psychology research topics on parenting

287 Parenting Essay Topics & Creative Research Titles + Examples

🔝 top 10 parenting topics to write about in 2024, 🏆 best essay topics on parenting, 👍 good parenting research topics & essay examples, 🌶️ hot parenting ideas to write about, 🎓 most interesting parenting research titles, 📌 easy parenting essay topics, ✍️ parenting essay topics for college, ❓ research questions about parenting, 📝 parenting argumentative essay topics.

Are you looking for the most important parenting topics for discussion? You’ve come to the right place! StudyCorgi has prepared a list of current and controversial ideas to write about. On this page, you’ll find:

• Should Parents Be Responsible for Children’s Crimes?
• Teenage Parenting: Problems of Children and Parent
• Why Filipino Parents Choose Their Children’s Careers
• A Good Parent: Definition and Traits
• Women Are Better Parents Then Men
• Parents Should Limit the Usage of Screen Time for Their Children
• Teenage Rebellion Against Parents
• Children’s Education and Role of Parents
• Divorce and Single-Parent Families
• Parenting Styles’ Impact on Child’s Development
• Parenting Styles: Indifferent, Indulgent, Authoritarian, and Authoritative The paper will analyze four main styles, namely indifferent, indulgent, authoritarian, and authoritative parenting styles.
• Non-Parental Child Care This paper focuses on the types of non-parent childcare and its effects on the child’s development in psychological, social and cognitive development.
• Role Played by Parents in Education This paper looks at the way parents are involved in education and gives a lengthy argument on the contribution of the letter to the overall education success.
• Parental Involvement in Children’s Education: Pros and Cons In this presentation, attention will be paid to the benefits and shortages of parental involvement in children’s education.
• Childhood Obesity: The Parents’ Responsibility Childhood obesity is a complex disease characterized by exceeding the age-growth norm of a child’s body weight. It is the fault of undemanding and irresponsible parents.
• Juvenile Delinquents and Parental Divorce: What Is the Connection? Reasons that cause the increase in the number of juvenile delinquents. Connection with the rise in the number of juvenile delinquents and the increase in the number of divorce rates.
• Personal Experience of Child: Parenting Styles The current essay reflects my own childhood experience regarding the parenting style my parents tend to follow, how it affected me.
• Overindulgent Parenting Style and Its Harm to Children This paper researches on the impacts of overindulgent parenting on children and concludes by stating that parents should consider adopting the authoritative parenting style.
• Parenting Styles – Case Study Analysis This work contains several examples from the lives of children and parents, situations that are described. For each of the cases, explain what this parenting style is and why.
• Why Parents Should Vaccinate Their Children Modern vaccines are complex, and a few antigens administered to children spur the production of antibodies that prevent future infections.
• Single Parenting Benefits and Disadvantages There are not only drawbacks but also some benefits for mothers who live without husbands and raise their children themselves.
• Parent-Child Conflict Resolution: Communication Problem The psychological view upon the problem of the parent-child conflict covers many aspects explaining the nature of generations’ contradictions.
• Types of Parenting Styles in a “Parenthood” by Howard The plot of the film is a small live segment of one huge family, which includes five generations. The filmmakers tried to give us a simple recipe for a happy life.
• Should Parents Have the Right to Choose Their Children Based on Genetics? The right to intervene in the human genome must be reviewed from multiple perspectives, as the future of parenthood and social institutions will depend highly on agreements.
• The Uninvolved Parenting Style and Its Effect on the Psychological Development of a Child Approaches to parenting and child care can vary significantly based on the parents’ characteristics and their preferred style.
• Parent-Child Relationship and Its Effect on Adolescents The importance of parent-child relationships stems from an incredible level of interdependence that many families display when it comes to addressing family needs.
• American and British Parenting Styles In this paper, parenting from the point of view of Americans and Britons will be evaluated to show their differences or similarities.
• The Challenges of Being a Parent Parenting is a wonderful but complex social role. The main point is to create an open environment for dialogue and not to be afraid of mistakes.
• Single Parenting: Difficulties and Challenges Studies show that single motherhood is normally linked with a lot of unconstructive social, behavioral and psychological impacts on the child being brought up.
• Parents Are to Blame for Youth Violence Violence among youth has drastically increased in recent times. This problem of violence has become a global phenomenon whereby youth from all walks of life are engaged in violence.
• Gadgets’ Impact on Parent-Child Relationships This paper considers studies that analyze gadgets’ impact on relations between parents and children and factors that affect the time children spend using their devices.
• Adult Children Should Support Elderly Parents Taking care of the parents by the children remains the best as compared to institutionalizing them. The parents are denied the family bonds they have always enjoyed in the family.
• The Problem-Solving Process in Parenting The problem-solving process on teaching the child responsibility by letting him complete his school assignments in his own way and stating borders of parent’s help.
• Problems Experienced by Children Raised by Homo Parents The intention to write this paper is to throw the light on the affects of homosexual parents on their children.
• Deontological Ethics and Principles for Parenting Deontology is an ethical science based on the teaching of moral issues. The focus of deontological ethics is on duties and obligations to be followed.
• Effects of Single Parenting on Children Children have a right of being brought up by both parents. Kids who grew up seeing a father and mother have higher chances of becoming more stable in life.
• Parental Divorce and Consequences for Children Divorces are a common occurrence in the modern world, and most people are accustomed to the idea of a separated family.
• Single-Parent Family Health Assessment The current family development stage is ‘a family with school-aged children’, and the family managed to accomplish the tasks of previous stages rather well.
• The Role of Parents in Acts of Theft and Vandalism by Minor Children Parents are to blame for their children’s acts of crime such as theft or vandalism, except when the children are suffering from mental health issues.
• Should Parents Spank Their Children? Spanking or striking children as a method to correct bad behavior has been widely used by parents in many cultures as a primary means of discipline.
• Views on Raising Children: Tasks of Parents The most challenging task of parents is to make the right decisions. It requires analyzing the behavior of children and finding their personalities.
• Most Typical Problems Parents Face There are many problems that parents face today. It is sometimes difficult to deal with children who forget very fast.
• Raising Children in Single Families: Single-Parent Families’ Problems The paper considers single-parent families’ economic problems, balancing work and life, behavioral changes, effects of conflict between parents, new relationships of parents.
• Parenting in Modern Society: Key Challenges Today, to be a good parent, not only are parenting traditions, feelings, and intuition needed, but also planning careful preparation and thinking through the educational process.
