Early father-child and mother-child attachment relationships: contributions to preschoolers' social competence

Revisiting the debate on effects of parental power-assertive control in two longitudinal studies: early attachment security as a moderator

Although there is a consensus that harsh, hostile, abusive discipline has uniformly adverse effects on children, scholars continue to debate implications of varying degrees of power assertion commonly used by most parents in daily interactions with young children. Attachment theory can inform this debate, as early attachment organization can serve as a catalyst, or moderator, of future socialization trajectories. Specifically, insecure attachment can amplify, whereas secure attachment can attenuate, detrimental effects of parental power-assertive control. In two community studies of mothers, fathers, and infants, Family Study (FS, N = 102), and Children and Parents Study (CAPS, N = 200), we assessed attachment security in infancy, parental power-assertive control at 4.5 years in FS and at 16 months in CAPS, and child positive orientation to the parent at 10 years in FS and at 3 years in CAPS. In both studies, fathers' power-assertive control undermined children's positive orientation toward the fathers, but only for children with less secure attachment histories in infancy (Attachment Q-Set in FS and Strange Situation Paradigm in CAPS), and not for those with more secure histories. The findings highlight indirect yet powerful, long-term effects of the early parent-child security, and suggest distinct processes in mother- and father-child dyads.

Being a mother as a healthcare professional in the COVID-19 pandemic: A qualitative study

Objective: The aim of this research was to determine the changes in relationships between healthcare professional mothers and their preschool-aged children during the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic. In addition, the second objective of this study was to propose a new phenomenon that explains “being a mother as a healthcare professional” during the COVID-19 pandemic. Materials and Methods: The participants of the research were 16 healthcare professional mothers (8 doctors and 8 nurses) who had worked in intensive care units during the COVID-19 pandemic and had a preschool-aged child. The research was conducted in accordance with the phenomenological approach, one of the qualitative research designs. The research data were obtained through face-to-face interviews between the researchers and the participants using half-structured interview forms prepared by the researchers. Colaizzi’s 7-step method was used for evaluation of the data. Results: According to the research findings, the phenomenon of “being a mother as a healthcare professional” was gathered under four main themes: emotional reactions, new normal in life, difficulties that pandemic brought in life and coping strategies with these difficulties. Conclusion: The findings showed that the COVID-19 pandemic caused many changes in the lives of healthcare professional mothers and their children; these mothers and children built some emotional reactions, and they developed various strategies to overcome these emotional reactions.

Early Attachment to Mothers and Fathers: Contributions to Preschoolers' Emotional Regulation

Children acquire and develop emotional regulatory skills in the context of parent-child attachment relationships, nonetheless empirical studies have focused mainly on mother and less information is available regarding the role of both parent-child attachment relationships. Furthermore, despite its importance, there is no information regarding preschool years. This study aims to fill this gap by exploring the potential influences of both mother-child and father-child attachments on preschooler's later emotion regulation observed in the peer group. Fifty-three Portuguese nuclear families (mother, father and focal child) participated in the study; 47% of the children were boys and 53% were girls. Attachment Security was assessed at home using the Attachment Behavior Q-set when children were 3 years of age, and emotion regulation was observed in the preschool classrooms attended by the children at age 5, using the California child Q-sort to derive an Emotion Regulation Q-Scale. Results showed that the combined influence of both parent-child attachment security predicted better emotion regulation results, than did the specific contributions of each parent per se. Findings are consistent with integrative approaches that highlight the value of including both mother- and father-child attachment relationships, as well as their combined effect, when studying emotion regulation.

Targeting Parenting Quality to Reduce Early Life Adversity Impacts on Lifespan Cardiometabolic Risk

Mounting evidence that early life adversity (ELA) exposures confer risk for cardiometabolic disease over the lifespan motivated this narrative review to examine parenting quality as a potential intervention target to reduce ELA exposures or mitigate their impact as a way of reducing or preventing cardiometabolic disease. We describe findings from the limited number of family-based intervention studies in ELA-exposed children that have tested parenting impacts on cardiometabolic health outcomes. We then describe the implications of this work and make recommendations for future research that will move this field forward.