Parenting and Child Development

Issues and Answers

Letourneau, Dr Nicole, Hart, Dr Martha

• Publisher: Waterside Press
• Year: 2020
• Print ISBN: 9781909976788
• eBook ISBN: 9781910979952
• Topic: Psychology
• Subtopic: Developmental Psychology
• Index: Psychology

In recent years, parenting research has demonstrated that toxic stressors such as intimate partner violence, postpartum depression, and substance abuse significantly diminish the quality of mother-child interaction. Moreover, research has shown that childhood is a sensitive period, during which cumulative exposure to adversities inhibits relationship quality, mother-child interaction and subsequent child health and developmental outcomes. Researchers have focused upon identifying populations at risk and interventions to improve related outcomes.Parenting and Child Development: Issues and Answers encompasses a collection of seminal studies by renowned researcher Dr Nicole Letourneau. The book starts with an examination of the mechanisms by which parent-child interaction and child developmental outcomes are diminished among high-risk families. Promising results of peer support and reflective functioning interventions to promote parent-child interaction and healthy child development are then presented. Finally, the book includes studies that investigate the relationship between genetics, parent-child relationships and child behaviour.

Section II

Interventions to Promote Parent-Child Interaction and Child Development

Intervention Testing: Primary Studies and Reviews

This section includes studies and reviews that investigate how interventions are tested and starts with a pilot study that focuses on improving teen parent-child interactions (Letourneau, 2001). This section continues with an article that reports whether interventions meant to support parents improve parent-child relationships (Letourneau et al, 2001). The conversation then shifts to postpartum depression interventions and what works and what does not. For example, focusing on mothers’ actions rather than feelings may increase children’s positive outcomes (Jung, Short, Letourneau et al, 2007), whereas home-based peer support interventions that focus on parent-child interaction quality improvement do not appear to work at all with mothers experiencing PPD (Letourneau et al, 2011e), yet results for telephone-based peer support interventions focusing on symptoms of depression for depressed mothers appears promising (Letourneau et al, 2015a). This section wraps up with a meta-analytic review of interventions aimed at improving mother-child attachment security (Letourneau et al, 2015b).

Chapter 7

Improving Adolescent Parent-infant Interactions: A Pilot Study

Nicole Letourneau, PhD, MN, RN

The study objective was to pilot test Keys to Caregiving, a program designed to improve interactions and contingent responsiveness between adolescent mothers and their infants. First-time adolescent parents, aged 15 to 19 years, received either the Keys to Caregiving program delivered by 6-weekly visits or a control program consisting of 6-weekly neutral visits. Parent-infant interactions and contingent responsiveness during teaching and feeding, and infant cognitive development were assessed when infants completed the program. The results suggest that the Keys to Caregiving program shows promise as a method of improving adolescent mothers’ interactions with their infants.

© 2001 W. B. Saunders Company

Sensitive and responsive parenting is a challenge for any parent; for the still developing adolescent it may be even more so. Compared with older mothers, adolescent mothers’ interactions with their infants have been characterized as being less sensitive to infant cues, more unrealistic about expectations of infant behavior, less verbal and responsive toward their infants, more impatient, and more prone to use physical punishment (Barnard, 1997; Coley & Chase-Lansdale, 1998; Ruff, 1987; von Windeguth & Urbano, 1989). These behaviors place the children of adolescents at risk for less than optimal development (Maynard, 1997; Wakschlag & Hans, 1999). In contrast, children reared in environments characterized by high-quality, parent-infant interactions are likely to demonstrate successful developmental outcomes such as readiness for school, social skills, peer competence, and cognitive ability (Sumner & Spietz, 1995a; Werner & Smith, 1992; for a review see Letourneau, 1997).

High-quality, parent-infant interactions are characterized by mutual warmth, sensitivity, and responsiveness (Barnard et al., 1989). For high-quality interactions, infants must send clear cues about their needs and wants whereas parents must be sensitive and able to respond to infants’ needs. When these social interactions are mutual, they are referred to as being contingently responsive: the behavior of one evokes the appropriate response of the other. An example of a contingently responsive parent-infant interaction is demonstrated by a parent speaking followed by the child turning to listen or vice versa (Barnard, 1997). Contingent actions and reactions by parents and infants characterize optimal interactions that also favor children’s successful development (Sumner & Spietz, 1994a; Tarabulsky, Tessier, & Kappas, 1996). All interactions need not be contingent, however, it is rather the overall proportion of contingently responsive interactions that favors children’s development (Chamberlain & Patterson, 1995).

Infants reared by parents in stressful circumstances or with little knowledge of parenting or infant development may not experience optimal interactions. Parents lacking education or experience, such as adolescent parents, are particularly at risk for less than optimal parent-infant interactions (Censullo, 1994; Irvine, Bradley, Cupples, & Boohan, 1997; Porter, 1990). Examples that characterize less than optimal parent-infant interactions include a parent’s lack of affection or attentiveness or a child’s tendency to overstimulation.

Adolescent parents stand to benefit from intervention that improves parent-infant interactions. Adolescent parents are more likely than older mothers to abandon further education and to live in poverty (Brooks-Gunn & Chase-Lansdale, 1995; Hayes, 1987; Wilkins, Sherman, & Best, 1991); both factors contribute to stresses that may negatively influence the quality of parent-infant interaction (Sumner & Spietz, 1994a, 1994b). In addition, the adolescents’ stage of development (Trad, 1995; Yoos, 1987) combined with the risk of experiencing postpartum depression (Beck, 1995) may lessen their emotional availability to their infants, with potential negative impacts on parent-infant interactions. It is not surprising, given these risk factors, that offspring of adolescents are prone to less than optimal outcomes.

The quality of contingent responsiveness in parent-infant interactions is linked to cognitive development in children (Beckwith & Cohen, 1989; Beckwith, Rodning, & Cohen, 1992; Bornstein & Tamis-LeMonda, 1989; Coates & Lewis, 1984; Dunham, Dunham, Hurshman, & Alexander, 1989; Lewis & Coates, 1980). However, only two studies are identified that examine the relationship between contingent responsiveness and the development of infant expectations, as an aspect of infant cognition (Lewis & Goldberg, 1969; Hains & Muir, 1996). Contingently responsive social interactions may enable infants to develop expectations that their behavior is effective (Lewis & Goldberg, 1969). As an example, consistent turn-taking between a parent and in...

Table of contents

• Copyright and publication details
• Acknowledgements
• About the author and editors
• Preface
• Section and Chapter Summaries
• Predictors of Parent-Child Interaction and Child Development
• Interventions to Promote Parent-Child Interaction and Child Development
• Epigenetics and New Directions
• Relationships are the Antidote to Toxic Stress
• Index