Compliance and self-assertion: Young children's responses to mothers versus fathers.

To provide data on the development of compliance and self-assertion toward mothers and fathers, 2-, 4-, and 6-yr-old children were observed in their homes. Compared with younger children, older children were more compliant, more likely to use logical argument, and less likely to ignore or to show defiance. Two-year-olds showed more ignoring of their fathers, whereas 4-yr-olds were more ignoring of their mothers and showed greater compliance to their fathers. Regardless of age, boys showed higher levels of compliance to their fathers, whereas girls did not respond differentially to mothers or fathers. Girls were, however, more likely to state their desires and preferences and to use logical argument. Further analyses suggested that none of the gender differences in child response were apparent artifacts of differences in parental treatment. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The child as elicitor of parental sanctions for independent and dependent behavior: A simulation of parent-child interaction.

32 mothers and 32 fathers were shown videotapes of boys and girls performing independent and dependent behaviors. Ss were asked what they would do or say in response to the child being viewed and their responses were recorded. 13 categories of parental response and certain combinations of the categories were analyzed to examine the differential impact of childrens' independent and dependent behavior, and hypotheses regarding the reactions of cross-sex vs same-sex parents. Dependent behavior in children elicited greater encouragement of dependence and directiveness from parents, whereas independent behavior elicited greater encouragement of independence and nondirectiveness. The opposite-sex parent did not respond more directively, but the same-sex parent did respond more nondirectively. Mothers encouraged greater dependence than fathers when children were dependent, and showed a greater shift in their rewarding than fathers as children changed from independent to dependent behavior. (30 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Characteristics of holding, patterns of play, and social behaviors between parents and infants in New Delhi, India.

Characteristics of holding, play, and social behaviors between 54 mothers and fathers and their 1-year-old infants were observed within the context of their extended families in New Delhi, India. Mothers picked up and held infants more than did fathers, and were more likely to feed and comfort them and to invest more time feeding and displaying affection to them than were fathers. When parents held infants they were more likely to display affection than to feed, comfort, or play with them. Fathers engaged in more rough play than did mothers, and mothers engaged in more peek-a-boo than did fathers. Mothers and fathers treated boys and girls quite similarly. Infants smiled at, vocalized to, and followed mothers more than they did fathers. Parents were generally preferred over relatives as social partners. The data point to the cultural specificity of certain parent–child activities. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved)     

Filial therapy with single parents: Effects on parental acceptance, empathy, and stress.

Determined the effectiveness of 10-wk filial therapy with parent–child play sessions as a method of prevention and intervention for single parents and their children. The experimental group was comprised of 20 mothers and 2 fathers. There were 19 mothers and 2 fathers in the control group. Parents ranged in age from 19 to 47 yrs. There were 10 girls and 12 boys in the experimental group and 9 girls and 12 boys in the control group. The children in both groups ranged in ages from 3 to 7 yrs. Results of the analysis of covariance (ANCOVA) revealed that single parents in the experimental group significantly increased both their attitude of acceptance and their empathic behavior toward their children, significantly reduced their level of stress related to parenting, and reported significantly fewer problems with their children's behavior. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Family characteristics and school achievements of Type A children.

Examined the familial characteristics of Type A (coronary prone) children and the consequences of Type A behaviors for children's classroom achievements. A maximum of 156 boys and 190 girls in Grades 1–8 participated. Results show that Type A children were not more likely to have families with a history of cardiovascular-related diseases. Young Type A boys had Type A mothers and fathers. Competitive boys and girls and Type A girls had higher achievement test scores and grades than noncompetitive children and Type B (noncoronary prone) girls, respectively. Thus, the competitive aspect of Type A led to important early achievements, perhaps because caregivers and teachers responded to Type A behaviors of children by encouraging them to continue to strive to achieve. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Dependency in day-care and home-care children.

Compared 32 4- and 5-year-old boys and girls who attended full-time group day care with 32 home-care matched Ss on proximity-seeking and attention-seeking measures of dependency. Ss were rated on these measures when they were alone with their mothers, with their mothers and a confederate adult, and with their mothers and a confederate child. No differences between day-care and home-care Ss were obtained. However, there was an interaction between type of care and sex: Although there was no difference between day-care boys and girls, home-care girls sought proximity toward their mothers significantly more often than home-care boys. Since dependency is one of the dimensions on which sex differences are frequently found, results suggest that day-care children may be less sex typed than home-care children. (15 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Parental caregiving and child externalizing behavior in nonclinical samples: A meta-analysis.

