Parenting Style And Baby's Temperament Predict
Challenging Behavior In Later Childhood
June 24, 2008
The way mothers interact with their babies in the first year of life is strongly
related to how children behave later on. Both a mother's parenting style and an
infant's temperament reliably predict challenging behavior in later childhood,
according to Benjamin Lahey and his team from the University of Chicago in the
US. Their findings (1) have just been published online in Springer's Journal
of Abnormal Child Psychology.
The researchers looked at whether an infant's temperament and his mother's
parenting skills during the first year of life might predict behavioral
problems, in just over 1,800 children aged 4-13 years. Measures of infant
temperament included activity levels, how fearful, predictable and fussy the
babies were, as well as whether they had a generally happy disposition. The
researchers looked at how much mothers stimulated their baby intellectually, how
responsive they were to the child's demands, and the use of spanking or physical
restraint. Child conduct problems in later childhood included cheating, telling
lies, trouble getting on with teachers, being disobedient at home and/or at
school, bullying and showing no remorse after misbehaving.
The results indicate that both maternal ratings of their infants' temperament
and parenting styles during the first year are surprisingly good predictors of
maternal ratings of child conduct problems through age 13 years. Less fussy,
more predictable infants, as well as those who were more intellectually
stimulated by their mothers in their first year of life, were at low risk of
later childhood conduct problems. Another observation the researchers made was
that early spanking predicted challenging behavior in Non-Hispanic European
American families, but not in Hispanic families.
According to the authors, these findings support the hypothesis that
"interventions focusing on parenting during the first year of life would be
beneficial in preventing future child conduct problems…Greater emphasis should
be placed on increasing maternal cognitive stimulation of infants in such early
intervention programs, taking child temperament into consideration."
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Article adapted by Medical News Today from original press release.
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Reference
1. Lahey BB et al (2008). Temperament and parenting during the first year of
life predict future child conduct problems. Journal of Abnormal Child
Psychology; DOI 10.1007/s10802-008-9247-3.
Source: Melanie Lehnert
Springer
Medical News Today: http://www.medicalnewstoday.com
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