• Proximal and Distal Parenting Proximal parenting implies close body contact and stimulation, while the distal parenting style is characterized by communication through the distant senses.
• Parents’ Role in Young Adult Literature David Levithan’s Boy Meets Boy, James Janeway’s A Token for Children, and Catherine Sinclair’s Holiday House exemplify young adult literature from different periods.
• Impact of Parenting on Child Learning The complexity of child development as a multi-dimensional process makes it complicated to suggest for sure that parenting styles influence learning.
• Parents Are Not to Blame for Obesity in Children This paper discusses the issue of childhood and adolescent obesity and argues that parents should not be blamed for this problem.
• Parental Stress and Its Effects on Children In the current paper, the author analyses literature dedicated to parental stress and child development and behavior and tests the previously mentioned hypothesis.
• Impact of Generalized Anxiety Disorder on Single Parents This paper focuses on the impact of generalized anxiety disorder on single parents and the most significant aspects of their lives.
• Lack of Parental Support Forces Teenagers ‘Run Away’ From Home This paper describes how lack of attention and inability of parents to understand the problems faced by their teenage children results in “run away” from home.
• Parent-Child Relationships in the Novels “Lolita” by Vladimir Nabokov and “Sula” by Toni Morrison The problem of parent-child relationships is one of the most examined and actual eternal questions. This question concerns the problems of love and hatred.
• Impact of Single Parent Culture on Students’ Behavior Many scholars in education agree that a student’s performance is not dependent on intellectual ability alone but also in other factors such as behavior.
• Good and Bad Parenting’s Impact on Children Bad parenting is the parent’s fault, and parents must ensure good parenting for the overall development of their children and their future.
• “Not Under My Roof: Parents, Teens, and the Culture of Sex” by Schalet The purpose of the paper is to provide a summary of the book and present its analysis and valuation of its weak and strong points.
• Alcoholic Parents’ Effect on Adult Children While effects of being raised by alcoholics in adult children may vary, fear of failure, desire to control, and developing compulsive behaviors are prevalent characteristics.
• Gay and Single-Parent Families: Functionalist View The application of the functionalist perspective helps to resolve some problems by outlining the importance of issues and their contribution to the evolution of communities.
• Migrating Parents’ Motives and Impact on Children One aspect that often lacks proper attention from the authorities and the general public is the children of immigrants who are left in their home countries.
• Gender Stereotypes in Families: Parental Influence on an Adolescent’s Career Choice Gender stereotypes are still persistent in societies that often seem to be egalitarian. These stereotypes are transmitted to younger generations that copy their parents’ role models.
• Intelligence: Are We Smarter Than Our Parents? The Flynn effect states that the levels of intelligence quotient (IQ) have been rising over time and increasing among the consequent generations.
• The Film “We Bought a Zoo” and Single Parenting Issues We Bought a Zoo is a 2011 comedy-drama film that follows the life of a single-parent family aiming to start a new life after the passing of the mother.
• Parenting Styles Overview and Analysis This essay aims to describe parenting styles, reflect on the impact of my family’s upbringing approaches, and discuss how I plan to raise my children.
• Role of Parental Involvement in the Modern Era Recent research revealed that students are affected by a myriad of factors that can be subdivided into four categories: academic, social, cultural, and financial.
• Parent Monitoring of Children in Public Places Parents-children relations may be characterized as the complex interconnection of different issues, which are the main patterns in the upbringing process.
• Benefits of Good Parent-Child Relationships The benefits of productive parent-child relationships are mutual – children affect their parents almost as much as their parents affect them.
• The Issues of Gay Parents Scholars have noted a few differences in the characters of children brought up in same sex- marriages and those brought up in conventional ones.
• Being a Mother: Challenges Facing Parents With Young Children A mother is a social or biological parent. In mammals like human beings, biological mother is one that gestates fertilized ovum called an embryo at the beginning which later becomes fetus.
• Child Behavior in Relation to Parenting Although parenting influences all affiliations within a family, its impact on parent-children relationships is vital as it may affect the children’s future negatively.
• The Influence of Confucianism on Chinese Parenting The influence of Confucianism led to the establishment of distinct approaches to parenting styles, notably high parental expectations in the academic field.
• Financial Implications of Single Parenting The paper states that in the modern world when everything is getting more expensive each day, it is challenging to manage to be a single parent.
• Aspects of Parenting and Gender Roles For children to develop a healthy understanding of gender roles, it is essential that parents choose the right approach to their formation.
• Perfect Family Myths on Divorce and Parenting This paper discussed four myths about family. These myths target the issue of divorce, family structure, and the responsibilities of parents.
• Single Parent Culture and Student Behavior Some researchers have argued that shortcomings or low earnings in father-lacking families explain the effects of one-parent families.
• Self-Control Theory: Are Our Parents to Blame? The role of the community is very important. It is for this reason that people gather together and live as a community in order that they may reap the rewards of cooperation.
• Parental Positive and Negative Behaviors The paper aims to investigate parental positive and negative behaviors. It describes the effects of parent’s behavior on the life of their children.
• Families: Single Parent Controversy This paper explores single parenting and bases on the article “The single parent controversy: Does family research stigmatize single mothers and their children?”.
• Parenting Styles’ Impact on Children Parenting style plays a significant role in a child’s life. Each selected technique may have predetermined outcomes.
• Single-Parent College Students Struggling to Graduate The rise of single-student parents in colleges presents an opportunity to learn about the experiences of such students and compare them with other regular nonparent learners.
• Parental Involvement in Schools When parents are not invested in their children’s future and education, their offspring may experience poor student achievements and growth in various ways.
• Different Perceptions of the Responsibility of Children to Their Parents A family is a place where a special bond is established between relatives and an ideal relationship model has no room for anger, aggression, or other negative feelings.
• Bullying and Parenting Styles There are many positive and negative outcomes of parenting on children. This paper aims at investigating the connection between several types of parenting and bullying behaviors.
• Some of the Problems that Parents Face Today Contemporary parenting is even more challenging owing to the changing civilization alongside the new emerging trends on family values and practices.
• Parental Engagement in Special Education While the teaching methods must vary among students with special needs, parents should also engage in an educational process to give children an understanding of its importance.
• Parenting Styles by Diana Baumrind This paper describes advantages and disadvantages of parenting styles generated by Diana Baumrind and its characteristics as well as the consequences for children.