A meta-analysis of 47 studies was used to shed light on inconsistencies in the concurrent association between parental caregiving and child externalizing behavior. Parent–child associations were strongest when the measure of caregiving relied on observations or interviews, as opposed to questionnaires, and when the measure tapped combinations of parent behaviors (patterns), as opposed to single behaviors. Stronger parent–child associations were also found for older than for younger children, and for mothers than for fathers. Finally, externalizing was more strongly linked to parental caregiving for boys than for girls, especially among preadolescents and their mothers. The meta-analysis helps account for inconsistencies in findings across previous studies and supports theories emphasizing reciprocity of parent and child behavior. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Parenting during the second year: effects of children's age, sex, and attachment classification

70 2-parent families with 12-month-old infants and 67 2-parent families with 18-month-old toddlers participated in the study. Mothers and fathers participated in separate interviews and filled out questionnaires on family and child behaviors. Mothers and their children participated in the Ainsworth Strange Situation, and the families were observed for a total of 4 hours in their homes. Families were compared on composite measures of family environment variables, parents' perception of their children, and on process variables from home observations. Family differences in environmental stress and marital adjustment showed no effects for attachment classifications, although parents of 12-month-olds reported greater marital adjustment and more pleasure in parenting than parents of 18-months-olds. Both mothers and fathers reported that children classified as resistant were more difficult on several temperament measures. During home observations, 12-month-old children received more positive responses from mothers, and 18-month-old children received more instructions and directions from both parents. Insecure boys (both avoidant and resistant) received the least instructions and directions from both parents, but insecure-avoidant girls received the most instruction from fathers.     

Parent–child interaction and the acquisition of lexical information during play.

Examined individual play interactions of 14 pairs of parents with their preschool-aged boys and girls (2.6–4.11 yrs old) to determine the ways mothers and fathers provided and elicited lexical information about the names and functions of the parts of a complex toy car. Parents' and children's speech was analyzed for utterances that provided or requested the name (label) or purpose (function) of a car part and for nonlabeling utterances that mentioned the part (term). Analyses revealed significant contrasts between fathers and mothers in their interactive styles and in the amounts and kinds of lexical information they provided and elicited. Fathers' speech contained more different terms than did mothers', and more fathers than mothers described the functions of the car parts. Fathers were also more cognitively and linguistically demanding: More fathers than mothers requested labels and functions from their children. Children, in turn, produced more total vocabulary to fathers than to mothers. These parent–child interaction patterns suggest that fathers and mothers may exert an active influence on children's language development. (4 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Behavioral correlates of maternal depressive symptomatology in conduct-disorder children: II. Systemic effects involving fathers and siblings.

This study tested a systemic hypothesis of the relation between maternal depressive symptomatology and the behavior of conduct-disordered children (n?=?47) toward their mothers, fathers, and siblings. Maternal symptomatology interacted with the children's behavior toward all family members. Children whose mothers were distressed tended to be more compliant and less aversive toward them than toward their fathers, and the opposite applied to children whose mothers were not distressed. Comparable results were obtained in comparisons of child interactions with mothers and siblings, although in the latter case the children's behaviors differed in absolute magnitude as a function of their interaction partner. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Father and mother physical abuse and child aggressive behaviour in two generations.

Research in developmental psychopathology has not adequately examined the role of fathers in abuse, nor has it adequately examined the effects of abuse on girls. This study was an investigation of physical child abuse from fathers and mothers in the prediction of aggressive behavior among boys as well as girls. The participants consisted of 1,536 parents and their 983 college-age children. A parallel 2-generation, cross-sectional design was utilized. Results indicated that physical abuse from fathers and from mothers emerged as significant and additive predictors of aggressive behavior among boys as well as girls. The results point to the important role fathers appear to play in the adaptive and maladaptive functioning of their children. The results also suggest that child maltreatment should be examined within the context of the family unit or microsystem. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The child's perception of the parent.

"Interviews were held with 217 children of both sexes whose ages ranged from 6-0 to 10-2. Their answers to questions related to their perception of their parents were obtained. Both girls and boys stated that fathers were less friendly and more dominant, punitive, and threatening than mothers. There was, however, a consistent tendency for the older children to be more likely than the younger children to view the parent of the same sex as more dominant and punitive. It was suggested that differential handling of boys and girls might partially account for this latter finding." (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Life course sequelae of childhood shyness in Sweden: Comparison with the United States.

Using data from a Swedish longitudinal project, we predicted timing of marriage and parenthood and age-35 career success from mother-rated shyness in 8–10 year old children. Results are compared with those previously found for Americans. Like shy American boys, shy Swedish boys married and became fathers later than nonshy boys. Unlike American boys, Swedish boys' adult careers were not affected by shyness. Like shy American girls, shy Swedish girls later married and became mothers at the same time as their peers. However, they also attained lower levels of education than nonshy girls. Results suggest that the life consequences of shyness depend upon its culturally defined gender and situation appropriateness. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Mothers and fathers interacting in dyads and triads with normal and hyperactive sons.

