Parents' responses to children's ingratitude are associated with children's gratitude and internalizing 3 years later.

Abstract

The current study is the first to examine how parents respond to children's ingratitude and how such responses impact children's later gratitude and internalizing symptoms. We focused on parental responses in families with children aged 6-9 years when gratitude may be actively forming as part of socioemotional learning and other-oriented behavior. Parent-child dyads (n = 101; 52% female; 81% European American, 9% Asian/Asian American, 5% African American, 4% Latino) completed lab-based assessments at baseline and 3 years later. Results indicate that we can reliably assess and differentiate six parental responses to children's ingratitude (i.e., parental self-blame, distress, punishment, instruction, let-it-be, and give-in) using a novel scenario-based measure. Moreover, parents of older children reported more self-blame, distress, and let-it-be responses than those of younger children. More frequent distress and less frequent punishing and giving-in responses to ingratitude by parents predicted greater parent-reported child gratitude at follow-up whereas more frequent distress and less instruction and giving-in responses predicted greater child-reported gratitude at follow-up. Punishing responses also predicted greater later internalizing symptoms in children, whereas self-blame and distress responses predicted lower subsequent symptoms. Collectively, findings showed that parental responses to children's ingratitude predicted child gratitude and internalizing symptoms 3 years later, even after controlling for other factors comprising the parent ecology. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved).