intellectual dis-
abilities to the mother.
In addition to the role of meaning in mother-child interactions, families have complex meaning
systems for both the family overall and for each individual member. Employing an ecological per-
spective on the family, Gallimore, Weisner, Kaufman, and Bernheimer (1989) described the different
social constructions held by families of children with intellectual disabilities. They noted that some
families feel that the child with intellectual disabilities needs intensive intervention, whereas others
feel that typically developing children should receive more time and attention. Families then change
their day-to-day lifestyles to accommodate their prevailing values. To Gallimore et al. (1989), the
meaning of the child with intellectual disabilities—and how this child fits within the overall family’s
meaning-system—is the most important influence on the family’s behaviors and how these behav-
iors are interpreted by each family member.
Group Versus Individual Differences Approaches to Studying Families

of Children With Intellectual Disabilities
No two families of children with intellectual disabilities are exactly alike. Individual mothers and
fathers, siblings, families as a unit, and children with intellectual disabilities themselves all display
individual characteristics that may affect parenting.Yet as a side effect of the Solnit and Stark (1961)
formulation, most research has compared parents, interactions, and families of children with intel-
lectual disabilities to parents, interactions, and families of typically developing children. Such studies
have sought to determine if behaviors are the same or different relative to behaviors occurring in
response to typically developing children. Although useful in many areas, such a group-difference
approach needs to be complemented by studies examining intra-group variation among families of
children with ID.
A complementary focus on individual differences has begun to affect the parenting literature,
somewhat as a result of the Double ABCX and other stress-coping models. If any one family’s reac-
tion is due to a combination of child characteristics and the family’s internal and external resources
and perceptions, then individual differences—in the child with intellectual disabilities, the parents,
570
and the entire family system—become important foci of research and intervention. Indeed, families
differ on a host of factors: in the degree to which they are warm or cold, open or closed, harmoni-
ous or unharmonious. Personal characteristics of—and relationships among—mothers, fathers, sis-
ters, brothers, and extended family members all vary from one family to another, and all potentially
influence parenting. In the same way, many characteristics of children themselves affect parental and
familial reactions. The child’s chronological age, mental age, IQ, degree and types of associated dis-
ability, maladaptive behavior, personality, and interests might all be important. Most such character-
istics have only begun to be investigated.
“Indirect Effects” of the Child’s Etiology on Parents and Families

Another important influence on parental reactions and behaviors may be the child’s type of intel-
lectual disability. A revolution has occurred in behavioral research in intellectual disabilities. Whereas
previously most behavioral researchers studied children with intellectual disabilities who had similar
degrees of impairment (e.g., mild, moderate, severe, and profound levels), contemporary studies have
proliferated in such disorders as Williams syndrome, Prader-Willi syndrome, and fragile X syndrome
(Hodapp and Dykens, 2012). Even in Down syndrome, the sole etiology to receive research attention
over many decades, behavioral studies almost doubled from the 1980s to the 1990s and continue
climbing (Hodapp and Dykens, 2012).
Beyond increasing numbers of studies per se, the field is now appreciating that children with
specific genetic conditions more likely demonstrate particular behavioral strengths, weaknesses, and
problems. Many children with Down syndrome, for example, have special difficulties in language
(especially expressive language and articulation) and difficulties in performing means-ends tasks
(Fidler, 2005). Even early on, these children show a strong interest in people (vs. objects), to the
extent that they use this sociability to avoid performing difficult cognitive tasks (Kasari and Free-
man, 2001; Pitcairn and Wishart, 1994). Children with Prader-Willi syndrome almost always display
extreme hyperphagia (i.e., overeating), along with obsessions-compulsions and tantrums (Dykens,
Cassidy, and DeVries, 2011). Those with Williams syndrome, who often show relatively high linguis-
tic abilities and an affinity for music, also show extreme empathy in many laboratory tasks, even as
they have difficulties making and keeping friends (Thurman and Fisher, 2015). Although this listing
of etiology-related behaviors is not complete for any of these disorders—and 750–1,000 genetic
conditions have now been associated with intellectual disabilities (Ellison, Rosenfeld, and Schaffer,
2013)—they nevertheless give a sense of etiology-related behavioral effects.
To date, most studies have focused on delineating behavior of the children themselves. Increas-
ingly, however, studies also focus on genetic disorders’ “indirect effects,” or parental (and others’)
reactions to etiology-related child behaviors (Hodapp, 1997, 1999). The background for indirect
effects arises from R. Q. Bell’s classic notion of interaction (Bell, 1968; Bell and Harper, 1977), the
idea that, just as parents affect children, so too do children affect their parents. In the case of intel-
lectual disabilities, children with a particular syndrome are predisposed to exhibit certain etiology-
related behaviors, which in turn may elicit specific behaviors from parents. If parents of typically
developing children react in certain ways to their children’s hyperactivity, then might not parents of
children with either 5p- or fragile X syndromes—two disorders with high rates of hyperactivity—
respond similarly (Hodapp, 2004)? Such analyses hold great promise for better understanding parent-
ing behaviors in children with intellectual disabilities.
Two final issues concern the indirect effects of genetic disorders. The first involves direction
of causality. Are children affecting parents or are parents affecting children? Although traditional
socialization theory holds that parents affect their children, most studies of parents of children with
different syndromes—and of parents of children with intellectual disabilities in general—assume the
opposite. Moreover, longitudinal studies show that the direction of effects often goes from the child’s
571
behavior to the parents’ or family’s functioning (Keogh, Garnier, Bernheimer, and Gallimore, 2000).
Yet still to be addressed are complicated questions such as how ongoing parent–child transactions
or interventions develop over time; to what extent, for example, do parental behaviors during inter-
actions foster, buffer, or negate children’s already existing tendencies across a variety of behavioral
domains (Fidler, 2011)? Conversely, to what extent do the child’s behaviors influence adults, and
when (or under which circumstances) do such parental responses occur?
Even if children do affect parents, what is the “active ingredient”? So far, the idea has been that
those behaviors that elicit specific reactions in parents of typically developing children should bring
about similar responses when exhibited by a child with a particular type of intellectual disability.
The particular genetic disorder, then, becomes a proxy for one or a small number of that disorder’s
characteristic behaviors. But etiologies also differ in terms of other characteristics. To give the most
well-known example, to this day births of infants with Down syndrome more often occur to moth-
ers who are older (Congenital Anomaly Statistics, 2010; Martin, Hamilton, Osterman, Curtin, and
Mathews, 2015). In most industrialized societies, however, older mothers are also more likely to be
married and more educated (McLanahan, 2004; McLanahan and Jacobsen, 2015); these older moth-
ers also more often enjoy higher levels of social support and better understand child development
and caregiving practices (Bornstein, Putnick, Suwalsky, and Gini, 2006).
As seen in initial studies, the correlates of advanced maternal age might also be at work in fami-
lies of children with Down syndrome. Related to more often having older mothers, then, children
with Down syndrome more often have mothers who are married and better educated (Hodapp
and Urbano, 2008). Although the focus of few studies, these mothers would seem likely to be more
savvy in terms of child development and learning about their child’s disability and available services
(Hodapp, Burke, and Urbano, 2012). These issues are complicated and, to date, little studied, but suf-
fice to say here that the specific aspects and operation of indirect effects remain under-examined.
Focus on Parenting and Care Over the Lifespan of Persons

With Intellectual Disabilities
From Farber (1959) on, family researchers have appreciated that children with ID do not always fol-
low the usual age-appropriate roles of children within a family. This realization becomes especially
prominent at the end of the childhood years, when most offspring leave home for work or college.
Researchers have long discussed the ways in which offspring with disabilities often continue to live
in the family home into the adult years, a phenomenon called “delayed launching” (Seltzer and Ryff,
1994). This issue becomes especially salient given the increasingly long lifespans of persons with ID,
along with a scarcity of state-run adult-disability services (Hodapp, Burke, Finley, and Urbano, 2016).
As a result, our views of parenting offspring with intellectual disabilities increasingly reach beyond
the childhood years. As noted below, when considering adults with intellectual disabilities, there are
many twists on caregiving. Such twists relate both to the intergenerational nature of care—including
the health and functional abilities of aging parents—as well as the possibility that one or more of the
other (i.e., typical) offspring in the family—the adult siblings—might assume care of their brother or
sister with disabilities. Such long-term, intergenerational family care may become even more com-
plicated when offspring have specific types of disabilities.
Methodological Issues in Studying Parents and Families

of Children With Intellectual Disabilities
Since the late 1960s, researchers have debated how best to conceptualize behavior in children with
intellectual disabilities. One side has included the many defect theorists, researchers who believe that
intellectual disabilities are caused by one or another specific defect (for a review, see Zigler and Balla,
572
1982). On the other have been developmental workers who propose that children with certain types
of intellectual disabilities—particularly those demonstrating no specific organic cause—show more
general delays across many domains of functioning (Zigler and Hodapp, 1986).
One key aspect of this debate concerns CA- versus MA-matching, whether it is better to com-
pare children with intellectual disabilities to typically developing children of the same chronological
age (CA-matching) or mental age (MA-matching). Defect theorists have long advocated CA-
matching, arguing that CA-matching directly demonstrates a child’s deficiencies in a particular area
(Baumeister, 1967). Developmentalists respond that, to show that a child is “deficient” in a particular
area, performance that is delayed beyond overall mental age must be established. Performance that is
deficient to CA-matches shows only that a particular task is one of many performed poorly by the
child with intellectual disabilities (Cicchetti and Pogge-Hesse, 1982). In addition, with recent debates
about the degree to which functioning is spared in several genetic disorders (e.g., is language spared
in Williams syndrome?), both MA- and CA-matches may be necessary (Hodapp and Dykens, 2001).
In addition to studying the child’s own behavior, how should one study parental reactions, mater-
nal behaviors within interactions, or the family systems of children with intellectual disabilities? It
would seem that research strategies need to be tailored to the question of interest. For example, studies
of maternal language input should employ children with and without intellectual disabilities who are
of the same language-age (Conti-Ramsden, 1989). In contrast, CA-matching might be more appro-
priate for studies of family functioning. As Stoneman (1989) notes, families with 10-year-old children
are in a particular family stage, even if the child functions at a 5-year-old level.To examine issues such
as divorce rates, quality of marriage, sibling reactions, and other family dynamics, CA-matching may
be the most appropriate strategy. In line with this reasoning, most studies have compared families of
children with and without intellectual disabilities when the children are matched on CA.
At the same time, however, not every family question may be best addressed with a CA-match.
Specifically, many of the changes of family dynamics involve reactions based on the child’s immatu-
rity, on the idea that the child with intellectual disabilities—while she or he may be a 10-year-old—
in fact acts like a much younger child. If families of a child with intellectual disabilities are indeed
stuck in their development (Farber and Rowitz, 1986), then a match to a group of families of typical
children of the same MA might be indicated. Better yet, both CA- and MA-matching might be use-
ful to address many questions, as only this combination can differentiate how long the child has lived
(CA) from the child’s present level of functioning (MA, or age-equivalent score).
An additional methodological issue relates to individual differences, the idea that there are wide
individual differences from one family to another. Here, too, many important variables have not yet been
examined. We know little, for example, about the family dynamics of families who are more versus less
successful in parenting the child with intellectual disabilities, and only generally why some marriages
break up whereas others become stronger. It may also be that couples who parent children with dif-
ferent conditions—for example, Down syndrome as opposed to autism spectrum disorder—have dif-
ferent amounts and timings of divorce (Hartley et al., 2010; Urbano and Hodapp, 2007). How familial
adaptation might differ based on the family’s SES, ethnicity, and parental education levels also remains
underexplored. Even those variables that have been studied are usually examined in a piecemeal fashion,
making more difficult the determination of each variable’s contribution to individual differences among
families. Change may be occurring, however, as more researchers use larger, family systems frameworks
to conceptualize their findings (Kerig, 2019). More attention is needed on how to do research from the
group-difference versus the individual-difference perspective and what each implies.
Modern Research on Parenting the Child With Intellectual Disabilities

The six issues discussed above can be found within much of the modern research in maternal and
paternal reactions, mother-child interactions, and the reactions of the family as a whole to rearing the
573
child with intellectual disabilities. Much of this research combines recent theories and methodolo-
gies with the perspectives and findings of the 1960s and early 1970s.
Factors Affecting Maternal and Paternal Reactions to Parenting Children

Much modern research has examined both the Solnit and Stark and the Olshansky perspectives to
delineate further when and how parents react to the child with intellectual disabilities. When closer,
more fine-grained examinations have been performed, researchers have found that several factors
affect parental emotional reactions.
Factors Intrinsic to Parents Themselves

To date, maternal coping styles have been implicated as a major factor influencing parental reactions to
their children with intellectual disabilities. Following from Folkman, Schaefer, and Lazarus’s (1979)
work, mothers can be identified as predominantly using either problem-focused or emotion-focused
coping strategies (for a review, see Turnbull et al., 1993). In the first, mothers approach their child’s
intellectual disabilities as a practical, concrete problem to be addressed. These mothers make plans to
cope with everyday problems, work hard to alleviate those problems, and feel that they have learned
from their experiences. In contrast, another group of mothers either totally denies their feelings
about their child and the disability, or instead becomes over-concerned, almost obsessed, with their
own feelings of depression and grief. Across a range of studies, active, problem-focused copers seem
much better adjusted than emotion-based copers (Essex, Seltzer, and Krauss, 1999). Although in
some sense obvious, a mother’s style of social problem solving seems important for successful adapta-
tion to rearing a child with intellectual disabilities. Such parent characteristics and coping styles can
impact the degree to which parents respond with resilience to the stress of parenting a child with, or
at-risk for, a disability (Ellingsen, Baker, Blacher, and Crnic, 2014).
So too may differences in the mothers’ genetic status sometimes lead to different maternal reactions.
For example, mothers who carry the fragile X gene have been found to more often be shy, anxious,
and withdrawn compared to mothers of children with other types of disabilities (Lachiewicz et al.,
2010; Mailick et al., 2017). In many ways similar to the broader autism phenotype among parents of
children with autism (see also Chapter 16 in this volume), such personality characteristics—which
appear specific to female carriers of the fragile X gene—contribute to the problems these women
have in making use of clinical, educational, and other supportive services.
An additional difference involves the ethnicity of the mother. Although an under-researched area,
mothers of different ethnicities seem to react differently to rearing a child with intellectual disabili-
ties. One area of interest has concerned Latina mothers, especially related to their health and depres-
sion (Magaña, Li, Miranda, and de Sayu, 2015; Magaña, Schwartz, Rubert, and Szapocznik, 2006).
For example, Latina mothers report more problems than non-Hispanic mothers in finding out infor-
mation about their child and in participating in parent programs (Heller, Markwardt, Rowitz, and
Farber, 1994). Other studies find that many Latina mothers are depressed, with levels of depression
best predicted by the absence of a spouse or partner, low family cohesion, and poor maternal health
(Blacher, Lopez, Shapiro, and Fusco, 1997; see also Magaña, Seltzer, and Krauss, 2004).
For at least certain ethnic groups, one important—and often overlooked—variable involves religi-
osity. Although a topic in disability family research for many years (Zuk, Miller, Bertram, and Kling,
1961), the degree to which mothers consider themselves religious may be especially important
among Latino and African American populations. In Heller et al. (1994), Latina (versus non-Latina)
mothers considered rearing a child with intellectual disabilities as a religious duty. In the African
American community, mothers benefited both from their personal religious feelings and from the
574
support they received from other church members (Rogers-Dulan, 1998). Mothers thus mentioned
how church members “are especially good in helping my daughter’s self-confidence,” “prayed for
Tim the whole time he was in the hospital,” and “brought us groceries and things for Kevin like
clothes and diapers” (p. 98).
Just as the reactions of mothers may differ due to several factors, so too may reactions differ in moth-
ers versus fathers. Few studies have examined paternal compared to maternal reactions, but mothers and
fathers appear to vary. Damrosch and Perry (1989) asked mothers and fathers to describe retrospectively
their emotional reactions since the birth of their children with Down syndrome. Two graphs were
provided.The first graph, consistent with Solnit and Stark’s mourning model, showed strong emotional
reactions early and then gradual acceptance of the child with disabilities. The second graph featured a
series of wide emotional swings that was more consistent with the repeated up-and-down pattern of
Olshansky’s recurrent reactions model. Mothers and fathers differed in their reactions. Mothers more
often described their feelings as repeatedly up and down (i.e., the recurrent reactions pattern), whereas
fathers reported early emotional reactions then later acceptance (i.e., the maternal mourning model).
Mothers and fathers may also differ in how they conceptualize the child and the child’s problems.
Many studies have found that mothers experience more stress and feel themselves less in control of
the situation than fathers (Bristol, Gallagher, and Shopler, 1988; Damrosch and Perry, 1989; Goldberg,
Marcovitch, MacGregor, and Lojkasek, 1986). Mothers much more than fathers express needs for
more social and familial support, information to explain the child’s disability to others, and help with
childcare (Bailey, Blasco, and Simeonsson, 1992). In contrast, fathers seem particularly concerned
about the costs of caring for a child with disabilities and what the child will mean to the family as a
whole (Price-Bonham and Addison, 1978; see MacDonald and Hastings, 2010).
Given these differences, factors that support mothers may not support fathers. Frey, Greenberg,
and Fewell (1989) found that the presence of supportive social networks promotes better coping on
the part of mothers of children with intellectual disabilities, whereas fathers cope better when there
is a minimal amount of criticism from extended families. Both mothers and fathers cope best if the
other spouse is coping well and if each feels a strong measure of personal control in rearing the child
with intellectual disabilities.
Factors Related to Child Characteristics

In addition to variables related to parents, several characteristics of the children themselves seem to
influence parental reactions. The first of these factors concerns the age of the offspring with intellectual
disabilities. Several researchers have attempted to determine when emotional reactions and concerns
are most likely to occur for mothers of children with disabilities. For example, Emde and Brown
(1978) noted that parents of children with Down syndrome undergo several waves of depression over
the child’s first year of life (Suchman, DeCoste, and David, 2019). After experiencing strong feel-
ings of depression at the baby’s birth and diagnosis, parents generally do better until approximately
4 months of age, when feelings of sadness reappear. This second wave of depression occurs as parents
realize the behavioral implications of Down syndrome, as their infants show more dampened affect
and less consistent social smiles than do same-aged typically developing children.
Such recurrent emotional reactions continue throughout the childhood years.Wikler (1986) noted
that parents experience stress during puberty (ages 11–15) and during the onset of adulthood (ages
20–21). Compared to responses from these same mothers 2 years before or after these periods, lesser
amounts of stress were reported (Wikler, 1986). In a more general sense, Minnes (1988) described a
“pile-up” of stressors on mothers as the child gets older, even as mothers less often use formal and
informal social supports (Suelzle and Keenan, 1981). In evaluating Solnit and Stark’s formulation, it
seems that, although parental emotions may be most intense directly after birth, later events and mile-
stones also evoke strong reactions. As Wikler (1981, p. 284) noted, “The accepted view that a crisis
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occurs following the diagnosis because of the general disruption of expectancies is probably correct;
but the conclusion that the gradually gained equilibrium is permanent is probably incorrect.”
Researchers have also examined parental reactions to their children during a different period of
life, when the child with intellectual disabilities becomes an adult. Two contrasting viewpoints have
been featured in this work. In the first, wear-and-tear hypothesis, parents of adults with intellectual
disabilities are thought, over time, to be beaten down by the day-to-day struggle to parent their now
adult offspring. In the second, adaptational hypothesis, parents and their adult offspring come to
coexist peacefully, with the caregiver developing new coping strategies and growing psychologically
(Townsend, Noelker, Deimling, and Bass, 1989).
For the most part, studies support the second, more hopeful perspective for mothers of adults with
intellectual disabilities. In a study of 450 mothers aged 55–85 years, Seltzer and Krauss (1989) found
that most (78%) reported that their health was good or excellent; compared to other samples of fam-
ily caregivers, these mothers were substantially more satisfied with their lives and reported slightly
less caregiving stress and feelings of burden. A high level of involvement by the other (non-disabled)
siblings was also helpful, as were the mothers’ own constructive coping strategies (Seltzer and Ryff,
1994; Sanderson, Burke, Urbano, Arnold, and Hodapp, 2017).
Before painting too rosy a picture, however, it should be noted that these families have their
problems. Specifically, about half of older mothers reported experiencing a stressful life event (death
of family member or close friend, illness, or the like) over the prior 18 months, and individual moth-
ers showed higher levels of depressive symptoms after experiencing such events (Krauss and Seltzer,
1998). As during their offspring’s childhood years, mothers who employed more constructive coping
styles did better. On balance, though, these mothers and their families were doing relatively well. In
some studies, parents even reported that they themselves received support from their adult offspring
with intellectual disabilities and that such support was important in mothers reporting greater satis-
faction and less caregiving burden (Heller, Miller, and Factor, 1997).
A second factor concerns the etiology of the child’s intellectual disabilities. Across all but a very
few studies, families of children with Down syndrome appear to do better than families of chil-
dren with other forms of intellectual disabilities, autism spectrum disorders, or psychiatric disorders.
When compared to children with autism and to children with unidentified intellectual disabilities,
parents of children with Down syndrome exhibit significantly lower amounts of stress (see Hodapp,
2007). Compared to mothers of children with other disabilities, mothers of children with Down
syndrome even report experiencing greater support from friends and the greater community (Erik-
son and Upshure, 1989). Compared to parents of children with other conditions, then, parents of
children with Down syndrome may experience what has been called a “Down syndrome advantage”
(Hodapp, Ly, Fidler, and Ricci, 2001; Seltzer and Ryff, 1994).
Several potential explanations have been ascribed for the existence of a Down syndrome advan-
tage. First, Down syndrome is a common and widely known disorder that is understandable to
parents and families and others. The syndrome also has many parent groups, often with active local
chapters. Unlike many other conditions (e.g., Prader-Willi syndrome, Williams syndrome), parents
and family members generally do not need to explain the syndrome to extended family, friends,
coworkers, and the child’s schoolmates.
Second, because of the higher prevalence rates of Down syndrome to mothers of more advanced
age, mothers may be more mature and more experienced in the parenting role. Reviewing census
data from several industrialized countries, the median maternal age at the birth of newborns with
Down syndrome is approximately 32 years, roughly 5 years older than maternal age for births in the
general population or in other disability groups (see Hodapp et al., 2016, for a review). As noted ear-
lier, the mother’s age when giving birth also correlates with higher levels of formal education, more
often being (and staying) married, having fathers who are more involved in childrearing, and more
generally providing greater amounts of financial and cultural resources (McLanahan and Jacobsen,
576
2015). Although only a few such variables have been examined among mothers of children with
Down syndrome (Hodapp and Urbano, 2008), most correlates likely occur in this group as well.
Indeed, the few studies not finding this Down syndrome advantage have suggested that these par-
ents’ age (Corrice and Glidden, 2009) and socioeconomic status may account for differences earlier
attributed to the etiology itself (Cahill and Glidden, 1996).
Along with these associated characteristics, children with Down syndrome also possess several
personal characteristics that may differ from others with intellectual disabilities (Hodapp, 1999).
Children with Down syndrome may have more upbeat, sociable personalities, particularly during
the early years. Such personalities have now been found using both questionnaire measures (Hodapp
et al., 2001) and in parents’ descriptions of their children’s personalities (Carr, 1995; Hornby, 1995).
Such sociable personalities are evident from the toddler years, when, compared to other children
with intellectual disabilities, toddlers with Down syndrome more often look to their mothers than to
surrounding objects (Kasari, Freeman, Mundy, and Sigman, 1995). Such looking to adults continues
into the middle-childhood years, sometimes even interfering with these children’s completion of
difficult cognitive or academic tasks (Fidler and Nadel, 2007; Kasari and Freeman, 2001).
A second behavioral difference concerns the relative lack of psychopathology—especially severe
psychopathology—in the Down syndrome population. Granted, estimates of children with Down
syndrome who have significant behavior problems range from 15% to 38% (Hodapp, 1996), with
studies noting the presence of severe psychopathology-maladaptive behavior in subsets of children
and adolescents with the syndrome (Dykens et al., 2015;Tasse et al., 2016). Still, such percentages are
generally lower than those found in same-aged children with mixed etiologies (Dykens and Kasari,
1997; Meyers and Pueschel, 1991).
In addition to the child’s behaviors per se, other, more physical, characteristics may also elicit parental
reactions. Specifically, children with Down syndrome generally have more infantile or baby-like faces,
that is faces that are rounder and with smaller, lower-set features (Allanson, O’Hara, Farkas, and Nair,
1993). When seeing such faces, adults display a strong tendency to attribute to these individuals infan-
tile personality characteristics (Berry and McArthur, 1985), to rate photographs of more versus less
baby-faced individuals (children or adults) as being warmer, friendlier, and more honest, compliant, and
sociable (Zebrowitz, 1997). Such findings also extend to children with Down syndrome. Examining
pictures of 8-, 10-, and 12-year-old children with Down syndrome, another genetic intellectual dis-
abilities disorder (5p- syndrome), and same-aged typically developing children, naïve respondents rated
children with Down syndrome as more honest, warm, compliant, and sociable (Fidler and Hodapp,
1999). In a second, within-group part of the study, those children with Down syndrome who objec-
tively possessed more versus less baby-faced faces were rated higher on these personality characteristics.
Recent studies have even extended such findings to other aspects of human infants, especially “cute”
vocal sounds (e.g., babbling, laughter) and smells, with facial, vocal, and olfactory cues all found to elicit
parental reactions both behaviorally and neurologically (Kringelbach, Stark, Alexander, Bornstein, and
Stein, 2016). As with parents of typical children, then, the face (and, possibly, other aspects) of the child
with Down syndrome may ultimately join behavior as a child characteristic to which adults respond.
In considering the research on parental emotional reactions, much progress has occurred since the
original Solnit-Stark and Olshansky formulations. Increasingly, researchers are developing a taxon-
omy of parent and child characteristics that affect parental reactions, a taxonomy that should promote
more effective parental coping strategies throughout the childhood years.
Interactions Between Mothers and Their Children

