Parent Socialization of Children's Gratitude

Hussong, Andrea M.; Langley, Hillary A.; Coffman, Jennifer L.; Halberstadt, Amy G.; Costanzo, Philip R.

doi:10.1017/9781316863121.010

Cited by 15 publications

(23 citation statements)

References 26 publications

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“…As children become older, parents try different strategies to encourage gratitude in their children, particularly to be appreciative of the things they have, not to feel "entitled," and even to express gratitude as a "way of being" linked to a "practiced art or a way of life" (Halberstadt et al 2016, p. 445). Interestingly, similar strategies are reported both from predominantly North American White and wealthy families (Halberstadt et al 2016;Hussong et al 2018a;Hussong et al 2018b;Rothenberg et al 2017) and from North American Black parents, from both middle-and working-class families (Leon 2018). These strategies include (a) parental modeling of gratitude, (b) talking to their children about situations in which the latter could have expressed gratitude, and (c) by putting them in situations in which they can both understand why they should be appreciative of what they have while at the same time have the opportunity to "pay forward" to those who have less.…”

supporting

confidence: 55%

“…Even children reciprocating for help provided because they have been told they must do so is quite different from doing the same thing from a heartfelt desire to reciprocate (Mendonça and Palhares 2018). In part, parents realize that their cultivation of gratitude in their children is a long-term project (Hussong et al 2018a). More than this, however, both parents' and children's understanding of what it means to be "grateful" seems far closer to appreciation as Fagley (2016) defined it.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Parents seem clear about the fact that as their children get older they should be more likely to express gratitude if they get the appropriate help and support (Hussong et al 2018a, b;Leon 2018;O'Brien et al 2018). Although Ramsey and her colleagues reported some variation with age in the type of things for which their 7-to 13-year-old children said they were grateful, none of the remaining sets of authors (Hussong et al 2018a, b working with 6-to 9-year-olds; Leon 2018; O'Brien et al 2018, each working with 7-to 14-year olds), examined changes with age in the expression of gratitude.…”

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confidence: 99%

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Assessing variations in the expression of gratitude in youth: A three-cohort replication in southern Brazil

et al. 2019

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Children are not born grateful; their understanding and expression of gratitude develops during childhood and adolescence. We used a qualitative measure designed to assess how youth would respond to a benefactor, hypothesizing that their types of responses would systematically alter with age, and were able to test the reliability of this measure via replication across three cohorts. Participants (N = 1101) aged 7 to 14 constituted three independent cohorts (2008, 2012, and 2015-2017) from the same southern Brazilian city. Participants' responses were reliably coded into three types of gratitude (verbal, concrete, and connective); across samples, older youth were more likely to express verbal and connective gratitude; younger youth were more likely to express concrete gratitude. The age-related patterns of expression were very similar in each of the three samples (one discrepant result from nine possible), suggesting that it is a reliable measure with which to assess age-related changes in the expression of youth gratitude. Gratitude, we suggest, is not simply a unidimensional construct allowing judgments of how grateful individuals are; instead, our research suggests that youth of different ages express different types of gratitude, increasingly more complex, the most sophisticated of which comes closest to gratitude as a virtue.

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supporting

confidence: 55%

mentioning

confidence: 99%

mentioning

confidence: 99%

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Assessing variations in the expression of gratitude in youth: A three-cohort replication in southern Brazil

et al. 2019

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“…Data come from the Raising Grateful Children (RGC) project (Hussong et al, 2018). For this study, we recruited parent-child dyads ( N = 101) through mass emails to faculty, staff, and students at an affiliated university, flyers distributed through public and independent schools in first- to third-grade classrooms, and community postings.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…In our work (Hussong et al, 2018, in press), we define gratitude as a cognitively-mediated, socio-emotional process that results in a sense of appreciation, happiness, or joy due to the appraisal of having received something, which is not due to personal effort but to a benefactor’s free and unrestricted intentions to give. To experience gratitude in the moment, children must be aware that something has been received, experience positive affect connected to that awareness, and attribute that positive affect to the benefactors’ intentional and freely chosen behavior.…”

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confidence: 99%

Measuring gratitude in children

Hussong

Langley

Thomas

et al. 2018

The Journal of Positive Psychology

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Gratitude is a rich socioemotional construct that emerges over development beginning in early childhood. Existing measures of children’s gratitude as a trait or behavior may be limited because they do not capture different aspects of gratitude moments (i.e., awareness, thoughts, feelings, and actions) and the way that these facets appear in children. The current study evaluates a battery of new measures assessing children’s gratitude to address these limitations. Parent-child dyads (N=101; children aged 6–9) completed a lab-based assessment followed by a 7-day online parental diary and 18-month follow-up survey. In addition to newly developed measures of children’s gratitude, the battery included indicators of convergent, concurrent, divergent, and predictive validity. Results demonstrate the complexity of gratitude as a construct and the relative benefits and limits of various assessment modalities. Implications for the measurement of children’s gratitude and suggestions for future research on the development of gratitude are discussed.

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Coping and Mental Health in Early Adolescence during COVID-19

Hussong

Midgette

Thomas

et al. 2021

Res Child Adolesc Psychopathol

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The current longitudinal study examines changes in overall mental health symptomatology from before to after the COVID-19 outbreak in youth from the southeastern United States as well as the potential mitigating effects of self-efficacy, optimism, and coping. A sample of 105 parent–child dyads participated in the study (49% boys; 81% European American, 1% Alaska Native/American Indian, 9% Asian/Asian American; 4% Black/African American; 4% Latinx; and 4% other; 87% mothers; 25% high school graduate without college education; 30% degree from 4-year college; 45% graduate or professional school). Parents completed surveys when children were aged 6–9, 8–12, 9–13, and 12–16, with the last assessments occurring between May 13, 2020 and July 1, 2020 during the COVID-19 outbreak. Children also completed online surveys at ages 11–16 assessing self-efficacy, optimism, and coping. Multi-level modeling analyses showed a within-person increase in mental health symptoms from before to after the outbreak after controlling for changes associated with maturation. Symptom increases were mitigated in youth with greater self-efficacy and (to some extent) problem-focused engaged coping, and exacerbated in youth with greater emotion-focused engaged and disengaged coping. Implications of this work include the importance of reinforcing self-efficacy in youth during times of crisis, such as the pandemic, and the potential downsides of emotion-focused coping as an early response to the crisis for youth.

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Parent Socialization of Children's Gratitude

Cited by 15 publications

References 26 publications

Assessing variations in the expression of gratitude in youth: A three-cohort replication in southern Brazil

Assessing variations in the expression of gratitude in youth: A three-cohort replication in southern Brazil

Measuring gratitude in children

Coping and Mental Health in Early Adolescence during COVID-19

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