This document discusses factors that influence parenting such as biology, culture, economics and family structure. It explores the challenges new parents may face in adjusting to a new baby and establishing parenting styles. Variations in parenting are discussed for single parents, fathers, adoptive parents, grandparents, foster parents and parents from diverse cultural and family backgrounds. The document emphasizes that responsive early childhood programs should provide support to families through parent education, family support services and home visiting programs.
2. Our biology affects parenting
Long gestation
Difficult birth process
Dependency of the infant
Predictable responses of parents to
newborns
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3. Our culture affects parenting
Individualist
Collectivist
Individuals
Group
Independence
Cooperation
Competition
Interdependent
Production
Personal
responsibility
interests
Process
(rather than
production)
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4. Cultural questions in programs
Differences between parents and teachers
may be grounded in each person’s own
invisible cultural beliefs about babies.
Some cultural differences may not be
negotiated – spanking is never allowed in
child care.
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5. Variations in parenting
Early experiences
Daughters
of single mothers more likely to
become mothers outside of marriage
Sons
of unstable households w/ many
transitions are likely to become young fathers
not living with the mother
Early
attachment relationships
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6. Variations in parenting
Single parents’ other adult relationships
Emotional
and family
support for mother through friends
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7. Variations in parenting
Economics
Higher
income fathers are more involved
unless work pressures interfere
Flexible
work schedules
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8. Becoming a mother
“Natural progression and monumental
transition”
Universal and personal
Struggles:
Fatigue
Loss of identity
Marital dissatisfaction
Overly high standards for doing everything right
Depression
Implications for care teachers?
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9. Becoming a father
1 in 3 American children live without their
father
Father engagement: quantity and quality
of time, attachment, sensitivity
Mother’s positive attitude toward father
Parents’ positive relationship
Implications for care teachers?
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10. The imagined baby and the real
baby
Imagining ideal baby during pregnancy
Learning to know and accept the real baby
Implications for care teachers?
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11. Parenting styles
Indulgent or permissive
Authoritarian
Authoritative
Uninvolved
(Baumrind, 1991)
Implications for care teachers?
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12. Family structure
“Children’s optimal development seems to be
influenced more by the nature of the
relationships and family interactions within
the family unit than by the particular
structural form it takes”.
(Perrin, 2002, p. 341)
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13. Divorce
Unique issues for infants and toddlers
Sensitivity to tension, sadness, anger
Adjustment to day and night cycles
Need for predictability and regularity
Breastfeeding
Implications for care teachers?
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14. Same sex parents
“More than two decades of research has failed to
reveal important differences in the adjustment or
development of children or adolescents reared by
same-sex couples compared to those reared by
other-sex couples.
Results of the research suggest that qualities of
family relationships are more tightly linked with child
outcomes than is parental sexual orientation”
Patterson (2006) p.241
Implications for care teachers?
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15. Grandparents
May offer stable home
Parents may be present
Often no legal authority
Implications for care teachers?
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16. Adoptive parents
Age at adoption
Circumstances leading up to adoption
Difficulty of repeatedly establishing new
relationships for infants and toddlers
Implications for care teachers?
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17. Foster parents
Infants are 20% of children in foster care
May have experienced abuse, neglect, in
utero exposure to drugs or alcohol,
violence, sexual abuse
Premature, low birth weight
Serious health and developmental
problems
Implications for care teachers?
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18. Care and education programs
that support families
Parent education
Family support
Home-visiting
Parent Training and Information Centers
Parent to Parent
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