Starting with Rondal’s (1977) study showing that mothers of children with Down syndrome pro-
vide similar levels of language input as mothers of typically developing children of the same level of
577
language (i.e., MLU), many studies have examined interactions between mothers and children with a
variety of disability conditions.These studies converge on a basic theme: Maternal interactive (mainly
linguistic) behaviors with their children with disabilities appear both the same as and different from
maternal behaviors with typically developing children of the same level of language.
Overall, the similarities have occurred when one examines what might be called the structural
properties of input language. Mothers of young children with intellectual disabilities provide lan-
guage that is of the same grammatical complexity, has the same amount of information per sentence,
and appears much like the language provided by mothers of typically developing children of the
same language or mental age.
Yet at the same time, mothers of children with intellectual disabilities appear very different in their
styles of interaction. Even when children with versus without intellectual disabilities are equated on
overall mental or linguistic age, mothers of children with Down syndrome and other types of intel-
lectual disabilities are often more didactic, directive, and intrusive compared to mothers of typically
developing children (Marfo, 1990). Such stylistic differences between mothers of children with and
without intellectual disabilities are seen on a number of levels.Tannock (1988) found that, compared
to mothers of typical children, mothers of children with Down syndrome took interactive turns
that were longer and more frequent; in addition, these mothers more often clashed—or spoke at the
same time as—their children (Vietze, Abernathy, Ashe, and Faulstich, 1978). Mothers of children with
Down syndrome also switched the topic of conversation more often and less often silently responded
to the child’s utterance.
But why mothers in the two groups differ remains unclear.The most common explanation is that
mothers of children with intellectual disabilities inject into mother-child interactions their own par-
enting concerns. They more often treat mother-child interactions as teaching sessions, as moments
not to be squandered in the non-stop effort to intervene effectively (Cardoso-Martins and Mervis,
1984; Jones, 1980). In contrast, mothers of typically developing children display fewer fears and con-
cerns; they may simply desire to play—in a more spontaneous and less directive manner—with their
typically developing children.
In line with most work in this area, the above review focuses on studies examining differences
between maternal behaviors of children with and without intellectual disabilities. But several stud-
ies have now examined variation in maternal behaviors within samples with intellectual disabilities
(usually Down syndrome). The main findings are that not all mothers behave identically and that
certain maternal styles of interaction may be more helpful than others are for language development
in children with Down syndrome.
In a direct examination of this issue, Crawley and Spiker (1983) rated maternal sensitivity and
directiveness of mothers in their interactions with their 2-year-old children with Down syndrome.
They found wide individual differences from one mother to another. Some mothers were highly
directive, whereas others followed the child’s lead; similarly, mothers varied widely in self-rated
degrees of sensitivity to their children. Because the two dimensions of sensitivity and directiveness
were somewhat orthogonal, mothers could be high or low on either sensitivity or directiveness. All
four combinations were demonstrated in this study. Just as mothers of typically developing chil-
dren vary widely on both directiveness and sensitivity, so too do mothers of children with Down
syndrome.
A final issue concerns the effects of different maternal behaviors on children’s development. In the
sole study of this issue, Harris, Kasari, and Sigman (1996) examined the effects of maternal interactive
behaviors on children with Down syndrome’s expressive and receptive language behaviors. Examin-
ing children when they were 2 and again at 3 years of age, Harris et al. (1996) found that the mean
length of time in which mothers and children were engaged in joint attention (i.e., focusing on the
same object) was correlated to the child’s degree of receptive language gain over the 1-year interval.
In addition, the child’s receptive language gains were also correlated with the amount of time that
578
mothers maintained the child’s attention to child-selected toys, and (negatively) to instances of redi-
recting the child’s focus of attention and of engaging in greater numbers of separate joint attention
episodes. Such findings parallel those found for interactions between mothers and typically develop-
ing infants, where maternal sensitivity (Baumwell, Tamis-LeMonda, and Bornstein, 1997) and joint
attention episodes (Tomasello and Farrar, 1986; Kasari, Freeman, and Paparella, 2006) also promote
young children’s early language abilities.
Some researchers have extended such investigations beyond language outcomes to more global
positive parenting outcomes. Home environment factors such as lower income and maternal sensi-
tivity have been associated with needing special education or remedial services for children identified
as developmentally delayed or in need of early intervention services (La Paro, Olsen, and Pianta, 2002;
Mann, McCartney, and Park, 2007).
To this end, Ellingsen and colleagues (2014) examined the protective and prohibitive factors that
influence positive parenting in 232 parent–child dyads in the context of the ABCX model. In this
model, researchers investigated to what extent risk factors (e.g., child behavior problems, maternal
education, and presence of developmental disability) predicted positive parenting outcomes, and to
what extent positive parenting outcomes were influenced by maternal education, health, and opti-
mism.When mothers had higher levels of education, they showed higher levels of positive parenting—
even when the child was reported to engage in difficult behaviors. Ellingsen and colleagues (2014) also
confirmed previous hypotheses that higher levels of maternal optimism were associated with higher
levels of positive parenting outcomes.These authors found no evidence of a relation between maternal
health and positive parenting. This study provides evidence of the influence of maternal factors on
positive parenting of children with developmental disabilities at age 3.
Mother-child interactions, then, are interesting from the perspective of both group differences
and intra-group variation. As a group, mothers of children with intellectual disabilities are the same
but different in their interactions from mothers of typically developing children at similar mental
ages. They are the same in the structural aspects of their input—such as MLU, type-token ratio, and
other measures of communicative complexity. At the same time, these mothers appear more intru-
sive, didactic, and “pushy.” It remains unclear whether such stylistic differences are due to maternal
emotional reactions or to child factors. Preliminary evidence, however, indicates that such mother-
directed, intrusive interactions are less effective than when mothers comment on or extend their
child’s ongoing interactive topics and allow enough time for the child to respond. In essence, then,
this pattern of mothers following the child’s lead is more effective in fostering the child’s communi-
cative skills, an insight that has now been used in a variety of mother-child interventions (see below).
Characteristics of Families of Children With Intellectual Disabilities

Modern research on families continues the historic tradition of delineating the characteristics of
families of children with intellectual disabilities. However, conceptual frameworks have shifted from
family pathology to family stress and coping. As with parents and mother-child interaction, research
emphasizes both differences of these families from families with typically developing children and
intra-group variation across families with a member with intellectual disabilities.
A good example of the change to a stress-coping perspective comes from work on family support.
Earlier research noted that families of children with intellectual disabilities were often isolated, with
few formal and informal supports.Wikler,Wasow, and Hatfield (1981) noted a divergence of percep-
tion on the part of families themselves and the social service workers who aid them.Whereas parents
were concerned about child milestones occurring both earlier and later during the child’s life (e.g.,
when the child reaches adulthood), social service personnel identified the early years as the period of
most difficulty for parents and other family members. Such professional perspectives may exacerbate
the front-loading of services for families of children with intellectual disabilities, the tendency of
579
services to more often be provided during the earliest years, even as these families may require more
help—and become less connected to formal support services—as the child gets older (Suelzle and
Keenan, 1981; Sanderson et al., 2017).
Although these families may receive lesser amounts of formal support later on, they are not quite
as isolated as earlier hypothesized. In work with families of children with intellectual disabilities and
with chronic illness, Kazak and Marvin (1984; also Kazak, 1987) noted that families of children with
both conditions possess strong informal social networks, but that these networks differ from those of
families without a member with a disability. Specifically, Kazak and Marvin (1984) found that parents
of children with disabilities have smaller social networks, but networks that are more dense. These
mothers thus receive a fair amount of informal support, but the support comes from the mother’s
own mother, sister, or a few close family friends. Such networks are denser in that each member of
the network interacts with every other.
As Byrne and Cunningham (1985) noted, the presence of smaller but denser social networks is
both good and bad.These families are not isolated, in that they often receive support, encouragement,
and respite from day-to-day responsibilities from a small circle of loving friends and relatives (see also
Krauss, Seltzer, and Goodman, 1992). But as the networks are smaller, parents of children with disabili-
ties have fewer contacts with a wider, more diffuse network of friends and associates. Families are often
enmeshed in a tightly organized, intimate circle of social support that can at times feel suffocating.
In addition to such group-differences research, sporadic research has also appeared on how fami-
lies of children with intellectual disabilities differ one from another. Through cluster analysis, Mink,
Nihira, and Meyers (1983) identified five types of families of children with severe intellectual dis-
ability: (1) cohesive, harmonious families, (2) control-oriented, somewhat unharmonious families, (3)
low disclosure, unharmonious families, (4) child-oriented, expressive families, and (5) disadvantaged,
low morale families. Similar, although not identical, family clusters have been found for families of
children with mild and borderline intellectual disabilities (Mink, Nihira, and Meyers, 1984). More
and more, then, variation among different families is being characterized.
Such work helps to explain which child, individual member, or family variables lead to different
family styles. As with parental reactions, the child’s type of intellectual disabilities may contribute
to different family styles. In Mink et al. (1983), almost two-thirds of “cohesive harmonious” fami-
lies were of children with Down syndrome, a much higher percentage than might be expected by
chance. In another study as well, Beavers, Hampson, Hulgus, and Beavers (1986) noted that 7 of the
11 families considered to be functioning “optimally” were families of children with Down syndrome
(although it is unclear how many of their 40 study families had children with this syndrome).
As noted above, we do not yet know why families of children with Down syndrome seem to be
doing better than families of children with other types of disabilities. Seltzer et al. (1993) emphasize
that, although the reasons for such differences remain unknown, Down syndrome features readily
accessible support groups and a more researched, more understood clinical syndrome. Or it may be
that, as Mink et al. (1983, p. 495) noted, “Taking into consideration the effects of children on their
caretakers, we may speculate that Down syndrome children [or adults] will have a positive effect on
the climate of the home.”
Family work shows a change in emphasis from pathology to stress and coping. Such research also
shows the complexity of familial reactions and the strong influences of factors associated with both
the child (age, type of intellectual disabilities) and the family (size and nature of family network).
Practical Information for Parents, Families, Service

Providers, and Policymakers
Like the larger field of child development (Sears, 1975), the field of parenting children with intellec-
tual disabilities is not purely a scientific enterprise. Instead, the field has strong and enduring practical
580
concerns. Many family researchers consult with or direct intervention services, others write practical
books and manuals for parents of children with various types of intellectual disabilities. This chapter
therefore discusses the practical implications of classical and modern research for parents, interactions,
and families overall.
Mothers and Fathers

Compared to the past, parents of children with intellectual disabilities are now much more visible,
playing the role of active decision-makers in their children’s services. These parents are simultane-
ously members of parent organizations, advocates for their individual children and for children
with disabilities in general, and recipients of professional services (Turnbull and Turnbull, 1986).
Professional services themselves have also increased dramatically. Up through the 1960s, many chil-
dren with intellectual disabilities were institutionalized; nowadays, children and families are served
through a variety of services, ranging all the way from services supporting parents in performing
in-home care or performing respite care for children with the most severe and multiple disabilities.
This “continuum of services” for individuals with intellectual disabilities gives parents both more
rights and more responsibilities.
Many of these expanded rights and responsibilities concern schools, the most important service
provided throughout the childhood years. Federal laws such as Public Law 94–142 (the Education
for All Handicapped Children Act of 1975) and the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, or
IDEA (first passed in 1990), now provide as a right a free, appropriate public school education for
all children with intellectual disabilities (Yell and Drasgow, 2000). The hallmark of this legislation is
that all children be educated in the “least restrictive environment” (LRE). This term, often equated
with education within an integrated classroom, actually entails a host of alternatives. LRE allows
for full-time integration with non-disabled children, integration for part of the day (the remainder
with a resource room or specialist), special classes within a public school, and even special classes or
special residential schools when necessary to meet the child’s educational needs. Integral to decisions
concerning the best educational alternative are the child’s Individualized Educational Plan (IEP) and
the series of legal hearings and appeals that are the right of all parents of children with disabilities.
Unfortunately, even though parents are now guaranteed that their children have a right to a free
and appropriate public education, much of this information remains unknown or unclear to many
parents of children with ID. In response, several trainings have been developed to provide to parents
and advocates information about IEPs, IDEA and 504 laws, parent rights, and how to advocate effec-
tively for special education services within the schools (Burke, 2012). One such program, the Vol-
unteer Advocacy Project (VAP), is a 12-week, 40-hour workshop series.VAP graduates increased in
their special education and IEP knowledge and advocacy skills (Burke, Goldman, Hart, and Hodapp,
2016);VAP training has recently been expanded via webcast to diverse distance sites in both Tennes-
see and Illinois.
Residential services have also changed enormously. As recently as the 1960s, parents had two
choices: to provide in-home care or to institutionalize their child with intellectual disabilities. In
contrast, families now enjoy a continuum of residential alternatives. Granted, in most industrial-
ized countries, in-home care remains the option of most parents and their offspring (Fujiura, 2014),
although increasing numbers of adults live outside of the family home as they get older (Stancliffe
et al., 2012). Such out-of-home living options range from individual apartments or houses, to super-
vised apartments, to group home and residential care services (particularly for offspring with pro-
found intellectual disabilities, multiple disabilities, or severe behavior problems).
Although the range of educational and adult-disability services has expanded tremendously, more
services are needed. The greatest difficulties in accessing services occur during the transition from
the educational services provided during the school years (i.e., until 21 years in most states) to
581
the adulthood years. Called the “second shock” (Hanley-Maxwell, Whitney-Thomas, and Pogoloff,
1995) and often referred to by families as “falling off a cliff,” adult services are difficult to know about,
qualify for, and attain; even when attained, they are often provided in a piecemeal fashion. Given that
young adults are beyond the age of federally mandated special education services, the provision of
such adult-disability services is optional. Indeed, faced with scarce resources, most states have long
waiting lists for services; although numbers vary; across the United States it is estimated that only 1
in 4 adults with intellectual disabilities receives state-run adult-disability services (Hewitt, 2014). As
many as 2.4 million adults are on waiting lists for such services (Braddock et al., 2014).
In addition to formal educational and adult-disability services, parents also benefit from the many
parent support groups.These run the gamut from large to small, from emphases on all disabilities to a
focus on a single disability, and from national organizations (often with local chapters) to local groups.
The largest and best-known national organization is The Arc (originally, the National Association
of Retarded Children), founded in 1950 (Castles, 2004). In addition to providing supportive and
informational services, The Arc was instrumental in passing PL 94–142, IDEA, the Americans with
Disabilities Act (ADA), and other federal disability legislation (Jones, 2004).
Besides organizations concerned with all children with intellectual disabilities, groups also exist
for parents of offspring with specific types of intellectual disabilities. The National Down Syndrome
Society, National Down Syndrome Congress, National Fragile X Foundation, Prader-Willi Syn-
drome Association, and other organizations are particularly good sources of support and information
for parents of children with each type of intellectual disabilities (for a listing, see Dykens et al., 2000).
Most groups organize national conferences annually. Parents, researchers, and service providers all
attend these conferences, providing interchanges of needs, experiences, and information rarely avail-
able in other contexts.
Parents, individuals themselves, professionals, and researchers also benefit enormously from a
federal infrastructure that fosters research, training, and service-outreach. Growing out of the Ken-
nedy Administration in the 1960s (Shorter, 2000), researchers are aided by Eunice Kennedy Shriver-
Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities Research Centers, or EKS-IDDRCs, which provide core
research support for everything from grant budgets to participant recruitment to MRI, animal model,
or statistics help. Interdisciplinary training is provided by 52 Leadership Education in Neurodevel-
opmental Disorder, or LEND, programs throughout the United States (AUCD, 2012a). Most promi-
nent for most families, however, are University Centers for Excellence in Developmental Disability
(UCEDD) programs. With at least one in each U.S. state and territory and 67 overall, UCEDD pro-
grams provide services, outreach, and information for parents and families throughout the country
(AUCD, 2012b). Working together, the EKS-IDDRCs, LENDs, and UCEDDs provide families an
infrastructure to learn about and access local programs and supports (Hodapp, Fidler, and Depta, 2016).
Finally, one can ask about the research-based programs to address parental stress and coping with
parenting a child with a disability. Unfortunately, only a small number of outcome studies exist.
In one review of the 173 articles investigating distress in families of children with intellectual and
developmental disabilities published between 2012 and 2014, only 11% of published articles focused
on parents (Dykens, 2015). Still, some published intervention studies target how parents cope with
the stressors. Such interventions employ a variety of techniques, including mindfulness-based stress
reduction (MBSR; Dykens et al., 2014); group counseling with focus on familial communication,
problem solving, decision-making, or conflict resolution strategies; and parent-to-parent support
models (i.e., parent mentors are trained and partnered with other parents as a source of coaching
and support; Hastings and Beck, 2004). Many of these interventions use cognitive-based therapeutic
techniques coupled with a psychoeducational approach to build coping skills and strategies within
the family unit. Over recent years, evidence is building to support the efficacy of practices such as
mindfulness-based stress reduction and multi-modal group models using a combination of therapeu-
tic techniques (Dykens et al., 2014; Hastings and Beck, 2004; Lindo et al., 2016).
582
Mother-Child Interactions
In addition to the many behavior modification and training programs available to help caregivers to
parent their children with intellectual disabilities (Baker et al., 1989; Hastings and Beck, 2004), several
programs have focused on mother-child interactions. A good example is the parent–infant interac-
tion model, first developed by Bromwich (1976, 1990) in the late 1970s. Designed for mothers of
children with a variety of disabilities, this program involves 10 general steps that are individualized to
the specific needs of each child, caregiver, and family. Preliminary steps focus on enhancing the qual-
ity of parent–infant interaction by improving the caregiver’s (usually the mother’s) self-esteem, mak-
ing her feel more comfortable with the child, and teaching her to become a sensitive observer of and
interactor with her baby. Later steps involve strategies to understand each family’s stresses and sup-
ports and to help each member of the family cope with rearing a child with intellectual disabilities.
Although not specific to mothers of children with intellectual disabilities, Bromwich’s program
provides a good general model for mother-child interactions. The hope is that such programs will
foster productive mother-child interactions, maternal perceptions, and familial responses—all of
which can be started, enhanced, and then continued as the child with intellectual disabilities grows
older. Bromwich and similar programs are also good examples of intervention programs concerned
with parent behavioral training. Such training can be conceptualized as interventions that present
parents with psychoeducational content to intervene directly with their child (Matson, Mahan, and
LoVullo, 2009). By using parents as interventionists, such programs strive to ameliorate children’s
behavioral, cognitive, linguistic, or developmental deficits. As a byproduct, parent implementation of
prescribed interventions or strategies targets those skill deficits of the child that may be a source of
parental stress (Lindo, Kliemann, Combes, and Frank, 2016).
In recent years, such parent-intervention approaches have also become widely disseminated
through web-based technology, under the general rubric of telepractice or telehealth. Using such
telepractice approaches, practitioners can more easily reach parents in more remote areas. Although
such approaches are only now being tested in various centers, they appear to be feasible and cost-
effective. In some conditions, parents or early interventionists are the recipients of coaching from a
distance therapist at a university or medical center (McDuffie et al., 2013; Wright and Kaiser, 2016).
Other approaches use telemedicine to diagnose conditions (e.g., to perform ADOS or ADI-Rs to
diagnose autism spectrum disorders) or to provide medical care. All of these uses of technology will
most likely increase over the coming decades (Casale et al., 2017).
Families
As service-delivery systems change and the prevalence of in-home care increases, families of children
with intellectual disabilities are increasingly the object of attention. This attention has even begun
to infiltrate federal legislation. Specifically, federal law PL 99–457 expands educational and support
services to the 0- to 3-year-old group, allowing a bridging of services from birth until adulthood.
A major component of PL 99–457 is its provision of an individualized family service plan (IFSP),
thereby recognizing that the family, more than the child alone, needs services during these early years
(Krauss and Hauser-Kram, 1992).
But even as some federal laws are including families, many unresolved issues remain. For example,
families of children with severe-profound intellectual disabilities or who have multiple disabilities
face severe financial hardships. In addition to documenting the medical costs of caring for such
children, Barenbaum and Cohen (1993) noted how simple changes in health care coverage could
benefit these families enormously. They suggested that changes could be as easy as considering the
costs of babysitting a child with a shunt or of remodeling a home to make it wheelchair accessible as
a medical-habilitation service. Such health-habilitation issues have become even more complicated,
583
as most children and adults with disabilities have started to receive their health care services through
health management organizations (HMOs) often paid for by Medicaid waivers (Braddock et al.,
2015; Kastner, Walsh, and Criscione, 1997). Debates about Medicaid expansion also feature families
of offspring with intellectual disabilities (Bachman et al., 2012).
Other concerns relate to when and how services are provided. As noted by Suelzle and Keenan
(1981), families of children with intellectual disabilities receive most services early on, even as they
often need more services as the child gets older. Other difficult issues revolve around how care is
provided for children with multiple impairments, or for those who are “dually diagnosed”—that is,
for those who have both intellectual disabilities and psychiatric impairments (Dykens, 2016). How
fathers are reached is another major issue, as is the question of how the needs of mothers and fathers
can be addressed as families change (to the extent that they do) as the child with disabilities gets older.
Future Directions in Studies of Parents of Children

