Research and policy
Research: Parenting Infants and Toddlers Today
13 May 2010
A survey of 1,615 American parents of children aged birth to three was designed to meet several objectives:
- Explore the issues and challenges that parents of children ages birth to three confront today;
- Identify what information and support sources parents of young children turn to, where gaps exist, and how to best communicate with parents about important parenting issues and challenges;
- Develop a better understanding of the factors that influence approaches to parenting,. This includes understanding perceptions of key social, emotional and cognitive developmental benchmarks, and expectations for when young children are capable of achieving such benchmarks;
- Better understand how parents interpret and respond to their children’s behaviour.
Key findings include the fact that parents understand the importance of a number of experiences that are critical to young children’s development, with virtually all parents (93%) understanding the importance of reading to young children in fostering cognitive development. While still a fairly substantial majority, fewer parents see the importance of talking to (74%) and singing to (70%) very young babies or newborns in facilitating cognitive development, and would benefit from more information about the strong or major influence on babies’ healthy development on talking and reading to very young babies and newborns.
But many parents lack a clear understanding of when their child should be reaching developmental milestones, which may lead to parents having unrealistic expectations for their children. Nor do parents fully understand how deeply babies’ and toddlers’ social-emotional development is affected by certain early experiences. Family is critical for parents of young children, both as a source of support and information, and as an underlying influence that shapes their approach to parenting. Nearly half (47%) cite mother or mother-in-law as the most important source of parenting information. Parenting magazines and websites top the list of other resources consulted, ahead of books, TV, medical information or parenting groups.
For the full report, Parenting Infants and Toddlers Today, research findings based on a survey among parents of children ages birth to three years old, conducted on behalf of Zero To Three by Hart Research Associates (November 2009) see http://www.zerotothree.org/
