Poster #63 - Maternal Loneliness During COVID-19 Mediates the Relationship Between Social Support & Intrusive Parenting Towards Infants

• In Event: Poster Session 13

Abstract

Background:
Parental sensitivity is a parenting approach that is accepting of infant’s desires and autonomous exploration during play (Ainsworth, Bell, & Stayton, 1974). Sensitive parenting fosters the development of the infant’s self-regulatory skills (Dollberg, Feldman, & Keren, 2010) and resiliency against externalizing problems (Weaver & Schofield, 2015). On the other hand, Parental Intrusiveness is a parenting approach that is not supportive of the infant’s independent explorations, nor does it result in interactions that are infant-focused (Bernier, Carlson, & Whipple, 2010). Intrusive parenting is associated with risk to the the infant’s sense of autonomy, independent problem solving, and ability to self-regulate (Grolnick, 2002). In this study, we sought to explore the relationship between parental loneliness during the COVID-19 pandemic and parental sensitivity and intrusiveness. We also sought to identify a pathway by which mother’s perceived social support influences their feelings of loneliness during the COVID-19 pandemic and may potentially impact their behavior towards their infants.
Method:
43 mother-infant dyads (19 male, 24 female) aged 12- to 24-months (M = 17.37, SD = 3.58) were recruited from Palm Beach County, FL via social media advertisements to participate in an online freeplay interaction on Zoom. Mothers responded to survey questions about perceived social support from their loved ones and loneliness. The CIB scale (Feldman, 1998) was used to code parental sensitivity and intrusiveness from the recorded four-minute interactions.
Analyses:
Pearson’s correlations were conducted to analyze the relationship between parental loneliness and parental sensitivity and intrusiveness. Overall perceived social support and loneliness were entered into mediation regression analyses as predictors for parental sensitivity and intrusiveness.
Results:
Results from the Pearson’s correlations demonstrated that parental loneliness is significantly and negatively associated with parental sensitivity (r(41) = -.369, p = .015) and significantly and positively associated with parental intrusiveness (r(41) = .467, p = .002). Results from the mediation analyses demonstrated that overall perceived social support and parental loneliness combined are significant predictors of parental intrusiveness (R2 = .280, F(2, 40) = 7.773, p = .001), and loneliness (B = 0.018, p = .016) mediates the impact of overall perceived social support (B = -0.106, p = .072) on parental intrusiveness.
Conclusion
The results suggest that parental loneliness has an adverse impact on mother-infant relationships, characterized by low levels of sensitivity and high levels of intrusiveness towards the infant. Additionally, mothers that perceive they receive little social support from their loved ones are at risk for experiencing high levels of loneliness, and in turn, behaving more intrusively towards their infants. The findings of this study hold value for interventions that seek to promote positive parenting behaviors and reduce risk for social-emotional developmental outcomes. These results also hold important implications about the increased feelings of loneliness reported by parents during the COVID-19 pandemic (Hart & Han, 2021) and their negative impact on parenting behaviors towards infants.

Authors

• Lindsey Riera-Gomez, Florida Atlantic University
  Presenting Author

• Jacqueline Marie Stotler, Florida Atlantic University

• Hila Gvirts, Ariel University

• Teresa Wilcox, Florida Atlantic University