With both a research and interventionist bent, research on parenting children with intellectual dis-
abilities has advanced rapidly over the past decades.Yet a few major areas and problems remain to be
addressed in future research.
Research With Better Theoretical Grounding

The three sub-areas of parenting children with intellectual disabilities feature a wide (some might say
bewildering) array of theoretical orientations. Studies of maternal and paternal emotional reactions
often show a psychoanalytic—or at least a clinical—perspective, focusing on the loss of the idealized
child and maternal and paternal depression and psychopathology. Mother-child interaction studies
employ Bell’s (1968) interactional theory, and comparisons of dyads of children with and without
intellectual disabilities usually focus on MA or other level-of-functioning matching (e.g., MLU) as
used in the developmental approach to intellectual disabilities (Zigler and Hodapp, 1986). Family
work has used sociological role theory (Farber and Rowitz, 1986), models such as the Double ABCX
(Minnes, 1988), and, at times, little or no theories, as when delineating basic family characteristics
of families of a child with intellectual disabilities. To this day, few studies have joined these different
perspectives and different bodies of knowledge.
Part of the problem involves the “ownership” of different research questions by researchers in dif-
ferent disciplines or research traditions. For the most part, maternal and paternal reactions have been
the province of child psychiatry and child clinical psychology; mother-child interactions the focus
of developmental scientists and special educators; and families the work of family researchers and
social workers. Each research community works in relative isolation, with little attempt to join these
different, but mutually influential, levels.
An additional, related problem concerns difficulties inherent in joining different levels of analyses
in behavioral work. For example, researchers in Down syndrome, families, gerontology, and lifespan
health have begun to appreciate the many issues related to family caregiving for aging adults with
Down syndrome (Hodapp et al., 2016). Specifically, adults with Down syndrome, who even com-
pared to 40 years ago enjoy increased lifespans (Zigman, 2013), nevertheless often experience Alz-
heimer’s dementia and other “old-age” health problems beginning in their late 40s and throughout
their 50s (van Schrojenstein Lanman-deValk et al., 1997).Their parents are, on average, 30 years older,
and experience their own aging issues as parents proceed through their 70s and 80s. Complicating
things further is increasing evidence that, compared to other adults with intellectual disabilities, those
adult children with Down syndrome are more likely to remain longer in the parent home (Stancliffe
et al., 2012; Hodapp, Sanderson, and Mello, in press).When considering family caregiving during the
584
older adult years, then, one is faced with issues related to the adult with Down syndrome’s health,
the parents’ health and caregiving abilities, and even the potential roles of siblings (Hodapp, Perkins,
Finley, and Urbano, 2015).Yet, to date, most research concerning lifespan parenting fails to connect
these disparate dots to achieve a more useful, integrated picture of offspring, parental, and familial
functioning.
In addition to the gaps and lack of coordination in the areas of parental reactions, interactions, and
familial adaptation, other areas also require attention. Five areas in particular deserve note.
Etiology
The child’s particular type of intellectual disabilities—and the behaviors generally caused by that
etiology—affect parents and families. Although more studies now appear on parent and family func-
tioning of children with specific intellectual disability conditions (Dykens, 2015; Hayes and Watson,
2012), many more such studies are needed. In addition, we need to study parenting of children with
conditions other than Down syndrome or autism, the two conditions that—at present—comprise
the large majority of parenting studies that examine particular ID conditions.
In addition to considering various parenting issues among children with other ID conditions,
we also need to progress beyond behavior. In this sense, the babyface studies of children with Down
syndrome (Filder and Hodapp, 1999) begin this process, but the wider child development field now
also includes aspects of young children’s “cuteness” that include as well the baby’s babbling, laughter,
and smells (Kringelbach et al., 2016). Beyond these perceptual characteristics, children with dis-
abilities may provide additional elicitors of parental behaviors and feelings. To give a few examples,
differential responses from parents may come about based on the timing of diagnosis for children
with different conditions; parents may react differently when their child is diagnosed at birth (e.g.,
Down syndrome), during early childhood (e.g., autism, some cases of fragile X syndrome), or during
the teen years (e.g., schizophrenia; Seltzer et al., 2004). Many genetic conditions also show associ-
ated medical problems that would seem to impact parent and family reactions. In addition to their
intellectual disabilities, then, children with Down syndrome (during their first few years of life)
are especially prone to experiencing in-patient hospitalizations for heart surgeries, pneumonia, and
bronchitis (So, Urbano, and Hodapp, 2007).The child characteristics that influence parenting may go
beyond behavior in ways that remain mostly unexamined.
Ethnicity and Cross-Cultural Issues

Although sporadic studies exist on parents of certain ethnicities, we generally know little about
family functioning in most ethnic groups. As Sue (1999) noted, the issue may relate to psychology’s
emphasis—some might even say over-emphasis—on issues of internal validity, often to the exclu-
sion of external validity or generalization. More ethnically informed work may be occurring as the
United States population itself changes (Magaña et al., 2015), but such progress is occurring only
gradually.
A related issue concerns studies of parenting in different countries and cultures. While families of
children with intellectual disabilities share certain similarities in every society, variations arise in how
different cultures respond to individuals with ID, particularly in regard to social beliefs (Groce, 1999).
Specifically, cultures hold divergent beliefs related to (1) the reason individuals have disabilities, (2)
the treatment of persons with disabilities, and (3) the societal roles and the rights of these individuals.
Acknowledging that few studies exist of parenting children with intellectual disabilities in non-
industrialized countries, a few themes nevertheless emerge. A first relates to stigma and blame. In
many Asian countries, mothers blame themselves for their child’s disability (Holroyd, 2003; Lam
and Mackenzie, 2003). In China, the birth of a child with intellectual disability is associated with
585
loss of face or an end to the bloodline (Ghosh and Magaña, 2009), with parents hesitant to reveal
their child’s disability to others (Holroyd, 2003; Lam and Mackenzie, 2003). Chinese parents are also
thought to be more likely to seek alternative treatments to cure the child of his/her disability (Wang,
2009). In Korea, especially, Ryu (2009) finds that the stigma of having a child with intellectual dis-
abilities extends to the entire family.
A second, related theme involves religion. Muslim parents believe that all things in life, including
having a child with a disability, is the will of Allah (Al Khateeb, Al Hadidi, and Al Khatib, 2015). In
a similar way, for those Asian families who believe in the Hindu concept of reincarnation, children
with intellectual disabilities constitute a partial retribution for parents’ sins committed in a previous
life (Gabel, 2004; D’Antonio and Shin, 2009).
Beyond these more general statements, however, we know little about parenting children with
intellectual disabilities in most countries of the world.We have few studies about the everyday expe-
riences and practices of parents of children with intellectual disabilities in different countries; about
how such experiences-practices relate to parental thoughts and feelings; about mother-child interac-
tions or the connections of parents to their child’s schools or other service institutions; or about the
roles of fathers, siblings, grandparents, and friends. And, while service systems are often inadequate in
many non-industrialized countries (Ghosh and Magaña, 2009; Wang, 2009), we have only rudimen-
tary senses of parent-service system connections.
Lifespan
Apart from the work of a few research groups (Seltzer, Krauss, and Tsunematsu, 1993), few research-
ers have systematically examined the family functioning of older individuals with intellectual disabil-
ities. Indeed, the large majority of studies on parental emotional reactions, mother-child interaction,
and family reactions focus on children, often during the preschool years (Singer, Biegel, and Conway,
2012; Stoneman, 1989). One could almost argue that, until recently, there has been a “child-centric”
view toward parenting—and families—of offspring with intellectual disabilities.
This state of affairs may, however, be changing. A first impetus toward this change has been the
increasing lifespans of individuals with intellectual disabilities; like adults in the general population,
adults with intellectual disabilities are living increasingly long lives (Ouellette-Kunz, Martin, and
McKenzie, 2015). Equally important, however, have been the acknowledgments that many adults
with intellectual disabilities live in their family homes into adulthood (Stancliffe et al., 2012) and that
adult-disability service systems are inadequate (Hewitt, 2014). Increasingly, we are also appreciating
the lifelong roles, including often caring or overseeing care for their adult brother or sister with
disabilities, of the family’s other children, the adult siblings (Hodapp, Sanderson, Meskis, and Casale,
2017). All of these forces are coalescing to make more prominent lifelong parenting concerns for
adults with intellectual disabilities.
Measurement
Future research also needs to consider how to better measure stress, coping, and other constructs in
parents of offspring with disabilities. At present, the field lacks good measures that are specifically
focused on parents whose children have disabilities. Consider parental stress, one of the parenting
field’s most important constructs. For the most part, the most common stress measures are either not
standardized or do not include families of children with disabilities in their norming samples. Some
researchers then argue that such reasonably normed measures such as the PSI can be used to measure
stress in parents of children with intellectual disabilities (Sexton, Burrell, Thompson, and Sharpton,
1992), whereas others feel that the manner in which such measures attempt to capture parental stress
may not actually do so (Glidden, 1993).
586
With no clear guidelines and confronted with numerous parent-family measures that are only partially
applicable, researchers vary widely in their choices and uses of available measures. Different researchers
select different individual measures, with many often shortening or adapting measures as they see fit. As
a result, it becomes difficult to aggregate data across studies (Glidden, 1993); especially when examining
parental stress or other parent or family outcome within and between specific disability types or condi-
tions, findings are often not consistent from one study to another (Glidden and Schoolcraft, 2007).
Methodologies
In addition to informational and measurement gaps, more attention needs to be paid to how one per-
forms parenting research in intellectual disabilities. The issue of matching—of whether MA- or CA-
matches are best (described above)—is one unresolved methodological issue, but there are many others.
For example, it remains unresolved whether parenting studies should examine parents of children with
disabilities (including, for example, deafness, blindness, or speech-language impairment), with intel-
lectual disabilities (including all known and unknown etiologies), or with a particular condition of
intellectual disabilities (e.g., Down syndrome).There are also issues involved in even finding appropri-
ate matches: Given, for example, that approximately 10%–12% of mothers of newborns with Down
syndrome give birth at age 40 years and above, it is often difficult to find a single “match” on maternal
chronological age. Given this type of problem, Blackford (2009) suggests the use of propensity scores
to match individuals across the two groups. Similarly, Bornstein et al. (2006) find that women who are
older when giving birth possess greater childrearing knowledge and supports, but this linear relation
holds only until the later 20s or early 30s. Similar patterns of “linear-then-plateauing” relations occur
in many areas of disability as well. Note, for example, the connections between maternal age at birth
and education levels; when examining both typical (McLanahan, 2004) and Down syndrome (Hodapp,
Burke, and Urbano, 2012) births, increasing percentages of college-educated women are found to give
birth at older ages, but only until the early to mid-30s. In both cases, researchers benefit from spline
analyses that are able to characterize such plateauing relations between two variables.
Ties to the Practice of Intervention and to Policy

Even though many family researchers are interested in practical issues, research on parenting in intel-
lectual disabilities connects only marginally with the common practice of intervention or policy. Only
a few research findings have been integrated within the majority of intervention programs, and even
some obvious concepts rarely become incorporated in intervention work. For example, Olshansky’s
(1962, 1966;Wikler, 1986) recurrent maternal reactions model continues to be ignored in most service
systems; to this day, many services continue to be front-loaded, with fewer services for parents and
families of older individuals with intellectual disabilities. To take but a single example, consider the
Family Medical Leave Act (FMLA) in the United States. Signed into law in 1993, the FMLA allows
family members to take up to 12 work weeks of unpaid leave to attend to the health conditions of
themselves or their parents, spouses, or children. But only as of July 2015 did the U.S. Department of
Labor expand the FMLA’s protections to allow adult siblings to care for their aging adult brothers or
sisters with disabilities. As of that time, there are now statements that a “child” can refer to an individual
older than 18, who is “incapable of self-care because of a mental or physical disability,” and that anyone
who “acts in the place of a parent” could access FMLA protections (U.S. Department of Labor, 2015).
Conclusions
In summarizing the work on parenting children with Down syndrome and other forms of intellec-
tual disabilities, one can envision the glass as either half empty or half full. If judged by the amount
587
of unknown information, the glass is half empty. Even after two decades of intense work, we still do
not know how parents, interactions, and families “go together,” how each level changes over time,
how each is affected by many child characteristics, and other interesting issues. The parenting field
also continues to be dominated by research on white, middle-class families, leaving under-studied
essential questions relating to SES and ethnicity.
And yet, compared to what was known only 50 years ago, the glass is more than half full. From
the early days of Farber, of Solnit and Stark, and of Olshansky, we now know much more about
these families, their interactions with their children, and the child’s effects on siblings and the family
as a whole. More importantly, what we know has been fit into more interesting and less detrimental
frameworks, as parents, interactions, and families are now seen as coping under stressful circum-
stances. Such stress may help or hinder adaptation, but these stress-coping perspectives seem both
more accurate and more humane.
Ultimately, research on parenting children with intellectual disabilities seems a discipline that
is beginning to reach its stride. Indeed, probably more has been learned about parenting children
with intellectual disabilities in the recent past than was known in all the years up until this time.
The coming years promise continued, near exponential growth. With an increased joining of dif-
ferent perspectives and more fully considered research paradigms, such work will hopefully become
increasingly useful to service providers and policymakers. This knowledge should also help parents
face the many challenges and rewards inherent in parenting the child with intellectual disabilities.
Acknowledgments
We thank Marc H. Bornstein and Elisabeth Dykens for comments on earlier versions of this chapter.
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18
PARENTING CHILDREN WITH A
CHRONIC HEALTH CONDITION
Thomas G. Power, Lynnda M. Dahlquist, and Wendy Pinder
Introduction
Parenting is a complex, challenging, and rewarding task. This is particularly true for parents of chil-
dren with a chronic health condition. For many chronic health conditions (e.g., asthma, cancer, cystic
fibrosis, diabetes, epilepsy, food allergy, juvenile rheumatoid arthritis, kidney disease), the diagnosis
of the condition places tremendous emotional, financial, and physical demands on parents, requiring
substantial adaptation to the “new normal.” On top of addressing the normative tasks of parenting,
these parents, depending on the nature of the condition, must deal with considerable uncertainty
and confusion as they come to learn about an illness and its treatment; make major changes to their
daily routine to adapt to the illness; endure increased caregiving burdens; attempt to “normalize”
family life for healthy siblings; endure considerable strain on their marriage; cope with strong feelings
of anxiety, hopeless, and depression; closely monitor their child’s behavior and symptoms; perform
complex in-home treatments; teach their children involved self-care routines and monitor their
implementation; witness considerable discomfort and pain in their child; and cope with relapses,
disease progression, and even the death of their child. Success in adaptation varies widely across
families and across conditions. Despite the considerable stress and change, the process of adapting to
their child’s chronic condition can be an opportunity for many families for growth and increased
family cohesion.
Over the last 40 years, the growth of the field of pediatric psychology has led to a considerable
amount of research on children with chronic health conditions and their families. Because we cannot
present a comprehensive review of this literature in the current chapter, our review is selective—
focusing on the major issues that parents of children with a chronic health condition must face
and on those issues that have received the most research attention. Because there is a wide range
of chronic health conditions, we have narrowed our primary focus to illnesses or health conditions
that are typically diagnosed in the toddler years or later, involve continuing medical treatment, and
normally last for several years or for the child’s entire life. We will restrict our review of the litera-
ture on parenting children with congenital birth defects to children with spina bifida, as this patient
population has been the focus of extensive study of parenting and autonomy development, which
has implications for other health conditions.We also do not review the literature on parenting a child
with a cognitive, sensory, or physical disability (e.g., intellectual disability, autism, blindness; Hodapp
and Sanderson, 2019; McCauley, Mundy, and Solomon, 2019). Because chronic health conditions
vary widely in their severity, symptoms, prognoses, age of onset, and so forth, we focus more on
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Thomas G. Power et al.
similarities across illnesses than differences. Finally, because some conditions have been researched
more than others, our review necessarily focuses on the most studied illnesses (e.g., asthma, cancer,
diabetes) compared to illnesses that have received considerably less attention (e.g., epilepsy, cardio-
vascular disease, kidney disease).
Historical Considerations in Parenting Children With a Health Condition

Although collaborations between pediatricians and psychologists date back to the late 1890s (Ayl-
ward and Lee, 2017), the field of pediatric psychology did not actually emerge until the late 1960s,
when Logan Wright, in his seminal American Psychologist article, first coined the term “pediatric
psychologist” to describe psychologists who primarily work with children with health conditions in
nonpsychiatric medical settings (Wright, 1967). The leading journal in this relatively new field, the
Journal of Pediatric Psychology, was established in 1976, and the Society of Pediatric Psychology became
an independent Division of APA (Division 54) in 1980. Since then, the field has witnessed a rapid
expansion of the number of professionals specializing in pediatric psychology as well as tremendous
growth in the breadth and depth of research in the field. Today, pediatric psychologists can be found
in virtually all major medical centers and many primary care settings, providing clinical services and
conducting interdisciplinary research with children and families representing a wide range of medi-
cal conditions. The fifth edition of the Handbook of Pediatric Psychology (Roberts and Steele, 2017)
provides an excellent overview of the breadth of current research in the field.
Central Issues in Parenting Children With a Health Condition

A wide range of issues has been addressed in research on parenting children with chronic health
conditions. The issues considered here are those that have been examined most extensively in the
research literature. Because parents of children with chronic health conditions must manage their
own emotional reaction to the diagnosis, as well as manage the significant caregiving burden that
the condition can require, we first consider the impact of parental emotional distress and caregiv-
ing burden on parenting practices. We then explore the role of parents in helping their children
cope with the many challenges of their health condition, including how parents help their children
handle illness-related stressors (including acute pain) and how they help their children adhere to the
complex medical regimens that their condition may require. Finally, given the many challenges that
parents face in rearing a child with a chronic health condition, we address issues that arise in helping
these children maintain age-appropriate development and functioning.
Theory in Parenting Children With a Health Condition

A variety of theoretical approaches has been applied to understanding some of the challenges of
rearing a child with a chronic health condition. Although some researchers have approached these
issues through some of the mainstream developmental theories, for example, attachment (William-
son, Walters, and Shaffer, 2002), social learning (Osborne, Hatcher, and Richtsmeier, 1989; Walker
and Zeman, 1992), and ecological theories (Kazak, 1989), other work has been informed by narrow,
more focused theories specific to this area. Examples that are discussed in more detail in the follow-
ing sections include Kazak et al.’s traumatic stress model (Kazak et al., 2006; Price, Kassam-Adams,
Alderfer, Christofferson, and Kazak, 2016), the Health Beliefs Model (Armstrong, Duncan, Stokes,
and Pereira, 2014; DiMatteo, Haskard, and Williams, 2007), Green and Solnit’s (1964) vulnerable
child syndrome, and Thomasgard and Metz’s (1993) overprotection model.
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Parenting Children With a Health Condition
Classical and Modern Research in Parenting Children

