Other policy
Research: nurturing parenting capability - the early years
26 Mar 2009
The research addressed the following questions:
- Why is parenting important in the early years?
- What is good parenting in the early years?
- What are the determinants of parenting in the early years, and is it who you are or what you do that is important?
Key findings include:
- Interpersonal sensitivity was strongly associated with greater warmth and interactivity which mothers showed to their children and more effective educational communication. It was also related to parenting behaviour at five years.
- Breastfeeding had a positive association with parenting behaviours regardless of marital status or income level.
- Mothers with more extensive social networks had more positive interactions with their infants than mothers with less extensive networks.
- In terms of socio-demographic characteristics, mothers who had higher levels of education demonstrated better parenting in terms of the quality of the mother-infant interaction and the use of educational communication. However, family income was not a significant predictor of parenting behaviours.
- Although it may be supposed that children's characteristics might also affect the behaviour of their own parents towards them, researchers found this not to be the case.
- Overall, the above shows both who you are and what you do are predictive - both behaviours such as breastfeeding, and personal and background characteristics such as interpersonal sensitivity and education are predictive of parenting behaviour, and there are further relationships between these background characteristics and behaviours.
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