Infancy and the Preschool Years
In infancy and the preschool years amazing
growth occurs in the child’s capacity for self-control
and self-regulation and in the internalization of stan-
dards for behavior. In his important book Emotional
Development, Alan Sroufe noted that there is wide
agreement among developmental psychologists
about the role that a parent or caregiver plays in help-
ing the child achieve self-control and self-regulation.
The parent or caregiver helps the child develop her
own self-regulation by soothing distress, enhancing
alertness, and allowing the child the experience of
self-regulation by sensitively responding to the child’s
signals of need for soothing or increased stimulation.
Children who have experienced chaotic and inconsis-
tent parenting do not have the experience of regula-
tion to guide their own efforts, nor the confidence in
the caregiver (and consequently in themselves) re-
quired for self-regulation. Additionally, children who
have been pushed to independence at too early an
age because the parent is emotionally unavailable or
too strict tend to adopt rigid regulatory strategies,
which they attempt to use on their own. They do not
learn to turn to parents or others to help them with
regulation. Sroufe noted that children whose interac-
tions with their parents have been characterized by
sensitive, responsive care from the parent—as op-
posed to overstimulating, intrusive care—have been
found to be better able to handle frustration, be less
hyperactive, have longer attention spans during the
preschool years, and do better academically and emo-
tionally in the early elementary years. In toddler-
hood, willing compliance with parents is associated
with parent interaction behaviors that are well coordi-
nated with the child’s. Children who have a secure,
trusting relationship with their parents (having expe-
rienced responsive care) show greater self-reliance in
the classroom, and less inclination to fall apart under
stress, a greater curiosity and willingness to make a
strong effort in the face of challenge, and greater flex-
ibility and complexity in their play. Additionally, chil-
dren with secure relationships with their parents have
peer relationships characterized by greater commit-
ment and emotional closeness, and by more positive
emotions such children are also more empathic and
supportive with other children when the partner is in-
jured, distressed, or less able, but are assertive with
aggressive partners.
Middle Childhood
Andrew Collins and his colleagues, in Handbook of
Parenting, noted that in middle childhood (generally
considered to be from ages five to ten), parents and
children spend less time together and that cognitive
changes on the part of children greatly expand their
capacity for solving problems and gaining necessary
information on their own. Other researchers have
found that parental monitoring of their children’s ac-
tivities and whereabouts seems to be particularly im-
portant, as poor monitoring has been linked to
antisocial behavior in middle childhood and adoles-
cence. The effectiveness of monitoring depends on an
attentive, responsive, warm relationship between the
parent and child. Parents are more effective at moni-
toring when children are willing to be monitored and
actively help parents know where they are and what
they are doing. This occurs more often when the rela-
tionship between the parents and child is warm and
close.
Attentive, responsive relationships between par-
ents and their children in middle childhood are asso-
ciated with the development of self-esteem,
competence, and social responsibility in the child.
Children generally perceive parents as sources of sup-
port, and children’s perceptions that there are avail-
able adults with whom they can talk and discuss
problems are correlated positively with prosocial be-
haviors and attitudes such as empathy and under-
standing of others. Parents’ use of explanations that
emphasize the impact of children’s behavior on oth-
ers is associated with helpful, emotionally supportive
relationships toward others. These interchanges that
benefit children occur within the context of involved,
sensitive, and responsive relationships in which par-
ents are willing to instruct and children are willing to
receive the instruction. In contrast, parents’ indiffer-
ent, unresponsive behavior toward children is associ-
ated with antisocial behavior in children. Antisocial
tendencies in children place them at risk for peer re-
jection and school failure during middle childhood
and for later involvement in antisocial behavior as ad-
olescents and young adults.Adolescence
Grayson Holmbeck and his colleagues, also writ-
ing in Handbook of Parenting, noted that the amount
of warmth and responsiveness in the relationship be-
tween parent and child continues to be important in
predicting positive outcomes during the adolescent
years and even into the adult years. Warm and re-
sponsive relationships between adolescents and par-
ents are associated with a variety of positive outcomes,
including self-esteem, identity formation, socially ac-
cepted behavior, better parent-adolescent communi-
cation, less depression and anxiety, and fewer
behavior problems. The challenge during adoles-
cence is that warm, responsive, and involved relation-
ships must be maintained at a time when the
asymmetries in power that characterized earlier par-
ent-child relationships are shifting to more equality.292 PARENT-CHILD RELATIONSHIPS