With a Health Condition
Most of the early research on parenting children with a chronic health condition was applied in
nature, conducted by scientist-practitioners who work directly with such parents, often in medical
settings (e.g., nurses, pediatricians, pediatric psychologists). Because the research usually has been
conducted to inform the treatment and care of children and their families, at least for several illnesses
(e.g., asthma, cancer, diabetes), we know a great deal about the challenges that parents face as well as
their needs and how to address them. Laboratory studies have also been utilized to test assumptions
about the role of parenting in children’s adjustment to acute and chronic pain. These findings are
reviewed as we discuss the research on the central issues outlined above.
Parents’ Emotional Reactions to Their Child’s Illness

and Impact on Parenting
Parents show a wide range of emotional reactions to the diagnosis of a health condition in their child,
and research shows that these reactions often follow a predictable course over time. These emotional
reactions appear to have a systematic influence on parenting practices, and researchers have identified
several factors that predict individual differences in the nature of these responses.
Time of Diagnosis
When a child is diagnosed with a chronic illness, parents must assimilate a large amount of informa-
tion about a disease that they may have never heard of or know very little about. Numerous qualita-
tive studies of parents with children with a chronic health condition show that such diagnoses often
lead to high levels of parental uncertainty (see Aldridge, 2008; Fisher, 2001; Kerr, Harrison, Medves,
and Tranmer, 2004; Smith, Cheater, and Bekker, 2013; Tong, Lowe, Sainsbury, and Craig, 2008, for
reviews). Although the diagnosis might reduce some uncertainty resulting from trying to make sense
of pre-diagnosis symptoms (Cashin, Small, and Solberg, 2008), the diagnosis increases uncertainty in
multiple areas, including uncertainty about the long-term prognosis for the child, the appropriate
treatment options, and who to tell about the condition (Melnyk, Moldenhouer, Feinstein, and Small,
2001), as well as uncertainty created by the way that the information is presented (overuse of medi-
cal jargon, insufficient information, information provided too quickly, and so on; Smith et al., 2013).
A review by Kerr and colleagues (2004) showed that, depending on the illness, the diagnosis can
also elicit a range of negative emotions in the parent, such as “fear, powerlessness, denial, stress, guilt,
sadness, terror, anticipatory loss, anger, devastation, shock and confusion” as well as “anxiety regard-
ing their child’s diagnosis, palliative care, and death” (p. E124). Smith and colleagues (2013), in a
review article, identified many of these same emotions, in addition to “confusion, disbelief, anxiety,
turmoil, and a loss of identity” (pp. 458–459). Kazak and colleagues (2006) argued that some parents
of children with a chronic health condition experience symptoms of posttraumatic stress disorder
(PTSD—e.g., arousal, avoidance, and intrusive “re-experiencing” thoughts) in response to experi-
ences they appraise as traumatic. This is particularly true for parents of children with life-threatening
diseases. For example, in one study of 119 mothers and 52 fathers of children in treatment for cancer
(Kazak, Boeving, Alderfer, Hwang, and Reilly, 2005), all except one parent reported posttraumatic
stress symptoms, and nearly 80% of children had at least one parent showing moderate to severe
symptom levels. The diagnosis of PTSD is more common in parents of children with cancer than
parents of healthy children. In their meta-analysis of 16 studies of children with chronic diseases
(13 were studies of parents of children with cancer), Cabizuca and colleagues (2009) found that
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the PTSD prevalence (i.e., a PTSD diagnosis) was 19.6% for mothers, 11.6% for fathers, and 4.2%
among mothers of healthy children (only one study examined PTSD separately for fathers of healthy
children and it revealed no cases). Similar PTSD prevalence estimates have been reported for the
small number of studies of other chronic diseases (i.e., asthma, diabetes, epilepsy, kidney disease, and
meningococcal disease) included in the Cabizuca et al. (2009) review and in separate reviews by
Price and colleagues (2016) and Woolf and colleagues (2016).
Empirical studies comparing levels of emotional distress between parents of children with chronic
illness and healthy controls confirm the conclusions of the qualitative and PTSD studies reviewed
above. For example, in a meta-analysis of studies of parents of children with cancer, Pai and col-
leagues (2007) found significantly higher maternal and paternal distress (i.e., depression, anxiety,
posttraumatic stress symptoms, or global distress) in parents of children with cancer compared to par-
ents of healthy children. Similar results were found in a narrative review by Vrijmoet-Wiersma and
colleagues (2008). Easter and colleagues (2015), in a meta-analysis of studies of asthma, found that
caregivers of children with asthma reported higher levels of depressive and anxiety symptoms than
did caregivers of healthy children. Finally, in their review of parents of children with epilepsy, Jones
and Reilly (2016) found that two of the three studies comparing parental anxiety levels between
parents of children with epilepsy and healthy controls found higher levels among parents of children
with epilepsy (the other study found no significant difference).
Although both mothers and fathers of children with chronic illnesses tend to show higher lev-
els of emotional distress than parents of healthy children, for parents of children with a chronic
condition mothers tend to report higher levels of emotional distress than fathers (Clarke, McCa-
rthy, Downie, Ashley, and Anderson, 2009; da Silva, Jacob, and Nascimento, 2010; Pai et al., 2007;
Vrijmoet-Wiersma et al., 2008). This result is consistent with the results of numerous studies of gen-
der differences in depression in the general population (Salk, Hyde, and Abramson, 2017), although
it may be related to the observation that in most families mothers are the primary caregivers of the
child with a chronic disease (Goldstein, Akre, Belanger, and Suris, 2013; Pai et al., 2007; Vijmoet-
Wiersma et al., 2008) and, therefore, are the parents who experience the most childcare-related stress.
Beyond the Initial Diagnosis

Once a child is diagnosed with a chronic disease, family life changes radically for many parents.
Qualitative studies have identified a range of changes, including increased contact with medical pro-
fessionals through out-patient visits, hospitalizations, and surgeries; increased financial stress; changes
in parental responsibilities and routines (to provide in-home treatment for the child as well as for
one parent to spend more time away from home in the case of frequent hospitalizations); disruptions
in the child’s schooling and education; increases in parents’ social isolation; increases in monitoring
child behavior and well-being; and decreases in parental social life, personal freedom, and leisure time
(Aldridge, 2008; Goldstein et al., 2013; Kerr et al., 2004; Melnyk et al., 2001; Smith et al., 2013;Tong
et al., 2008;Whittemore, Jaser, Chao, Jang, and Grey, 2012). Changes in the marital relationship occur
as well, including changes in spousal roles, difficulties in communication, less attention devoted to the
partner due to an increased focus on the child, and less time for intimacy, sexuality, and leisure activi-
ties with the partner (da Silva et al., 2010; Dahlquist, Czyzewski, and Jones, 1996;Van Schoors, Caes,
Alderfer, Goubert, and Verhofstadt, 2016). Depending on the nature of the illness, parental distress
might decrease as the parent and child develop a long-term treatment regimen (such as managing the
child’s diabetes) or parental distress might increase as uncertainty about the effectiveness of a treat-
ment option may arise (such as chemotherapy for childhood cancer). In her literature review, Fisher
(2001) argued that families adapt by creating a new normalcy “through the control of issues over
which they had a jurisdiction: management of time; management of illness; reorganization of family
life; management of information, awareness; and the environment” (p. 604). She argued, however, that
600
this sense of control is fragile and can be disrupted by several triggers:“routine medical appointments;
minor symptoms or variations from the child’s norm; specific medical words and phrases; changes in
the therapeutic regime; evidence of negative outcomes for other children; changes in developmental
stages; and night-time absence” (p. 604). In each of these situations, something unexpected happens
and can lead to increases in parental uncertainty, concern, and anxiety. Relapses are particularly
problematic in this regard, leading to increased concerns about the child’s future and well-being
(Aldridge, 2008; Melnyk et al., 2001; Vrijmoet-Wiersma et al., 2008). Normative, developmental
changes can be challenging as well, for example when the child goes to school for the first time or
the child transitions into adolescence and spends more time away from home (Melnyk et al., 2001).
Longitudinal studies that have examined levels of parental distress over time confirm the observa-
tion that parental distress appears to decrease with adaptation to the condition. For example, in their
meta-analysis, Pai and colleagues (2007) found that, although mothers and fathers of children with
cancer showed greater distress than did controls at the time of diagnosis, at 12 months post-diagnosis,
this difference had become nonsignificant. In contrast, Vrijmoet-Wiersma and colleague’s (2008)
narrative review described decreases in parental depression and anxiety over time, but concluded
that parents of children with cancer still showed higher levels of depression and anxiety than com-
parison families at long-term follow-up, although they decreased to near normal levels. Insight on
the reasons for this inconsistency comes from a systematic review of studies of parents of childhood
cancer survivors at least 5 years post-diagnosis and/or 2 years after the child’s treatment has ended
(Ljungman et al., 2014). Although most parents were in the normal range for general psychological
distress, coping, and family functioning at this long-term follow-up, a significant minority of parents
showed clinical levels of general psychological distress and reported a severe level of posttraumatic
stress symptoms.
Predictors of Individual Differences in Adjustment

Clearly, these results point to considerable variation in how parents adapt emotionally to a chronic
condition in their child. Qualitative studies have uncovered a range of parental strategies that mini-
mize the negative impact of the child’s condition. These include educating oneself about the child’s
disease and treatment; mastering new childcare tasks; engaging in effective partnerships with the
spouse and health care workers; developing consistent, effective routines; focusing on the child’s
accomplishments; seeking and depending on social support outside of the family; and engaging spir-
itually (Fisher, 2001; Goldstein et al., 2013; Kerr et al., 2004; Smith et al., 2013).
Quantitative studies have examined the correlates of emotional distress as well and have identi-
fied a range of positive and negative correlates (see reviews in Aldridge, 2008; Clarke et al., 2009;
Ferro and Speechley, 2009; Jones and Reilly, 2016; Kerr et al., 2004; Ljungman et al., 2014; Melnyk
et al., 2001; Price et al., 2016;Vrijmoet-Wiersma et al., 2008; Wallander and Varni, 1998; Woolf et al.,
2016). Parents of children with a chronic health condition who are at greater risk for emotional
distress include those who have lower levels of education; are of lower socioeconomic status; are
unemployed or experiencing work strain; are younger; are experiencing financial difficulties; have
had prior psychopathology and/or more negative life events in their past; are high on neuroticism
or trait anxiety; perceive the child’s condition and treatment more negatively; and are experiencing
marital or family conflict. Parents who show lower levels of distress are those who have a healthier
lifestyle (e.g., exercise, nutrition, sleep, leisure); are more optimistic and resilient; have higher levels
of social support; have good spousal communication patterns; have high levels of spirituality; and
have high levels of family cohesion and adaptability. Parental coping strategies are important as well.
The use of problem-solving strategies is associated negatively with distress, whereas avoidant coping,
passive coping, self-blame, and substance use are positively related. Surprisingly, in most studies, few
disease-related characteristics (e.g., medically rated severity, time since diagnosis) are consistently
601
related to parental emotional distress—parent perceived severity is a much more consistent predic-
tor. This finding is consistent with Kazak and colleagues’ (2006) model that proposes that subjective
appraisals of threat are more important than objective illness factors in predicting a parent’s response
to a diagnosis. Several studies, however, have shown that children with poorly controlled conditions
(such as poorly controlled asthma or diabetes) have parents showing more distress (see discussion of
adherence below).
Parenting Stress
So how does the emotional distress of having a child with a chronic health condition influence par-
enting cognitions and practices? One possibility is that it may contribute to high levels of parenting
stress. Numerous studies confirm that parenting stress is higher in parents of children with a chronic
health condition. For example, in a meta-analysis of 13 studies, Cousino and Hazen (2013) found
that parenting stress was higher in parents of children with a chronic health condition than in parents
of healthy children. Moreover, as part of a larger, accompanying systematic review, they found that
general and disease-related parenting stresses were positively associated with symptoms of depression
or anxiety in parents of children with arthritis, cystic fibrosis, diabetes, and cancer.
Because parents vary widely in the amount of parenting stress reported, Cousino and Hazen
(2013) examined the positive and negative correlates of parenting stress separately for different
chronic conditions. As was the case for the studies of parental emotional distress reviewed above,
one of the most consistent predictors of parenting stress was the parents’ perceived vulnerability of
the child. Although their review showed that most objectively measured illness characteristics did
not predict parenting stress, a few factors particular to specific conditions did. Parenting stress, for
example was positively associated with sleep disordered breathing in children with asthma; invasive,
painful medical procedures and activity limitations due to treatment for children with cancer; low
levels of child self-care behaviors in children with cystic fibrosis and children with diabetes; noctur-
nal glucose checks for children with diabetes; disease-related child behavior problems (e.g., refusing
glucose checks) for children with diabetes or epilepsy; intractable seizures for children with epilepsy;
and pain intensity for children with juvenile rheumatoid arthritis or sickle cell disease. Summarizing
these findings, parenting stress appears to be higher when children experience high levels of pain or
discomfort; resist routine medical procedures; cannot perform many self-care skills on their own; or
must be constantly monitored when sleeping. The resulting parenting stress in these situations likely
results from some combination of parental concern about the child’s well-being and excessive car-
egiver burden (see section on caregiver burden below).
Parent Emotional Distress and Parenting Practices

Given the high levels of emotional distress and parenting stress that many parents of children with
a chronic health condition experience, does this affect their parenting cognitions and practices?
Because depressed mothers of healthy children hold more negative and critical perceptions of their
children and show more negative, more disengaged, and less positive parenting behaviors than non-
depressed mothers (Goodman, 2007; Lovejoy, Graczyk, O’Hare, and Neuman, 2000), one would
expect similar differences for parents of children with a chronic condition. A significant amount of
research has been conducted on differences between the parenting practices of parents of children
with a chronic health condition and parents of healthy children. For example, Pinquart (2013) con-
ducted a meta-analysis of 325 studies on this question. Although the effect sizes in his analysis were
small, the analysis yielded differences in every parenting dimension studied. Parents of children with
a chronic health condition had less positive relationships with their children, showed lower levels
of responsiveness, and showed higher levels of demandingness and overprotection. Although only a
602
small number of studies examined parenting styles, analyses of these data also showed differences,
with parents of children with a chronic health condition more likely to show authoritarian and
neglectful parenting styles and less likely to show an authoritative style.
Many of the effect sizes in Pinquart’s (2013) meta-analysis, however, were heterogeneous, indicat-
ing that moderating variables likely were operating. Sufficient sample sizes were available to examine
moderation for three of the parenting dimensions studied—quality of the parent–child relationship,
parental responsiveness, and parental demandingness. Although small sample sizes for some condi-
tions may have worked against yielding significant effects, only four conditions showed significant
differences in his analysis: asthma (all three parenting dimensions), diabetes (quality of parent–child
relationship only), epilepsy (all three dimensions), and HIV infection (quality of parent–child rela-
tionship only, although this was the only dimension examined for this group). Significant effects also
were found for parents of hearing-impaired children, but this finding is not relevant to the current
review. Finally, significant effects were found for parental responsiveness and demandingness for the
“other” category, a combination of studies of understudied populations or studies combining chil-
dren with multiple conditions.
Does parental emotional distress or parenting stress account for some of these differences in
parenting? Studies of parents of children with asthma (Mullins et al., 2007; Weil et al., 1999), cancer
(Link and Fortier, 2016), chronic pain (Sieberg, Williams, and Simons, 2011), diabetes (Eckshtain,
Ellis, Kolmodin, and Naar-King, 2010; Monaghan, Horn, Alvarez, Cogen, and Streisand, 2012; Mul-
lins et al., 2004; Sweenie, Mackey, and Streisand, 2014), epilepsy (Rodenburg, Meijer, Dekovic, and
Aldenkamp, 2007), and sickle cell anemia (Logan, Radcliffe, and Smith-Whitley, 2002) show signifi-
cant associations in the expected direction between parental emotional distress or parenting stress
and measures of parenting including warmth/nurturance, criticism, behavioral control, psychological
control, inconsistent discipline, monitoring, overprotection, and authoritative parenting. No study,
however, was located that tested whether parental differences in emotional distress or parenting stress
accounted for, in a mediational analysis, differences in the parenting practices of parents of healthy
children and parents of children with a chronic health condition.
Posttraumatic Growth
The experience of adapting to a child’s chronic disease can have positive benefits for the family. In
a narrative review of 35 qualitative or quantitative studies of posttraumatic growth in the families of
childhood cancer survivors, Duran (2013) identified five themes that captured the types of growth
often seen in these families: meaning-making (i.e., coming to terms with the experience through a
new understanding); a deeper sense of appreciation of life; greater self-knowledge; a greater sense of
closeness and family togetherness; and a desire to pay back society. In a review of 19 studies of post-
traumatic growth in parents of children with a chronic illness, Picoraro, Womer, Kazak and Fedutner
(2014) argued that both cognitive (e.g., sense making and benefit finding) and affective processes
(moderate levels of posttraumatic stress) contribute to posttraumatic growth and that individuals who
are optimistic and have high levels of social support from family, friends, and peers are most likely to
experience such growth.
Summary and Conclusions

The diagnosis of a child with chronic disease often leads to major changes in family routines and
functioning and to a wide range of parent emotional responses. These initial emotional reactions can
be compounded by increases in parenting stress that results from taking on additional and challenging
new roles. With this negative affect come predictable changes in parenting cognitions and practices,
leading to increases in parental control, demandingness, criticism, overprotectiveness, and inconsistency
603
and decreases in parental warmth and nurturance.These negative reactions usually decrease over time,
but they can reemerge in response to changes in the child’s situation or health status.
Despite the difficulties that most parents initially experience, with the passage of time most par-
ents adapt to the increased stresses associated with a chronic disease in their child by developing and
implementing new family routines. However, a significant minority of parents continues to show
high levels of negative responses that do not decrease over time. Researchers have identified multiple
factors that increase or decrease the likelihood of negative emotional responses, and these partially
account for this wide range of individual differences in adaptation. Finally, for many parents, the
experience of rearing a child with a chronic health condition can lead to opportunities for develop-
ment and personal growth as well.
Caregiver Burden and Impact on Parenting

Another factor that might account for differences in the parenting practices of parents of children
with a chronic health condition is the significant caregiver burden that accompanies many illnesses.
As described earlier, the diagnosis of a childhood chronic condition often leads to major changes
in family routines and processes (Crespo et al., 2013). Many of these changes are in response to an
increased burden on the family to help manage the child’s condition and symptoms. Researchers
have documented the nature of these burdens and many of the factors that contribute to them.
The increased parenting demands that result from rearing a child with a chronic health conduction
cover a range of areas, including but not limited to increased monitoring of the child’s symptoms and
behavior; helping the child perform daily self-care tasks; providing regular in-home treatments; dealing
with the child’s resistance to routines and treatments; working with health care systems (scheduling,
transporting, and accompanying the child to visits to the doctor, physical therapist, and so on); frequent
contact with insurance companies and health care providers to manage costs; spending time away from
home during child hospitalizations; and increased workload both at home and at work.
Chronic conditions vary widely in the caregiving demands required of parents. For example,
increased monitoring is particularly demanding for parents of children with type 1 diabetes who
need to perform (or to ensure that their child performs) multiple glucose checks during the day as
well as the need to carefully monitor the child’s behavior and diet (Sullivan-Bolyai, Deatrick, Grup-
pusa, Tamborlane, and Grey, 2003). Similarly, parents of children with food allergy need to closely
monitor what the child eats, monitor how and where the food is prepared, and carefully examine
food labels to reduce risk of exposure to potentially fatal allergens (Bollinger et al., 2006). Assistance
with self-care routines, in contrast, is particularly challenging for parents of children with severe
juvenile rheumatoid arthritis who often must help their child with daily tasks (e.g., getting dressed)
and other motor tasks (Power, Dahlquist, Thompson, and Warren, 2003). Parents of children with
cystic fibrosis, in contrast, must spend a considerable amount of time managing their child’s disease
by providing breathing treatments and chest physical therapy and by managing the child’s diet and
administering pancreatic enzymes (Drotar and Ievers, 1994). The highest level of caregiver burden
is likely found for parents of “technology-dependent children” who must perform multiple medical
procedures for children living at home “who need both a medical device to compensate for the loss
of a vital body function and substantial and ongoing nursing care to avert death or further disability”
(Wagner, Power, and Fox, 1988, p. 3).These are children, for example, on mechanical ventilation, who
receive parenteral nutrition, or who are on dialysis (Kirk, 1998; Kirk, Glendinning, and Callery, 2005).
A number of questionnaires have been developed to assess caregiver burden for parents of chil-
dren with chronic diseases, some of which are tailored to the caregiving burden of specific diseases.
Across a range of chronic conditions (i.e., asthma, cancer, and diabetes), parent reports of caregiver
burden are associated with parental anxiety, depression, or low reported quality of life (Canning and
Harris, 1996; Crespo, Carona, Silva, Canavarro, and Dattilio, 2011; Cunningham, Vesco, Dolan, and
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Hood, 2011; Litzelman, Catrine, Gangnon, and Witt, 2011; Salvador, Crespo, Martins, Santos, and
Canavarro, 2015; Silva, Carona, Crespo, and Canavarro, 2015). Neri and colleagues (2016), in a study
of parents of adolescents with cystic fibrosis, examined a wider range of correlates. Not only did they
find that parents who report high levels of caregiver burden reported a greater number of depressive
symptoms and lower life satisfaction, these parents also report poorer sleep quality, less happiness, and
poorer self-rated health. Such parents also reported more work-life balance interference, more job-
related stress, and more missed days at work. Finally, caregiver burden was greatest for parents who
reported a lack of services in their community and no aid from relatives.
With the exception of the study by Neri and colleagues (2016), all of the studies of caregiver
burden cited above involved distributing questionnaires to the primary caregiver of the child, who
in over 80% of the cases was the mother. Therefore, mothers apparently experience the greatest car-
egiver burden. Neri and colleagues (2016) distributed their questionnaires to all parents visiting the
clinic with their child, so only 59% of their sample was female (75% of the primary caregivers in this
sample were mothers). This allowed for a direct comparison of mothers versus fathers in the level of
caregiver burden, and in their study mothers reported higher levels than fathers.
Only one study was located that examined the relation between caregiver burden and parent-
ing practices. In a study of mothers of children with asthma, Fiese and colleagues (2008) found that
mothers who reported higher levels of asthma-related caregiver burden were more rejecting of their
children during a 15-minute observation of family interaction.
In summary, researchers have done a thorough job of documenting the increased caregiver burden
for parents rearing a child with a chronic health condition and in identifying some of the deter-
minants of that burden. They have also shown that caregiving burden is associated with a range of
negative psychological outcomes for parents. However, with the exception of the study conducted
by Fiese and colleagues (2008) described above, the impact of caregiver burden on specific parenting
cognitions and practices has yet to be examined.
Role of Parenting in Helping Children Handle Acute Pain

and Other Condition-Related Stressors
Children with chronic medical conditions often undergo repeated medical procedures that can be
both frightening and painful. Children with cancer, for example, undergo repeated blood tests (finger
sticks), intravenous access to draw blood or administer chemotherapy, painful intramuscular injec-
tions, and needle sticks to access indwelling subcutaneous ports. Treatment can last years, and, despite
the availability of topical anesthetics, can be an ongoing significant source of stress for the child as well
as for the parent (Dahlquist, 1992, 1999). Other chronic conditions, such as sickle cell disease, arthri-
tis, and diabetes, also require repeated frequent needle procedures. Coping with the fear and pain
associated with these procedures presents a significant challenge to many children, especially younger
children, who have less well-developed emotion regulation abilities (Dahlquist, 1992; Racine et al.,
2015). Even non-painful experiences, such as anesthesia induction, having an MRI, or being hospi-
talized, can be frightening (Cohen et al., 2017; Dahlquist, 1992; Slifer, Tucker, and Dahlquist, 2002).
Parents play an important role in facilitating the child’s adjustment to medical stressors by preparing
the child for impending procedures and by the way that they interact with the child during the medi-
cal procedures. The sections that follow briefly review the empirical literature in these two domains.
Parent Roles in Preparing Children for Medical Procedures

Children with accurate, specific information about an upcoming medical procedure tend to show
less distress during the procedure and better adjustment after the procedure (Dahlquist, 1992, 1999;
Jaaniste, Hayes, and von Baeyer, 2007). Providing accurate information about what will be done and
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the sensations the child can expect to experience, as well as suggesting strategies for coping with the
event, can help to establish trust between the child and medical staff, alleviate any misconceptions the
child might have about the procedure, make the medical procedure more predictable, and facilitate
child coping (Dahlquist, 1992, 1999; Jaaniste et al., 2007; Spafford, von Bayer, and Hicks, 2002).
Involving parents in the process can facilitate positive outcomes. Parents often report elevated
stress and dissatisfaction with their child’s medical care when they have received what they perceive
to be inadequate information about their child’s medical procedure (Jaaniste et al., 2007).When par-
ents are involved in the preparation process, either by being present when the child is prepared, or by
conducting the preparation itself, not only do their children display less anxiety prior to or during
the procedure (Kain et al., 2007; Spafford, von Baeyer, and Hicks, 2002), but the parents themselves
also report less anticipatory anxiety (Kain et al., 2007) and are less likely to seek information from
other potentially less reliable sources, such as the Internet (Jaaniste et al., 2007).
Parent Influences on Child Behavior During Medical Procedures

