The importance of parent self‐regulation and parent–child coregulation in research on parental discipline

Lunkenheimer, Erika; Sturge‐Apple, Melissa L.; Kelm, Madison R.

doi:10.1111/cdep.12470

Cited by 12 publications

(24 citation statements)

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“…In early childhood, parents act as external regulators of children's emotions and behaviors when children have not yet developed the skills to regulate independently (Vohs & Baumeister, 2004). Parents must also regulate their own emotions and behaviors in response to parenting and child behavior, which can be very challenging (Lunkenheimer et al, 2023). Accordingly, parents may use SBDs as one potential tool with which to regulate themselves and their children, making it crucial to understand how parental self-regulation affects behaviors around SBD use.…”

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confidence: 99%

Parental regulation of parent and child screen-based device use

Lunkenheimer

Dunning

Diercks

et al. 2023

International Journal of Behavioral Development

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Media use and screen time show both positive and negative effects on child development. Parents’ behaviors, perceptions, and regulation of parent and child screen-based device (SBD) use may be critical understudied factors in explaining these mixed effects. We developed the Parent Screen-Based Device Use Survey (PSUS) to assess parental use of multiple SBDs (e.g., computers, phones, and TVs) and tested its factor structure across two United States samples of mothers of children aged 2–6 years (total N = 402). Subscales captured parental SBD use related to Discipline, Limit-Setting, Involvement, Child Care, Family Norms, Self-Regulation, Dysregulation, and Parenting Support, and showed good factor loadings and internal reliability. Validity was tested in relation to parent distress, parent executive function problems, and child behavior problems. Parental limit-setting and involvement were either unrelated to or related to fewer parent and child problems, whereas parental use of SBDs for self-regulation, child care, discipline, support, and family activities, as well as parents’ more dysregulated use, were related to more parent and child problems. The PSUS holds promise in addressing the parental mechanisms that underlie media effects on child development.

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confidence: 99%

Parental regulation of parent and child screen-based device use

Lunkenheimer

Dunning

Diercks

et al. 2023

International Journal of Behavioral Development

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“…We also cannot include the literature on caregiver self-regulation as a predictor of caregiverchild coregulation (Lunkenheimer et al, 2023). And we are also unable to include the literature on how endogenous differences between children (in, for example, infant sensitivity) can mediate the relationship between caregiver psychopathology and child outcomes (Gueron-Sela et al, 2017;Somers et al, 2018).…”

Section: Part 4 -Studying Interpersonal Dynamics In Different Atypica...mentioning

confidence: 99%

Annual Research Review. ‘There, the dance is - at the still point of the turning world’: dynamic systems perspectives on co-regulation and dysregulation during early development

Wass¹,

Greenwood²,

Esposito³

et al. 2023

Preprint

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During development we transition from co-regulation (where regulatory processes are shared between child and caregiver) to self-regulation. Most early co-regulatory interactions aim to manage fluctuations in the infant’s arousal and alertness; but over time, co-regulatory processes become progressively elaborated to encompass other functions such as socio-communicative development, attention and executive control. The fundamental aim of co-regulation is to help maintain an optimal ‘critical state’ between hypo- and hyper-activity. Early co-regulatory processes involve both passive entrainment, through which a child’s state entrains to the caregiver’s, and active contingent responsiveness, through which the caregiver changes their behaviour in response to behaviours from the child. Contingent responsiveness operates via negative feedback, through which the behavioural changes from the caregiver compensate for increases and decreases in the child, to help maintain an intermediate critical state. Similar principles, of interactive but asymmetric contingency, drive joint attention and the maintenance of epistemic states as well as arousal/alertness, emotion regulation, and socio-communicative development. Here, we review work that directly observed child-adult co-regulatory interactions in the context of psychopathology. Early co-regulatory processes are thought to play a role in the development of attachment and can develop atypically in a range of ways, across conditions including premature birth, Autism, Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder, anxiety and depression. The most well-known of these is insufficient contingent responsiveness, leading to reduced synchrony, which has been shown across a range of modalities in different disorders, and which is the target of most current interventions. We also present evidence that excessive contingent responsiveness/synchrony can develop in some circumstances. And we show that positive feedback interactions can develop, which are contingent but mutually amplificatory child-caregiver interactions that drive the child further from their critical state. We discuss implications of these findings for future intervention research, and directions for future work.

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“…Parents’ caregiving is linked to their autonomic nervous system (ANS) activity, as indexed by cardiovascular activity at rest and during parent–child interactions (Deater-Deckard & Sturge-Apple, 2017). Negative parenting behaviors are linked to both hyper- and hypo-arousal of the ANS (Lunkenheimer et al, 2023; Sturge-Apple et al, 2011). For example, Miller et al (2015) found mothers’ parasympathetic dominance, and parasympathetic–sympathetic coactivation were inversely related to their observed negativity during challenging parent–child interactions.…”

Section: Cognitive Correlates Of Parental Discipline Usementioning

confidence: 99%

“…The role of parents' executive functions (EFs) in their discipline use is growing in recognition because of the regulatory skills needed to refrain from harsh disciplinary reactions to children's misbehavior (Lunkenheimer et al, 2023). Strong EFs help inhibit impulsive behavior and emotions, such as anger and frustration (Diamond, 2013), which often accompany parents' disciplinary choices (Critchley & Sanson, 2006).…”

Section: Cognitive Correlates Of Parental Discipline Usementioning

confidence: 99%

“…The complex, coordinated actions of the ANS branches (Berntson et al, 2017; Hastings & Kahle, 2019) necessitate studying the interaction of RSA and PEP when predicting discipline. Because hyperarousal of the ANS, particularly sympathetic activity, is related to emotionally reactive forms of parenting (Lunkenheimer et al, 2023; Miller et al, 2015; Sturge-Apple et al, 2011), parents with shorter PEP at rest may be more prone to using physical than inductive discipline.…”

Section: Cognitive Correlates Of Parental Discipline Usementioning

confidence: 99%

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Cognitive and psychophysiological predictors of inductive and physical discipline among parents of preschool-aged children.

Choe,

Olwert,

Golden

2023

Journal of Family Psychology

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Physical discipline increases children’s risk of showing externalizing problems, whereas inductive discipline is negatively associated with children’s risk of externalizing problems. Studies of parenting infrequently examine both positive and negative discipline techniques despite use of inductive and physical discipline being inversely related to each other and to child externalizing problems. A burgeoning literature on the biopsychosocial determinants of parenting is identifying cognitive and physiological mechanisms underlying the initiation and regulation of positive and negative parenting techniques. This cross-sectional study of parents of preschool-aged children (N = 70; 89% mothers, 43% racial–ethnic minorities) advances the parenting literature by examining predictors of parents’ inductive and physical discipline use across their cognitive functioning, cardiovascular psychophysiology, children’s externalizing behavior, and their interactions with one another. No main effects or interactions predicted inductive discipline, but the interaction between parents’ inhibitory control and nonverbal intelligence predicted physical discipline, such that parents who scored low in both domains endorsed the most use of physical discipline in response to child misbehavior. Another interaction between parents’ sympathetic activity and child externalizing behavior also predicted physical discipline. These findings are discussed in relation to parenting interventions.

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The importance of parent self‐regulation and parent–child coregulation in research on parental discipline

Cited by 12 publications

References 50 publications

Parental regulation of parent and child screen-based device use

Parental regulation of parent and child screen-based device use

Annual Research Review. ‘There, the dance is - at the still point of the turning world’: dynamic systems perspectives on co-regulation and dysregulation during early development

Cognitive and psychophysiological predictors of inductive and physical discipline among parents of preschool-aged children.

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