• Psychology of Children with Incarcerated Parents The relationship between the risks of the development of psychological problems among children and the incarcerated parent status is direct.
• Theology of Family Life, Marriage and Parenting Religious marriage is possible when a ceremony is conducted (simultaneously or separately, depending on religion) with the couple being wed in the eyes of God.
• Parental Refusal of Medical Treatment for Children Refusing medical treatment for children by parents undermines the functioning of the healthcare system and the relations between patients and caregivers.
• Single African American Parents: Literature Review Parenting among single African American women poses serious challenges. This paper reviews existing literature to understand what other scholars have found out in this field.
• Systematic Training for Effective Parenting The growing interests of parents in the nurturing of their children in the recent decades reflect the challenges faced by the same due to societal behavioral change.
• Parenting: The Family Resource Guide The guide in the current paper will help parents understand their role in their child’s development and help them in different situations.
• Parenting Assessment and Interventions The purpose of this assessment is to evaluate the effect of parenting styles on decisions and children’s behavior. In particular, it focuses on difficulties.
• “Fall or Fly”: Parents’ Problems in Foster Care One of the issues that foster parents will have to contend with is the wide range of parenting styles, environments, and circumstances that they are exposed to.
• Parents’ Experiences of Caring for a Child with ASD Literature Review Autism spectrum disorder is a serious developmental disorder that affects one throughout the lifespan in terms of social interaction, social communication, and social imagination.
• Parental Involvement in Education One of the main purposes of society nowadays is to guarantee stable development for children and make education affordable and efficient.
• Applied Ethics: Moral Standards of Alcoholic Parents The work aims to discuss the topic of ethics, the moral values which people are supposed to follow, considering the case of Mary, whose parents are alcoholics.
• Authoritarian Parenting Impact on Children’s Health Parents who deploy an authoritarian approach to raising their children are presented as contributing hugely to their destruction rather than molding them into reliable citizens.
• Homeschooling Disadvantages for Students and Parents The essay explores whether homeschooling is a better option for parents and their children compared with classroom establishment.
• Parenting and Choice of Child-Rearing Style The child-rearing style applied to a child has an impact on the child’s growth and development. The style employed by the parents can predict the future character of the child.
• The Parent-Child Relationships Theories Duties that a child has to his or her parents are unique. When it comes to parents, an individual is expected to do things that he or she will not do for other people.
• Parenting Experience of a Mother of Two Children Although being a parent is a privilege that most adults look forward to, without proper planning, it can become a burden that leaves a person feeling caged and insufficient.
• Parental Substance Abuse: Negative Impact on Child Development The researchers focus on the negative impact of parental substance abuse on child development, leading to addiction problems when these children become teenagers or young adults.
• Issues We Face While Taking Care of Aging Parents The trend of adult children becoming caregivers for their parents is one of the most widespread in American society.
• Parenting Advice and Its Quality While most parenting advice is likely to be well-meaning, a number of online recommendations offered to parents are highly questionable due to their subjectivity.
• Differences in Parenting Styles in the East (China) and the West (America) The article discusses introduction in the essay “Differences in parenting styles in the East (China) and the West (America)” and argues that is short and straightforward.
• Parenting Styles and Aggressive Adolescents Researchers have identified parenting styles that influence children’s growth and development. Parenting styles include authoritative, permissive, negligent, and authoritarian.
• Childhood Attachment and Parenting Styles In social sciences and psychology, the term emotional attachment may refer to the process of understanding the expressive closeness.
• Parental Deployment: Action Plan The current case study involves a child with emotional issues who is six years old from a middle-class socioeconomic status background.
• Study of a Parent-Child Relationship The study of a parent-child relationship is a sophisticated endeavor focused on the peculiarities of a socioemotional environment of the upbringing process
• Caregiver Burden for Adult Children Whose Parent Has Alzheimer’s Disease The purpose of the proposed study is to critically explore the relationship between caregiver burden and social stigma for adult children whose parents have AD.
• Child Abuse or a Parental Discipline According to the state laws within the United States, physical discipline is recommended if it is solely for discipline and does not lead to the injury of a child.
• Parenting in Lapine’s Play Into the Wood The central object of research in this work is the play Into the Wood by James Lapine, which assesses the quality of parenting in the context of character development.
• Parenting Styles in Situational Examples This paper examines different situational examples related to child-parent and assesses the parenting style of each of these situations.
• Parents Need Help: Restricting Access to Video Games Parents who fear instilling discipline in their kids for fear of hatred from their kids have no one to blame but themselves.
• Parenting and Harm of Unrealistic Expectations Parenting should be based on realistic expectations that are connected with the specific child, but not on the illusion that upbringing can change the child’s behavior.
• Parental Alcohol Abuse as a Family Issue Parental alcohol abuse is a serious problem in the community that impacts not only one individual but spreads to different social units.
• The Effects of Homelessness on Single-Parent Families in Black Community The paper states that single-parent families can be adversely impacted by homelessness, especially during the current COVID-19 pandemic.
• Parents Music Resource Center in the United States Parents Music Resource Center was a group created by four women in 1985. The aim of this group was to control the music that was released.
• The Relationship Between Parenting Styles This paper provides an analysis of data pertaining to the relationship between parenting styles employed by a child’s parent.
• Parental Influence on a Child’s Life Outcomes The environment, especially the close ones, such as the family, decisions made, and various events, forms a particular path-dependency of one’s life with a corresponding outcome.
• Adolescent Adjustment to Parental Divorce The primary research question is what factors determine adolescents’ adjustment after they experience divorce and how it affects their socio-emotional skills.
• Effect of Parenting on Child’s Health Development The current paper discusses that good parenting gives the perfect setting for the sustaining and security of youngsters as they grow.
• Single-Parent Families: Source Analysis Single-parent families have been a controversial topic for an extended period of time. The family variation became prevalent and gained the attention of a wide variety of people.
• Parents, Children, and Guns In this article, the author expresses his opinion on the prosecution of parents whose children have gained access to weapons.
• Parenting Styles Exemplified by the Molly Family In the current essay, the abovementioned four parenting styles will be considered, and four various answers on Molly’s desired behavior will be provided.
