Impact of Parental Personality on Crying Child Behavior and Their Future Mental Health

Abstract

Background: Crying is an important means of communication for babies. It plays a crucial role in ensuring the survival, health and development of the child. Whether infants cry intensely for a few months or fuss frequently for the first year of life, a systems approach to development would suggest that the impact of extremes in crying on the infant’s immediate environment may have negative consequences for the dynamics of the parent-child relationship, which in turn would have implications for the child’s psychosocial development. Parents have important roles in child rearing, but the influence of their personality on rearing practices and their impact on the behavior of children has received surprisingly little attention. The aim of the current study was to investigate the relationship between parent’s personality and child crying behavior and future mental health. Methods: Study examined personality dimension of 300 parents of normal and psychiatrically ill male and female subjects selected purposively between 20-25 years age group. A question was asked to all the parents of the subjects, “What was the behavior of the subject during two years from the birth? Was he or she used to ‘cry’ often or not? The study was conducted on the parents of diagnosed 75 indoor and outdoor psychiatric patients and 75 normal controls. GHQ-12 negative subjects from the community formed the normal group. Dimension Personality Inventory (DPI) was administered on all parents of included subjects. Result: Significant difference was found in all the dimensions of DPI between ‘crying’ and ‘non crying’ child’s parents. Conclusion: The maturity of parent’s character appears to have a key role in reducing the risk of behavior problems in their children. Suggestions are made for parental education and future research.