Mothers’ and fathers’ quantitative and qualitative parenting in relation to children’s emotional adjustment: A between- and within-family investigation.

Abstract

This longitudinal study of Australian families (n = 1884, from age 6-12) examined how fathers' and mothers' quantitative involvement (time spent on childcare) and qualitative involvement (specific parenting behaviors) relate to children's emotional adjustment development. We used dynamic structural equation modeling to disentangle stable between-family differences from within-family fluctuations in qualitative parenting and emotional adjustment, allowing us to investigate the direction of effects between parents and children. Because fathers have been theorized to contribute uniquely to emotional adjustment development, we examined differences between mothers and fathers, and the interplay between parent-and child sex. We further examined whether between-family differences in quantitative involvement, operationalized as joint (total) and relative (one parent does more) involvement, predict qualitative parenting behaviors and emotional adjustment, and moderate the within-family interplay between them. Results revealed between-family correlations of qualitative involvement with emotional adjustment. Evidence for significant average within-family effects was limited to a parenting effect of maternal warmth, and several child effects, which indicated that emotional adjustment evokes changes in parenting. Parenting effects varied substantially across families however, especially for fathers. Between-family differences in quantitative involvement explained some of these differences. When joint quantitative involvement was higher, both parents engaged in more desirable qualitative parenting. When mothers were relatively more involved than fathers, fathers displayed less desirable qualitative parenting, and children were less well-adjusted. There was some limited evidence that within-family predictive effects were moderated by quantitative involvement, particularly relative involvement. These findings suggest that all family members benefit from a more equal childcare distribution.

Tracking real-time proximity to assess parent-adolescent interactions in daily life

“…Our findings showed that adolescents and mothers were more often in proximity and spent more time together than adolescents and fathers which is in line with previous research (Larson & Richards, 1991;Phares et al, 2009;Van Lissa & Keizer, 2020) and validate these as we used an objective measure to assess proximity instead of using self-reports. Moreover, the current study and method gave a first glimpse into the specific patterns of parent-adolescent proximity throughout the week.…”

“…When adolescents and mothers spent more time together throughout the two weeks, mothers reported less parental criticism during interactions. This seems to be in line with the findings based on self-report that greater involvement of parents in childcare activities (of children aged between 6 to 12 years old) were related to more desirable parenting behaviors (i.e., more warmth and consistency) (Sabattini & Leaper, 2004;Van Lissa & Keizer, 2020), at least for maternal criticism.…”

“…The current study aimed to enhance our understanding of parent-adolescent interactions in their natural daily life setting by: 1) exploring a novel method to assess frequency and duration of parent-adolescent physical proximity with BLE beacons; 2) examining how both parents and adolescents experienced the quality of interactions by using proximity triggered questionnaires, and 3) exploring whether the quantitative aspects of being in proximity (e.g., frequency and duration) are indicative of the quality of interactions. Since previous self-report studies reported that mothers spent more time with adolescents than fathers (Larson & Richards, 1991;Phares et al, 2009;Van Lissa & Keizer, 2020), we examined proximity between adolescents and their mothers and adolescents and their fathers separately. Given the innovative nature, no specific hypotheses were formulated and descriptions are provided on quantitative aspects of being in proximity (i.e., frequency and duration), experienced quality of parent-adolescent interactions (i.e., pleasantness, affect, and parenting behavior during interaction), and the associations between quantity and quality of interactions.…”

Parent–child personality similarity and differential autonomy support toward siblings.

“…Since the role of fathers is thought to be less clearly defined compared to mother's role (Cabrera et al, 2000), fathering might be more vulnerable to contextual factors whereas mothers are somewhat better able to enact a consistent parenting role across different contexts (Cummings et al, 2010). In line with this, research showed that fathering is more contextdependent compared to mothering (e.g., van Lissa & Keizer, 2020). In addition, fathers' parenting has also been shown to be more contingent on child characteristics and parent-child similarity compared to mothers.…”

Patterns and predictors of adolescent life change during the COVID-19 pandemic: a person-centered approach

“…Future studies may benefit from using a longitudinal design and the latent growth curve model to further explore the patterns of life change and antecedents of different patterns. Lastly, mother and father played different roles in adolescent development (Collins & Laursen, 2004 ; van Lissa & Keizer, 2020 ). However, given that only one of adolescents’ parents were asked to fill in the questionnaire (74.8% were mothers), the present study did not differentiate paternal and maternal influences on adolescent life changes.…”