• Helping and Supporting Single-Parent Families Important to provide additional financial and social aid to help them adjust to new realities, as well as prevent divorces at a larger scale.
• The Influence of Parents in the Development of the Baby The influence of parents and their upbringing plays a huge role in the development of the baby even in the first months of life.
• Native American Women and Parenting The purpose of this research study is to review the plight of Native American mothers as well as other marginalized women populations.
• Grand Parents Custody Rights Analysis This essay focuses on custodial rights in relation to grandparents who can be regarded as non-parents and are now being granted visitation and custodial rights as well.
• Positive Parenting and Child Externalizing Behavior The article shows how mothering styles can affect child behaviors, and the latter appears likely to impact mother-son relationships.
• Psychology Issues: Childhood Development and Positive Parenting Each stage of an individual’s development is important. However, childhood can be regarded as one of the most important periods in a person’s life.
• Parental Divorce: Influence on Children Divorce may affect a child’s development by making them engage in risk-taking behaviors, experience divorce-related stress, and significantly lower their self-esteem.
• The Worth of Parental Involvement in Children’s Education Today, much attention is paid to improving the quality of childhood education, and the worth of parental involvement is currently discussed and recommended.
• Kids of Helicopter Parents Are Sputtering Out by Lythcott-Haims In the article “Kids of Helicopter Parents Are Sputtering Out,” Julie Lythcott-Haims talks about how parents instruct their children on what to do.
• Parenting Styles: Infancy and Early Childhood Generally, a child’s behavior is directly linked to the parenting approach being used by the respective parent. Each technique used has a corresponding impact on the well-being.
• Parents With Pediatric Terminal Patients: Stress Management Certain family-centered care principles should be used by healthcare providers in order to mitigate parental stress in the situations where their child battles terminal illness.
• Latino Culture: The Social Interaction Between Children and Parents The main focus is the social interaction between children and parents and its specificity in the context of Latino culture.
• Parenting: Influences and Standards This article is important because it supports the idea that parents should raise their children in a way that fits their child’s personalities.
• Liability of Bullies’ Parents for Children’s Activities Parents of bullies should be liable for their children’s activities because besides being highly influential, they possess the power to prevent bullying.
• Effects of Parent-Based Teaching of Alcohol Use The approach significantly impacts the struggle to prevent alcohol abuse but requires being informed on the appropriate mechanisms to employ.
• Parenting in a Pandemic: Tips to Keep the Calm at Home The article ​“Parenting in a Pandemic: Tips to Keep the Calm at Home” provides a set of recommendations for parents regarding managing children’s behaviors during the pandemic.
• Meetings between Parents and Teachers: Ted Talk Discussion When building a good relationship between both parties, sharing contacts like e-mail, mobile numbers, or messenger profiles can have a positive effect.
• Should Parents with Children under 12 Have Dogs as Pets Even though dogs can be great protectors, kids can be overly aggressive with dogs; children are more vulnerable to diseases carried by dogs, etc.
• The Parent-Teacher-Youth Mediation Program The Parent-Teacher-Youth Mediation Program is designed to build relationships between family members from different generations.
• Operant Conditioning in Learning and Parenting Operant conditioning relies on a relatively simple premise – actions followed by reinforcement will be strengthened and thus are more probable to be repeated in the future.
• How Parental Involvement Influences the Life of the Individual The paper demonstrates how parental involvement influences the academic and social life of the individual from the perspective of several theoretical notions.
• Parenting Peculiarities in Queer (LGBT) Families An examination of LGBT marriages has shown that same-sex partners have varied parenting desires, intentions, and child-rearing experiences.
• Parental Divorce’s Negative Impact on Children Children from divorced families have more behavioral problems, and marital upheavals leading up to parental divorce threaten future learning ability.
• Mental Health of Children of Incarcerated Parents This paper aims to discuss the impact of parental incarceration on children’s mental health and the risk of adverse childhood experiences.
• Nature vs. Nurture Parenting Styles in Psychology This research analyzes the nature vs. nurture parenting styles and recommends the best style that must be applied to ensure children grow to be responsible adults.
• The Parent-Child Relationship in Sports The promotion of a parent-child relationship in sports is similar to the coordination of individuals within a group.
• Youth Self-Reported Health and Their Experience of Parental Incarceration The study utilizes data from the Minnesota Student Survey, which was conducted every three years and included questions on health behaviors, dietary habits, and sleep patterns.
• Should Parents Be Held Accountable if Their Children Misbehave? This paper discusses whether parents should be held accountable if their children misbehave, commit crimes, or generally turn out to be a “bad seed”.
• Evaluation of Training Program for Incoming Foster Parents A training program has been proposed which will instill vital skills in foster parents through a six-session program, each one lasting at least three hours.
• Surviving the Death of a Parent “The Death of a Parent Affects Even Grown Children Psychologically and Physically,” explains how parental loss affects adults.
• Two Parenting Approaches: Authoritative and Authoritarian This paper considers two parenting approaches: authoritative and authoritarian. The authoritative parenting style is one of the best, while the authoritarian is one of the worst.
• Parenting Styles and Children’s Social Competence The social competence of children is usually associated with authoritative parenting of all parenting styles, in which parents balance the demands of the child and responsiveness.
• Single-Parent Households Issues In preindustrial societies, kinship systems were the main form of social organization that provided members cooperated by marriage.
• Parental Caregiving Assumptions and Best Practices The right start and the proper introduction and guidance to the appeared challenges contribute in a positive way to providing parents with the proper care.
• Parenting Styles by Diana Baumrind Children exhibit behavioural characteristics depending on their upbringing. Diana Baumrind developed four parenting styles explaining children’s behaviour in specific situations.
• “Parenting and SES: Relative Values or Enduring Principles?” by Roubinov Parenting is one of the most critical aspects of social dynamics, where children’s development and growth are affected by the choices their parents make along the given process.
• Bullying: A Guide for the Parents The first way for parents to assist the kid in coming up with bullies is to teach them a set of responses, which they can use in case someone is picking on them.
• Parental Listening, Encouraging, and Trusting Parents who know how to listen, encourage, and trust their kids can positively influence their children’s emotional stability and social success.
• Parental Incarceration’s Impact on a Child Parental incarceration is a significant issue, and though it is addressed on multiple levels, there are still some related imperfections that complicate children’s lives.
• The Gender-Neutral Conceptualization of Parenting Society should apply gender-neutral conceptualization of parenting because a parent’s gender was found to have little impact on the child’s development.
