Mother–Child and Father–Child Mutually Responsive Orientation in the First 2 Years and Children’s Outcomes at Preschool Age: Mechanisms of Influence

Emotion-Related Self-Regulation in Children

In this article, the authors review basic conceptual issues in research on children's emotion-related self-regulation, including the differentiation between self-regulation that is effortful and voluntary and control-related processes that are less amenable to effortful control. In addition, the authors summarize what researchers know about developmental changes in self-regulatory capacities, give examples of various methods used to assess these abilities, and summarize findings on the relations between self-regulation or effortful control and positive adjustment and maladjustment. Finally, the authors discuss some strategies for effectively teaching students about emotion regulation.

Maternal influences on youth responses to peer stress

Understanding how youths develop particular styles of responding to stress is critical for promoting effective coping. This research examined the prospective, interactive contribution of maternal socialization of coping and peer stress to youth responses to peer stress. A sample of 144 early adolescents (mean age = 12.44 years, SD = 1.22) and their maternal caregivers completed questionnaires and semistructured interviews in 2 waves over a 1-year period. Results revealed that mothers' disengagement coping suggestions predicted maladaptive responses to stress, particularly for youths who received low levels of engagement suggestions, and engagement coping suggestions protected youths against maladaptive responses to stress. Importantly, these effects emerged only in the context of heightened peer stress. This research suggests that maternal socialization of coping has the potential to support or undermine youths' development of an effective repertoire of responses to stress.

The structure and stability of temperament from infancy to toddlerhood: a one-year prospective study

This study investigated the factor structure and longitudinal stability of temperament in a multi-informant (i.e., as reported by mothers and fathers), one-year prospective study from infancy (8-13 months) to toddlerhood (20-25 months). Confirmatory factor analyses (CFAs) replicate and extend earlier studies; in that evidence was found for a three-factor structure for both infant and toddler temperament, consisting of Surgency/Extraversion, Negative Affectivity and Effortful Control. There were, especially in toddlerhood, few differences between mother and father reports in average scores on the three temperament factors, which were in part related to differences in parental involvement between mothers and fathers. In addition, there were few differences between average scores for boys and girls on these temperament factors, with the exception that both mothers and fathers rated girls higher on Effortful Control, and fathers rated boys higher on Extraversion/Surgency, especially in toddlerhood. Finally, results showed that the three factors showed high relative, absolute, and structural stability over a one-year period. The implications of these findings for contemporary temperament research are discussed.

Social factors in the development of early executive functioning: a closer look at the caregiving environment

This study investigated prospective links between quality of the early caregiving environment and children's subsequent executive functioning (EF). Sixty-two families were met on five occasions, allowing for assessment of maternal interactive behavior, paternal interactive behavior, and child attachment security between 1 and 2 years of age, and child EF at 2 and 3 years. The results suggested that composite scores of parental behavior and child attachment were related to child performance on EF tasks entailing strong working memory and cognitive flexibility components (conflict-EF). In particular, child attachment security was related to conflict-EF performance at 3 years above and beyond what was explained by a combination of all other social antecedents of child EF identified thus far: child verbal ability and prior EF, family SES, and parenting behavior. Attachment security may thus play a meaningful role in young children's development of executive control.

Effect of African- and European-American maternal attitudes and limit-setting strategies on children's self-regulation

The effect of maternal attitudes and limit-setting strategies on children's self-regulation (measured as committed compliance) was compared in 151 African-American (AA) and 108 European-American (EA) mothers and their 3-year-old children. There were no ethnic differences in children's compliance, however ethnicity moderated the relationship between maternal authoritarian attitudes and children's compliance. Higher authoritarian attitudes predicted less children's compliance in the EA sample, but greater compliance in the AA sample. Observational limit-setting data revealed that in both ethnic groups, maternal authoritarian attitudes influenced children's self-regulation through maternal use of lower-power (gentle) verbal strategies, fewer physical strategies, and judicious use of higher-power verbal strategies. The findings indicate that the meaning and purpose of authoritarian attitudes varies across these mothers' socio-cultural contexts.

