My colleagues and I have learned a lot about child development in different cultural contexts, as well as about how parenting changes as children develop. In 2008, we recruited 8-year-olds and their mothers and fathers in nine countries (China, Colombia, Italy, Jordan, Kenya, the Philippines, Sweden, Thailand, and the United States) as part of a long-term study of parenting and child development. We have interviewed the children and their parents annually since that time, and the children are now young adults.

Based on our findings, here are some of the ways parenting has changed over time.

Warmth and control

Warmth captures the dimension of parenting related to providing love, affection, and acceptance. Behavioral control captures the dimension of parenting related to parents’ attempts to regulate their children’s behavior and socialize them to become well-functioning members of their society. Although warmth appears to be a universally positive aspect of parenting, behavioral control appears to be more culturally variable. Across cultural groups, parents’ warmth and behavioral control generally decrease as their children move through adolescence.

Programs can emphasize the importance of demonstrating warmth to make children feel loved and accepted.

It may be more difficult for parents to continue displaying high levels of warmth as children transition to adolescence and there is more frequent and intense conflict in the parent-child relationship. An increase in such conflict is often tied to parents’ attempts to exert control over their children’s behavior, so some parents reduce these attempts as one way to reduce the conflict.

Photo: cottonbro. Pexels.

Parents’ use of behavioral control and the reactions of children and adolescents to their parents’ attempts to exert control are tied to parents’ and children’s perceptions of the legitimacy of parental authority. Parents’ behavioral control may remain higher into adolescence in cultures in which parents and adolescents believe that parents have legitimate authority to continue exerting control over different aspects of adolescents’ lives. But even in these cultures, parents’ control declines over time. Across cultures, behavioral control may decrease over time as parents recognize that adolescents are increasingly able to regulate their own behavior and make informed decisions.

Monitoring

Monitoring is one way that parents try to keep track of their children’s and adolescents’ behavior from a distance. Parents can set rules and limits (like curfews), and can try to solicit information by asking questions about their children’s friends, activities, and whereabouts. Children and adolescents also contribute to the monitoring process. For example, children can either voluntarily disclose information or withhold it.

If adolescents are secretive, it makes it more difficult for parents to monitor them. Different forms of monitoring, including when parents set limits and solicit information, become more developmentally salient as children enter adolescence and begin spending less time under parents’ direct supervision and more time with peers and in activities away from home.

Programs can guide parents in providing behavioral control and monitoring in ways that are consistent with cultural norms about legitimate parental authority.

Across many cultures that differ in general expectations regarding adolescents, a desire for more autonomy increases during adolescence, and adolescents often want more autonomy than their parents are willing to provide. Thus, most parents negotiate issues related to autonomy with their children during the transition to and progression through adolescence. These negotiations are reflected in changes over time in parents’ rules and efforts to solicit information, which decline with age in many different cultural contexts.

Implications for practice and policy

To support parents in all cultural contexts, parenting programs can emphasize the importance of demonstrating warmth to make children feel loved and accepted. This should continue as children move through adolescence, when an increasing conflict in the relationship can make it more difficult for parents to continue providing warmth and acceptance.

Parenting programs can also guide parents in providing behavioral control and monitoring in ways that are consistent with cultural norms about legitimate parental authority, as well as sensitive to the need for increasing autonomy as children become adolescents.

Parent-child relationships can best be understood as a series of reciprocal transactions over time. Children’s development prompts changes in parenting, and changes in parenting affect children’s development.

The post Parenting is different in different cultures appeared first on Child and Family Blog.

The greatest influence occurs at home, but there remains a lot to understand about harnessing parents’ – and particularly fathers’ – potential to help.

Demonstrate to your children the value of education – that’s one of the most important ways a parent can encourage their learning. This is true the world over, although parents have various ways to highlight this value. If parents succeed in convincing their children of the importance of education and can mobilize the resources to provide support, children typically stay in school and do well.

Many of the important contributions from parents do not require money or qualifications. Support can begin with a simple question: “What are you learning about at school?” Parents can bring an extra perspective to what children are studying: “I don’t know if you have heard about this…?” can open a discussion. For example, parents might mention climate change and ask how it fits in with, say, science at school. They can extend what the child is doing in class and bring it home: “What do you think we can do? Can we recycle?” These conversations express that parents value education and support their children.

“Parental involvement in children’s education is important in every country. However, the way that involvement takes place varies greatly.”