Mother–son and father–son interactions of families with hyperactive and normal 6- to 12-yr-old sons were observed in dyadic and triadic settings. There was more frequent coercion in families with hyperactive boys, especially when mothers and sons interacted in the dyadic setting. This mother–son acrimony carried over to the triadic context, wherein fathers exhibited a rescue-coercion pattern of behavior. Fathers increased, whereas mothers decreased, their demands of sons in triads over dyads, and both fathers and sons became more aversive toward each other in triads than in dyads. This pattern was not as clearly evident in the interactions of families with normal sons. Boys in both groups of families behaved more negatively toward mothers than toward fathers in dyadic interactions. Compared with fathers, mothers made more demands and were more emotionally expressive toward their sons. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Mathematics, vocabulary, and reading development in Chinese American and European American children over the primary school years.

Forty European American (EA; 20 girls, 20 boys) and 40 second-generation Chinese American (CA; 20 girls, 20 boys) preschool and kindergarten children (mean age at Time 1?=?5.7 years) and their mothers, fathers, and teachers participated in 3 data collections (1993, 1995, and 1997) to investigate sociocultural and family factors that contribute to children's academic achievement. CA children outscored EA children in mathematics at all 3 times. Initially, EA children outscored CA children in receptive English vocabulary, but CA children caught up to EA children at Time 3. CA children were better readers than EA children at Time 3. According to parental self-reports, CA parents structured their children's time to a greater degree, used more formal teaching methods, and assigned their children more homework. Parents' work-oriented methods and child-specific beliefs at Time 1 influenced children's mathematics performance at Time 3. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Mothers' and Fathers' Behaviors Toward Their 3- to 4-Month-Old Infants in Lower, Middle, and Upper Socioeconomic African American Families.

African American mothers' and fathers' availability, caregiving, and social behaviors toward their infants in and around their homes were examined. Twenty lower, 21 middle, and 21 upper socioeconomic families and their 3- to 4-month-old infants were observed for 4 3-hr blocks between 8:00 a.m. and 8:00 p.m. on 4 different weekdays. With increasing economic resources, children's exposure to multiple caregivers and nonresident fathers declined. Mothers were more available to infants than fathers were, regardless of socioeconomic status. Mothers fed infants more than fathers did, whereas fathers vocalized more and displayed more affection to infants than mothers did when they were examined in proportion to caregiver presence. Mothers and fathers interacted with male and female infants quite similarly, although, in the upper socioeconomic families, fathers of daughters were more available than fathers of sons. Fathers and mothers in the different socioeconomic groups held, displayed affection to, and soothed their infants differently. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Sex differences in 2- and 3-years-olds: Mother-child relations, peer relations, and peer play.

This paper examines the different behavior patterns utilized by boys and girls as they form peer relationships and engage in peer play; the nature of their relations with their mothers is also reported. Girls manifested more intense involvement with their mothers, engaged in less peer play than boys, showed lower mood, lower levels of play, less direct aggression, and more controlling play with peers. Furthermore, their mothers handled their requests for contact and aggressive behavior differently than did mothers of boys. Boys were slower to become aware of separateness but once aware, they came to terms with it faster than girls. The boys took longer to pay attention to peers; once peers were focused on, the play moved more quickly to high levels than did the play of the girls. Qualitative findings were supported by quantitative findings-boys showed more contact and more involvement with their peers than did girls. The hypothesis is tentatively offered that the reaction to the awareness of psychological separateness from their mothers is more intense in girls than in boys partly because girls experience this awareness earlier, owing to their more rapid cognitive maturation. . . (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Overt and relational aggression in Russian nursery-school-age children: parenting style and marital linkages

Maternal and paternal parenting styles and marital interactions linked to childhood aggressive behavior as described in Western psychological literature were measured in an ethnic Russian sample of 207 families of nursery-school-age children. Results corroborated and extended findings from Western samples. Maternal and paternal coercion, lack of responsiveness, and psychological control (for mothers only) were significantly correlated with children's overt aggression with peers. Less responsiveness (for mothers and fathers) and maternal coercion positively correlated with relational aggression. Some of these associations differed for boys versus girls. Marital conflict was also linked to more overt and relational aggression for boys. When entered into the same statistical model, more marital conflict (for boys only), more maternal coercion, and less paternal responsiveness were found to be the most important contributors to overt and relational aggression in younger Russian children.     

Do parent practices to encourage academic competence influence the social adjustment of young European American and Chinese American children?

The predominant early childhood education philosophy in the United States views formal academic instruction as inappropriate and harmful to the social development of young children. Chinese American immigrants to the United States, however, have been found to teach their young children in more formal ways, to be more directive, and to structure their children's use of time to a greater degree (C. S. Huntsinger, P. E. Jose, F.-R. Liaw, & W.-D. Ching, 1997). Forty European American (20 boys, 20 girls) and 36 2nd-generation Chinese American (18 boys, 18 girls) 1st- and 2nd-grade children and their mothers, fathers, and teachers participated in the Time 2 data collection of this longitudinal study to assess whether the formal academic environment provided by Chinese American parents is linked to poorer social adjustment in their children. Regressions showed that parents' work-oriented methods influenced academic performance but not social adjustment of their children.