Although parents typically prefer to be present during their child’s medical procedures (Piira, Sugi-
ura, Champion, Donnelly, and Cole, 2005), the helpfulness of parental presence depends on whether
the parent can manage his/her own distress and behave in a manner that facilitates child coping
(Kain, Caldwell-Andrews, Maranets, Nelson, and Mayes, 2006; Piira et al., 2005; Wright, Steward,
Finley, and Raazi, 2014). A number of studies have documented a strong positive relation between
parental anxiety and child distress during medical procedures (Caes et al., 2014; Dahlquist, Power,
Cox, and Fernbach, 1994; Racine et al., 2015) as well as between parent and child pain expectancies
(Liossi, White, Franck, and Hatira, 2007). In fact, in a study of the effects of parental presence during
anesthesia induction, children who were calm prior to anesthesia induction did worse during the
actual induction if accompanied by an anxious parent (Kain et al., 2006).
Microanalyses of parent–child interactions during medical procedures reveal that child distress
tends to be greater when parents demonstrate behaviors that appear to communicate anxiety, such as
agitation (Bush and Cockrell, 1987; Dahlquist et al., 1994) and apology (Blount et al., 1989). Parental
reassurance (e.g., “It’s going to be ok,”) also has been shown to be positively associated with child
distress (Blount et al., 1989; Campbell, DiLorenzo, Atkinson, and Pillai Riddell, 2017; Martin, Chor-
ney, Cohen, and Kain, 2013).
The relations between parent behaviors and child distress likely are bidirectional, with the child’s
temperament and the child’s expressions of distress during the procedure playing a role in eliciting
parental responses, which subsequently hinder or foster child coping (Campbell et al., 2017; Wright
et al., 2014). Parent anxiety may play a role in this process by heightening parental attention to
“threat” (i.e., distress/pain) cues in the child and thereby increasing the probability of responding
to child distress in less effective ways (Caes et al., 2014; Caes, Vervoort, Trost, and Goubert, 2012;
Martin et al., 2013) or by altering the manner in which the parent communicates (via voice tone or
facial expression), such that, even though the parent is attempting to provide “reassurance,” the child
senses the parent’s fear (McMurtry, Chambers, McGrath, and Asp, 2010; McMurtry, McGrath, Asp,
and Chambers, 2007).
In contrast, parent behaviors that encourage child coping, such as distracting conversation or
prompts to use coping strategies, are associated with reductions in child distress (Campbell et al.,
2017; Chorney et al., 2009). However, parent anxiety may also interfere with the parent’s ability
to effectively coach their child in the use of potential coping strategies. For example, in a post hoc
analysis of a parent-administered distraction program for preschoolers undergoing chemotherapy
injections, Dahlquist and Pendley (2005) found that the children who appeared to be treatment
failures—i.e., did not evidence reduced distress during intervention—had parents who were sig-
nificantly more anxious than the parents of the children for whom the intervention was successful.
606
Dahlquist and Pendley (2005) speculated that anxious parents may have less confidence in their abil-
ity to help their child during the procedure (Harper et al., 2013), may inadvertently behave in ways
that increase the child’s sense of threat associated with the procedure (e.g., via negative comments
or displays of agitation), or may demonstrate more criticism or less sensitivity in their efforts to assist
their child, similar to the less optimal patterns of parenting interactions that have been observed in
anxious parents in other contexts (Ollendick and Benoit, 2012). Although critical parent–child inter-
actions are less common than supportive interactions during medical procedures (Cline et al., 2006),
when they occur, they tend to be associated with greater child-reported and behavioral indicators of
pain and distress (Cline et al., 2006; Cohen et al., 2017).
In summary, stressful medical procedures can be upsetting for the parent as well as the child. In
order for parents to effectively prepare their child for an impending procedure or foster coping dur-
ing the procedure, they must first manage their own anxiety; otherwise, their subsequent interactions
with the child regarding the medical procedure may be less effective or even deleterious. Future
research should continue to focus on integrating interventions specifically targeting parental anxiety
into procedural distress-management programs for children.
Parenting and Children’s Adherence to Medical Regimens

Adherence refers to the extent to which a person’s behavior corresponds with a medical treatment
plan developed with a health care provider (Rapoff, 2010). Adherence specifically focuses on engage-
ment in health behaviors, distinct from resulting health outcomes. This is important—a patient can be
highly adherent to their medical regimen but still have non-optimal health outcomes depending on
their disease, the severity, and the appropriateness of the treatment prescribed (DiMatteo, Haskard-
Zolnierek, and Martin, 2012). Despite this distinction, higher levels of adherence are associated with
better physical and psychological health and quality of life outcomes (Hood, Peterson, Rohan, and
Drotar, 2009). The consequences of non-adherence include drug resistance, increased morbidity and
mortality, and reduced quality of life (Rapoff, 2010). To illustrate the dangers of poor adherence, in
pediatric asthma the consequences of not taking prescribed inhaled steroids or emergency inhalers
vary from wheezing to frequent hospitalizations to death.Yet research shows that many children do not
receive their medications as prescribed for a variety of reasons, including failure to administer medi-
cations properly or failure to administer medications at all (McQuaid, Kopel, Klein, and Fritz, 2003).
Parents of children with chronic health conditions play a central role in promoting children’s
adherence to medical regimens.The role of parents in adherence is widely studied. Given the hetero-
geneity of chronic conditions, treatment, parental and child traits, and many other contextual factors,
however, it remains a complicated topic that requires ongoing research. A number of key parenting
roles and behaviors are shown to have significant effects on children’s adherence and thus overall
health and well-being. Developmental considerations are the forefront of this issue, as parenting a
child with a chronic health condition requires ongoing adjustment according to children’s develop-
mental tasks and abilities. As such, in this section we first describe key developmental considerations
delineated in the literature, and then we present various parenting behaviors that impact children’s
adherence.
Developmental Considerations
Research consistently shows that child development is a key mediator of children’s adherence and
is intimately connected to parenting behaviors. In general, child age is negatively associated with
adherence in many chronic conditions, such that adherence is higher among younger children than
adolescents (McQuaid et al., 2003; Pai and Ostendorf, 2011). However, age arguably provides a very
rough estimate of a child’s development in terms of cognitive, emotional, behavioral, and physical
607
abilities, and therefore can be misleading. Much of the extant literature on child development and
adherence is organized into two broad developmental periods, namely childhood and adolescence,
as important patterns emerge in relation to parenting a child with a chronic health condition during
each of these broad developmental stages.
Adherence in very young children with chronic conditions requires that parents and caregivers
assume complete responsibility for medical tasks. As children begin to develop motor and cognitive
abilities throughout early childhood, they become increasingly equipped to assist with tasks associ-
ated with their medical treatment. However, development of skills does not occur spontaneously in
such a way that children can one day simply conduct a task independently without error. With the
use of scaffolding, a teaching strategy through which parents control the components of the medical
task that are initially beyond the child’s ability, the child can conduct the components of the task that
are within his or her abilities, leading to successful completion of medical tasks (Wood, Bruner, and
Ross, 1976). In this iterative process, children can master components of the tasks until they are able
to perform them accurately with little parental assistance. This teaching strategy provides support to
the child and gradually withdraws parental support at a pace that matches the child’s development
of skills in conducting the task.
During adolescence, parental responsibility for medical tasks typically decreases due to marked
increases in adolescents’ skills and desire for independence (Holmbeck et al., 2002). However, consid-
erable evidence also suggests that adherence to medical regimens shows a steep decline from child-
hood to adolescence, as adolescents’ beliefs about adherence, risk-taking behaviors, and still-developing
executive functioning skills play a greater role in health behaviors and choices (Shaw, 2001).
Physical changes during adolescence, specifically during the pubertal stage, can affect adherence. In
the case of diabetes management, pubertal maturation changes the metabolic system, making it more
difficult to achieve good glycemic control (Wiebe et al., 2014). A decline in glycemic control during
this period can create additional stress and conflict in families. As such, it is important for parents to
actively collaborate and monitor daily medical tasks to limit adolescent and parent frustration. One
strategy that can serve to limit parent–child conflict during adolescence is to implement a scheduled
daily or weekly (depending on the child’s need for monitoring) meeting during which parents and
children communicate about medical tasks and problem-solve together. Parent–child meetings serve
to create a “team-like” atmosphere and also reduce the likelihood of conflict at times during the day
or week that may occur during heightened stress of frustration, leading to less effective communi-
cation. However, this strategy has not been empirically examined as an individual intervention and
requires empirical support to verify its effectiveness for reducing parent–child conflict.
Across chronic conditions, parental involvement is considered necessary throughout childhood
and adolescence. Psihogios, Kolbuck, and Holmbeck (2015) followed adolescents with spina bifida
across 2 years, finding that adolescents gained more responsibility and independence skills, although
adherence rates did not show equivalent improvement. Similarly, in a sample of adolescents with
type 1 diabetes, caregivers who actively provided autonomy support to adolescents encouraged more
frequent blood glucose monitoring (Wu et al., 2014). Overall, although adolescents are developing
self-care skills and independence, ongoing parental involvement in medical regimens may promote
optimal health outcomes during adolescence.
Parental Health Beliefs

Following the health belief model (HBM), parental health beliefs and perceptions are associated with
children’s adherence to medical regimens (Armstrong et al., 2014; DiMatteo et al., 2007). A meta-
analysis of 11 studies with children with chronic conditions found that parental perceptions of their
child’s disease severity were related to their child’s adherence (DiMatteo et al., 2007). Specifically,
in studies with samples that had less serious chronic conditions, including asthma, children judged
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by their parents to be in poorer health had better adherence. In samples of more serious conditions,
including end stage renal disease and diabetes, the opposite pattern emerged: children judged by their
parents to be in poorer health had worse adherence. These findings suggest that parents’ beliefs and
ensuing behaviors are important factors in supporting children’s adherence.
Parenting Behaviors That Promote Adherence

Parents can effectively promote their child’s competence in adhering to their medical regimen in a
way that matches the child’s developmental abilities. Parents also can facilitate the development of
critical skills that will allow children to independently care for their chronic condition. Encourag-
ing the development of self-care skills is linked to successful transition to adult care and a variety of
other positive health and well-being outcomes.Various parenting behaviors that promote adherence
are discussed below.
One way that parents can promote the development of child adherence is through sharing self-
care responsibilities with the child. A burgeoning literature has examined the allocation and transfer
of responsibility from parents to children and the associated impacts on adherence. It is generally
accepted that the allocation and transfer of responsibilities does not follow a linear pathway for all
families, and that the process is affected by multiple factors (Reed-Knight, Blount, and Gilleland,
2014; Williams, Mukhopadhyay, Dowell, and Coyle, 2007). Williams and colleagues (2007) presented
a visual model that consists of two parallel continua to depict the level and nature of involvement
of parents and children in completing medical tasks that illustrates the complex process of shifting
responsibilities from parents to children, or from children to parents. In this model, the parental
role in any given medical task can range from “complete direction,” through the stages of “passive
supervisor” and “directed assisting,” to “non-involvement.” In parallel, children’s roles in conduct-
ing a medical task can range from the “overwhelming recipient” to “independent administrator.”
Parent and child level of responsibility for a single medical task may vary according to maturity
as well as changes in internal (e.g., performance uncertainty), external (e.g., illness episodes), and
environmental (e.g., weekly family routines) factors which may influence the level of responsibility
of the parent and child at any given time. Added complexity arises when the chronic condition of
the child involves multiple medical tasks that vary in degree of difficulty and nature, and therefore
require varying levels of parent and child responsibility for overall adherence to a medical regimen
at any given time.
As children mature, they become increasingly capable of successfully managing certain medi-
cal tasks independently. Drotar and Ievers (1994) found that the percentage of treatment-related
responsibilities shared among parents and children with cystic fibrosis and type 1 diabetes increased
from younger children (ages 4–7) (19% for cystic fibrosis and 18% for type 1 diabetes) and older
children (ages 8–10) (32% and 42%, respectively), but did not significantly increase thereafter, as
treatment-related responsibility sharing at 11 and 14 years remained at a similar level (34% and 37%,
respectively). Similarly, the percentage of tasks that parents performed exclusively decreased across
childhood. However, sharing responsibility for some specific medical tasks may be associated with
poorer adherence. Marhefka and colleagues (2008) examined the odds of adherence to antiretroviral
therapy (ART) for pediatric HIV at different levels of responsibility sharing between parents and
children and found that, in families with caregivers who are solely responsible for calling the doctor
or pharmacy to refill prescriptions, children were more adherent compared to families that shared
this responsibility with children. These results suggest that some tasks may be particularly important
for parents to complete to promote better adherence.
Another way that parents can promote adherence is by encouraging daily routines and, more
specifically, by integrating medical treatment tasks into children’s daily routines. Research support for
this approach has been found in samples of children with diabetes (Greening, Stoppelbein, Konishi,
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Jordan, and Moll, 2007), sickle-cell anemia (Klitzman, Carmody, Belkin, and Janicke, 2017), inflam-
matory bowel disease (Hommel, Odell, Sander, Baldassano, and Barg, 2011), and asthma (Fiese and
Wamboldt, 2000). Routines may encourage better adherence by incorporating treatment tasks into
daily scheduled activities, creating less sense of treatment burden, and minimizing barriers, such as
forgetting, children’s task avoidance, or oppositional behavior and clarity of who is responsible for
conducting the task (Hommel et al., 2011). Flexibility in routines may be most favorable (Fiese,
Wamboldt, and Anbar, 2005), although this area remains largely understudied.
High collaboration between caregivers and children in conducting daily diabetes tasks is associated
with better diabetes control (Wysocki et al., 2008). The best health outcomes for this population are
associated with having two caregivers who both collaborate effectively with the child on diabetes tasks.
However, having only one parent who is high on collaboration is consistently linked to more favorable
outcomes if that parent is the caregiver who is most involved in diabetes care tasks. This pattern may
be uniquely true for diabetes, as the complexity and necessity of frequent monitoring of daily diabetes
management may require one caregiver to be highly in tune with the child’s diabetes management.
Parental monitoring is a critical feature of pediatric medical regimens (Ellis et al., 2007). Monitor-
ing refers to the direct oversight and supervision of activities related to the child’s medical regimens.
Depending on the regimen and various other factors related to the child’s self-care abilities, monitor-
ing may include watching a child take medication and/or establishing a daily or weekly time to seek
information about the child’s activities.The optimal level of parental monitoring is not always easy to
determine and can change according to multiple factors. Complex treatment regimens that require
multifaceted behaviors, such as with diabetes, spina bifida, or cystic fibrosis, may require higher lev-
els of parental monitoring, whereas other tasks may require less monitoring after adherence habits
have been formed and tasks are performed with high accuracy (Babler and Strickland, 2015; Eakin,
Bilderback, Boyle, Mogayzel, and Riekert, 2011; Psihogios et al., 2015).
Various parenting dimensions have been found to be associated with adherence in adolescents.
Goethals and colleagues (2017) showed that parental responsiveness and psychological control were
particularly predictive of adherence in adolescents and young adults with type 1 diabetes. This find-
ing suggests that there may be value in educating parents on appropriate responsive and nonintrusive
parenting practices to promote adherence, particularly during adolescence. The content and quality
of parent–child interactions during performance of treatment activities affect adherence. In one study,
direct observation of school-age children with cystic fibrosis and their parents during home respiratory
treatments revealed that parental positive attention, instructions, and avoidance of negative statements
were highly related to higher rates of adherence to respiratory treatments (Butcher and Nasr, 2014).
Parents also promote adherence by successfully transferring medical knowledge to their child.
Adhering to a medical regimen requires a significant base of knowledge on the part of the parent,
and secondarily on the part of the child. Lee and colleagues (2017) showed that parents who had
greater medication knowledge led to better medication adherence for their child. This effect was
moderated by level of conscientiousness, which represents the capacities to be attentive, organized,
and planful, such that parents who had the highest level of knowledge and were more conscien-
tious had the highest levels of adherence. Furthermore, parents play a critical role in ensuring that
their children understand aspects of their medical regimen that are necessary for them to accurately
complete tasks. For children, information about their medical regimen may need to be explained
and modeled in various formats outside of the medical provider visits, and on a frequent basis for the
information to be adequately learned.
Transition to Self-Care
Parents play a critical role in successful transitions from parent to adolescent responsibility and from
pediatric to adult providers. Although it is necessary to transition responsibility for medical tasks as
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adolescents and young adults become increasingly skilled in their illness care and otherwise more
self-sufficient, the process can occur at varying speeds and with varying degrees of success. To date,
much of the extant literature in the area of transition of care consists of qualitative studies that cap-
ture families’ coping and experiences (Heath, Farre, and Shaw, 2016).To our knowledge, no empirical
studies have examined specific parenting practices that predict successful transition to self-care or to
adult health care providers.
However, qualitative and theoretical research highlights critical trends regarding parenting behav-
iors and successful medical regimen transition. Reed-Knight and colleagues (2014) provided exam-
ples of how responsibilities can be shared between parents and adolescents to transfer responsibilities
using a developmental systems perspective. One of their examples suggests that, in facilitating adoles-
cent learning about prescriptions refills, parents may function as an observer as the adolescent stands
in line at the pharmacy or makes calls for refills. Allowing the adolescent to take responsibility for
these tasks, but at the same time monitoring adolescent performance, encourages skill development
and simultaneously assures that the medical task is completed properly.
Additionally, parents can encourage their adolescents to participate in medical visits by answer-
ing providers’ questions directly in parental presence (Buford, 2004). Encouraging the adolescent
to take primary responsibility for answering questions functions similarly to scaffolding, as the par-
ent is able to assist if the child requires additional support, but also encourages a sense of autonomy
on the part of the adolescent. Furthermore, modeling engagement in medical visits (e.g., asking
questions) is likely beneficial for adolescents in learning how to navigate medical visits inde-
pendently following transition of that responsibility, although this parental strategy has not been
studied directly.
Although disease knowledge is an important component of adherence, research has not found
evidence to suggest that adolescents who demonstrate greater knowledge of their disease and medi-
cal regimen necessarily exhibit more health responsibility or greater adherence rates, suggesting that
although knowledge may facilitate transition of care to adolescents, it may not function as an exclu-
sive predictor of transition success (Reed-Knight et al., 2014). Therefore, parents should encourage
adolescents to be knowledgeable about their disease and medical regimen, but should still provide
additional behavioral support.
Overall, caregivers play a substantial role in fostering optimal adherence to children’s medical
regimens throughout child development. Of note, rates of adherence show a steep decline during
adolescence, highlighting the importance of parental support during this period. Medical regimens
are often composed of various health behaviors, each of which require parental monitoring and sup-
port tailored to the individual child’s abilities. Additionally, parent- and family-level factors, includ-
ing parent health beliefs and communication skills, are associated with adherence rates and health
outcomes in children and youth. Future research should begin to explore the effectiveness of specific
parenting behaviors in promoting child and adolescent adherence rates, in the context of complex
and diverse social systems and developmental processes.
Role of Parenting in Maintaining Age-Appropriate Functioning

Childhood illness has the potential to interfere with interactions between the child and the envi-
ronment that are crucial to successful mastery of important socioemotional tasks of development as
well as optimal progression to more advanced stages of development (Perrin and Gerrity, 1984). As
a result, it may be particularly challenging for parents to create opportunities for children to exercise
control over their environments and develop autonomy, self-confidence, and social competence.
In the following sections, we review the research linking parental emotional responses and parent-
ing behaviors to autonomy development and adaptive school functioning in children with chronic
health conditions.
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Parental Perceptions of Child Vulnerability

