Explicating Child-Driven Patterns of Parent-Child Responsivity in Fragile Families: A Longitudinal Approach

Abstract

It has been well-established that development occurs in the context of a transactional framework, with bidirectional parent-child interactions influencing both proximal and distal outcomes. In particular, child vocabulary development is sensitive to parenting qualities including warmth, sensitivity, and control as well as parental stimulation including language input and access to learning enrichment activities. Similarly, these parenting qualities are influenced by and influence children's development of pro-social behaviors. Given the foundational role of both language and pro-social skills for academic achievement and the establishment of healthy relationships across the lifespan, a comprehensive understanding of the magnitude, stability, and reciprocity of such interactions across childhood has the potential to better inform early intervention and prevention practices and highlight risk and resilience factors. This study investigated the concurrent and successive transactional relationships between child pro-social behavior, child emergent language, and parenting qualities within a large, longitudinal sample. This study utilized Waves 3, 4, and 5 of the Fragile Families and Child Well Being Study (FFCWBS), corresponding to focal child age 3, 5, and 9 years, respectively. A series of Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) with full-information likelihood (FIML) estimation (n = 3,422) including child prosocial behavior, receptive vocabulary, and supportive parenting behaviors was tested and compared. Our findings indicate significant, positive associations over time between child pro-social behavior and receptive vocabulary, and parenting quality across all three stages of early child development. The steady decline in magnitude of these associations over time highlights the importance of synergistic parent-child interactions in toddlerhood as an early opportunity to propel these developmental outcomes and supportive parenting behaviors. Patterns of change in child pro-social behavior skills and parenting qualities remained positive and relatively stable, while observed growth in child receptive vocabulary skills increased in magnitude over time. Additional investigation of indirect effects specified the role of receptive vocabulary, as well as the bolstering role of prosocial behavior, in eliciting responsive parenting qualities over time.

Rethinking Responsive Feeding: Insights from Bangladesh

“…Proximal responsivity was associated with a mix of maternal-reported perceptions and behaviors, ranging from mothers feeling stressed and concerned that their child was not eating enough to talking and being in a happy mood while their child was eating. The finding that maternal concerns about children’s intake coupled with feelings of stress were associated with proximal responsivity is consistent with reports that child behaviors and maternal perceptions about children’s growth, health, and temperament drive maternal-child responsivity [ 4 , 30 ]. Mothers’ happy mood and talking during meals may reflect positive feelings of being engaged in their child’s feeding, even in the face of stress and concern.…”

Maternal Mental Health and Children’s Problem Behaviours: A Bi-directional Relationship?

“…It is well-known that parenthood is a substantial life change which can be stressful, particularly if children are diagnosed with physical or mental disabilities (Hayes & Watson, 2013). Developmental transition periods such as middle childhood can be of particular importance for child driven-effects (Blume et al, 2022;Yan & Ansari, 2016). Jiang et al (2022) found that parenting stress was largely predicted by child problem behaviours, however, there was a reciprocal association in early childhood, with internalising behaviour being specifically larger in effect size and more prevalent over time compared to externalising in disadvantaged families (a similar cohort to our study in some aspects).…”

Parental sensitivity and family conversation: A naturalistic longitudinal study with both mothers and fathers across three time‐points in early infancy

“…As such, parental sensitivity is more likely in the context of an infant who frequently initiates conversation with their parents. Transactional links between parental sensitive responding and children's developing social competence have been documented in early and middle childhood (e.g., Blume et al., 2022; Guo et al., 2023). These patterns of associations also apply to early parent‐infant interactions.…”