Parent Responses to Difficult Child Behavior During Mealtime

• In Event: 3-231 - The Role of Emotion in Early Childhood Eating Behaviors

Integrative Statement

Introduction: Parent food-related behaviors are associated with children’s weight and dietary intake. Such behaviors can be controlling, parent-centered, e.g., pressure to eat and restriction; or non-directive, child-centered behaviors focused on reasoning and encouragement (Vaughn et al., 2016). These categories are associated with one another (Vereecken et al., 2010), indicating that they are not mutually exclusive. Instead, parent food-related behaviors may be sensitive to circumstance, although this has not been widely examined. A recent study found that momentary stress was associated with use of parent-centered food-related behaviors (Berge et al., 2017). Children’s difficult behavior can add to parental stress during mealtimes, e.g., playing with food and being distracted. However, little is known about how children’s mealtime behavior influences parents’ food-related behavior. Understanding factors that drive parents’ use of parent-centered versus child-centered food-related behaviors is important given associations with children’s dietary behaviors (Vereecken et al., 2010). There is also evidence that these behaviors are associated with general parenting (Vereecken et al., 2008) and may be influenced by children’s gender and weight (Kuhl et al., 2012). The current study explores differences in the use of parent- and child-centered behaviors in response to children’s difficult behaviors during videotaped mealtimes.

Hypotheses: We hypothesized that responses would be associated with general parenting and child characteristics. Mothers and preschool-aged children (N=60) had a mealtime videotaped at home.

Methods: Mothers completed the Parent Dimensions Inventory-Short (PDI-S; Power, 2002) and a researcher collected children’s height and weight. Instances of children’s distracted eating and playing with food, and parent food-related behaviors (parent-centered: physical manipulation of the child, feeding child, verbal directives/demands, and bargaining; child-centered: offering food, statements about food/other, assist with eating) were coded. Parent behaviors that followed a child behavior within 5 seconds were considered responses. Percentage of responses was calculated by dividing the response sums in each category (parent-centered, child-centered) by total mealtime occurrences of parent behaviors within each category. The PDI-S “nurturance” and “inconsistency” subscales were calculated (αs = .75, .65) and children’s BMI was determined using Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) growth charts for age and gender. Children were categorized into normal (5 to 85%), overweight (85 to 95%), and obese (> 95%).

Results: Bivariate correlations revealed that nurturance scores were significantly negatively associated with the percentage of parent-centered responses used (r = -.433, p<.05), but inconsistency was not related to either type of response pattern. Independent samples t-tests revealed a significant difference (t(42)=-2.28, p<.001) in child-centered responses with children who were overweight/obese (M=.807, SD=1.25) and not (M=.291, SD=.257). There were no differences by child gender.

Conclusions: The findings suggest that children’s behavior influences parent food-related behaviors. When faced with difficult child behaviors, parents who use more parent-centered behaviors to respond tend to be less nurturing overall, indicating that underlying parenting dynamics may be activated when mealtimes are stressful. Parents also used more child-centered behaviors in response to children who are overweight. Further analysis of the parent responses in these situations is warranted to understand this pattern.

Authors

• Lenna L. Ontai, University of California, Davis
  Presenting Author

• Carolyn Sutter, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign
  Non-Presenting Author

• Stephanie Lynn Sitnick, Caldwell University
  Non-Presenting Author

• Mical Shilts, California State University
  Non-Presenting Author

• Marilyn Townsend, University of California, Davis
  Non-Presenting Author