In 1964, Green and Solnit coined the phrase “vulnerable child syndrome” to describe a disrupted pat-
tern of parent–child interactions they observed in children who had recovered from a life-threatening
illness but whose parents continued to view them as unrealistically vulnerable to future serious ill-
ness, injury, or even death (Wright, Mullen, West, and Wyatt, 1993). Green (1986) and Levy (1995)
expanded the construct to include children who were perceived by their parents to be particularly
vulnerable to illness, regardless of the objective medical basis for such perceptions.
Heightened parental perceptions of child vulnerability have been shown to be associated with
elevated parental fears about the child’s health, hypervigilance for signs of illness (Thomasgard, 1998),
and excessive utilization of medical services (Levy, 1995). Greater perceived vulnerability has also
been shown to relate to child-reported depressive symptoms (Mullins et al., 2004) and social anxiety
(Anthony, Gil, and Schanberg, 2003).
Although Green and Solnit (1964) originally proposed that perceived vulnerability also was asso-
ciated with overprotective, overindulgent, and overcontrolling parenting, subsequent research by
Thomasgard and colleagues (Thomasgard, 1998;Thomasgard and Metz, 1995;Thomasgard, Shonkoff,
Metz, and Edelbrock, 1995) found only modest overlap between parental self-report measures of per-
ceived vulnerability (i.e., the Child Vulnerability Scale; Forsyth, Horwitz, Leventhal, Burger, and Leaf,
1996) and overprotective parenting behaviors (i.e., the Parent Protection Scale; Thomasgard, Metz,
Edelbrock, and Shonkoff, 1995). Thus, perceived vulnerability and overprotection appear to be best
conceptualized as related but distinct constructs (Mullins et al., 2004).
Parental Overprotection
In the context of child health conditions, “overprotection” has been defined as protective parental
behavior that is excessive for the child’s developmental level (Pinquart, 2013;Thomasgard et al., 1995),
although scholars have differed with respect to the degree to which indulgent parenting, overly
controlling parenting, and parental anxiety should be considered components of overprotection.
Holmbeck et al. (2002) argued that overprotection includes both excessive parental control and
intrusiveness or prevention of independent behavior as well as an anxious component involving
excessive concern about the child’s welfare, infantalization, and excessive social or physical contact.
Although most health professionals could easily identify parents in their practices who appear
overprotective, the empirical study of overprotection in children with health conditions is challeng-
ing. Much of the literature demonstrating more overprotection in parents of children with health
conditions is based on adults’ retrospective recall of how they were reared (Herbert and Dahlquist,
2008; Thomasgard, 1998), which is subject to the biases and distortions inherent in any retrospec-
tive report. Efforts to obtain ongoing assessments of overprotective parenting have generated mixed
findings (Pinquart, 2013). For example, 10- to 17-year-old children with cancer did not differ from
healthy peers in their ratings of parental care and overprotection on the Parental Bonding Instrument
(Parker,Tupling, and Brown, 1979;Tillery, Long, and Phipps, 2014). Similarly, parents of children with
cancer did not report more overprotective parenting on the Child-Rearing Practices Report (Noll
et al., 1999) than did parents of healthy comparison children (Long et al., 2013). In contrast, parents
of 8- and 9-year-old children with spina bifida both reported and were observed to be more over-
protective than parents of age-matched able-bodied peers (Holmbeck et al., 2002).
Some of the challenges inherent in identifying the prevalence of and contributors to parental
overprotection in the context of chronic childhood health conditions may simply reflect the realities
of parenting a child with a significant medical condition. That is, the management of many child-
hood health conditions requires a greater level of parental oversight and involvement than would
otherwise be necessary for the child’s level of development (see discussion on caregiver burden
612
above). As such, high levels of parental involvement may simply be adaptive responses to the child’s
physical limitations or crucial to maintaining the child’s health.
Nonetheless, these behaviors also may conflict with the equally important parental role of facili-
tating the development of autonomy (Holmbeck et al., 2002). Anderson and Coyne (1991) referred
to this conflict as “misguided helping,” in which tension develops between parents and children as
the parent’s efforts to keep the child healthy interfere with the child’s emerging autonomy (Holm-
beck et al., 2002). Although research findings are mixed (Pinquart, 2013), lower levels of autonomy
support have been documented in observational studies of parents of children with spina bifida
(Holmbeck et al., 2002; Lennon, Murray, Bechtel, and Holmbeck, 2015; Murray et al., 2015) and
children born prematurely (Potharst, Schuengel, van Wassenaer, Kok, and Houtzager, 2012).
Parents who are highly anxious may be particularly at risk for excessive levels of control and
involvement to manage their own fears about potential catastrophic consequences for their child (i.e.,
avoid a dreaded outcome; Ollendick and Benoit, 2012). As has been demonstrated in childhood anxi-
ety research, anxious parents are more likely to perceive threat in innocuous scenarios, demonstrate
greater parental control, involvement, restriction, or avoidance of “threatening” settings, and transmit
threat interpretation biases to their children (Ollendick and Benoit, 2012). Thus, the highly anxious
parent may be particularly prone to encourage avoidance of threatening situations rather than teach
ways to cope and master such threats. A similar pattern of parental encouragement of avoidance also
could emerge in response to child anxiety. For example, children with asthma who also had significant
anxiety symptoms made more avoidant responses to hypothetical asthma-related threat scenarios
after discussions with their parents than did non-anxious children with asthma, suggesting that their
parents played a role in encouraging avoidant coping (Sicouri et al., 2016).
Alternatively, excessive control and involvement may simply serve to reduce the stress associated
with day-to-day management of their child’s health in families where parents are already experienc-
ing high levels of stress (Holmbeck et al., 2002). For example, by keeping their children out of pre-
school or daycare, parents of children with food allergy can limit the number of situations in which
accidental exposures to food allergens might occur, thus making the children’s disease management
easier. Indeed, Bollinger et al. (2006) reported that 10% of parents of youth with food allergy did not
enroll their children in school because of the child’s food allergy.
An emerging body of literature also suggests that overly involved parenting may reflect a general-
ized response style or a failure to differentiate setting conditions in which their high level of involve-
ment in their child’s life is medically necessary from contexts that are unrelated to the child’s health
status, resulting in unnecessary or excessive levels of parental involvement in aspects of children’s lives
that are not relevant to a health condition. For example, in an observational study of parent–child
interactions during easy and challenging visual motor tasks, Dahlquist, Power, et al. (2015) found that
parents of 3- to 4-year-old children with food allergy were more likely to provide unnecessary help
on a simple puzzle (i.e., telling the child where to place a piece) than were parents of healthy chil-
dren, despite the fact that the food allergic and healthy children did not differ in basic visual motor
skills. In this example, food allergy has no impact on puzzle solving, and exposure to puzzles arguably
has no impact on food allergy, yet the parents of food allergic children demonstrated both intrusive-
ness and a tendency to shield their children from stress (i.e., frustration or failure).
In a study of older children (aged 6–13 years) with juvenile rheumatoid arthritis, Power, Dahl-
quist, Thompson, and Warren (2003) also documented subtle indications of parental overinvolve-
ment. Rather than providing the correct answer, mothers of children with more severe arthritis were
more directive during a visual memory task than the mothers of children with less severe arthritis or
healthy children. Although the groups of children did not differ with respect to visual motor skills
or performance on the memory task, mothers of children with more severe disease more frequently
prompted the child for an answer, reiterated more rules, and made more structuring statements
than comparison mothers did. Greater perceived disease severity has been shown to relate to less
613
autonomy support in other health conditions as well, such as atopic disease (Im, Park, Oh, and Suk,
2014) and congenital heart disease (Rassart, Luyckx, Goosens, Apers, and Moons, 2014).
When parents take over problem-solving by telling the child what to do or providing the solution
themselves, as illustrated in these examples, they interfere with the child’s independent problem-
solving. This phenomenon may be less blatant than the overprotection evidenced when parents
significantly restrict the child’s access to physical and social environments, but may nonetheless also
serve to undermine the child’s sense of competence and self-efficacy (Colman and Thompson, 2002;
Dahlquist et al., 2015; Grolnick, Price, Beiswenger, and Sauck, 2007) and ultimately disrupt auton-
omy development (Deci, Driver, Hotchkiss, Robbins, and Wilson, 1993; Grolnick and Ryan, 1989;
Power, 2004; Power and Hill, 2008). Such parenting behaviors also have been linked to the develop-
ment of anxiety in healthy children (Hudson and Rapee, 2001, 2002; Kiel and Buss, 2009; Ollendick
and Benoit, 2012).
In summary, the level of parental involvement needed to manage many chronic childhood health
conditions, although necessary and adaptive in many respects, can also pose challenges to the child’s
autonomy development. Given the emerging evidence that parental control and involvement may
overgeneralize to aspects of the child’s life that are unrelated to health, more research is needed
to identify the parent and child variables that influence these subtler manifestations of protective
parenting and determine the long-term consequences of these patterns of parent–child interaction.
Parenting and Chronic Pain and Disability

Knowing the “correct” way to parent when a child is experiencing chronic or recurrent pain can
be particularly challenging. Many parents provide special attention, sympathy, and comfort when
their child is in pain and often allow the child to avoid strenuous activities, chores, or even attend-
ing school. Some authors refer to this pattern of parental behavior as “protective,” in the sense that
the parent strives to “protect” the child from physical pain and emotional distress (Chow, Otis, and
Simons, 2016; Simons, Claar, and Logan, 2008; Walker and Zeman, 1992). Although well meaning,
these parent behaviors may function to positively reinforce child expressions of pain as well as nega-
tively reinforce avoidance behaviors. At the same time, parents may fail to reinforce adaptive coping
(i.e., performing tasks of daily living despite experiencing pain). Over time this pattern of parent
reinforcement may serve to increase children’s report of pain symptoms and exacerbate pain-related
disability (Palermo,Valrie and Karlson, 2014; Peterson and Palermo, 2004; Simons et al., 2008;Walker
and Zeman, 1992; Welkom, Hwang, and Guite, 2013). Indeed, overly solicitous parental behavior
is associated with longer duration of symptoms, impaired school performance in adolescents with
chronic headache, social withdrawal, depression, and more severe pain-related disability (Chow et al.,
2016; Kaczynski, Claar, and LeBel, 2013; Peterson and Palermo, 2004; Welkom et al., 2013).
Experimental studies provide further support for the operant role of parental responses to child
pain. Children’s pain complaints in response to an uncomfortable water load test doubled when
parents were instructed to deliberately attend to symptom complaints and were reduced substantially
when parents were instructed to use distraction instead of attention (Walker et al., 2006).
Parents who are high in personal distress and who tend to catastrophize about their child’s pain
appear to be particularly likely to attend to signs of pain and to allow the child to avoid uncomfort-
able situations (Caes,Vervoort, Eccleston,Vanderhende, and Goubert, 2011). For example, in a study
of 8- to 17-year-old youth with chronic pain, Logan, Simons, and Carpino (2012) found that both
parental catastrophizing and parental protective responses (i.e., providing special attention or allow-
ing the child to avoid demands) independently predicted poorer child school attendance and greater
general reports of school-related problems, over and above the child’s pain intensity or depressive
symptoms. Moreover, parental protective behaviors mediated the relation between catastrophizing
and negative school outcomes. Logan et al. (2012, p. 440) argued that parents who have strong
614
negative emotional reactions to their child’s pain may be particularly “quick to sympathize with pain
complaints and to acquiesce to requests to stay home from school,” especially if they perceive the
child’s teacher or school to be unsympathetic or unreasonable.
To minimize parental threat appraisals associated with child pain symptoms and concomitant
parental emotional distress, recent clinical interventions have targeted the development of more
accepting, psychologically flexible parental attitudes toward pain symptoms through Acceptance and
Commitment Therapy (ACT). Preliminary findings suggest that ACT-based intervention may help
minimize parent pain-related distress and ultimately foster less parental monitoring of pain and rein-
forcement of pain avoidance behaviors (Wallace,Woodford, and Connelly, 2016). Similarly, providing
parents of children with chronic pain four to six sessions of individual training in problem-solving
skills through modeling and behavioral rehearsal appears to result in less parental catastrophizing and
reductions in maladaptive protective parenting behaviors (Law et al., 2017).
In summary, parents play a crucial role in reinforcing children’s efforts to engage in age-appropriate
activities despite being in pain. Inhibiting the urge to protect the child from distress and discomfort
and instead fostering adaptive coping is difficult, especially for parents who are themselves more emo-
tionally upset by their child’s pain. Intervention programs that target parent’s emotional reactions to
pain as well as teach operant strategies appear to have considerable promise for minimizing disability
and fostering adaptive outcomes in children with chronic pain.
Future Directions in Parenting Children With a Health Condition

Despite the diversity of chronic conditions that have been studied and the differences in symptom
severity within conditions, researchers have identified similarities in the issues that parents of children
with chronic conditions often face. These include predictable emotional and behavioral reactions
to uncertainty about their child’s health and future; changes in family routines and responsibilities;
caregiver burden from the daily challenges that parents face in addressing the consequences of their
child’s condition; and predictable changes in parenting styles and practices. Although this research
provides an excellent starting point for understanding parenting within such families, we still have
much to learn. Some suggestions for future research follow.
First, because the majority of research studies in this area rely almost exclusively on parent verbal
reports to assess parenting practices (e.g., interviews, focus groups, questionnaires), it is important that
future research employ multiple methods to assess parenting styles and practices. Qualitative studies of
parenting children with a chronic health condition have identified numerous issues worthy of future
study. However, these studies give us limited insight into the proportion of parents who experience
various emotional and behavioral reactions to specific conditions; the factors that predict individual
differences in parental responses to these conditions; and the short- and long-term consequences of
children’s conditions on parenting and child development. Quantitative studies using standardized
self-report measures of parenting address some of these issues, but such measures have their limita-
tions (Wysocki, 2015). For example, questions may be confusing, participants may respond to what
they think the researchers want to hear, and parents may try to make a positive impression. Addition-
ally, parents may not accurately remember how often they engaged in specific behaviors, may not
accurately average across multiple occurrences of a behavior, or may not be consciously aware of the
behavior being assessed (Power et al., 2013). The use of multiple methods (e.g., interviews, question-
naires, diaries, observations, and ecological momentary assessments), along with statistical analyses
that examine convergence across measures (e.g., structural equation modeling with latent constructs)
would increase our understanding of the specific parental practices that are influenced by children’s
chronic conditions, as well as how different practices promote or interfere with child development.
A second general issue is how many of the processes and/or experiences described earlier are
typical of parents and children across a range of chronic health conditions and how many are
615
condition-specific? One might expect, for example, that parents who have experienced a situation
where their child’s life was in danger (e.g., aggressive cancer or an anaphylactic reaction to the child
ingesting peanuts) likely experience more PTSD symptoms than parents of children with less life-
threatening conditions. In contrast, parents whose children require daily care (e.g., cystic fibrosis) likely
experience greater caregiver burden. Although the debate regarding the pros and cons of disease-
specific versus cross-diagnosis research in pediatric psychology is far from new (Drotar, 1994; Holden,
Chmielewski, Nelson, and Kager, 1997), as this review highlights, there is benefit to be gained from
both approaches. Future research should continue to examine differences and commonalities between
the various health conditions in the nature of the processes discussed in this chapter as well as identify
which aspects of these conditions (e.g., threat, unpredictability, course, age of onset) and which child
and parent characteristics account for differences between conditions in parent and child outcomes.
Third, to date, many studies that have examined the impact of chronic health conditions on children’s
and parents’ well-being have focused primarily on whether children with a chronic health condition
(or their parents) show clinical levels of psychopathology. Even though most children or parents do not
exhibit clinical levels of symptoms, this finding does that not mean that the condition had little effect.
There are likely many short-term and long-term consequences of these conditions that reflect subtle
differences in the nature of development (for example, the differences in autonomy development dis-
cussed earlier). Future longitudinal studies need to examine trajectories of parent and child development
over time and examine a wide range of child and parent reactions (both subtle and obvious). Moreover,
as demonstrated in the studies of posttraumatic growth, both positive and negative consequences need
to be explored, as well as the factors that predict different developmental trajectories over time.
Fourth, we have very little understanding at this point of how the impact of parenting in chronic
health conditions varies as a function of the child’s developmental level or the larger culture in which
the child was reared. As argued by Bornstein (1995), cross-cultural comparisons are difficult because
the same activity may function differently across cultures, or conversely, very different-looking activi-
ties may serve the same function in different cultures. Moreover, parents with different cultural back-
grounds may respond differently in the presence of medical professionals. Mougianis, Cohen, and
Shih (2017), for example, in interpreting the results of their observations of Latino parents during
pediatric immunizations, argued that the Latino cultural value of respecto may have led to deferential
behavioral toward medical authorities and lower levels of interaction with their children during the
medical procedures. Cultural and social class differences in parenting children with a health condi-
tion has received limited research attention—it is an extremely important area for future research.
Finally, future research should continue to study the psychological and behavioral processes that
account for the impact of children on their parents and parents on their children. Through the use
of multiple methods and measures, researchers can continue to make significant progress in under-
standing, for example, how parental anxiety is communicated to children during stressful medical
procedures, how cognitive and emotional processes interact in accounting for parents’ responses to
a particular child diagnosis, or how parenting practices impact the development of children’s auton-
omy. A greater use of longitudinal and experimental designs will continue to move the field forward.
Addressing some of the directions outlined above will give us greater insights into the impact
of children with a chronic health condition on parenting (and vice versa), and will help to provide
directions for the development of effective interventions to minimize child and parent risk and pro-
mote positive developmental and family outcomes.
Conclusions
Parenting a child with a chronic health condition presents parents with numerous challenges and
opportunities for growth. Challenges include the high degree of uncertainty they must face; the unex-
pected, negative emotional reactions they must manage; and adjustments they must make in their daily
616
lives to support their child’s condition. Parents clearly differ in how they adapt to these challenges, and
researchers have identified some of the factors associated with the most positive outcomes. Parents
who adapt well are those who create new, shared family routines that manage family stress and facili-
tate the development of the child’s autonomous self-care skills; who develop effective partnerships
with their spouse and health care workers; who successfully utilize support outside of the family; and
who flexibly adapt to the new challenges that arise. Moreover, these parents support their child’s age-
appropriate functioning by maintaining age-appropriate expectations and by focusing on their child’s
achievements and accomplishments in a way that avoids the development of patterns of parental over-
involvement and overprotection. For parents who successfully manage these challenges, rearing a child
with a chronic health condition can lead to positive changes, including a deeper sense of appreciation
of life and a greater sense of family closeness and togetherness. Given the importance of parents for
the development of children with a chronic health condition, it is important that health care provid-
ers and health care systems create programs and policies that support these parents and their children.
Acknowledgments
The authors thank Jackelyn Hidalgo-Mendez, Sara Gliese, Emily Wolfe, Masoud Montazeri Jouybari,
Christina Saba, Daniel Gordon, Pavan Konanur, Natalie Konig, Sneha Saggurthi, Christina Paul,
Laura Arvin, Gunner Sudol, Gloria Gutierrez, and Jenna Guglielmini for their assistance in the lit-
erature review of this chapter.
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624
INDEX
Note: Italicized page numbers indicate a figure on the corresponding page. Page numbers in bold indicate a table
on the corresponding page.
ABCX stress-coping model 569 – 570, 579 adoption/adoptive families: adolescents 333 – 334;

