Abstract
People enter into parental roles with a range of different motivations for parenting. To date, however, there is limited research assessing maternal motivations, concerns, and anxieties in their parenting styles. While some mothers are confident and child focused, others have concerns with performing parenting behaviors, and can be self-focused, shame prone, and self-judgmental. Two studies explored these two dimensions in relation to degree of controlling and facilitative parenting styles in the mothers of 3–9-year-old children. In study one, 151 mothers took part in an online survey measuring these two dimensions using the compassionate goals and self-image goals scales (Crocker and Canevello, 2008), in relation to facilitative and controlling parenting styles. As predicted, after controlling for child behavior, parental mental health, and parental self-efficacy, self-focused and shame avoidant concerns were associated with greater psychologically controlling parenting. In contrast a compassionate focused orientation was associated with greater facilitative parenting. In study two, 198 mothers were randomly assigned to either compassion focused goals, self-image goals, or control condition, which was manipulated by varying the instructions provided to participants. Emotional responses (e.g., angry, sad, and shame) to difficult parenting scenarios did not differ depending on whether participants were prompted with compassionate goal, self-image goal, or control condition instructions. The findings from study 1 demonstrate how goal motivation can influence parenting style, with the results from study 2 suggesting that instruction alone is insufficient to shift goal orientation.
Highlights
Parenting style is linked to a range of maturational processes in the child including: on epigenetics (Cowan et al, 2016), brain development (Belsky and de Haan, 2011), attachment (Mikulincer and Shaver, 2016), emotional responding (Eisenberg et al, 1991), self-control (Cecil et al, 2012), and social and communicative competence (Hart et al, 2003)
We explored whether self-image goals would explain variance in facilitative parenting, and whether compassionate goals would explain variance in psychological control, over and above child behavior, parental mental health, and self-efficacy
Missing Data Analyses were conducted to determine the pattern of missing data among key variables (SDQ, Depression and Anxiety Stress Scale-21 (DASS-21), parenting sense of competence scale (PSOC)-Efficacy subscale, compassionate and self-image goals subscales, parental psychological control measure (PPC), and the Facilitative Parenting Scale (FPS))
Summary
Parenting style is linked to a range of maturational processes in the child including: on epigenetics (Cowan et al, 2016), brain development (Belsky and de Haan, 2011), attachment (Mikulincer and Shaver, 2016), emotional responding (Eisenberg et al, 1991), self-control (Cecil et al, 2012), and social and communicative competence (Hart et al, 2003). A number of factors influence parenting including, the ecological and social environment (e.g., poverty) (Perkins et al, 2013); stress (Anthony et al, 2005); mental health (Rodgers, 1998); parental knowledge and competency (Sanders and Mazzucchelli, 2018); self-efficacy (Sanders and Woolley, 2005), and the nature, Compassionate Motivation in Parenting disruptiveness and severity of child behavior problems (Jackson, 2000). There are a number of different motives underpinning maternal parental styles including: authoritarian versus authoritative (Robinson et al, 1995); facilitative, which is work around and with the child’s needs, in contrast to regulating, which seeks to enable the child to fit into routines and structures of the family and parent (Raphael-Leff, 1986). One crucial dimension to parental motives and concern is the degree to which parents feel confident in their parental role in contrast to uncertain, self judgmental, shame prone, and shame avoidant
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