• Tort of Negligence and Parents-Drivers’ Responsibility The negligence lawsuit is an important part of the law system that considers crimes that are committed by persons who failed to use reasonable vigilance and caution.
• Parenting Philosophy in “Where the Wild Things Are” Parenting philosophy described in the story “Where the Wild Things Are” is an uninvolved parenting style with an emotionally unavailable mother.
• Parents and Children’s E-Safety Education During the Pandemic When it comes to children’s education from a Constructivist perspective, parents are to engage with the children’s activities online to make sense of the Internet knowledge.
• Ethical Principles: Parents’ Vaccination Concerns This case study reviews the ethical and moral choices of doctors who aim to convince parents to vaccinate their children.
• A Parent’s Right on Their Child Medication The rights of parents towards their children are spelled out in different acts of parliament regarding the lawful authority they have in given areas.
• Theoretical Approaches to Child Parenting Parenting is a discipline that includes branches from theories of the early stages of a child’s awareness of reality to future place in the world.
• Pride: Parents Who Teach Their Kids About Self-Worth
• Parenting Techniques Analysis
• Remarriages and Step-Parenting
• Tax Research Problem Parent Corporation
• Family Law: Parent’s Right to Travel
• Efficacy of Punishment and Reinforcement In Parenting
• Types of Parenting Styles Analysis
• The Lived Experiences of Native American Women Parenting on and off Reservations
• Munchausen Syndrome by Proxy in Parents
• Parent’s Education and Child’s Dental Health
• Adoption: Can Same-Sex Parents Nurture a Stable Child?
• The Article: “Parental Perception of Child Weight: a Concept Analysis”
• Program to Build Parenting Skills in Teenage Parents
• Parent and Child Perspectives on Adaptation to Childhood Chronic Illness
• Liberal Stance on Child Care for Working Parents
• Dominant Parenting Styles: Gender-Differentiated Parenting Revisited
• Reasons to Become Parents in Middle Adulthood
• The Adaptation to Childhood Chronic Illnesses: Parental and Child Perspectives
• Romantic Relationships and Parenting
• New Parent Guide: Breastfeeding and Attachment
• Negative Media Effects Mitigation: Parents’ Role
• Infant’s Temperament Influences on the Parents Treat
• Understanding of Motherhood and Parenting Role
• Baby Care Class for Expectant Parents
• The Five Biggest Ideas in Parenting
• “Superpowers for Parents” by Dr. Stephen Briers
• Substance Use by Parents and the Effect on Kids
• How Can Parents Produce Important Behaviors in Disabled Family Members?
• Problems Experienced by Children That Are Reared by Heterosexual Parents
• The Impact of Absent Parents Gears More Towards Absent Fathers
• The Role of Parents Within the Education System
• Why Do Parents Abuse Their Children: Discussion
• Sociological Research Evaluation: Effects of Parental Imprisonment on Children’s Social and Moral Aspects
• Parents’ Responsibilities: Child Support Obligations
• Critique of Articles on Parenting, ADHD, Child Psychology, and Development
• Parental Involvement in Urban School District
• The Impact of Parent’s Educational Level on College Students
• Medical and Christian Ethics: Ill Child and Parents
• When Parents Refuse to Give Up: Yusef Camp’s Case
• Childhood Obesity: Medication and Parent Education
• Postsecondary Enrolment and Parental Income
• Counseling for Healthy Relationships With Parents
• Parenting Style and Bullying Among Children
• Parents Shape Early Adolescents’ Eating Behaviors
• Are Parents Responsible for Their Children’s Crimes?
• The Issues of Childhood Obesity: Overweight and Parent Education
• Childhood Obesity and Parent Education: Ethical Issues
• Attachment Theories in Child-Parent Relationships
• Authoritative Parenting in Comparison to Other Styles
• Children’s Early Literacy Achievement and Parents’ Role
• Same-Sex Parenting Impact on Children’s Behavior
• Childhood Obesity, Medical and Parental Education
• Parenting Styles: Values and Standards Transmission
• Adolescent Obesity and Parental Education Study
• Single Afro-Americans Parenting Their Adolescents
• Parents’ Incomes and Children’s Camp Expenses
• Childhood Obesity: Parental Education vs. Medicaments
• Childhood Obesity: The Relationships Between Overweight and Parental Education
• Violence: Community Center for Children and Parents
• Air Pollution Threats: Parent Education
• Gender Stereotypes in Families: Parents’ Gender Roles and Children’s Aspirations
• Parents’ Gender Roles and Children’s Aspirations
• Parenting Styles Researching: Analytical Techniques
• Children With Asthma: Risks Created by Smoking Parents
• Diagnosis Disclosure and Child-Parent Relationship
• Eight Steps of Effective Parent Participation
• Parents’ Education in Childhood Obesity Prevention
• Parenting: Open Versus Closed Adoption
• Childhood Obesity and Independent Variable in Parents
• Childhood Obesity and Parent Education
• Family-Based Childhood Obesity and Parental Weight
• Parenting Style Comparison: Positive and Negative Impacts
• The Father’s Role in Parenting
• The Impact of Relationships With Parents on the Future
• Parental Exposure and Underage Drinking – Psychology
• Parental Education for Preventing Pneumonia in Children
• Te Single-Parent Homes Problems
• Developmental Psychology: Aggression Between Parents
• Parents Bear Responsibility for the Recreational Rioter – Psychology
• Corporal Punishment and Parents Position
• School Communication and Involvement of Parents in the School Activities
• Vaccines: Should Parents Avoid Vaccinating Their Children?
• What Are the Differences Between Chinese and Western Parenting Styles?
• Does Homosexual Parenting Have Negative Effects?
• Does Strength-Based Parenting Predict Academic Achievement?
• What Is an Example of Cultural Bias as It Relates to Parenting?
• What Is the Relationship Between Mothers’ and Fathers’ Parenting Practices?
• How Does Gender or Sexuality Condition Influence Parenting?
• How Parenting Styles Changed for Indian Immigrants?
• What Is Measure of Parenting Satisfaction and Efficacy?
• What Links Between Parenting and Social Competence in Children Are There?
• What Is the Relationship Between Parenting Style and Math Self-Efficacy?
• What Are the Multiple Determinants of Parenting?
• How Opioids Can Interfere With Parenting Instincts?
• What Is Developmental Contextual Perspective on Parenting?
• What Is the Relationship Between Parenting and Poverty?
• How Equally Shared Parenting Works?
• What Factors Are Related to Parenting Practices in Taiwan?
• What Are the Consequences of Parenting on Adolescent Outcomes?
• What Does the Term Systematic Training in Effective Parenting Mean?
• What Is Development of a Parenting Alliance Inventory and How Does It Help?
• What Are the Differences Between Collectivist and Individualist Parenting Styles?
• What Are the Protective Effects of Good Parenting on Adolescents?
• What Behavioral Observations of Parenting in Battered Women Are There?
• What Is the Changing Nature of Parenting in America and Why Is It Not Permanent?
• How to Overcome Parenting Stress in Raising Autistic Children?
• What Is the Intergenerational Transmission of Parenting?
• Should people be legally obliged to take parenting courses before having children?
• Does helicopter parenting hinder a child’s development?
• Should parents share equal responsibilities in childrearing?
• Is it ethical for parents to share the photos of their children without their consent?
• Should parents enforce strict limits on screen time for their children?
• Does co-sleeping harm a child’s sleep patterns and independence?
• Should parents allow teenagers to make vital decisions like getting tattoos?
• Is it ethical for parents to choose a child’s career path for them?
• Should parents be liable for their children’s cyberbullying behaviors?
• Should parents be allowed to choose not to vaccinate their children?