academics and gender differences 269 – 270 communicative openness in 335 – 336; competency
Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) training programs 353; external stressors and
540, 615 support structure 347 – 348; forming attachment
active information management 148 – 149 and grief process 344–; infants 16, 329 – 330;
active sleep and preterm births 428 introduction to 322; late-placed children/special-
activities of daily living (ADL) 199 – 200 needs children 341 – 343; maintaining pre-existing
acute pain conditions 605 – 607 relationships 346 – 347; maintaining realistic
adapting control processes 89 – 91 expectations 345 – 346; middle childhood 83; new
adaptive behaviors 474 – 478 contextual realities 323 – 325; openness in 334 – 336;
Adler, Stella 409 post-adoptive services 328; pre-adoptive adversity
adolescent crisis phenomenon 415 350 – 351; as protection 350 – 352; racial and ethnic
adolescents: active information management considerations 323, 336 – 341; as risk 349 – 350;
148 – 149; adoption and 333 – 334; agency in school-age children 331 – 333; sexual minorities
socialization process 142 – 152; aggressive children 324 – 325, 349; socialization process 328 – 334;
497, 504; autonomy 122 – 123, 131, 132, 138 – 140; structural openness in 334 – 335; summary of 354;
basic psychological needs 131 – 133; boundary temperament and 296; toddlers/preschoolers
conditions and independence 121 – 123; brother- 330 – 331; in twenty-first century 322 – 323; unique
sister intimacy in 231; conflict management processes and challenges 336 – 349; variations and
styles 149 – 151; developmental changes 120 – 121; patterns 326 – 328
distance taking and independence 120 – 123; Adoption and Safe Families Act (1997) 369
emotional development during 113 – 116; Adoption Assistance and Child Welfare Act 323 – 324
heightened orientation toward peers 117 – 120; adoption entrance narratives 330 – 331
introduction to 111 – 112; legitimate parental Adult Attachment Interview (AAI) 373 – 374, 375
authority and 145 – 148; parent-adolescent adult children see aging parents and adult children
bidirectional influence 144 – 145; parent-adolescent adult day services (ADS) 207 – 208
conflict 116 – 117; parent-adolescent relationships adversity and aggressive children 507
112 – 124; psychosocial development 124 – 130; adversity and talent 402 – 404
puberty 112 – 113, 116; self-determination theory affective expression in middle childhood 87
of parenting 67, 122, 131 – 142, 133, 141; sibling affective-motivational impulses 114
parenting during 230 – 238; summary of 140 – 142, African Americans: adult children as parental
141, 152; troublesome children and 329 – 330, caregivers 202; aptitude testing 404; foster care
344 – 345 discrimination 389; infant parenting 36 – 37;
625
Index
loneliness of 174; middle childhood school attachment relationships 169, 344, 472 – 474
experiences 98; permissive parenting 144; sibling attachment states of mind 376 – 377
relationships 240, 242 attachment theory of parenting: adolescent parenting
after-school care 100 – 101 128 – 129; aggressive children 499 – 500; autism
aggressive children: adoption and 344; attachment spectrum disorder 541 – 543; foster children 372,
theory of parenting 499 – 500; bidirectional 373 – 377; introduction to 10, 19; siblings 225
interactions and 504; childhood and adolescence attention deficit disorders (ADD) 404, 405
497, 504; child-level characteristics as moderating attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) 297,
medium 504 – 506; cultural differences 507 – 509; 404, 547
defining key terms 497 – 498; developing attention-regulation 64, 523
trajectories 497; future parenting directions Austrian parental leave policy 262
512 – 513; gender differences in parenting 263 – 265; authoritarian parenting 124 – 125, 146, 171 – 172, 233,
introduction to 496; meta-level theories 498; 292, 297, 301, 478
methodological considerations 511 – 512; negative authoritative parenting 124 – 126, 128, 171 – 173, 478
emotions and 503; parental control 500 – 502; Autism Diagnostic Interview-Revised (ADI-R) 526
parenting as mediating mechanism 506 – 507; Autism Diagnostic Observation Schedule(ADOS-2) 526
parenting interventions 509 – 511; parenting Autism Speaks 528
of 498 – 509; social learning theory 498 – 499; autism spectrum disorder (ASD): attachment theory
summary of 513; temperament and 505 of parenting 541 – 543; changing relationships 549;
aging parents and adult children: conflict strategies coping with 529, 535 – 540, 536 – 538; economic
196; critical issues 193 – 194; death and impact of 531 – 532; family processes and 546 – 551;
bereavement 206; demographics and social changes future research directions 551; historical views on
192 – 193; family systems interventions 207; 527 – 529; impact of diagnosis 529 – 531; infants
future trends in intergenerational ties 208 – 209; 29; introduction to 523 – 527, 524, 525; marital
intergenerational relationship qualities 195 – 196; satisfaction impact of 532; older adults with 550;
introduction to 191 – 192; managing burden of parent-child interactive processes 540 – 546; parent-
caregiving 206 – 208; offspring support of parents implemented interventions 545 – 546; parenting
197 – 198; parental support of grown children practices and expectations 548 – 549; relational
196 – 197; parents with disabilities 191 – 192, factors and outcomes 547 – 548; resilience and
199 – 206; relationship measures 198 – 199; 529, 539 – 540; sibling interactions 242; stigma of
summary of 209; talented children and 406; 531; stress and 526, 529, 533 – 535; summary of
theoretical approaches to 194, 194 – 195 551 – 552; talented children and 404, 405
Ainsworth, Mary 373 autonomic arousal 480
Allen, Steve 408 autonomic functioning 309
alpha-amylase enzyme 21 autonomic nervous systems 23
Alzheimer’s disease 203 autonomy: adolescence 122 – 123, 131, 132, 138 – 140;
American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) 70 cultural differences in 260; emerging adults
American College Test (ACT) 410 173 – 174; emotional autonomy 176; middle
American Psychologist 598 childhood 91 – 92; psychological autonomy 176;
Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) 582 sibling parenting 233; toddlers 58 – 60
American Time Youth Survey 8 autonomy-supportive parenting 138 – 141, 176
anabolic steroid 23
Anglo culture and sibling relationships 240 baby biographies 6
angry temperament 291, 292 babyishness 26
antenatal attachment expectancy 12 Bayley Scales of Infant Development 447
antiretroviral therapy (ART) for pediatric HIV 609 behavioral inhibition and social withdrawal: adaptive
antisocial behavior 92 – 93, 238, 496 vs. maladaptive behaviors 474 – 478; age-related
anxiety: adoption and 345; during free play in school 476 – 477; buffering effect 473 – 474; causal
480 – 481; over medical procedures 605 – 607; in parenting effects 482 – 483; cultural differences 473,
parents with preterm infants 436; social anxiety 477 – 478; defined 468; emotional competence
disorder 483; talented children 404 theory 470, 472 – 474; father parenting 484;
anxiety-driven social withdrawal 472 future research directions 486 – 487; internalizing
appearance-based pressure 267 problems and disorders 481; intrapersonal factors
aptitude testing 404 485; introduction to 467 – 468; measurement and
Arc, The 582 design in 469 – 470; overly protective childrearing
assisted living for aging parents 205 strategies 476, 479 – 480, 484 – 486; parenting
Attachment and Biobehavioral Catch-Up (ABC) behaviors 478 – 484; positive parenting 481 – 482;
352, 376, 383 – 384 psychological control 479 – 481; relationship
626
Index
and contextual factors 485 – 486; as risk factors characteristic development of gifts and talents 401
468 – 469; social competence theory 470 – 471, Child Abuse Prevention and Treatment Act
475 – 476; social withdrawal 475 – 476; summary of (1974) 369
487 – 489 child development see developmental changes/
behavior/behavioral states: adherence-promoting outcomes
behaviors 609 – 610; antisocial behavior 92 – 93, child effortful control in 297 – 300, 302 – 303
238, 496; control by parents 177; dieting behaviors child-focused social-skills intervention 526
and self-esteem 267; externalizing behaviors childhood psychiatric disorder 430
problems 293 – 294; gender differences in play child neglect 370, 388
behavior 270 – 272; hostile-reactive behaviors 9; Child-Parent Psychotherapy (CPP) 387
infancy 27; maladaptive behaviors 144, 178, 179, child prodigies 411 – 412
474 – 478, 480, 565; maternal intrusive behavior Child-Rearing Practices Report 612
69; negative behaviors 226; overcontrolled children, defined 4
behaviors 471, 481; positive behaviors 226; Child Report of Parent Behavior (CRPBI) 130
predictability in infant behavior 33; prosocial child welfare caseworkers 371 – 372
behavior of emerging adults 182; risk behavior/ Child Welfare Gateway 353
risk management 84 – 86, 180; rule-breaking child welfare system 368, 369 – 373
behavior 181 – 182; self-endorsement of 122 China, social withdrawal in children 477 – 478
behavior genetic (BG) research 222 – 223 chronic health conditions: adherence-promoting
behavior-modification techniques 62 – 63 behaviors 609 – 610; age-appropriate functioning
Bell’s classic notion of interaction 571 611 – 615; beyond initial diagnosis 600 – 601;
bereavement 206 caregiver burden 604 – 605; central parenting issues
bicultural socialization 340 – 341 598; child vulnerability and 612; developmental
bidirectional interactions 144 – 145, 504 considerations 607 – 608; emotional reactions
binge drinking 21 of parents 599 – 604; future research directions
biological determinants of parents 22 – 25 615 – 616; health beliefs of parents 608 – 609;
birth order 116 – 117, 241 historical considerations in parenting 598;
birth parents vs. foster parenting 371 introduction to 597 – 598; pain and 605 – 607,
Birtwell, Charles 369 614 – 615; parental overprotection 612 – 614;
Boston Children’s Aid Society 369 parenting research 599 – 615; parenting stress 602;
Bowlby, John 373 parenting theory 598; predictors of adjustment
brain impact on parenting 23 differences 601 – 602; summary of 616 – 617; time
Brando, Marlon 409 of diagnosis factors 599 – 600; transition to self-care
brother-sister intimacy in adolescence 231 610 – 611
Bucharest Early Intervention Project 375 chronological age (CA) 116, 425, 430, 510, 567 – 568,
buffering effect 473 – 474 573, 587
clinical modification of positive parenting 305 – 306
callous-unemotional (CU) characteristics 295, 506 Code of Hammurabi 6
Canada, social withdrawal in children 477 coercion theory 499
canalization 8 coercive processes 226
caregivers/caregiving: adoption and 332 – 333; cognition evaluation studies 16
aggressive children and 507; autism spectrum cognitive behavioral therapy 540, 582
disorder and 543 – 545; chronic health conditions cognitive development: middle childhood 82 – 83;
and 604 – 605; enactment of role 202 – 205; parent differential treatment 234 – 235; preterm
expressions 22; managing burden of 206 – 208; infants 448 – 449; temperament and 288; toddlers
older adults with autism spectrum disorder 550; 57, 60, 65 – 66
parents with disabilities 191 – 192, 199 – 206; cognitive disciplinary techniques 61
preterm births 448; psychoeducational programs cognitive readiness in parents 24 – 25
for 206 – 207; sensitive caregiving 352, 439 – 442, co-incidence model 402
447 – 450; social caregiving 14; stressors 202 – 205; collective well-being in middle childhood 93 – 94
transitions and disengagement from role 205 – 206 collectivism 142, 508
Care Index data 441 communication: adoptions and 328; foster
care settings for aging parents 205 – 206 caregivers and birth parents 383; openness in
case planners 369 – 370 adoptive families 335 – 336; in parent-adolescent
Casey Foster Parent Inventory 378 relationships 115; social communication deficits
central nervous systems 23 533; toddler skills 60
cerebral cortex 170 competence needs of adolescents 131
chaos parenting 133 compliance problem solving 150
627
Index
Comprehensive Early Childhood Parenting syndrome 575; motherhood and 25; parenting
Questionnaire (CECPAQ) 67 aggressive children 507; in parents of children
compulsory education 260 with ASD 533; in parents with preterm infants
conduct disorder 295 436 – 437; postpartum depression 330
configurational approach to parenting 124 – 126 developmental changes/outcomes: adolescents
conflict management styles 149 – 151 112; chronic health conditions 607 – 608;
conflict strategies for aging parents and adult coercive family interaction patterns 226;
children 196 emerging adults 171; infancy 31 – 33, 32;
conformity in toddlers 60 parental knowledge of 12; peer interaction
conformity orientation 335 469, 472, 474; preterm birth 424 – 426,
Confucianism 477 430 – 431, 445 – 450, 454 – 455
consistency in parenting cognitions and practices developmental perspective of intelligence 401
14 – 15 developmental plasticity factors 409
consulting strategies of parental peer management 119 developmental systems theory 289 – 293
content features of infant-directed speech 24 deviance training 238
contingent responding 440 – 441 diathesis-stress interactions 304
controlling parenting 134 – 135, 142, 144 didactic caregiving 14
control processes 89 – 91 dieting behaviors and self-esteem 267
conversation orientation 335 dimensional approach to parenting 126 – 128,
Cool Little Kids program 482 – 483 129 – 130
co-parenting infants 11, 16 direct commands in parenting 544
coping strategies: ABCX stress-coping model disability services for adults 581 – 582
569 – 570, 579; autism spectrum disorder 529, disabled parents 191 – 192, 199 – 206
535 – 540, 536 – 538; Double ABCX stress-coping discipline: aggressive children 501 – 502; cognitive
model 569 – 570; emotion-focused (EF) styles 539; disciplinary techniques 61; inductive discipline 61;
emotions and 97; middle childhood 84 – 86, 87, 97; middle childhood 89; toddlers 60, 61; see also
problem-focused (PF) coping 539, 574; harsh discipline
stress-coping models 569 – 570 discrimination in foster parenting 388 – 389
coregulation principle 20 – 21, 90 disease-related parenting stresses 602
cortisol hormone 370, 384 disorganized attachment 370
couple/marital relationships 227 dispositional vulnerability 480
Croatian college students 174 distance taking and adolescents 120 – 121
Croatian parental leave policy 262 divergence perspective in preterm births 425 – 426
cross-gender interactions in middle childhood 96 diversity: of adopted children 326; cultural diversity
crying in preterm infants 429 260 – 261; gender diverse/nonconforming children
cultural beliefs/differences: in adopted children 258; individual diversity 259 – 262; parental
326; adult sibling relationships 239, 240 – 242; diversity 260; parenting emerging adults 181; talent
aggressive children 507 – 509; behavioral inhibition and 402 – 404; toddler parenting 65 – 67; see also
and social withdrawal 473, 474 – 478; gender cultural beliefs/differences
differences and 258; infant expression 30; infant divorce 193
parenting 13, 35 – 37; introduction to 6; middle dizygotic (DZ) twin research 222 – 223
childhood schooling 98 – 99; psychological needs domain-dependent effects of parenting 145 – 148
of adolescents 131; see also diversity domain-general perspective of intelligence 400
Cure Autism Now 528 domain-specific perspective of intelligence
400 – 401
D’Amboise, Jacques 415 domestic violence 370 – 371
Darwin, Charles 6 Double ABCX stress-coping model 569 – 570
daughters as parental caregivers 201 – 202, 203, 205 Down syndrome 566, 567, 571 – 580
death and bereavement 206 DRD4 polymorphism 484
de-identification of siblings 226 drug use/abuse: infant parenting 21; mood disorders
delayed launching 572 and 25; nonmedical prescription opioid use 175;
demand-withdraw pattern of conflict resolution 150 parent risk of 371
dementia 203, 206 dynamic belief systems 474
demographics of aging parents and adult children dynamic networks approach 403
192 – 193, 199 dynamic systems theory 170
depression: in adolescence 114; adoption and dyscalculia 404
345; aging parents 196; in caregivers 202, 205; dyslexia 404, 405
childhood maltreatment and 375; with Down dyspraxia 404
628
Index
Early Childhood Longitudinal Study-Birth cohort 24 evidence-based interventions 390, 547

Early Infancy Temperament Questionnaire 431 evoked response potentials (ERP) 23
early infantile autism 527 evolutionary theory 6
East Asia, social withdrawal in children 477 executive functioning 170, 220, 370, 404, 431
ecological systems framework 227 experience models of infant parenting 17
economic stress 485 – 486 exploration in play 471
Edinburgh Postnatal Depression Scale (EPDS) 435 externalizing behaviors 293 – 294, 340
Education for All Handicapped Children Act extra-familial experiences 98 – 101
(1975) 581 extrauterine life 8
effortful control 297 – 300, 302 – 303, 307 – 308 eye-to-eye contact of infants 28
Einstein, Albert 408, 412
emerging adults: autonomy-supportive parenting face-to-face interactions 9, 90
176; bidirectionality in parent-child relationships Face-to-Face Still-Face procedure 446
181 – 182; future directions in parenting 180 – 184; families/family characteristics: autism spectrum
helicopter parenting 179 – 180; introduction to disorder 546 – 551; coercive family interaction
168 – 169; need for diversity 181; parental control patterns 226; extra-familial experiences 98 – 101;
176 – 180; parental support 174 – 176; parenting intellectual disabilities 568, 571 – 572, 583 – 584,
styles 171 – 173; as parents 24, 183; parents of 585; Mexican American families 239, 245, 261;
183 – 184; specificity and multidimensionality ‘patchwork’ families 70; triadic family relationships
192 – 183; summary of 184 – 185; theories of 229 – 230; see also adoption/adoptive families;
parenting 169 – 171 European American families
emotional abuse 370 family configurations 34, 69 – 70
emotional autonomy 176 Family Life Project Investigators, The 436 – 437
Emotional Autonomy Scale (EAS) 121 Family Nurture Intervention 453
emotional competence theory 115, 470, 472 – 474 family systems theory 227, 234 – 235, 406 – 409
emotional contagion 114 Far From the Tree (Solomon) 416
emotional cues and infants 19 Farrell, Suzanne 408
emotional disorganization stage 567 Fast Track social skills training 245
emotional expressivity in infancy 29 – 30 fathers/fathering: adolescence and 114; authoritative
emotional re-organization stage 567 fathering 172; behavioral inhibition and social
emotional support 197, 501 withdrawal 484; infant parenting 8 – 9; middle
emotion-based copers 574 childhood parenting 87 – 88; oxytocin (OT)
emotion-focused (EF) styles of coping 539 hormone 23; parental leave policies for 262;
Emotion Regulation Checklist 431 preterm births and 433, 435, 453 – 454; at
emotions: callous-unemotional (CU) characteristics siblinghood transition 228; toddler parenting
295, 506; coping styles 97; development/regulation 68 – 69
during adolescence 113 – 116; gender differences feedback by parents 137
in parenting 263 – 265; impact of diagnoses on 530; feeding beliefs 12
impairments 405; negative emotionality 291, 293, felt security 471
295 – 297, 299, 303 – 306; positive emotionality 297, Finnish emerging adults 175
299 – 300; reactions of parents to child chronic first births 24
health conditions 599 – 604; self-regulation of Five-Minute Speech Sample 547 – 548
toddlers 59 Foster Parent Attitudes Questionnaire 378
Empty Fortress,The (Bettelheim) 527 foster parenting: abuse and neglect 388; attachment
Erasmus, William 6 states of mind 376 – 377; attachment theory 372,
ethnic differences 179, 327, 336 – 341 373 – 377; birth parents 371; brief history 369 – 370;
ethnic-racial socialization 337 – 338 child welfare caseworkers 371 – 372; child welfare
ethological adaptations 471 system 368, 369 – 373; commitment to 378 – 382;
Eunice Kennedy Shriver-Intellectual and controversies in 387 – 389; discrimination in
Developmental Disabilities Research Centers 388 – 389; foster children 370 – 371, 380; foster
(EKS-IDDRCs) 582 parents 372 – 373; future directions 389 – 390;
European American families: adoption by 323, 340; interventions for 382 – 387; introduction to 368;
emerging adults 168, 175, 181; middle childhood lack of biological relatedness 379 – 380; nature
relationships 98, 99; sibling relationships 230 – 231, of temporary care 378 – 379; parenting programs
240; socializing gender roles 260; social withdrawal 386 – 387; quality of 381; structure of 379;
in children 477 summary of 390; support needs 383
Even the Rat Was White: A Historical View of Psychology fragile X gene 574
(Guthrie) 404 Freud, Sigmund 6, 7
629
Index
Garland, Judy 408 high achievement after childhood trauma 407

gender bias 274 – 275 high negative parenting 292
gender differences: academic concepts 269 – 270; Home Before Dark (Cheever) 406
aggressive children 505 – 506; cross-gender homework attitudes 100
interactions 96; emotions and aggression hormones 22 – 23, 113, 370, 384
263 – 265; future research directions 275 – 276; hospitalization of preterm births 428, 435 – 436
gender as a category 263; household expectations hostile-reactive behaviors 9
272 – 273; individual diversity 259 – 262; infants 9; household expectations and gender differences
introduction to 258; language learning 268 – 269; 272 – 273
parental diversity 260; parental leave policies HPA-axis functioning 309
261 – 262; parent differential treatment 235; play hyperactivity 295, 344, 571
behavior 270 – 272; self-esteem and 266 – 268; hyperarousability 488
socialization differences 263 – 274; summary of hypersensitivity of adolescents 118
276 – 277; support for talented children 413; hypervigilance 500
survivorship and 193; theoretical frameworks hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenocortical (HPA)
262 – 263 activity 472
gender diverse/nonconforming children 258 hypothesis-driven research 246
gender gap 192 – 193, 264
gender identity 259 immunization lack 22
gender stereotypes 262 – 263, 271 impulsiveness of adolescents 143
gender-typed toys 271 – 272 Incredible Years program 306, 386 – 387
gene–environment associations 143 independence in adolescents 120 – 123
general intelligence 400 independence of parenting cognitions and
Genes, Brains, and Human Potential:The Science and practices 15
Ideology of Intelligence (Richardson) 404 indirect commands in parenting 544
genetics: behavioral withdrawal 483; infant individualism 60, 508
development 16, 22; intellectual disabilities 574; Individualized Educational Plan (IEP) 581
monoamine oxidase-A (MAOA) gene variation infancy: behavioral states 27; developmental
505; negative emotionality and 304 – 305; talented changes 31 – 33, 32; effects on parenting 26 – 33;
children 409; temperament and 296, 309 emotional expressivity and temperament 29 – 30;
genius 400 mothers’ responses and 442 – 445; perception and
German parental leave policy 262 thinking 28 – 29; physical stature/psychomotor
gestational age and preterm births 431 – 432, 452 abilities 27 – 28; social life 30 – 31; speaking and
gifted children 400, 405 understanding 29; structural characteristics 26 – 27
goodness-of-fit models 19 infant, defined 4
Graffman, Gary 408 infant abuse/neglect 21 – 22
grandparents and infant parenting 10 Infant Behavior Questionnaire-Revised 431
Greene, Graham 408 infant-caregiver dyad 374
grief process and adoption 344 infant-directed speech 23 – 24
group-based parent-training programs 510 infant mortality 13 – 14, 21
group-differences research 580 infant parenting: abuse/neglect 21 – 22; adoption
group homes 372 and 16, 329 – 330; biological/psychological
guilt and autism spectrum disorder 531 determinants of parents 22 – 25; brief history
5 – 6; contexts of 33 – 38; cultural beliefs 13,
Hague Convention on the Protection of Children 35 – 37; direct and indirect effects 16 – 17; family
and Cooperation in Respect of Intercountry configuration 34; fathers 8 – 9; infant effects on
Adoption 324 26 – 33; introduction to 3 – 5, 4; mechanisms of
Handbook of Pediatric Psychology (Roberts, Steele) 598 18 – 21, 20; models of 17 – 18; parenting cognitions
harsh discipline: aggressive children 500; behavior- 11 – 13; practices 13 – 14; primary responsibilities
modification techniques 62 – 63; developmental for 8 – 11; principles of 14 – 21; psychometrics
systems theory 289; temperament and 292, 301 14 – 15, 15; siblings 9 – 10; situational variables
Head Start students 413 33 – 34; social support 34; socioeconomic status
health belief model (HBM) 608 – 609 14, 24, 35; summary of 38 – 39; theoretical
helicopter parenting 179 – 180 significance 7 – 8
Henry IV, King 6 infertility and adoption 329
heritability factors see genetics inflammatory bowel disease 610
Heroard, Jean 6 information-processing skills of infants 28
630
Index
inhibitory control 370 Kaufman Assessment Battery for Children 452