Parents also set an example. They can let children see them reading for themselves, so parents are not always on their phones and do not leave a television on constantly in the background. Reading with children, especially in the early years, is highly beneficial. But if parents have low literacy skills, just talking with children and telling them stories, even if not from a book, help build language skills.

Parental involvement varies globally

Parental involvement in children’s education is important in every country. However, the way that involvement takes place varies greatly. In some low-income countries, where even low school fees for uniforms, books, or transport can break the family budget, parents show their commitment to their children’s learning by making considerable sacrifices to meet the costs. Sometimes, they manage it only for some members of the family: Perhaps the younger siblings are sent to school while the older ones work to pay the expenses. In Kenya, the best schools tend to be boarding, with children living away from home for many months. If they can, parents show how they value education by paying the fees even though that means losing out on face-to-face childrearing.

In the United States, one of the most important parental contributions to children’s learning is choosing where the family lives. There are thousands of individual school systems, with different books, curricula, and pedagogical strategies; Americans with financial resources often decide where to make their homes based on the school system they want for their children. The location of a school matters much less in China, where schools are more standardized, and where there is a national curriculum and national pedagogical strategies and textbooks. Parents in China and other Asian countries such as the Philippines and Thailand tend to focus more on home support, helping with homework and making sure that children have a designated time and place to study.

Photo: Pass the Torch. Creative Commons.

Mobilizing parents’ educational input

How can formal education use parents effectively – harness their social capital – for learning? Cultural norms vary. In some places, such as the United States, parents are  expected to volunteer in their children’s classrooms, work at book fairs or other events, or help with fundraising. Jordan has mandatory parents’ councils, which involve parents directly with administrators and teachers. Many countries have variations of this concept. Sometimes the goal is for teachers to communicate what is happening in the classroom and guide parents on how they can support their children’s learning. These initiatives generally work better if they are universally available and non-stigmatizing, rather than focusing solely on parents of children who are struggling. However, some countries (e.g., China) have eschewed these models and generally, parents are not seen in classrooms or at schools there.

Few models harness the support fathers can bring to their children’s education – in fact, much of the research and practice related to parental involvement focuses on mothers. But some countries have recognized the potential of involving fathers. In Jordan, when organizers of a parenting program saw that success mainly involved mothers, imams were recruited to spread messages about parenting to dads at Friday prayers.

The greatest influence is at home 

Home is typically where parents make the most difference in their children’s education. Parents often ask how much help they should give with homework. It is good to lend a hand if children are struggling at school, with the parent acting like a tutor to help children understand or practice reading with text support. But some parents go too far and take over, making children feel that they cannot do it on their own. Children need to feel efficacious.

School learning systems can clash with family and cultural systems. This is true where schools adopt, for example, English or French as the language of instruction, when children are fluent in different mother tongues and much less able to communicate in these other languages. In the Philippines, for example, new laws require instruction during primary school in mother tongue languages because many parents were uncomfortable with the main languages being English or Filipino, which prevented them from being involved in their children’s education. In many countries, language policy has disconnected learning at school from interactions at home and hindered parents’ ability to be involved in their children’s education.

“A major issue in education – which parents can influence considerably – is maintaining children’s mental health and well-being.”

Parents can support mental health

A major issue in education – which parents can influence considerably – is maintaining children’s mental health and well-being. Placing a high emphasis on academic achievement can lead to anxiety and symptoms of depression in children. This often occurs where high-stakes examinations provide a narrow gateway to further opportunities, perhaps because a country has limited resources for funding education or elite institutions cherry-pick students.

High-stakes testing, particularly in Asian countries, fosters concerns that academic success is achieved at the expense of children’s mental health. Sweden offers a contrasting example, thanks partly to its wealth, with a good intersection between family values and the school system: Both support students having varied paths of study that reflect their individual interests. And Sweden does not have the barriers to higher education found in some countries, which generate so much examination anxiety.

It is much easier to highlight parental practices – such as physical punishment – that are universally bad for children than it is to identify evidence on which practices are universally good. But the level of variation suggests that parents and education systems should look elsewhere and ask: “Should we try that here?”

The post Parents are the greatest influence on children’s learning, but how can this influence be harnessed? appeared first on Child and Family Blog.

Some parenting practices are beneficial to children in all societies, finds research; others can be good or bad, depending on the local context.