Cite this post

• Chicago (N-B)
• Chicago (A-D)

StudyCorgi. (2022, January 16). 287 Parenting Essay Topics & Creative Research Titles + Examples. https://studycorgi.com/ideas/parenting-essay-topics/

"287 Parenting Essay Topics & Creative Research Titles + Examples." StudyCorgi , 16 Jan. 2022, studycorgi.com/ideas/parenting-essay-topics/.

StudyCorgi . (2022) '287 Parenting Essay Topics & Creative Research Titles + Examples'. 16 January.

1. StudyCorgi . "287 Parenting Essay Topics & Creative Research Titles + Examples." January 16, 2022. https://studycorgi.com/ideas/parenting-essay-topics/.

Bibliography

StudyCorgi . "287 Parenting Essay Topics & Creative Research Titles + Examples." January 16, 2022. https://studycorgi.com/ideas/parenting-essay-topics/.

StudyCorgi . 2022. "287 Parenting Essay Topics & Creative Research Titles + Examples." January 16, 2022. https://studycorgi.com/ideas/parenting-essay-topics/.

These essay examples and topics on Parenting were carefully selected by the StudyCorgi editorial team. They meet our highest standards in terms of grammar, punctuation, style, and fact accuracy. Please ensure you properly reference the materials if you’re using them to write your assignment.

This essay topic collection was updated on January 8, 2024 .

• Call to +1 844 889-9952

93 Parenting Research Topics & Essay Examples

📝 parenting research papers examples, 🏆 best parenting essay titles, 🎓 simple research topics about parenting, ❓ parenting research questions.

