PARENT-CHILD RELATIONSHIPS

Infancy and the Preschool Years

In infancy and the preschool years amazing growth occurs in the child's capacity for self-control and self-regulation and in the internalization of standards for behavior. In his important book Emotional Development, Alan Sroufe noted that there is wide agreement among developmental psychologists about the role that a parent or caregiver plays in helping the child achieve self-control and self-regulation. The parent or caregiver helps the child develop her own self-regulation by soothing distress, enhancing alertness, and allowing the child the experience of self-regulation by sensitively responding to the child's signals of need for soothing or increased stimulation. Children who have experienced chaotic and inconsistent parenting do not have the experience of regulation to guide their own efforts, nor the confidence in the caregiver (and consequently in themselves) required for self-regulation. Additionally, children who have been pushed to independence at too early an age because the parent is emotionally unavailable or too strict tend to adopt rigid regulatory strategies, which they attempt to use on their own. They do not learn to turn to parents or others to help them with regulation. Sroufe noted that children whose interactions with their parents have been characterized by sensitive, responsive care from the parent—as opposed to overstimulating, intrusive care—have been found to be better able to handle frustration, be less hyperactive, have longer attention spans during the preschool years, and do better academically and emotionally in the early elementary years. In toddler-hood, willing compliance with parents is associated with parent interaction behaviors that are well coordinated with the child's. Children who have a secure, trusting relationship with their parents (having experienced responsive care) show greater self-reliance in the classroom, and less inclination to fall apart under stress, a greater curiosity and willingness to make a strong effort in the face of challenge, and greater flexibility and complexity in their play. Additionally, children with secure relationships with their parents have peer relationships characterized by greater commitment and emotional closeness, and by more positive emotions such children are also more empathic and supportive with other children when the partner is injured, distressed, or less able, but are assertive with aggressive partners.

Middle Childhood

Andrew Collins and his colleagues, in Handbook of Parenting, noted that in middle childhood (generally considered to be from ages five to ten), parents and children spend less time together and that cognitive changes on the part of children greatly expand their capacity for solving problems and gaining necessary information on their own. Other researchers have found that parental monitoring of their children's activities and whereabouts seems to be particularly important, as poor monitoring has been linked to antisocial behavior in middle childhood and adolescence. The effectiveness of monitoring depends on an attentive, responsive, warm relationship between the parent and child. Parents are more effective at monitoring when children are willing to be monitored and actively help parents know where they are and what they are doing. This occurs more often when the relationship between the parents and child is warm and close.

Attentive, responsive relationships between parents and their children in middle childhood are associated with the development of self-esteem, competence, and social responsibility in the child. Children generally perceive parents as sources of support, and children's perceptions that there are available adults with whom they can talk and discuss problems are correlated positively with prosocial behaviors and attitudes such as empathy and understanding of others. Parents' use of explanations that emphasize the impact of children's behavior on others is associated with helpful, emotionally supportive relationships toward others. These interchanges that benefit children occur within the context of involved, sensitive, and responsive relationships in which parents are willing to instruct and children are willing to receive the instruction. In contrast, parents' indifferent, unresponsive behavior toward children is associated with antisocial behavior in children. Antisocial tendencies in children place them at risk for peer rejection and school failure during middle childhood and for later involvement in antisocial behavior as adolescents and young adults.

Adolescence

Grayson Holmbeck and his colleagues, also writing in Handbook of Parenting, noted that the amount of warmth and responsiveness in the relationship between parent and child continues to be important in predicting positive outcomes during the adolescent years and even into the adult years. Warm and responsive relationships between adolescents and parents are associated with a variety of positive outcomes, including self-esteem, identity formation, socially accepted behavior, better parent-adolescent communication, less depression and anxiety, and fewer behavior problems. The challenge during adolescence is that warm, responsive, and involved relationships must be maintained at a time when the asymmetries in power that characterized earlier parent-child relationships are shifting to more equality.

The shift to more equality is driven by the adolescent's more sophisticated social cognitive skills and broader contacts with the environment outside the family. The transition to adolescence involves biological, cognitive, social cognitive, emotional, self-definitional, peer relationship, and school context changes for the adolescent. Cognitive changes may result in more confrontations between parents and adolescents, as adolescents increasingly begin to question and debate parental rules and expectations. Andrew Collins and Brett Laursen have noted that although parent-child conflict typically increases during adolescence, the conflict can serve as an important signal to parents that parenting behaviors need to be modified in response to the changing developmental needs of their children. Thus, parent-adolescent conflict can serve an adaptive function, as conflict can be an impetus to change. Conflicts that occur in the context of generally warm, supportive family relationships may be more likely to help an adolescent's development progress.

Factors that Affect Parent-Child Relationships

Parent-child relationships do not occur in a vacuum, and the context in which the relationships develop are likely to affect the nature of the relationships. Such factors as birth order, financial and emotional stress, social support, gender of the parent, infant temperament, and parent personality may influence qualities of the parent-child relationships and the impact of that relationship on the child's development. Marc Bornstein, in Handbook of Parenting, noted that mothers of first-borns engage with, respond to, stimulate, talk to, and express positive affection for their babies more than mothers of later-borns, even when there are no differences in first- and later-born behavior. Other researchers have found that financial and emotional stresses negatively affect the well being of parents and adversely affect their attentiveness and sensitivity to their children. Bornstein found that mothers who are supported emotionally by their husbands or other adults are less restrictive and punitive with their infants than are mothers without good social support. Mothers and fathers may provide different kinds of relationships and experiences for their children. Ross Parke suggested in his book Fatherhood that the relationships boys have with their fathers or available male figures may be particularly associated with the boys' competence with their peers. Infant temperament clearly influences adults. Having a baby who is easily soothed leads mothers to perceive themselves as more competent parents. Parental personality and functioning also has been found to be important in predicting parent-child relationships. Levels of parent psychopathology are related to qualities of the parent-child relationship and the child's adjustment. The interactions between depressed mothers and their infants are characterized by less positive and more negative emotions, less infant vocalization, and more passivity on the part of the infant.

Summary

A large body of literature and theory converges on the notion that it is the relationship between the parent and child that is critical for the positive development of children. Specifically, a common theme during childhood is that the way in which parents are able to sensitively regulate their parenting behavior based on the developmental needs of their children is a critical determinant of positive outcome. Additionally, the context in which the parent-child relationship occurs is important in affecting the qualities of that relationship.

See also: ANTISOCIAL BEHAVIOR; BIRTH ORDER AND SPACING; FATHERS; PARENTING

Bibliography

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McLoyd, Vonnie C. "Children in Poverty: Development, Public Policy, and Practice." In William Damon, Irving Sigel, and K. Ann Renninger eds., Handbook of Child Psychology. New York: Wiley, 1998.

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Tolan, Patrick, and Rolf Loeber. "Antisocial Behavior." In Patrick Tolan and Bertram Cohler eds., Handbook of Clinical Research and Practice with Adolescents. New York: Wiley, 1993.

Martha J. Cox