Category: Child Psychology

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.”

Learning positive parenting

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).

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).

The behaviours were linked to adult occupational success and earning more 50 years later.

Being interested in school, being a responsible student and having good reading and writing skills all predict people’s occupational success decades later.

Even 50 years after someone had left high school, these factors still predicted if people had a more prestigious job or not.

Being a good student also predicted how much money people earned 50 years later.

Dr Marion Spengler, who led the research, said:

“Educational researchers, political scientists and economists are increasingly interested in the traits and skills that parents, teachers and schools should foster in children to enhance chances of success later in life.

Our research found that specific behaviors in high school have long-lasting effects for one’s later life.”

The study used data from 346,660 U.S. high school students first collected in 1960.

In addition, 81,912 of them were followed up 11 years later and 1,952 up 50 years later.

The researchers took into account all sorts of other factors like IQ, personality traits and the family’s socioeconomic status.

Dr Spengler said:

“Student characteristics and behaviors were rewarded in high school and led to higher educational attainment, which in turn was related to greater occupational prestige and income later in life

This study highlights the possibility that certain behaviors at crucial periods could have long-term consequences for a person’s life.”

The study was published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology (Spengler et al., 2018).

Study shows kids love their pets more than their siblings.

Children are more satisfied with relationships with their pets than their siblings.

Children also seem to get on better with their pets than their siblings.

The research helps to underline the importance of pets for children

Mr Matt Cassells, the study’s first author, said:

”Anyone who has loved a childhood pet knows that we turn to them for companionship and disclosure, just like relationships between people.

We wanted to know how strong these relationships are with pets relative to other close family ties.

Ultimately this may enable us to understand how animals contribute to healthy child development”

The researchers surveyed 12-year-olds from 77 families.

Mr Cassells continued:

‘‘Even though pets may not fully understand or respond verbally, the level of disclosure to pets was no less than to siblings.

The fact that pets cannot understand or talk back may even be a benefit as it means they are completely non-judgmental.

While previous research has often found that boys report stronger relationships with their pets than girls do, we actually found the opposite.

While boys and girls were equally satisfied with their pets, girls reported more disclosure, companionship, and conflict with their pet than did boys, perhaps indicating that girls may interact with their pets in more nuanced ways.’’

Dr Nancy Gee, a study co-author, said:

“Evidence continues to grow showing that pets have positive benefits on human health and community cohesion.

The social support that adolescents receive from pets may well support psychological well-being later in life but there is still more to learn about the long term impact of pets on children’s development.”

The study was published in the Journal of Applied Developmental Psychology (Cassells et al., 2017).