Week 13 - Parenting & Siblings Flashcards
Research on parenting limitations
- WEIRD samples
- Moms
- Heterosexual couples
- Biological families
Authoritative Parenting
- High control and high warmth
- Set clear standards and limits
- Allow autonomy
- Attentive and responsive
- Respect and consider child’s perspective
Authoritative Parenting effect on child
- Competent, self-assured, and well liked by peers
- Better control
- Low in antisocial behavior
Authoritarian Parenting
- High control and low warmth
- Non-responsive to children’s needs and interests
- Enforce their own demands
- Oriented towards obedience and authority
- Expect compliance without questions or explanations
Authoritarian Parenting effect on child
- Low in social and academic competence
- Unhappy and withdrawn
- Boys are more hostile
Permissive Parenting
- High in warmth and low in control
- Responsiveness
- Do not require child’s self-regulation or appropriate/mature behavior
Permissive Parenting effect on child
- Impulsive
- Lacking in self-control
- Lower in school achievement
- Adolescents
* More school misconduct and drug use
Uninvolved Parenting
- Low on warmth and low on control
- Do monitor the child’s behavior
- Do not interact much with the child
- Not supportive, may be rejecting or neglectful
- Focus on their own needs
Uninvolved Parenting effect on child
• Insecure attachment
• Poor peer relationships
• Adolescents:
• Antisocial behavior, poor self-regulation, internalizing
problems, substance abuse, risky sexual behavior, low
academic and social competence
Positive Parent Behaviors
Warmth & Responsiveness
Negative Parent Behaviors
- Control
- Coercion
- Negative emotionality
Parental responsiveness and development
- associated with improved cognitive and social development
- Intervention study provides evidence of a causal link
Affectivity and parenting
- Negative affectivity is associated with more negative parenting
- Positive affectivity is associated with more positive parenting
Parenting and Children’s Behavior: Evoked Effects
- Harsh parenting
- Control, coercion, displays of negative affect
- Harsh parenting is linked to:
- Greater negativity in young children
- Greater antisocial behavior including aggression and rule breaking in older children
Coercive cycle in harsh parenting
Coercive cycles develop in which harsh parenting leads to more negativity and aggression by child, which then increases harsh parenting
Sibling Relationships as a Unique Developmental Context
(1) Characterized by both reciprocal and complementary interactions
• Reciprocal interactions: characterized by equal and returned exchanges
• Complementary interactions: characterized by unequal distributions of power and knowledge
• Siblings engage in both
• Similar in age
• Different in age
(2) Involuntary
Young siblings typically share living space and cannot withdraw from each other
Throughout life, have common family relationships that will bind them together
(3) Lifelong
For many of us, the longest relationship you have will be with a sibling
Sibling Conflict
Relationships high in conflict/hostility are characterized by:
• Arguing
• Fighting
• Aggression
• Coercion
• Negative affect
- Observational studies have shown that preschool siblings are in conflict once every 10 minutes
• Adolescents perceive that they have more conflicts with siblings than with anybody else
What do siblings fight about?
- In childhood: physical harm, psychological harm, fairness
- In adolescence: fairness and inequality
- Sister-sister pairs: conflicts in the personal domain were as common as fairness and inequality
What emotions are involved in sibling conflict?
Anger
Types of harm in transgressions b/w siblings/friends
Offensive behavior Physical harm Property-related harm Relationship-based harm Honesty/insensitivity
Reasons for harm in transgressions b/w siblings/friends
Unintentional Benevolent Emotional/impulsive Provocation Extenuating circumstances
Ruthlessness in transgressions b/w siblings/friends
- Disregard for victim’s feelings by deliberately engaging in action clearly understood to be harmful
- Using harmful means when the goal could be achieved another way
Harm against friends
- Harm against friends was relationship-oriented or related to honesty/insensitivity
• Harm against friends described as being due to benevolent reasons and extenuating circumstances more than was harm against siblings
Harm against siblings
• Harm against siblings was offensive and property oriented
• Harm against siblings described as being due to emotional/impulsive reasons or being provoked
• Harm against siblings was more likely than harm against
friends to be ruthless and described as typical of the relationship
• Participants were more likely to invoke moral concerns in the sibling context
1) Frequent
2) Intense
3) Affectively charged
4) More destructive than conflict with friends
Aggression by Siblings
Sibling aggression is so common, it is viewed as normative, and not of clinical concern
• DSM-5 criteria for oppositional defiant disorder state that if the symptoms – including vindictiveness and spitefulness – are only present in interaction with siblings, the diagnosis should not be given
But, there is mounting evidence that sibling aggression can be harmful
• Consequences for victims
• Consequences for aggressors
Effects of victimization by siblings
- Compared to those who reported no victimization by siblings, youth who reported frequent victimization by a sibling reported:
- Greater anxiety and depression at 18-years-of-age
- Engaging in greater self-harm behaviors at 18-years-of-age
Sibling Warmth
Warm relationships are characterized by: • Intimacy • Affection • Support • Companionship
- Greater sibling warmth is prospectively associated with better functioning
• For example, increased sibling intimacy is linked to decreased depressive symptoms over time
Sibling Warmth and Sibling Conflict
Children in harmonious sibling relationships reported the best overall adjustment
• Least anxiety/depression and aggressive behavior problems
• Highest competence
Children in the hostile sibling relationships reported the poorest overall adjustment
• More aggressive and less self-perceived competence than children in the affectively intense relationship
• Warmth may be protective
- Brother-brother and older brother-younger sister pairs more likely to be conflictual
- Sister-sister pairs more likely to be harmonious
Why Would We Want to Improve Sibling Relationships?
(1) Benefits for the children • Better relationship with sibling • Opportunity to learn important skills • Conflict resolution • Perspective taking (2) Benefits for the family • Sibling conflict exerts a negative impact on family climate • Many parents are distressed by fighting between their children (3) Feasibility • Non-stigmatizing • Lots of opportunities to practice
Helping Children Learn to Resolve their Own Conflicts
- Teach parents to mediate their conflicts
- Help children arrive at their own resolution
- To do this:
- Set ground rules
- Identify the conflict issue
- Foster mutual understanding and build empathy
- Participants propose, assess, and adopt resolutions
Decreasing Conflict and Increasing
Warmth in Sibling Relationships
- Goal for many parents will be to decrease fighting and aggression between siblings
- Teaching parents how to provide consequences for aggressive behavior and negative conflict tactics will reduce those behaviors
- However, decreasing aggression will not necessarily translate into an increase warmth
