Parenting Strengths: An Exploratory Examination of Low-Income Caregivers' Strategies for Promoting Young Children's Self-Regulatory Competencies

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Abstract

Supportive parenting, in relation to developmental outcomes and school readiness, has traditionally been understood through the work of Baumrind (1973), who emphasizes the importance of responsiveness in children’s development, cognitive competencies, and academic achievement. Baumrind’s seminal work (1967, 1971) provided evidence that certain parenting techniques—specifically inductive discipline, less punitive disciplinary practices,warmth, acceptance, and consistency—yielded positive developmental outcomes. In examining the role of the caregiver, however, much research has disproportionately highlighted deficits in low-income parents’ caregiving, suggesting that
parents living in poverty may fail to provide the supportive parenting necessary for children’s strong regulatory skills (Blair 2010; Blair& Raver, 2015;Evans& Kim, 2013).
Yet while children in poverty are more likely to experience toxic stress, neglect, and exposure to violence, which may disrupt healthy social- emotional and cognitive development underlying self-regulation (Phillips &Shonkoff, 2000), many low-income parents engage with children in ways that buffer against the concomitant challenges associated with living in poverty (McLoyd et al., 2005). Fewer studies have examined lowincome parents’ strengths in supporting their children’s early regulation. Moreover,even fewer studies have examined such strengths among low-income parents of children ages zero to three.
The current study will fill these gaps by exploring the strengths of parents in promoting and cultivating self-regulatory competencies in their infants, toddlers and
preschool aged children. The primary goal of the study is to identify the culturally and
contextually grounded practices and messages that low-income parents of young children
identify as helpful to the development of the child’s regulatory skills the midst of the structural and social risks of poverty. The second goal of this research is to understand how teachers also conceptualize self-regulation and the ways that their practices in kindergarten classrooms may support or work against parents’ strengths and efforts to
promote these regulatory skills.

Author

• Erin D Bogan, The University of Pennsylvania