• Parenting Styles in Different Cultures Psychology essay sample: To understand the specificities of parents’ behavior that influence their children, it is vital to consider them in the context of selected countries and regions.
• Conflicts Experienced in Adolescence and Related Parenting Challenge Psychology essay sample: This paper evaluates a treatment process when dealing with conflicts that arise because of changes experienced in adolescence and the relative parenting challenges.
• Developmental Psychology in Parenting Psychology essay sample: The paper describes attachment parenting, supportive education items, and governmental and non-governmental transformative intervention in parenting.
• Polysubstance Abuse Among Adolescent Males With Depression Psychology essay sample: Substance abuse among adolescents can be caused by depression. In this case, the adolescents down ply the idea of seeking psychological support
• Child-Parent Relationship Therapy and Filial Therapy Model Psychology essay sample: Filial therapy is the foundation for the CPRT and includes parent meetings to provide support in parenting. Parent-child therapy is a play-based parenting model.
• Psychotherapy With Families Impacted by Intellectual Disability Psychology essay sample: The paper intends to analyze the existing literature and discuss future research in therapy for impacted by an intellectual disability (ID).
• Opinion Over Parent-Child Interaction Therapy Psychology essay sample: Parent-child interaction therapy (PCIT) is a family and behavior-based treatment that strengthens the parent-child connection via personal interaction.
• The Influence of Parents on the Psychoemotional Development of Children Psychology essay sample: In the context of the influence of parents on the psychoemotional development of children, such aspects as parenting style, emotion regulation, and parental distress.
• Single-Parenting Households Contribution to the Parentification of Children Psychology essay sample: Parentification has been deemed the determinant when establishing adult relationships. This paper shows that different occurrences heavily influence them.
• Insecure-Avoidant Attachment Style in Childhood Psychology essay sample: Childhood plays a critical role in developing personality. This paper aims to present the case of a child with an insecure-avoidant attachment style.
• How Parents and Teachers Can Release Anxiety in Children Psychology essay sample: Test anxiety affecting academic performance is a common phenomenon among schoolchildren, whose parents have high requirements for children's academic achievements.
• The Structure and Style of the Family Psychology essay sample: The interviewed one, the Collins family, is a full one, with a 36-years-old mother, a 36-years-old father, and three children, having White ethnicity and Western cultural background.
• Baumrind’s Parenting Styles Scenarios Psychology essay sample: Parenting is a rewarding yet challenging experience but there are plenty of resources and research available today to help parents deal with most if not all situations.
• Why the Nurture Approach Should Be Prioritized Over the Nature Theory Psychology essay sample: This essay explored how nurture is reflected in people’s everyday life and demonstrated how it could potentially influence the overall development of society.
• Efficacy of Mind-Body Therapy in Children With ADHD Psychology essay sample: When it comes to the methods of treating ADHD in children, mind-body therapies have proved to provide a multitude of potential benefits.
• Parenting: a Dynamic Perspective Psychology essay sample: Problems, setbacks, disappointments, and mistakes are inevitable in life. Problems cannot be avoided, but how individuals respond after their occurrence shapes their lives.
• Types of Families: Parenting Practices in Diverse Family Structures Psychology essay sample: The standard way of thinking about the topic of the family has it that it is a social group that plays an essential role in people’s lives.
• Blended Families and Their Functioning Psychology essay sample: Blended families undergo difficult moments during the transition process. The paper offers reliable data essential in analyzing the functioning of the family.
• Aspects of Family Spirit Intervention Psychology essay sample: The Family Spirit trial evaluates the influence of the intervention concerning lowered health risks among Indigenous American teen mothers and their children.
• Single-Parent Families' Issues and Work Strategy Psychology essay sample: Overall, patience and empathy remain the key elements in creating productive client-therapist relationships with single parents.
• Skinner's Ideas of Culture Based on Human Behavior Psychology essay sample: This paper will analyze Skinner's ideas on cultural design, aspects of punishment and reward, power, education, and government determination will be considered.
• Why Family Systems Analysis Is Important Psychology essay sample: Family systems analysis, by relying on a view of the family as an emotional unit, facilitates the assessment of the parts of a family in relation to the whole.
• Parent Education and Family Life Education Fields Psychology essay sample: Many career options within the child development field involve working with children exclusively or with the whole family unit.
• Influences on Early Development Psychology essay sample: The paper argues throughout their development, children require consistent and active support of their parents or caregivers.
• Personality Disorder: The Development of Antisocial Behavior Psychology essay sample: Antisocial behavior refers to a set of actions that result from a person's lack of the ability to respect other people's rights. Examples of these actions include setting fires.
• Children's Social Development After Divorce Psychology essay sample: Since divorce is common in the world, it is essential to understand how it affects kids and find strategies to shield them from any potential harm.
• Effective Parenting Strategies for Dealing with Toddler Tantrums
• Nurturing Resilience: Building Strong Foundations for Children Through Positive Parenting
• The Importance of Mindfulness in Parenting: Strategies for Staying Present with Your Children
• Balancing Discipline and Love: Effective Parenting Strategies for Single Parents
• 8 Fun and Educational Activities to Do with Your Kids at Home
• Parenting Styles, Academic Achievement and the Influence of Culture The article acknowledges the existing body of research on the topic of correlations between different parenting styles and levels of academic success.
• Understanding the Different Parenting Styles and Finding What Works for You
• The Impact of Technology on Parenting and Tips for Managing Screen Time
• Breaking the Cycle: Overcoming the Effects of Neglectful Parenting in Adulthood
• Navigating Sibling Relationships: Fostering Harmony and Cooperation
• Scottish Laws on Effective Parenting and Children’s Rights This paper strives to highlight some of the Laws adopted by the Scottish judicial system to ensure proper parenting for the benefit of the children.
• Setting Effective Boundaries: A Guide for Parents
• Navigating the Challenges of Co-Parenting After Divorce
• Exploring the Link Between Helicopter Parenting and Low Self-Esteem in Adolescents
• Single Parenting: Exploring the Impact on Children’s Mental Health
• Identifying the Signs of Narcissistic Parenting: A Guide for Adult Children
• How Parenting Styles Affect on Children This paper determines that the authoritative parenting style is the most appropriate for ensuring the wellbeing of children.
• Single Parenting: Overcoming Feelings of Isolation and Building a Support System
• Creating a Healthy and Nutritious Meal Plan for Your Family
• Raising Resilient Children: Building Emotional Strength and Coping Skills
• Gay Parenting and Adoption Gay parenting is a nurturing mode, just like any other approach. It can also offer perfect parenting skills without any obstacles.
• The Role of Positive Reinforcement in Shaping Your Child’s Behavior
• The Role of Consistent Parental Involvement in Preventing Delinquent Behavior in Teens
• Navigating Parenting Challenges: Strategies for Handling Common Difficulties
• The Long-Term Impact of Authoritarian Parenting on Children’s Mental Health
• Addressing the Stigma Around Seeking Help for Parenting Challenges
• The Dangers of Using Physical Punishment as a Form of Discipline
• Understanding Narcissistic Personality Disorder and its Impact on Parenting
• Parenting Styles of Children With Autism Spectrum Disorders The paper discusses the mental state of the parents whose kids are struggling with autism spectrum disorders. There are four common types of parenting styles.
• Managing Sibling Rivalry and Fostering a Strong Sibling Bond
• Healthy Habits for Happy Kids: Tips for Promoting Physical Activity
• The Importance of Self-Care for Parents and Strategies for Finding Balance
• Building Strong Family Bonds: Activities and Traditions for Connection
• Learning Disabled Students: Teaching and Parenting This paper discusses types of learning disabilities, perspectives, strategies for teaching students who struggle with learning deficiencies, and parent engagement.
• Healing from the Past: Overcoming the Consequences of Growing Up with a Narcissistic Parent
• The Reality of Dating as a Single Parent: Navigating the Challenges
• 8 Harmful Effects of Using Shaming as a Parenting Technique
• Parenting with Purpose: Setting Intentions and Goals for Your Family
• Discussing the Impact of Social Media on Teenagers and Parental Guidance
• Researching of Parenting Styles The article under review is devoted to such an important topic as the style of parenting. Bernstein explores the connection between parenting and teaching.
• Recognizing and Addressing the Effects of Verbal Abuse in Parent-Child Relationships
• Setting Healthy Boundaries: The Importance of Positive Discipline in Parenting
• Nurturing Emotional Intelligence in Children and Its Long-Term Benefits
• Navigating the Holidays with a Narcissistic Parent: Tips for Self-Care
• Proven Techniques for Managing Toddler Tantrums
• The Connection Between Overindulgent Parenting and Entitlement in Youth
• Tips for Single Parents to Manage Work-Life Balance
• How to Do Setting Boundaries for Children?
• How to Foster Resilience and Independence in Your Children?
• How to Support Your Child’s Learning?
• How to Encourage Good Behavior in Children
• What The Common Signs of Neglectful Parenting and How to Avoid Them?
• How Uninvolved Parenting Contributes to Academic Underachievement in Children?
• How to Recognize the Signs of Emotional Abuse on Children?
• How to Break the Cycle Parental Substance Abuse on Children?
• How to Set Boundaries with a Narcissistic Parent?
• How to Avoid Becoming a Narcissistic Parent Yourself?
• What The Effective Communication and Conflict Resolution in Co-Parenting?
• How to Finding Love and Balancing Family Life in Single Parenting?
• What The Emotional Impact of Single Parenthood?
• How to Find Balance as a Working Parent?
• How to Builde Emotional Strength From a Young Age as a Parent?
• What The Benefits of Positive Parenting?
• What the Montessori Method?
• What is the difference between Authoritative and Authoritarian Parenting?
• What Are the Styles of Parenting?
• What The Role of Gender-Neutral Parenting in Fostering Equality and Inclusivity?

