Poster #30 - Parental Caregiving Quality, Child Temperament, and Parental Use of Food to Soothe Preschoolers’ Distress

• In Event: Poster Session 11

Abstract

Parental use of food to soothe (FTS) is defined as feeding in response to child distress that is unrelated to hunger (Stifter & Moding, 2015). Previous literature suggests that FTS is associated with increased weight gain in infancy and childhood (Stifter et al., 2011), and may relate to both parent and child characteristics. While children’s temperamental negativity has been consistently associated with the use of FTS (Stifter & Moding, 2019), less is known about parent predictors of FTS, especially in childhood. One potentially relevant parental characteristic is sensitivity, which includes parents’ structure, routine, and emotional responses to their child’s needs (Boom, 1994); however, sensitivity has not been extensively examined in relation to FTS. Thus, the aims of the present study are two-fold: 1) to examine whether maternal sensitivity is associated with the use of FTS, and 2) to explore whether the association between maternal sensitivity and FTS is moderated by child temperamental negativity.
Caregiver-child dyads (n=104, 47% female children) completed lab visits when their child was 4.5 years of age (M= 4.54±0.09). Mother’s mean age was 35 years; mean maternal education was 15 years. Family annual income was higher than U$60,000 for 62.1% of participating families. Maternal sensitivity during the lab visit was assessed with the Maternal Behavior for Preschoolers Q-set (adapted from Posada & Waters, 2018) and Spearman-Brown inter-observer reliability indices ranged from .60-.94. Prior to the lab visit, caregivers completed questionnaires. Maternal use of FTS was assessed by questions from the Child’s Basic Needs Questionnaire (adapted from Stifter et al., 2011). The child negative affectivity superfactor of the Child Behavior Questionnaire (CBQ; Rothbart et al., 2001) was created by averaging responses to 5 subscales: discomfort, sadness, fear, anger/frustration, and (inverse) soothability.
Regression analyses tested the associations between maternal sensitivity, child negativity, and maternal use of food to soothe (Table 1). The model predicting FTS was significant (R2=44, F=7.7, p=.000), with significant main effects of both sensitivity (β=-6.03, SE=1.70, p=.00) and negativity (β=.61, SE=.27, p=.03). The interaction between maternal sensitivity and child negativity was also significant (β=10.63, SE=.32, p<0.01), and was further probed by testing the simple slopes of sensitivity one SD above and below the mean of child negativity. Follow-up tests revealed that for children with low negativity, lower levels of maternal sensitivity were associated with higher FTS (β=-1.64, SE=.79, p=.04) and higher levels of maternal sensitivity were associated with lower FTS. The slope of the line for high negativity was not significantly different from zero.
Mothers with higher sensitivity scores were more likely to correctly interpret the reason for their child’s distress, especially when they were low in temperamental negativity; this resulted in less frequently using food to soothe. Findings will be discussed in light of the maternal sensitivity – maternal use of food to soothe hypothesis and the moderating effect of child temperamental negativity.

Authors

• Geurim Kim, Purdue University, West Lafayette
  Presenting Author

• Elizabeth Irene Kielb, Purdue University, West Lafayette

• German E Posada, Purdue University, West Lafayette

• Kameron Moding, Purdue University, West Lafayette