Parenting is tough — but two powerful emotions make it deeply rewarding.
Along with intelligence, certain parenting strategies are linked to less aggression, disobedience and restlessness.
Along with intelligence, certain parenting strategies are linked to less aggression, disobedience and restlessness.
Children whose parents are ‘chatterboxes’ tend to have higher IQs.
Children hearing more speech from their caregivers had better reasoning and numeracy skills, the observational study found.
Some children in the study heard twice as many words as others.
Perhaps less surprisingly, children who heard higher quality speech from their parents, using a more diverse vocabulary, knew more words themselves.
For the study, tiny audio recorders were fitted to 107 children aged between 2 and 4.
They were recorded for 16 hours a day for three days at home.
Ms Katrina d’Apice, the study’s first author, explained the results:
“Using the audio recorders allowed us to study real-life interactions between young children and their families in an unobtrusive way within the home environment rather than a lab setting.
We found that the quantity of adult spoken words that children hear is positively associated with their cognitive ability.
However, further research is needed to explore the reasons behind this link — it could be that greater exposure to language provides more learning opportunities for children, but it could also be the case that more intelligent children evoke more words from adults in their environment.”
While parental talk was linked to children’s cognitive abilities, their parenting strategy was linked to their behaviour.
Specifically, positive parenting was linked to less aggression, disobedience and restlessness.
Positive parenting involves responding to children in positive ways and encouraging them to explore the world.
Professor Sophie von Stumm, study co-author, said:
“This study is the largest naturalistic observation of early life home environments to date.
We found that the quantity of adult spoken words that children were exposed to varied greatly within families.
Some kids heard twice as many words on one day as they did on the next.
The study highlights the importance of treating early life experiences as dynamic and changeable rather than static entities — approaching research in this way will help us to understand the interplay between environmental experiences and children’s differences in development.”
The study was published in the journal Developmental Psychology (d’Apice et al., 2019).
How well-meaning parents are accidentally damaging their children’s mental health with these common mistakes.
How parents raise maladjusted children.
How parents raise maladjusted children.
‘Helicopter parents’ who hover over their child, trying to do everything for them, raise maladjusted children.Children need space to learn and grow themselves without over-controlling parents trying to take over at the slightest hitch.The psychologists found that children who experience helicopter parenting find it harder to manage their own emotions and behaviour.Dr Nicole B. Perry, the study’s first author, said:“Our research showed that children with helicopter parents may be less able to deal with the challenging demands of growing up, especially with navigating the complex school environment.Children who cannot regulate their emotions and behavior effectively are more likely to act out in the classroom, to have a harder time making friends and to struggle in school.”The study followed 422 children over 8 years, assessing them at ages 2, 5 and 10.Dr Perry explained what they saw with some parents:
“Helicopter parenting behavior we saw included parents constantly guiding their child by telling him or her what to play with, how to play with a toy, how to clean up after playtime and being too strict or demanding.The kids reacted in a variety of ways.Some became defiant, others were apathetic and some showed frustration.”The results showed that helicopter parenting at age 2 was linked to an inability to control emotions and behaviour later on.Dr Perry said:
“Children who developed the ability to effectively calm themselves during distressing situations and to conduct themselves appropriately had an easier time adjusting to the increasingly difficult demands of preadolescent school environments.Our findings underscore the importance of educating often well-intentioned parents about supporting children’s autonomy with handling emotional challenges.”Parents can help their children by explaining how to understand their thoughts and feelings.Setting a good example is also important, said Dr Perry:
“Parents can also set good examples for their children by using positive coping strategies to manage their own emotions and behavior when upset.”
The right methods can help boost children’s IQ.
The right methods can help boost children’s IQ.
Parents can boost their children’s IQ, psychological research finds, as long as they use tried and tested methods.
After examining almost every available intervention, Dr John Protzko and colleagues found that just four had a real chance of working:
The results come from a meta-analysis, a type of study that collects together the results of many other studies.
In doing so, the researchers created a “Database of Raising Intelligence”.
Dr John Protzko, the study’s first author, explained:
“Our aim in creating this database is to learn what works and what doesn’t work to raise people’s intelligence.
For too long, findings have been disconnected and scattered throughout a wide variety of journals.
The broad consensus about what works is founded on only two or three very high-profile studies.”
Supplementation with long-chain polyunsaturated fatty acids, like those in foods rich in omega-3, was linked to an IQ boost of 3.5 points, on average.
Preschools were linked to an increase of 7 IQ points.
They may boost IQ by providing the child with a cognitively stimulating environment.
In addition, it could be the extra exposure to language that provides the boost.
Dr Protzko said:
“Our current findings strengthen earlier conclusions that complex environments build intelligence, but do cast doubt on others, including evidence that earlier interventions are always most effective.