Many countries, including some richer nations, could learn from one another about parenting and child development. Our cross-cultural research shows that good parenting practices are often applicable everywhere, irrespective of local circumstances. However, our work also highlights that some practices which may benefit children in some cultures can actually harm them in other contexts.

Our Parenting Across Cultures (PAC) project is a long-term study of mothers, fathers and children from 13 cultural groups in nine countries (China, Colombia, Italy, Jordan, Kenya, Philippines, Sweden, Thailand and the US). It has identified some universally good aspects of parenting and some aspects whose value depends on the local context.

“The value to child development of parental control is culturally variable. In some places, it helps children thrive. But the picture is different elsewhere. A parental behaviour in one culture can produce a different impact when applied in another.”

Parental warmth is good for children everywhere

We’ve found, for example, that parental warmth, love and acceptance are positive in every culture studied. All children benefit from feeling loved and accepted. However, the ways that parents show that love vary between cultures. In some cultures, parents are more likely to be physically affectionate, hugging and kissing their children. In other cultures, the same love is less overt, provided, for example, by preparing meals in a special way. These parents may not say, specifically, “I love you,” but their actions make the child feel loved and accepted.

In contrast, the value to child development of parental control is more culturally variable. In some places, such as Kenya, parents who seek obedience and compliance are typically the most loving and warm, and their children thrive. But the picture is different in, for example, Sweden and among European Americans in the US. Among these people, some of the warmest, most loving parents, whose children typically do very well, are those who seek less control and compliance.

“Parental warmth, love and acceptance are positive in every culture studied. All children benefit from feeling loved and accepted. However, the ways that parents show that love can vary between cultures.”

Good practices in one place can produce problems elsewhere

So a parental behavior in one culture can produce a different impact when applied in another. In the Philippines and Thailand, for example, children often continue to ask parents for permission or seek advice throughout their adult years before making decisions. People are also expected throughout their lives to provide support for their birth family. However, in Sweden and among European Americans, there are very few such family obligations. In countries where such obligations are normally expected, children typically thrive in families that reinforce such norms. In contrast, when these obligations are imposed on children in countries where they are not common practice, young people are more prone to depression, anxiety and problem behaviors.

Globalization is affecting parenting

Globalization makes it important to understand these cultural differences in parenting styles and their impact on children. Family policy makers should take culture into account when developing programs and policies that will, for example, affect diverse communities with different traditions of parenting. Globalization also means that children are increasingly influenced by other cultures, either around them or in the media, which can confuse both them and their parents. It’s also more likely that mothers and fathers will bring different value systems into their parenting, potentially producing confusion and conflict, particularly as more-involved fathers may seek greater influence on parenting practices.

Low-income nations are often faster to adopt best practice

Research findings about what is universally good for children are increasingly being embodied in international standards, such as the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals, which are framed partly around children’s rights such as freedom from poverty, abuse and exploitation. Such standards have largely been generated in richer countries, notably in Scandinavia, and then gradually been rolled out around the world. Ironically, they are sometimes more readily incorporated into law by poorer countries than countries such as the US that have a traditional focus on human rights. This is because poorer countries are often more willing to adopt international standards. That said, in some cases, such legal prohibitions may not be well enforced, having not been born out of established child protection cultures.

Some low-income countries in South America, for example, have been faster than North America in prohibiting corporal punishment. The US is the only country that hasn’t ratified the Convention on the Rights of the Child. Meanwhile, Canada and Australia haven’t reached the same standards of legal protection for children as some countries in Africa. Corporal punishment, though prohibited in low-income countries such as Kenya, remains legal in UK homes. This is despite the fact that research has demonstrated that corporal punishment increases children’s aggressive behavior, anxiety, and depression and decreases children’s academic achievement and social competence.

Our research highlights the importance of learning and tolerance, and understanding cultural context, when considering best practice in raising children. It’s particularly important not to assume that all the lessons of good parenting flow from high-income to low-income countries. Sometimes the reverse is true – richer countries can also learn from elsewhere.

The post What’s good parenting for children in one place may be harmful in another appeared first on Child and Family Blog.

If you believe that beating, hitting or slapping your children and then smoothing things over gradually by smothering them with love, you are mistaken. Being very warm with a child whom you hit in this manner rarely makes things better. It can actually make matters worse. It can make a child more, not less, anxious.

