Abstract
Determinants of parenting are most often considered using one child per family within a cross-sectional design. In 182 families, the current study included two siblings and sought to predict maternal harsh parenting measured prospectively when each child was age 2 years from child gender, infant temperament, maternal age, maternal educational attainment, maternal depression and anxiety and maternal perceptions of partner support. Multilevel modeling was used to examine between- and within-family variance simultaneously. Mothers reported levels of harsh parenting that were similar towards both children (intraclass correlation = 0.69). Thus, the majority of variance in maternal perceptions of their harsh parenting resided between rather than within families and was accounted for in part by maternal age and maternal perceptions of partner support. Results are discussed in relation to family-wide determinants of harsh parenting, previous literature pertaining to parenting siblings and the potential avenues for future research and practice.
Highlights
Model 1 yielded the intraclass correlation (ICC), calculated as the between-family variance divided by the total variance, representing sibling similarity in parental
Using a population-based sampling frame in the UK, we found that younger maternal age and maternal perceptions of less partner support predicted maternal harsh parenting over and above child gender and temperament, maternal internalizing symptoms and maternal educational attainment
The prospective nature of Avon Longitudinal Study of Parents and Children (ALSPAC) data allows us to add to this literature by examining family processes as each child in turn is two-years old rather than a cross-sectional snapshot of the family when the children are at different chronological ages and developmental stages
Summary
Empirical studies suggest that infants with “easier” temperaments, that is those who are sociable, adaptable, and easy-to-sooth, are more likely to experience responsive and warm parenting, whereas more “difficult” temperaments such as high impulsivity and low effortful control are consistently linked with parenting stress and parental harshness (Kiff et al, 2011; Oddi et al, 2013) In this context, child gender may be important, as demonstrated using observational measures in a case-control subsample of the Avon Longitudinal Study of Parents and Children (ALSPAC), where boys at 12-months were shown to receive more negative and fewer positive parenting interactions than were girls (Thomson et al, 2014).
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