in-home helpers 207 – 208 Keeping Foster Parents Trained and Supported
insecure-resistant/ambivalent attachment (KEEP) 385
classification 373 knowledge growth in middle childhood 82 – 83
insecurity and social withdrawal 473
Institutional Abuse Investigation Unit (IAIU) 388 laissez-faire parenting style 408
institutional settings for foster children 372 language development: evaluation studies 16; gender
intangible support 197 differences in 268 – 269; infants 16, 18; toddlers 57,
intellectual disabilities (ID): child factors and 65 – 66
575 – 577; children as meaning-makers 570; late-placed adoptive children 341 – 343
ethnicity and 585 – 586; etiology and effects Latino immigrant college students 176
on parents and families 571 – 572, 585; family Leadership Education in Neurodevelopmental
characteristics 568, 579 – 580, 583 – 584; future Disorder (LEND) 582
research directions 584 – 587; group vs. individual least restrictive environment (LRE) 581
approaches to studying 570 – 571; history of legitimate parental authority 145 – 148
parenting children with 566 – 568; introduction lexical features of infant-directed speech 24
to 565 – 566; lifetime care 572, 586; maternal LGBTQ (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer)
and paternal parenting reactions 574 – 577; individuals: adoption and 324 – 325, 349; gender
measurement 586 – 586; methodological study bias and 274, 275; gender diverse/nonconforming
issues 572 – 573, 587; modern research on children 258; toddler parenting 70
parenting 573 – 580; mother-child interactions life expectancy at birth 192
577 – 579, 583; parent-child dyads 567 – 568; limbic activation during adolescence 114
parenting factors and 574 – 575; pathology logical thinking 332
and stress-coping models 569 – 570; practical loneliness 85, 174
information about 580 – 584; summary of low positive parenting 292
587 – 588
intelligence assessment metrics 400 maladaptive behaviors 144, 178, 179, 474 – 478,
intelligence quotient (IQ) 401, 409, 410, 413 480, 565
Intercountry Adoption Act 324 maladjustment 121, 134 – 135
Interethnic Placement Act 323 maltreatment: African American foster children 389;
intergenerational relationship qualities 195 – 196 child welfare system and 370, 371, 374; in out-
internalizing problems and disorders 481 of-home placements 388; as threat to attachment
internal-state discourse 232 374 – 375
Internet-facilitated adoptions 325 marriage: adoption challenges 346 – 347; impact of
interparental conflict 236 – 237 autism spectrum disorder 532; infant parenting
intervention strategies: aggressive children 509 – 511; 16 – 17; parent-adolescent relationship and 113;
aging parents and adult children 207; autism siblinghood transition and 229; social learning
spectrum disorder 545 – 546; for behavioral theory and 169
withdrawal 475 – 476; Bucharest Early Intervention material caregiving: inductive discipline 61;
Project 375; child-focused social-skills introduction to 14; psychological control 178
intervention 526; development of 535; evidence- maternal behavior see mothers/mothering
based interventions 390, 547; Family Nurture maternal mourning stages 566 – 567
Intervention 453; foster parenting 382 – 387; Maternal Post-Natal Attachment Scale 446
parenting aggressive children 509 – 511; parent- maternal scaffolding 59
psychoeducational intervention 544; Playing and mathematical ability 410
Learning Strategies intervention 452 – 453; preterm maturation perspective in preterm births 425, 429
birth 450 – 453 maximal development of gifts and talents 401
intuitive parenting 23 mean length of utterance (MLU) 567 – 568, 579
involvement by parents 132 mediating strategies of parental peer management 119
Islamic cultures 260 media use by toddlers 70 – 71
Israeli college students 174 medical procedures and parent-child interactions
Italy, social withdrawal in children 477 605 – 607
mental age (MA) 568, 571, 573, 578 – 579
Joint Attention, Symbolic Play, Engagement, and Mental Development Index 63
Regulation (JASPER) 544 mental health 220, 353, 534 – 535
joint attention symptom 543 – 544, 546 Mental Processing Composite of the Kaufman
Journal of Pediatric Psychology 598 Assessment Battery for Children 452
631
Index
Mexican American families 239, 245, 261 National Adoption Competency Mental Health
middle childhood: adapting control processes Training Initiative (NTI) 353
89 – 91; adoption and 331 – 333; after-school care National Alliance for Autism Research 528
100 – 101; aggressive children 497, 504; cognitive National Alliance for Caregiving and the American
competence 82 – 83; coping strategies 84 – 86, Association of Retired Persons 200
87; coregulation 90; disciplinary practices 89; National Center for Children, Toddlers, and
effective control 90 – 81; exposure to violence Families 4
85 – 86; extra-familial experiences 98 – 101; National Child Abuse and Neglect Data System 389
historical considerations 81 – 82; introduction National Down Syndrome Congress 582
to 81; moral values 93; mutual cognitions 88; National Down Syndrome Society 582
normative changes 82 – 87; parental interaction National Fragile X Foundation 582
87 – 88; parenting issues 89 – 101; peer interaction National Institute of Child Health and Human
84, 94 – 95; positive relationships 94 – 98; prosocial Development (NICHD) Study of Early Child
and antisocial behavior 92 – 93; responsibility Care and Youth Development 24
and collective well-being 93 – 94; risks and National Survey of Family Growth 325
coping 84 – 86; school experiences 98 – 100; self- nature-nurture distinction 400
management and social responsibility 91 – 94; self- need-supportive parenting 134, 149, 151
regulation 82, 86 – 87; siblings 94; social groups/ need-thwarting parenting 133, 134
networks 83 – 84; summary of 101 – 102 negative behaviors 226
Middle School Success (MSS) 385 – 386 negative emotionality 291, 293, 295 – 297, 299,
mindfulness-based cognitive behavioral therapy 540 303 – 306, 503
mindfulness-based stress reduction (MBSR) 582 negative parenting 30, 301 – 303; see also harsh
Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory discipline
(MMPI) 569 – 570 negative relationships in siblinghood 229
minority groups and toddler parenting 66 – 67 neglectful parenting 500
Mismeasure of Man,The (Gould) 404 NEO-ACQUA Study Group 437
mobility development in toddlers 57 Neonatal Behavioral Assessment 439, 450
monoamine oxidase-A (MAOA) gene variation 505 Neonatal Individualized Developmental Care
monozygotic (MZ) twin research 222 – 223 Program (NIDCAP) 427
mood disorders 25, 404 – 405 neural functioning 309
moral-conventional domain of parenting 147 neurobiological changes during adolescence 114
morality/moral values 93, 145, 506 neurodiversity and talented children 404 – 406
morbidity (disease rates) 191 New Jersey Division of Youth and Family Services
More Fun with Sisters and Brothers program (DYFS) Institutional Abuse Investigation Unit
(MFWSB) 244 (IAIU) 388
mortality (death rates) 191 New School for Social Research 409
Mother-Infant Transaction Program 452 New York Children’s Aid Society 323
mothers/mothering: authoritative mothering NICHD Study of Early Child Care and Youth
172; depression and 25; infant parenting 8 – 11, Development 481, 486
442 – 445; maternal intrusive behavior 69; middle nonconventional life-styles 407
childhood parenting 87 – 88; oxytocin (OT) nonfamilial daycare providers 10
hormone 22 – 23; parenting cognitions 11 – 13; non-relative foster homes 372
parenting siblings 236 – 237; preterm births Nureyev, Rudolph 415
433 – 434, 438 – 441, 446; refrigerator mother nursing homes for aging parents 205
theory 528; teenage mothers 24; utterances by nurturant caregiving 13 – 14
mothers to infants 15; warmth/responsiveness 175
multidimensional intergenerational support model obsessive-compulsive disorders 404
(MISM) 194 offspring support of parents 197 – 198
multidimensionality in parenting emerging adults Olshansky’s recurrent reactions model 575
192 – 183 open adoption 334 – 335
Multidimensional Treatment Foster Care for oppositional defiant disorder 295
Adolescents (MTFC-A) 386 oral phase of child development 7
Multidimensional Treatment Foster Care for Organization for Economic Co-operation and
Preschoolers (MTFC-P) 376, 384 – 385 Development (OECD) 261 – 262
Multi-Ethnic Placement Act 323 Origin of Species (Darwin) 6
multi-level modeling strategies 235 overcontrolled behaviors 471, 481
multiple regression analyses 292 overexcitability theory 408
mutual cognitions in middle childhood 88 overinvolved parenting 612 – 614
632
Index
overly protective childrearing strategies 476, Patterns of Child Rearing (Sears, Maccoby, Levin) 258
479 – 480, 484 – 486 peer interaction: consulting strategies of parental
oversolicitous parenting 479 peer management 119; developmental impact of
oxytocin (OT) hormone 22 – 23 469, 472, 474; foster children 370; heightened
orientation by adolescents 117 – 120; introduction
Pakistani parental autonomy 260 to 10; middle childhood 84, 94 – 95; parent-peer
paradoxical interactions 305 cross-pressures 97 – 98
parasympathetic control 480, 484 perception in infancy 28 – 29
parental behavioral control 126 – 127 Perinatal Posttraumatic Stress Disorder Questionnaire
Parental Bonding Instrument 612 446, 447
Parental Investment in Child scale (PIC) 378 Perinatal Risk Inventory (PERI) 441
parental leave policies 261 – 262 permissive parenting 125, 140, 144, 171 – 172
parental peer management strategies 119 personality in parenting 25
parental socialization 223 physical abuse 370, 388
parental support: adolescents 126 – 128; aggressive physical punishment 12, 63
children and 502 – 503; emerging adults 174 – 176; physical stature in infancy 27 – 28
of grown children 196 – 197 Piaget, Jean 6
Parent-Child Interaction Therapy (PCIT) 306, Pictorial Representation of Attachment Measure 439
387, 483 PIPARI Study Group 438
parent differential treatment (PDT) 224 – 225, 226, Plato 6
234 – 235, 241 play behavior and gender differences 270 – 272
Parenting as Social Context Questionnaire-Toddlers Playing and Learning Strategies intervention (PALS)
(PSCQ-Toddlers) 67 452 – 453
parenting cognitions 11 – 13 positive behaviors 226
Parenting Stress Index (PSI) 434, 569 positive emotionality 297, 299 – 300
Parenting Stress Index (PSI-SF) 533 positive parenting 303 – 308, 481 – 482
parent management training (PMT) 244 positive problem solving 150
parent-peer cross-pressures 97 – 98 positive relationships 94 – 98, 229
parent-psychoeducational intervention (PEI) 544 post-adoptive services 328
parents/parenting: adolescent relationships 112 – 124; Postpartum Bonding Questionnaire 439
aggressive children 500 – 502; attachment theory of postpartum depression 330
parenting 10, 19, 128 – 129; authoritarian parenting posttraumatic growth 603
124 – 125, 146, 171 – 172, 233, 292, 297, 301, 478; posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) 599 – 600, 616
authoritative parenting 124 – 126, 128, 171 – 173, Posttraumatic Stress Disorder Questionnaire 441
478; autonomy-supportive parenting 138 – 141; poverty and infant parenting 21
behavioral control by 177; beliefs about behaviors Prader-Willi syndrome 571
12; bright vs. dark side of 133 – 134; configurational Prader-Willi Syndrome Association 582
approach to 124 – 126; conflict management styles pre-adoptive adversity 350 – 351
149 – 151; controlling parenting 134 – 135, 142, 144; pre-adoptive homes 372
demographics of 4; developmental systems theory preconception care 6
289 – 290; dimensional approach to 126 – 128, predictability in infant behavior 33
129 – 130; emerging adults 176 – 180; emerging prefrontal cortex 170, 171
adults and 171 – 173, 183; helicopter parenting preparation-for-bias 337 – 338
179 – 180; legitimate parental authority 145 – 148; preterm birth: acute biological risks 426 – 427;
need-supportive parenting 134, 149, 151; negative biomedical risks 447 – 450; developmental outcomes
parenting 30, 301 – 303; overinvolved parenting 424 – 426, 430 – 431, 445 – 450, 454 – 455; fathers/
612 – 614; permissive parenting 125, 140, 144, fathering and 433, 435, 453 – 454; future directions
171 – 172; positive parenting 303 – 308; preterm 453 – 456; health and 424 – 426; intervention
birth 432 – 453; psychological control by 177 – 178; studies 450 – 453; introduction to 424; measure and
self-determination theory 67, 122, 131 – 142, design issues 455; observational studies 437 – 450,
133, 141; social support for 98; temperament and 445 – 450; parental bonding 437 – 439; parental care
291 – 293, 299 – 300; unconventional parenting and 437 – 453; parental training programs 452 – 453;
systems 400; see also aging parents and adult principles of parenting 432 – 433; psychological risk
children; temperament X parenting interaction for parents 433 – 437; regulatory problems 427 – 430;
partial disclosure by adolescents 148 risk and resilience 455 – 456; sensitive/responsive
patchwork families 70 parenting of 439 – 442, 447 – 450; skin-to-skin contact
paternal parenting see fathers/fathering 451, 456; social interactions, timing/bidirectional
PATHS program 245 nature 442 – 445; stimulation interventions 450 – 451
633
Index
primary stressors of caregivers 202 – 203 Richards, Martin 437

privacy in parent–adolescent relationships 148 – 149 risks/risk management: adoption/adoptive families
problem-based learning 59, 82 349 – 350; middle childhood 84 – 86; preterm births
problem-focused (PF) coping 539, 574 426 – 427, 433 – 437, 447 – 450
problem-solving skills 233 romantic relationships 169, 178
Program for Education and Enrichment of rule-breaking behavior 181 – 182
Relational Skills (PEERS) 540 Russell, Bertrand 412 – 413
prosocial behavior in middle childhood 92 – 93
prosocial behavior of emerging adults 182 Sanger, Margaret 409
prosodic features of infant-directed speech 23 Schauffer, Carol 389
protective parenting 130 schizophrenia research 524
psychoanalytic theory 496 Scholastic Aptitude Test (SAT) 410
psychodynamic perspective on siblinghood 229 school experiences in middle childhood 98 – 100
psychological aggression in toddlers 63 secondary stressors of caregivers 203 – 204
psychological autonomy 176 self-awareness in toddlers 58
psychological control 60, 177 – 178, 479 – 481 self-blame and autism spectrum disorder 531
psychological determinants of parents 22 – 25 self-care with chronic health conditions 610 – 611
psychological needs of adolescents 131 – 133 self-centeredness 25
psychometric evaluation 401 self-critical perfectionism 129, 174, 473
psychometrics of infant parenting 14 – 15, 15 self-determination theory (SDT) 67, 122, 131 – 142,
psychomotor abilities in infancy 27 – 28 133, 141
psychomotorical talent 415 self-efficacy: chronic health conditions 614; emerging
psychosocial development in adolescents adults 179; of fathers 9; parents of ASD children
124 – 130, 131 545; sibling parenting and 220
puberty 112 – 113, 116 self-endorsement of behavior 122
Pulgar, Judit 415 self-esteem: adolescents 118; adoption and 336;
punitive parenting see harsh discipline behavioral inhibition and social withdrawal 478;
emerging adults 174; gender differences 266 – 268;
Quality Parenting Initiative (QPI) 389 parenting styles and 129, 227; sexual self-esteem
Questionnaire for Resources and Stress (QRS) 569 174; siblings and 226
self-management 91 – 94, 310
racial considerations and adoption 323, 336 – 341 self-produced locomotion 31
Rapid Stress Assessment 435 self-regulation: emotional competence and 472;
REACH II program 206 middle childhood 82, 86 – 87; preterm births and
reciprocity in parent–adolescent relationships 431, 449; sibling parenting 233; social withdrawal
151 – 152 and 483; of temperament 291; toddlers 64, 69
redundancy features of infant-directed speech 23 – 24 sensation seeking of adolescents 143
refrigerator mother theory 528 sensitive mutual understandings 5
regulatory problems in preterm birth 427 – 430 sensitive period interpretation of parenting 17
rejection parenting 133 sensitive period of infant development 7 – 8
relatedness needs of adolescents 131, 132 sensitive/responsive caregiving 352, 439 – 442,
Relationship Code, The 246 – 247 447 – 450
relationships: aging parents and adult children separation-individuation theory 120
measures 198 – 199; behavioral inhibition and sexual abuse/assault 370, 417
social withdrawal 485 – 486; intergenerational sexual orientation and gender identity (SOGI)
relationship qualities 195 – 196; middle childhood 259, 275
94 – 98; negative relationships in siblinghood sexual self-esteem 174
229; positive relationships 94 – 98, 229; privacy in Shockheaded Peter (Hoffmann) 496
parent–adolescent relationships 148 – 149; romantic shyness in children 30
relationships 169, 178; siblings/sibling parenting sibling differentiation 222
238 – 240, 239, 240 – 242; toddler parenting 65; sibling effects 237 – 238
triadic family relationships 229 – 230 Siblings Are Special (SIBS) program 245
relative/“kinship” foster homes 372 siblings/sibling parenting: attachment security 225;
responsibility concerns 4, 93 – 94 caregiving of aging parents 204; central parenting
responsiveness in infant parenting 19 issues with 223 – 225, 224; during childhood
responsiveness in parenting 125 and adolescence 230 – 238; cultural context
reunification process with foster children 372 of relationships 239, 240 – 242; developmental
Revised Infant Temperament Questionnaire 430 trajectories 230 – 231; differential treatment
634
Index
234 – 235; with disabilities 242 – 243; family systems specific learning disability (SLD) 405
theory 227; future directions 245 – 247; historical speech and infants 9
considerations 221 – 223; infant parenting 9 – 10; spillover effect in parent-adolescent conflict 117
interparental conflict 236 – 237; introduction stability in parenting cognitions and practices 14 – 15
to 219 – 221; middle childhood 94; practical STEM education 269 – 270
information 243 – 245; relationships across Stepping Stones Triple P (SSTP) Positive Parent
adulthood 238 – 240; at siblinghood transition Program 545 – 546
227 – 230; social comparisons 226; social learning stigma of autism spectrum disorder 531
theory 226 – 227; summary 247; theory in Strange Situation Procedure 373, 374 – 375, 472, 541
parenting of 225 – 227 stress-coping models 569 – 570
Sibshops program 243 stress/stressors: adoption/adoptive families 347 – 348;
SibworkS program 243 autism spectrum disorder 526, 529, 533 – 535;
sickle-cell anemia 610 caregivers/caregiving 202 – 205; diathesis-stress
simplicity features of infant-directed speech 23 interactions 304; economic stress 485 – 486;
single-parent families 10 parenting children with chronic health conditions
situational variables in infant parenting 33 – 34 602; preterm births 433 – 434
skin-to-skin contact and preterm birth 451, 456 structural characteristics of infancy 26 – 27
sleep-wake cycle in preterm births 428 – 430 structure by parents 132, 136 – 138
slow-to-warm-up infants 481 surrogate caregivers 3
smiling and social development 288 synchronous interactions 5
social anxiety disorder 483 systems perspective of intelligence 401
social awareness/interaction of toddlers 57
social caregiving 14 Taiwan parents of ASD children 539
social changes in aging parents and adult children talent, defined 399
192 – 193 talented children: diversity and adversity 402 – 404;
social cognitive theory 263 family system and 406 – 409; introduction to
social communication deficits 533 399 – 402; neurodiversity and 404 – 406; parenting
Social Communication Questionnaire 526 of 409 – 411; recognition of 411 – 413; summary of
social comparisons of siblings 226 416 – 417; sustaining development of 413 – 415
social competence theory 470 – 471, 475 – 476 tangible support 196 – 197
social development 30 – 31, 57 – 58, 288, 291 – 294 task environment 388
social effectiveness 470 technology-dependent children 604
social-emotional programs 245 teenage mothers 24, 237
social groups/networks 36, 83 – 84, 181 Teller, Edward 408
socialization: adolescents as active agents in 142 – 152; temperament X parenting interaction: aggressive
adoption/adoptive families 328 – 334; bicultural children 505; child effects on parenting 295 – 299;
socialization 340 – 341; emerging adults 169; developmental systems theory 289 – 293; effects
ethnic-racial socialization 337 – 338; gender on child 299 – 300; effortful control 297 – 300,
differences in parenting 263 – 274; goals for 302 – 303, 307 – 308; future directions 308 – 311;
aggressive children 508; maladaptive behavior 474; in infancy 29 – 30; introduction to 288;
parental role in 338 – 340; temperament and 295 methodological considerations 294, 308 – 310;
social learning theory 169, 226 – 227, 498 – 499 moderator effects 300 – 308; negative emotionality
social responsibility in middle childhood 91 – 94 291, 293, 295 – 297, 299; negative parenting 30,
Social Security program 193 301 – 303; positive emotionality 297, 299 – 300;
social support 34, 84, 174 positive parenting 303 – 308; social development
social withdrawal 475 – 476 see behavioral inhibition 293 – 294; studies on 294 – 295; summary 311 – 312;
and social withdrawal theory directions 310 – 311
Society of Pediatric Psychology 598 temporary care 378 – 379
socioeconomic status (SES): of adopted children terrestrial infant mammals 3
350 – 351; aging adults 193, 197; infant parenting testosterone hormone 23, 113
14, 24, 35; parenting aggressive children 506 – 507; theory of mind 220
preterm births 436 – 437; talented children 409; thinking on in infancy 28 – 29
toddler parenting 65 – 66 This Is My Baby Interview (TIMB) 378, 381 – 382
solicitude feelings 4 time-out techniques 62
spanking toddlers 63 tobacco use/abuse 21
speaking, in infancy 29 toddler parenting: adoption and 330 – 331; behavior-
special-needs children and adoption 341 – 343 modification techniques 62 – 63; development
specificity in parenting emerging adults 192 – 183 during 56 – 58; disruptive behaviors 502; diversity
635
Index
in 65 – 67; family configuration 69 – 70; fathers University Centers for Excellence in Developmental
68 – 69; granting autonomy 58 – 60; impact of Disability (UCEDD) 582
67 – 68; introduction to 56; measurements during U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics 8
67; media use 70 – 71; minority groups and 66 – 67; utterances by mothers to infants 15
overview of 58 – 65; relationship changes 65;
setting rules 60 – 63; social development 57 – 58; variations in parenting cognitions and practices 14
socioeconomic status and 65 – 66; structure and very low birth weight (VLBW) 434
discipline 60, 61; summary of 71; warmth and violence in middle childhood 85 – 86
support 63 – 65 vocalizations of infants 21
toddlers, defined 4 vocational rehabilitation programs 547
Toddler Temperament Scale 430 – 431 Volunteer Advocacy Project (VAP) 581
toilet training 7 vulnerability hypothesis 301
top-down neurocognitive processes 82 vulnerability in middle childhood 87
transaction principle in development 18, 486
transracial paradox 337 warmth and support needs: of aggressive children
triadic family relationships 229 – 230 508 – 509; developmental systems theory 289 – 290;
troublesome children and adoption 329 – 330, mothers/mothering 175; temperament and 292;
344 – 345 toddler parenting 63 – 65
trust/mistrust development 7 Williams syndrome 571
Turkish emerging adults 175 withdrawal problem solving 150
Turtle Program 483 wobble effect 407
twin research studies 222 – 223, 296, 483 Working Model of the Child Interview 438, 439
world-class performers study 410, 411 – 412
unconventional parenting systems 400
understanding in infancy 29 Younger European American mothers 24
uninvolved parenting 500 Youth Law Center 389
636

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Edited by Marc H. Bornstein

Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business

Preface to the Third Edition ix

3 Parenting During Middle Childhood 81

4 Parenting Adolescents 111

5 Parenting Emerging Adults 168

6 Parent–Child Relationships in Adulthood and Old Age 191

7 Parenting Siblings 219

8 Parenting Girls and Boys 258

9 Parenting and Temperament 288

10 Parenting in Adoptive Families 322

11 Foster Parenting 368

12 Parenting Talented Children 398

13 Parenting Children Born Preterm 424

14 Parenting Behaviorally Inhibited and Socially Withdrawn Children 467

15 Parenting Aggressive Children 496

16 Parenting and Autism Spectrum Disorder 523

17 Parenting Children With Intellectual Disabilities 565

18 Parenting Children With a Chronic Health Condition 597

BIOLOGY AND ECOLOGY OF PARENTING is Volume 2 of the Handbook. For parent-

David M. Brodzinsky is Professor Emeritus of Clinical and Developmental Psychology at Rutgers

Christia Spears Brown is Professor of Developmental Psychology at the University of Kentucky.

W. Andrew Collins is Morse-Alumni Distinguished Teaching Professor Emeritus at the Institute

Lynnda M. Dahlquist is Professor of Psychology at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County.

David Henry Feldman is Professor at the Eliot-Pearson Department of Child Development,

Robert M. Hodapp is Professor of Special Education at Peabody College of Vanderbilt University.

Susan M. McHale is Distinguished Professor of Human Development and Professor of Demog-

Thomas G. Power is Emeritus Professor of Human Development at Washington State University.

Kenneth H. Rubin is Professor of Human Development and Quantitative Methodology and

Maarten Vansteenkiste is Professor at the Department of Developmental, Personality and Social

Shawn D. Whiteman is Associate Professor of Family, Consumer, and Human Development at

Parenting Across the Lifespan

A Brief History of Parenting Infants

The Theoretical Significance Attached to Parenting During Infancy

Who Parents Infants?

Principles of Parenting Infants

Table 1.1 Developmental stability and continuity in maternal activities in infancy

Developmental Stability Increase Decrease

Stable Speecha Didactic stimulation Infant-directed speech

Direct and Indirect Effects

husband-wife relationship on mother–infant interaction in a feeding context was assessed (Pedersen,

Models of Parenting Effects

Mechanisms of Parenting Effects

Coregulation is a third principle of optimizing infant development. Well-functioning parent–

Forces That Shape Parenting Infants

Parent Biological and Psychological Determinants of Parenting

Infant Effects on Parenting

Physical Stature and Psychomotor Abilities

Psychomotor growth in infancy also reflects parenting practices: In anthropological studies

Perceiving and Thinking

Speaking and Understanding

Emotional Expressivity and Temperament

Developmental Change and Individuality in Infancy

Chapman, R. S. (1981). Cognitive development and language comprehension in 10 to 21-month-olds. In R.

Scheper-Hughes, N. (1989). Death without weeping. Natural History, 98, 8–16.

Central Issues in Development During Toddlerhood

Cognition, Language, and Mobility

Parenting During Toddlerhood

Parental Autonomy Granting

Parental Structuring and Discipline

Parental Structuring: Setting Everyday Rules

Parental Discipline Techniques

Preface to the Third Edition ix

3 Parenting During Middle Childhood 81

4 Parenting Adolescents 111

5 Parenting Emerging Adults 168

6 Parent–Child Relationships in Adulthood and Old Age 191

7 Parenting Siblings 219

8 Parenting Girls and Boys 258

9 Parenting and Temperament 288

10 Parenting in Adoptive Families 322

11 Foster Parenting 368

12 Parenting Talented Children 398

13 Parenting Children Born Preterm 424

14 Parenting Behaviorally Inhibited and Socially Withdrawn Children 467

15 Parenting Aggressive Children 496

16 Parenting and Autism Spectrum Disorder 523

17 Parenting Children With Intellectual Disabilities 565

18 Parenting Children With a Chronic Health Condition 597