What is it about?
Emotionally responsive parenting reflects warmth and supportiveness in response to infant cues and is critical for child developmental outcomes throughout the lifespan. There is evidence that parents who experienced emotionally responsive parenting in childhood are more involved and sensitive in responding to their own infant's cues (also called the intergenerational transmission of parenting). However, it remains unclear of what mechanisms explain how emotionally responsive parenting is maintained across generations. This paper examines how mothers' prenatal emotional and cognitive responses to infant crying explain how emotionally responsive parenting is transmitted across generations.
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Why is it important?
Our results showed that mothers who recalled more supportiveness from their own caregivers were less likely to show negative emotional responses and less likely to have negative cognitive responses to infant crying while pregnant. In turn, this enabled mothers to be more responsive to their own infants and maintain the intergenerational cycle of emotionally responsive parenting. Our findings identify an important area for interventionists to target addressing how mothers emotionally and cognitively respond to infant cry cues. Infant crying often evokes negative feelings and thoughts and helping mothers (1) develop skills related to controlling their emotional responses and (2) providing them with information to help understand why infants cry may ultimately enhance their sensitive caregiving.
Perspectives
This article comes from my dissertation and was a pleasure to write with my mentors! This article was motivated by wanting to have a better understanding of the parenting-specific processes that could be targeted to promote positive parenting across generations and ultimately positive child development. I hope this article is thought-provoking and insightful for readers on the importance of childhood experiences and the prenatal period for early parenting.
Savannah Girod
Pennsylvania State University
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: Intergenerational transmission of emotionally responsive parenting via parenting-related emotion and cognition., Journal of Family Psychology, January 2025, American Psychological Association (APA),
DOI: 10.1037/fam0001304.
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