Overall, identifying the link between essential fatty acids and intelligence gives rise to tantalizing new questions for future research and we look forward to exploring this finding.”
Teaching parents how to read interactively with their children was linked to a 6 point IQ increase.
This is likely from the boost to language development.
The study was published in the journal Perspectives on Psychological Science (Protzko et al., 2013).
There is a strong link between paternal depression and child behaviour problems five years later.
This parenting technique makes children more manipulative and selfish.
While there are many causes of childhood obesity that are outside parent’s control, this behaviour is one area they can address.
While there are many causes of childhood obesity that are outside parent’s control, this behaviour is one area they can address.
Positive parenting can help reduce childhood obesity.
Positive parenting involves responding to children in positive ways and encouraging them to explore the world.
Parenting in this way is about empathy, warmth and support.
While there are many causes of childhood obesity that are outside parent’s control, positive parenting is one area they can address.
Dr Brandi Rollins, the study’s first author, said:
“A lot of the discussion around childhood obesity and other health risks focuses on identifying and studying the exposure to risk.
We took a strength-based approach in our analysis.
We found that a supportive family and environment early in a child’s life may outweigh some of the cumulative risk factors that children can face.”
Their study included over 1,000 mother-and-child pairs.
The results showed that emotional warmth, a quality home environment and self-regulation abilities of the child were all linked to a lower risk of obesity.
Dr Rollins said:
“Research on parenting has shown that these types of family assets influence children’s behaviour, academic success, career, and — not surprisingly — health.
It is significant that these factors also protect against childhood obesity because the family assets we studied are not food or diet-specific at all.
It is heartening to know that, by providing a loving, safe environment, we can reduce the risk that children will develop obesity.”
Unfortunately, the results also showed that for severely obese children who were overweight from a very young age, positive parenting had little effect.
Dr Rollins said:
“Though the findings on severe obesity may seem discouraging, they offer some hope.
Some risk factors, like household poverty, can be very difficult to change.
Assets, on the other hand, may be easier to build.
People can learn to parent responsively.
It is encouraging that parenting really matters, that family matters.”
One of the keys to positive parenting is being responsive: attending to the child’s needs in a sensitive and timely manner.
Positive parenting involves reassuring and encouraging children as well as giving affection.
Common positive parenting skills include praising good behaviour and using gentle reminders of proper behaviour.
Children who are better able to inhibit their own behaviour respond even more favourably to positive parenting.
These kinds of skills take practice, said Dr Rollins:
“No one can read a pamphlet about cars and suddenly expect to drive.
Driving is a skill that requires education and practice.
The same is true of responsive parenting.
The study was published in the journal Pediatrics (Rollins et al., 2022).
What if your baby brain held onto memories, but you just can’t retrieve them?
Shy children are particularly vulnerable, the study found.
Shy children are particularly vulnerable, the study found.
Children who experience everyday conflict between their parents have problems processing emotions.
These problems can cause anxiety and over-vigilance, leading them to see conflict even when an interaction is neutral.
Shy children are particularly vulnerable, the study also found.
Maltreatment and neglect have been shown to alter how children process emotions.
But this study shows a lower level of adversity can have a negative effect.
Dr Alice Schermerhorn, the study’s author, said:
“The message is clear: even low-level adversity like parental conflict isn’t good for kids.”
For the study, 99 children aged 9-11 were divided into two groups based on how much parental conflict they witnessed.
All were shown pictures of couples engaged in happy, angry or neutral interactions.
Those from high-conflict homes were more likely to see the neutral interactions as either happy or angry — they didn’t seem to know into which category they fitted.
Dr Schermerhorn said:
“If their perception of conflict and threat leads children to be vigilant for signs of trouble, that could lead them to interpret neutral expressions as angry ones or may simply present greater processing challenges.”
Alternatively, Dr Schermerhorn said:
“They may be more tuned into angry interactions, which could be a cue for them to retreat to their room, or happy ones, which could signal that their parents are available to them.
Neutral interactions don’t offer much information, so they may not value them or learn to recognize them.”
Parents of shy children found it hard to identify the neutral picture, Dr Schermerhorn explained:
“Parents of shy children need to be especially thoughtful about how they express conflict.”
Low levels of adversity in the home can have significant effects on children, Dr Schermerhorn said:
“One the one hand, being over-vigilant and anxious can be destabilizing in many different ways.
On the other, correctly reading neutral interactions may not be important for children who live in high conflict homes, but that gap in their perceptual inventory could be damaging in subsequent experiences with, for example, teachers, peers, and partners in romantic relationships.
No one can eliminate conflict altogether, but helping children get the message that, even when they argue, parents care about each other and can work things out is important.”
The study was published in the Journal of Social and Personal Relationships (Schermerhorn, 2018).
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