Study says parenting style and baby's temperament predict challenging
behavior in later childhood

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."

Source: Springer
http://www.physorg.com/news133438337.html

On 2008-06-24, Lance  wrote:
> 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.

So what does this mean for adopters? It sounds as if the problem could
be the continuation in the same family. Could a change of family at
a certain age, maybe 2 to 4, change the path enough or are these things
now set in place?

 - Richard

-- 
   _/_/_/  _/_/_/  _/_/_/     Richard dot Corfield at gmail dot com
  _/  _/    _/    _/          
 _/_/      _/    _/                Time is a one way street,               
_/  _/  _/_/    _/_/_/                     except in the Twilight Zone

Richard Corfield wrote:
> On 2008-06-24, Lance  wrote:
> > 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.
>
> So what does this mean for adopters? It sounds as if the problem could
> be the continuation in the same family. Could a change of family at
> a certain age, maybe 2 to 4, change the path enough or are these things
> now set in place?
>

I think there may be something personal behind your post so I need to
be careful in answering it.

The simple truth is that having a child is, as Sir Francis Bacon
remarked, having a hostage to fortune. Neither natural nor adoptive
parents can be absolutely certain that their child will always behave
well, be a responsible citizen, and so on. No matter how careful your
parenting there are no guarantees that the child will always make you
proud. Can you even guarantee that you will always behave well?

I think the sorts of things mentioned in the above post increase the
risks - but psychology is not physics and the sorts of relationships
they discuss are true of populations not necessarily of individuals.

I am convinced that human beings can be altered and made better people
even if they enter a good environment after the first year of life! So
even if a child is damaged that doesn't mean it can't be rescued. I
don't think the above study tried to address the issue of "resilience"
but you might want to look up writers like Michael Rutter who have
spent much time studying what makes some individuals resistant to
damage and others very fragile.

Lance

On 2008-06-25, Lance  wrote:
>
> I think there may be something personal behind your post so I need to
> be careful in answering it.

It may become personal so sorry for not replying. We wonder about
adopting. There are a lot of questions, with stories like this and
stories about effects of alcohol on the unborn and a higher chance of
hitting such. Many people have done well and had wonderful adopted
families. Some have had problems. I wonder how much things change over
time

  Increase in alcohol?
  Later adoption in the child's life?

> The simple truth is that having a child is, as Sir Francis Bacon
> remarked, having a hostage to fortune. Neither natural nor adoptive
> parents can be absolutely certain that their child will always behave
> well, be a responsible citizen, and so on. No matter how careful your
> parenting there are no guarantees that the child will always make you
> proud. Can you even guarantee that you will always behave well?

No though I can try. I can hope to bring up any child to do the same, to
have values, and to give that child (children, adoption agencies prefer
people who can adopt siblings) a good childhood to grow out of.

> I am convinced that human beings can be altered and made better people
> even if they enter a good environment after the first year of life! So
> even if a child is damaged that doesn't mean it can't be rescued. I
> don't think the above study tried to address the issue of "resilience"
> but you might want to look up writers like Michael Rutter who have
> spent much time studying what makes some individuals resistant to
> damage and others very fragile.

Some injuries can take a long time to heal - especially if caused in
older life.

 - Richard

-- 
   _/_/_/  _/_/_/  _/_/_/     Richard dot Corfield at gmail dot com
  _/  _/    _/    _/          
 _/_/      _/    _/                Time is a one way street,               
_/  _/  _/_/    _/_/_/                     except in the Twilight Zone

Richard Corfield wrote:

> Some injuries can take a long time to heal - especially if caused in
> older life.
>

It is a debate of long standing in Psychology. The Jesuits used to
claim that they could permanently shape the mind of anyone if they
could control up to seven years of age. Freud and psychoanalysis
argued strongly for the importance of early life events. But before
Freud many had regarded infants as basically too unformed to be much
influenced - hence the wide spread practice of wet-nurses and and
nurseries and nannies in the 18th and 19th centuries.

It is hard for a person to say how early events influenced them for
none of us remembers particular events that happened before
approximately two years of age. But there is research lining early
"attachment styles" to the kinds of relationships a person will form
in later life. And there is the sort of research mentioned above. In
longitudinal research some early events have been shown to have an
impact that is only visible much later in the adult years - a so
called "sleeper" effect. Piaget discussed this in relation to memory.
He suggested that particular events only became traumatic when the
child had developed sufficient cognitive understanding to work out
what had happened so long ago.

Anyway, I suppose it all depends on the events and the person
concerned and the circumstances in which it happens. Death is an event
that certainly alters life - and it can indeed happen later in life.
But when it happens early on the person concerned has a much shorter
life - and therefore surely a much worse one. Some events - like the
loss of a romantic partner - are not possible with infants, and some
events - such as the loss of a parent - are clearly much worse when
they happen to a child.

Lance