Close ties between parents and babies yield benefits for preschoolers

Having close ties with parents is obviously good for preschoolers, but what does that really mean? It means that the preschoolers are better able to control their own behavior by showing patience, deliberation, restraint, and even maturity.

That’s the finding of a new study conducted by researchers at the University of Iowa and published in the January/February 2008 issue of the journal Child Development.

The researchers looked at 102 mostly white families—mothers, fathers, and babies—who had volunteered for the study from the time the children were 7 months old until they were almost 4 and a half years old. Repeated observations were carried out in the families’ homes and in a laboratory. In the first two years, the researchers observed how parents and children related to each other, particularly whether they were in sync, picked up on each other’s cues, communicated well, and enjoyed each other’s company. In short, they gauged whether the parents and children had developed a close, positive, reciprocal, cooperative, and mutually responsive relationship.

When the children were 4 years and 4 months old, the researchers observed how the children responded when they were told not to do something by a parent when the parent then left the room. They also observed how the preschoolers did on tasks that called for self-regulation–patience, deliberation, restraint, and maturity of impulses–such as being asked to hold a small piece of candy in their mouths without eating it.

The study found that children who had developed a close, positive, reciprocal, and mutually responsive relationship with their mothers in the first two years of their lives did much better in both respects—responding to their mothers’ requests not to do something and regulating their own behavior--than children who hadn’t developed such ties.

The researchers also explored how mutually responsive relationships between mothers and children worked. When mothers and babies develop this closeness in the first two years, the study found, mothers don’t need to use forceful discipline later to get their children to do what they ask and refrain from other behaviors. And in turn, subtle control on the part of the mothers leads to better, more compliant, and more self-regulated behavior when the children are at preschool age.

Some of these findings were similar for fathers and children. Mutually responsive, positive relationships between fathers and children in the first two years of life also were associated with children’s better performance in tasks that called for self-regulation when the children were 4 and a half. However, in contrast to mothers and children, the reasons for the father-child link were less clear. Relationships between fathers and children in general have been studied much less than those between mothers and children, and more research is needed to understand their dynamics.

“Most parents know that when they interact with their infant and young toddler, they are laying important foundations for the child’s future development,” according to Grazyna Kochanska, Stuit Professor of Developmental Psychology at the University of Iowa and the lead author of the study. “Now we have a better understanding of what that really means. Your investment in building a mutually responsive, positive, close relationship early on will generate considerable payoff several years later.”

Source: Society for Research in Child Development

Related stories:

10,000 people in world-first cerebral palsy study
Researchers from the University of Adelaide, Australia, have launched the largest study of its kind in the world in a bid to better understand the possible genetic causes of cerebral palsy.
Bedsharing and bassinets: 2 new studies assess the risks
Bassinet use in 2006 was nearly double what it was in 1992, and even though more than 45% of infants between the ages of 0-2 months use them, little is known about bassinet safety. In fact, the Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) has guidelines regarding bassinet construction, but there are no government safety standards for bassinets. In 2005, the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) revised its recommendations for a safe infant sleep environment, suggesting a separate but nearby sleeping arrangement (i.e. roomsharing without bedsharing). Two studies soon to be published in The Journal of Pediatrics evaluate the frequency of bedsharing and the potential risk factors of bassinet use.
Eczema in infancy may be linked to cat ownership in those with a specific gene mutation
A gene mutation and cat exposure at birth may increase a child's risk of developing eczema during their first year according to a study published in PLoS Medicine this week. Researchers led by Professor Hans Bisgaard (University Hospital Gentofte, Copenhagen, Denmark) studied the association between mutations in the filaggrin gene (FLG) and exposure to environmental factors with the development of eczema.
Mothers' influence is decisive in tots' first year
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.
Infant play drives chimpanzee respiratory disease cycles
The signature boom-bust cycling of childhood respiratory diseases was long attributed to environmental cycling. However, the effect of school holidays on rates of social contact amongst children is increasingly seen as another major driver. New research on chimpanzees suggests that this effect of social connectivity on disease cycling may long predate attendance of children at schools, with chimpanzee infant mortality rates cycling in phase with rates of social play amongst infants.
Health varies widely across different regions of Mexico
A new study of the burden of disease and injury across Mexico has found that the south suffers the highest rates of infectious and nutritional diseases, injuries, and non-communicable diseases. The study, by researchers at Harvard University, the World Health Organization (WHO), and Mexico's National Institute of Public Health, is reported in this week's PLoS Medicine.
Study shows how cocaine impairs fetal brain development
Exposure of the developing brain to cocaine can cause neurological and behavioral abnormalities in babies born to mothers who use the drug during pregnancy. In a study research published in this week's PLoS Medicine, Chun-Ting Lee and colleagues at the U.S. National Institutes of Heath— who note that cocaine use occurs in several hundred thousand pregnancies per year in the United States alone — investigated the mechanism of cocaine's effect on fetal brain development.
Extended infant antiretroviral prophylaxis reduces HIV risk during breastfeeding
In many resource-poor countries, infants born to mothers with HIV receive a single dose of nevirapine (NVP) and a one-week dose of zidovudine (ZDV) to prevent transmission of HIV from the mother to her newborn. The results of a randomized trial led by researchers at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and the University of Malawi College of Medicine found that extending the routine antiretroviral regimen can significantly reduce the risk of mother-to-child HIV transmission. The study is available in the June 4 online edition of New England Journal of Medicine and will appear in the June 10 print edition.

News discussion:

Medicine & Health news