The Effect of Parenting Practices and Family Adjustment of Caregivers on Early Childhood Development in Rural China

Abstract

We used a unique panel dataset of 1682 children from villages in Northwest China. Our objective was to estimate the impact of parenting practices and family adjustment on early childhood development among infants aged 5 to 24 months. Within this cohort, an alarming 53.58% of children exhibited susceptibility to cognitive development delays. Additionally, 60.02%, 36.24%, and 40.11% were at risk of language, motor, and social-emotional delays, respectively. Moreover, parental consistency, coercive parenting and the parental adjustment of caregivers were relatively poor. Multivariate analysis revealed that total parenting practices and family adjustment had significant positive effects on all dimensions of early childhood development, including the cognitive, language, motor, and social-emotional dimensions; parenting practices had the strongest relationship with all dimensions of child development; and family adjustment had a significant positive predictive function only for social-emotional development.