Chapter 12- Involvement. The parent needs to engage with the
child: in conversation, in play, in activities of all
kinds, and with their life at school.
The first of these three items is especially important for the
child’s emotional health, the second for behavior, and the
third for intellectual development. ALSPAC provides good
evidence on the third of these, and less good evidence on
the first two.
In ALSPAC, involvement is measured by a weighted av-
erage of the mother’s frequency of conversation with the
child, singing to the child, reading to the child, drawing/
painting with the child, helping with homework, and pre-
paring for school.^17 This is measured at 6 months and at
ages 1, 2, 4, 5, 6, and 7. It is therefore a measure only of early
involvement.
On the first two dimensions of good parenting we have
evidence only on the degree of the parent’s aggression to the
child: the average of the frequency with which the mother
shouts or smacks when the child has a tantrum.^18
As Table 12.1 shows, the child’s emotional health is
affected by the mother’s involvement with the child, es-
pecially when the child is young.^19 However the effect is
smaller than is sometimes supposed. As regards parental ag-
gression, this is unsurprisingly bad for a child’s emotional
health.
Parents and the Behavior of Their Children
Turning to the behavior of children (see Table 12.2), this
too is highly influenced by their mother’s mental health;