Parenting and Parents’ Mental Healththeir father’s mental health makes little difference. If par-
ents are involved, this improves their children’s behavior. By
contrast aggressive behavior by mothers is associated with
bad behavior from the children. Causality here must surely
be in both directions, but clearly bad behavior by mothers
can produce bad behavior by children.
Parents and Intellectual Development
When we turn to the cognitive development of children, we
expect to find that parental involvement makes a large dif-
ference. In net terms (cet. par.) there is a substantial effect at
age five (see Table 12.3). This is consistent with arguments
for early intervention especially when it comes to the intel-
lectual development of children.^20
In gross terms there is of course a stronger relationship
between involvement and intellectual development. This is
Table 12.2. How parents affect the behavior of their children
(ALSPAC) (β- coefficients)Effect on behavior at16 11 5Mother’s mental
health
0.17 (.02) 0.17 (.02) 0.18 (.01)Father’s mental health −0.01 (.02) 0.01 (.02) 0.02 (.01)
Mother’s involvement
(to age 6)
0.05 (.02) 0.10 (.02) 0.12 (.01)Mother’s aggression
(to age 6)
−0.12 (.02) −0.15 (.01) −0.20 (.01)