Poster #99 - The Dynamics Between New Parents’ Sense of Self and Early Parenting Practice

• In Event: 2-163 - Poster Session 08
  In Poster Session: PS 08 Section - Family Context & Processes

Integrative Statement

Parenting plays a key role in child development. Research has showed that appropriate parenting behaviors not only deliver sense of warmth and care to the child immediately but also contribute to positive child outcomes longitudinally. While a rich body of research has discussed the relationships between parenting and child outcomes, less focus has been on how parental factors, such as psychosocial characteristics, can interact with their parenting behaviors. Past research has showed that individuals' positive sense of self, indicating by the sense of self-worth and the sense of controllability, plays an essential role in psychosocial development and in behavioral performance, especially in school and workplace (Baumeister, Campbell, Krueger, & Vohs, 2003; Kuster, Orth, & Meier, 2013). The relationship between sense of self and early parenting, nevertheless, has not yet been fully examined using longitudinal follow-up data. In addition, while parenting behaviors evolve as the child grows older, less discussion has been focused on the interrelationship between parenting experiences and the development of parents' sense of self over time. The present study aims to capture the dynamics between parents' sense of self and parenting behaviors in the first 6 years of the children's lives using longitudinal follow-up data from new parents in the United States (n=341). Parents’ sense of self is represented by self-esteem and sense of mastery measures and their parenting behaviors are measured by the frequency of reading stories, spanking, praising, and showing physical affection. Data were re-arranged into 2 intervals of time each for when the child is aged 0-3 (T1) and when the child is aged 3-6 (T2) years old. The cross-lagged modeling technique is employed to examine (a) whether parents with high sense of self after childbirth (T1) would demonstrate better parenting behaviors in the subsequent years (T2); and (b) whether parents’ early engagement in parenting behaviors (T1) associates with changes in parents’ sense of self in the subsequent years (T2). To examined the above research questions, new parents’ background characteristics (gender, race, and birth cohort), characteristics at childbirth (age at childbirth, union status, level of education, and employment status), and their depressive symptoms at T1 and T2 were included in the analysis to control for the potential confounding effects. The results showed that parents with high sense of mastery at T1 tend to read stories to their children more often and to use spanking less frequently at T2. In contrast, parents with high self-esteem in T1 were associated with less frequent story reading and more spanking in T2 (Figure 1, 2). Parents’ sense of self at T1, however, did not correlate significantly with the frequencies of praising and showing physical affection at T2. Furthermore, early parenting experiences did not associate with changes in parents’ sense of self later on. The results underscore the role of new parents’ psychosocial characteristics in shaping early parenting practices and provide insights into the design and implementation of parenting programs to strengthen individual and family development.

Authors

• Eva Yi-Ju Chen, University of Northern Iowa
  Presenting Author

• Eli Yi-Liang Tung, Department of Analytics and Operations, National University of Singapore
  Non-Presenting Author