Nature and nurturing: parenting in the context of child temperament

Accounting for both bidirectional and interactive effects between parenting and child temperament can fine-tune theoretical models of the role of parenting and temperament in children's development of adjustment problems. Evidence for bidirectional and interactive effects between parenting and children's characteristics of frustration, fear, self-regulation, and impulsivity was reviewed, and an overall model of children's individual differences in response to parenting is proposed. In general, children high in frustration, impulsivity and low in effortful control are more vulnerable to the adverse effects of negative parenting, while in turn, many negative parenting behaviors predict increases in these characteristics. Frustration, fearfulness, and effortful control also appear to elicit parenting behaviors that can predict increases in these characteristics. Irritability renders children more susceptible to negative parenting behaviors. Fearfulness operates in a very complex manner, sometimes increasing children's responses to parenting behaviors and sometimes mitigating them and apparently operating differently across gender. Important directions for future research include the use of study designs and analytic approaches that account for the direction of effects and for developmental changes in parenting and temperament over time.

Emotional Action and Communication in Early Moral Development

Emotional action and communication are integral to the development of morality, here conceptualized as our concerns for the well-being of other people and the ability to act on those concerns. Focusing on the second year of life, this article suggests a number of ways in which young children’s emotions and caregivers’ emotional communication contribute to early forms of helping, empathy, and learning about prohibitions. We argue for distinguishing between moral issues and other normative issues also in the study of early moral development, for considering a wider range of emotional phenomena than the “moral emotions” most commonly studied, and for paying more attention to how specific characteristics of early emotional interactions facilitate children’s development of a concern for others.

Profiles of disciplinary behaviors among biological fathers

This study assesses fathers' discipline of their 3-year-old child. Data are from 1,238 mother and father participants in the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Study. Latent class analysis (LCA) of nonaggressive and aggressive behaviors, as reported by mothers, indicated four distinct paternal disciplinary profiles: low discipline, low aggression, moderate physical aggression, and high physical and psychological aggression. Serious forms of psychological aggression directed toward the child were uncommon but may identify those fathers most in need of intervention. Use of nonaggressive discipline was high and nearly equivalent among the parenting profiles. However, child aggressive behavior increased as the child's exposure to paternal aggression increased, even when aggressive discipline was combined with high levels of nonaggressive discipline. Fathers who exhibited more aggression toward their child had higher levels of alcohol use, used more psychological aggression toward the child's mother, and were more likely to spank their child.

Guilt and effortful control: two mechanisms that prevent disruptive developmental trajectories

Children's guilt associated with transgressions and their capacity for effortful control are both powerful forces that inhibit disruptive conduct. The authors examined how guilt and effortful control, repeatedly observed from toddlerhood to preschool age, jointly predicted children's disruptive outcomes in 2 multimethod, multitrait longitudinal studies (Ns = 57 and 99). Disruptive outcomes were rated by mothers at 73 months (Study 1) and mothers, fathers, and teachers at 52 and 67 months (Study 2). In both studies, guilt moderated effects of effortful control: For highly guilt-prone children, variations in effortful control were unrelated to future disruptive outcomes, but for children who were less guilt prone, effortful control predicted such outcomes. Guilt may inhibit transgressions through an automatic response due to negative arousal triggered by memories of past wrongdoing, regardless of child capacity for deliberate inhibition. Effortful control that engages a deliberate restraint may offset risk for disruptive conduct conferred by low guilt.

Iron deficiency and child and maternal health

BACKGROUND

Iron deficiency is most commonly found in women of reproductive age and infants worldwide, but the influence of maternal iron deficiency on infant development is underexplored.

OBJECTIVE

The objective was to examine the relation between maternal iron status and mother-child interactions in a randomized, double-blind, intervention trial conducted in South Africa.

DESIGN

Women were recruited into the study from a health clinic at 6-8 wk postpartum and were classified as either iron-deficient anemic (IDA) or iron-sufficient after blood analysis. IDA mothers received iron supplements of 125 mg FeSO(4) (IDA-Fe; n = 34) or placebo (IDA-PL; n = 30) daily from 10 wk to 9 mo postpartum. The control group (n = 31) consisted of iron-sufficient mothers. Free-play mother-child interaction sessions were videotaped in the clinic at 10 wk (n = 80) and 9 mo (n = 66) postpartum and coded per the Emotional Availability Scales (4 maternal scales: sensitivity, structuring, nonintrusiveness, and nonhostility; 2 infant scales: responsiveness and involvement).

RESULTS

At 10 wk, scores for maternal sensitivity and child responsiveness were significantly greater in the control group than in the IDA groups (P = 0.028 and 0.009, respectively). At 9 mo, the control and IDA-Fe groups no longer differed. These 2 groups scored significantly better on the maternal sensitivity, structuring, and nonhostility scales and on the child responsiveness scale than did the IDA-PL group (P = 0.007-0.032), whose iron status remained low.

CONCLUSION

These data indicate that maternal iron deficiency negatively affects mother-child interactions and that iron supplementation protects against these negative effects.