What our research looked at

This is one of many worrying findings from our research into whether the effects of corporal punishment are alleviated by maternal warmth. We studied over 1,000 children in 11 groups across eight countries, surveying mothers about levels of corporal punishment in the home and asking both mothers and children about childhood anxiety and aggression.

When maternal warmth helps, and when it doesn’t

We had expected to find that hugs and kisses buffered the emotional impact of physical blows. Our study involving children aged 8 to 10 shows that maternal warmth can, indeed, lessen that impact a bit, when the child is exposed to low levels of corporal punishment. Even then, the anxiety and aggression induced in a child by such corporal punishment still remains, albeit at a lower level.

However, our study found that love hardly ever diminished the impact of high levels of corporal punishment. Childhood anxiety is not, in these circumstances, alleviated by an otherwise very warm parent, although in countries with more authoritarian styles of parenting such as Colombia and Kenya, the adverse effects of corporal punishment are less pronounced. Generally, childhood anxiety actually gets worse when parents are very loving alongside using corporal punishment.

“We can only speculate as to why this may be. Perhaps it is simply too confusing and unnerving for a child to be hit hard and loved warmly all in the same home.”

Why warmth and aggression may increase anxiety in children

We can speculate as to why this may be. Perhaps, children irrevocably feel rejected when they are subject to such aggression, however warm the parent may be otherwise. Or, perhaps, it is simply too confusing and unnerving for a child to be hit hard and loved warmly all in the same home. That might explain why we found that children were less anxious when a parent who hit them severely was also cool towards them emotionally.

There is a broader warning from our research. It is that corporal punishment generally, even at a low level, leads to increased anxiety and aggression in children. This impact worsens, the more severe the punishment.

In general, parental love rarely completely repairs the damage, even when physical punishment is relatively slight. This is largely true across a diverse set of nations. That’s why we suggest that clinicians across countries should advise parents against using corporal punishment, even in the context of parent-child relationships that are otherwise warm, and should assist parents in finding other ways to manage children’s behavior.

Cultural differences and authoritarian parenting

There is an important caveat to these findings. Results vary somewhat in countries considered to have authoritarian models of parenting, where it is considered more normal and acceptable for parents to use corporal punishment.

In these countries, corporal punishment still increased childhood anxiety (as well as childhood aggression reported by parents) but not as much as in countries where corporal punishment is less socially acceptable.

Also, children themselves, living amid more authoritarian parenting cultures, did not report that they became more aggressive. These findings support the theory that, in countries that have more authoritarian models of parenting, children may be less likely to interpret harsh punishment as parental rejection.

Changing social norms around physical punishment

It is important, however, when considering this caveat, to remember that contexts around parenting are constantly changing. Since 1979, when Sweden became the first country to outlaw corporal punishment, 69 countries have followed suit.

The number is constantly rising: corporal punishment is becoming socially unacceptable in more and more places across the world. This suggests that authoritarian social norms will diminish over time and so will have less of a moderating influence on the damage done to children by harsh physical punishment.

The link between “mild” punishment, abuse and violence

Some people also try to frame spankings or hitting as ordinary or mild corporal punishment that is very different from physical abuse. However, research literature shows that milder forms of corporal punishment are risk factors for more severe forms of physical abuse. So, milder forms sometimes escalate into something much harsher.

Also, where rates of corporal punishment are high, there are also higher rates for other forms of violence including homicide and domestic violence such as intimate partner abuse. Corporal punishment is part of a larger pattern of societal acceptance of violence. These are some of the reasons why the United Nations has defined any form of corporal punishment as physical abuse.

Parents’ regret and the belief-behaviour gap

We also know that many parents regret using corporal punishment. The proportion of parents who say that it is necessary to use corporal punishment to rear a child properly is smaller than the proportion that say they actually use such punishments, according to research from more than 30 countries.

This highlights a disconnection between beliefs and behaviour. It suggests that, when parents use physical punishment, they do so not because they think it is a good childrearing strategy but perhaps because they are angry and they take those feelings out on the child in the heat of the moment.

What the evidence shows

Perhaps the most compelling lesson from research is that no-one has found evidence that corporal punishment is good for children. And there are also other ways to produce desired effects in children’s behaviours. We should focus our efforts on helping parents to understand and use these alternatives.

The post “I slapped my kid”: Why hitting a child causes damage that may not be alleviated by cuddles and kisses appeared first on Child and Family Blog.