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Correlates of Positive Parenting Behaviors

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Abstract

The present study examined the influence of maternal and child characteristics on parenting behaviors in a genetically informative study. The participants were 976 twins and their mothers from the Colorado Longitudinal Twin Study and the Twin Infant Project. Indicators of positive parenting were coded during parent–child interactions when twins were 7–36 months old. Child cognitive abilities and affection were independent correlates of positive parenting. There were significant gender differences in the magnitude of genetic and environmental influences on positive parenting, with shared environmental influences on parenting of girls and additive genetic influences on parenting of boys. Girls received significantly more positive parenting than boys. Differences in etiology of positive parenting may be explained by developmental gender differences in child cognitive abilities and affection, such that girls may have more rewarding interactions with parents, evoking more positive parenting.

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Notes

  1. Given missing data, the ages at which participants had available data varied. Therefore, the most accurate way to calculate an age-independent value of positive parenting received is to regress out the average age of data collection from parenting variables.

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Acknowledgements

MacArthur Foundation, NIH grants AG046938, HD050346, HD010333, HD007289, MH048980, HD018426, HD019802, DA01763711.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Psychology and Neuroscience, University of Colorado Boulder, 345 UCB Muenzinger D244, Boulder, CO, 80309-0345, USA

    Kerri E. Woodward, Debra L. Boeldt, Naomi P. Friedman, John K. Hewitt & Soo Hyun Rhee

  2. Institute for Behavioral Genetics, University of Colorado, Boulder, CO, USA

    Kerri E. Woodward, Debra L. Boeldt, Robin P. Corley, Naomi P. Friedman, John K. Hewitt & Soo Hyun Rhee

  3. Department of Family and Community Medicine, Southern Illinois University, Carbondale, IL, USA

    Lisabeth DiLalla

  4. Psychology Department, Hamline University, St. Paul, MN, USA

    Paula Y. Mullineaux

  5. Department of Human Development and Family Studies, University of Connecticut, Mansfield, CT, USA

    JoAnn Robinson

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  1. Kerri E. Woodward
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  2. Debra L. Boeldt
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Correspondence to Kerri E. Woodward.

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Conflict of Interest

Kerri E. Woodward, Debra L. Boeldt, Robin P. Corley, Lisabeth DiLalla, Naomi P. Friedman, John K. Hewitt, Paula Y. Mullineaux, JoAnn Robinson, and Soo Hyun Rhee declare that they have no conflicts of interest.

Ethical Approval

All procedures performed in studies involving human participants were in accordance with the ethical standards of the institutional and/or national research committee and with the 1964 Helsinki declaration and its later amendments or comparable ethical standards.

Human and Animal Rights

This article does not contain any studies with animals performed by any of the authors.

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Informed consent was obtained from all individual participants included in the study.

Additional information

Edited by Stephen Petrill.

Appendix

Appendix

See Tables 5, 6 and 7.

Table 5 Sample size for each variable at each time point
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Table 6 Means and standard deviations of independent and dependent variables, split by child gender
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Table 7 Correlations between predictor variables
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Woodward, K.E., Boeldt, D.L., Corley, R.P. et al. Correlates of Positive Parenting Behaviors. Behav Genet 48, 283–297 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10519-018-9906-2

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