Parenting Anne Bautch Maren Hankey Chris Vacek

I might want to have children because...

Parenting Styles  Refers to how parents interact with and respond to their children  Expectations placed on children by parents  Important predictor of a child’s development  Form of environmental variability  Parental cognition  Influences parenting style  Parental cognition  Influences parenting style

Four Styles of Parenting  Authoritative: Reasonable discussion between parents and children about expectations  Authoritarian: Parents are directive but not responsive  Indulgent: Parents are more responsive than they are demanding  Uninvolved: Parents are not responsive or demanding

Topics  Gender and parenting  Adoption  Cross-cultural differences

Gender and Parenting Does gender play an important role in parenting style and child development? If so, is the gender of the parent or the child more significant?

Theories on Parental Behavior  Theories take a gender-based approach to parenting  Gender Congruence Theory (GCT):  Mothers: care givers  Fathers: breadwinners  Social Mediation Theory (SMT):  Role level (“I am a parent”)  Domain level (How one acts in their role) “Identity Conditions”

What is Gender?  Gender identity is defined as a person’s identification as a male or a female  Usually formed by age three  Gender identity affected by:  Biological Factors (genetic predispositions)  Social Factors (including parenting style)

Expression of Gender Identity Socialization through gender-specific colors and toys Self expressed identification with a specific gender: “I am male” or “I am female”

Prosocial Behavior  Prosocial behavior and gender identity  Positive actions that promote friendship and acceptance with others  Females and males are “nice” to each other in different ways  Females: generally more prosocial  Males: generally more engaged and assertive

Prosocial Behavior and Parental Socialization  Mothers contribute most strongly to the prosocial behavior of their children  Encouragement of sex-typed behaviors  Fathers encourage such behaviors more than mothers  This implies that sex differences in prosocial behavior may be developmental, not just biological

Maternal Parenting Traits  Physical dependence of newborns on their mothers  Direct care for infants  Clear biological connection between mother and child  Questions of paternity

Paternal Parenting Traits  Reinforcement of social norms and sex-typed behavior  More direct responses to the prosocial behavior of sons than daughters  Belief that daughters need more protection than sons  Expression of less affection toward sons than daughters

An Evolutionary Approach to Adoption

Cost/Reward Approach  The rewards of reproduction must outweigh the costs in order for it to be practical  Biological aspect  Distribution of resources among children  Importance of relatedness

Evolutionary Approach to Adopted Children  Less genetic relatedness than with biological children   Strain on resources otherwise used to improve the reproductive likelihood of biological offspring

Step-parenting  Demonstration of increased attachment to biological children  Less emphasis on increased fitness and survival for children lacking biological relatedness  Example of Preferential Treatment Example of Preferential Treatment Example of Preferential Treatment

American Attitudes  Social stigmas concerning adoption  Children come from less optimal hereditary backgrounds  Children have questionable mental health  Adoptive parents violate the American norm of the nuclear family  Adoption is driven by illegitimacy and infertility

Adoption Trends  A national survey showed that 4 in 10 Americans have considered adoption  If only 1 in 500 Americans adopted from the foster care system, every child would have a family  There are currently 523,000 American children in foster care

American Attitudes  Emphasis on the presence of a biological relationship  Demonstrates heredity  Parents are closer to children who resemble them  Only 2-4 percent of adoptions are inter- racial

Cross-cultural differences

Cultural models Model of independence Characterized by emotional and economical independence Individual is regarded as unique, separate from others, and defined by stable attributes and traits Self confidence and competitiveness are important Western industrialized and postindustrialized information societies- urban, educated famiies   Model of interdependence   Characterized by emotional and economical interdependence   Individual is an interrelated part of a group   Obedience, respect, loyalty toward the elder family members help to maintain a harmonic functioning   Prevalent in traditional rural, subsistence-based families

 Model of autonomous relatedness  Characterized by emotional interdependence with economical independence  Focuses on development of autonomy and integration of the family  Urban educated middle-class families in societies with an interrelated cultural heritage  Familism- loyalty, reciprocity, and solidarity  Cultures in the model of independence exhibit less familism than both interdependence and autonomous relatedness  Research indicates that familism has a significant indirect effect on parenting ethnotheories via socialization goals.

Ethnotheories Collective beliefs held by a cultural group about children’s development and behavior Derives from the parents cultural experiences with their community and reflect cultural beliefs about children by the society in which the child is being raised The attributes that parents hope will be expressed in their children are a reflection of the cultural context in which parents affiliate Parenting goals, discipline practices, and beliefs about children’s development differ based on “individualistic” and “collectivist” societies.

 Individualism  Fostering independence and individual achievement  Associated with egalitarian relationships and flexibility in roles  Promoting self-expression, individual thinking, and personal choice  Focus on developing initiative in infants  Show more anti-social behaviour  Collectivism  Emphasis on group effort and cooperation  React favorably to obedience and social behavior  Show less anti-social behavior  Promotion adherence to norms, respect for elders, and group consensus  Associated with stable, heirarchical roles

Research differences  Comparing Anglo-American parents with Chinese-American parents  64% of the Anglo-American parents mentioned building children’s self-esteem as a childrearing goal while only 8% of the Chinese-American parents agreed.  40% of the Anglo-American mothers considered helping the child to be aware of his/her feelings and encouraging the child to be honest to be important while none of the Chinese-American mothers did  In Asian cultures, doing well academically may be fueled more by desires to fulfill family expectations rather than by individualistic desires to achieve  Chinese-American mothers show significantly higher levels of verbosity and agree that it is important for children to understand why their behavior is problematic.  European-American mothers are less lax than Chinese-American  East Asian parents downplay children’s success and highligh children’s failure. Americans do the opposite.