Cite this page

Select style

• Chicago (A-D)
• Chicago (N-B)

PsychologyWriting. (2024, January 28). 93 Parenting Research Topics & Essay Examples. https://psychologywriting.com/topics/parenting-research-topics/

"93 Parenting Research Topics & Essay Examples." PsychologyWriting , 28 Jan. 2024, psychologywriting.com/topics/parenting-research-topics/.

PsychologyWriting . (2024) '93 Parenting Research Topics & Essay Examples'. 28 January.

PsychologyWriting . 2024. "93 Parenting Research Topics & Essay Examples." January 28, 2024. https://psychologywriting.com/topics/parenting-research-topics/.

1. PsychologyWriting . "93 Parenting Research Topics & Essay Examples." January 28, 2024. https://psychologywriting.com/topics/parenting-research-topics/.

Bibliography

PsychologyWriting . "93 Parenting Research Topics & Essay Examples." January 28, 2024. https://psychologywriting.com/topics/parenting-research-topics/.

• Mental Health
• Erik Erikson
• Jean Piaget
• Lev Vygotsky

439 Parenting Essay Topics & Examples

Get a good parenting topic for any assignment – from essays to speeches – on this page.

🔮 Top 10 Parenting Topics to Write about

🏆 best parenting topic ideas & essay examples, 👍 good essay topics on parenting, ⭐ amazing parenting research topics, 🎓 interesting parenting essay topics, 📑 good research topics about parenting, 🔎 most interesting parenting topics to write about, 📌 simple & easy parenting essay topics, ❓ research questions about parenting.

Sometimes, finding the right idea is half the battle. It can be the case when it comes to writing about parenting. Topics on this subject can cover anything from parent-child relationships to children’s behavior and parenting styles. Thus, picking one good title to discuss, research, and write about can be essential. That’s why our experts have gathered this list of topics on parenting. Find your perfect idea on this page!

• Discussing Boundaries with Kids.
• Link Between Marriage and Children.
• Choosing a Parenting Style.
• When You Realize Yourself as a Parent.
• Explaining Divorce to Children.
• Important Aspects of Family.
• How to Influence Your Teens.
• Improving Parent-Child Relationships.
• Steps to Adulthood.
• Loveless Marriage vs. Single Parenthood.
• Are Parents Responsible for Their Children’s Behavior? Consequently, parents should create time for their children in order to establish a close relationship that can have a long influence on the child’s behavior.
• Are Women Better Parents Than Men? Essay Another reason why women are better parents is that they are more conscious and conscientious to the needs of their children than men.
• Comparison Parenting Between Asian Parents and Western Parents Concerning authoritarian parenting, children are expected to be submissive to their parents and the demands of their parents; in this regard, the parents are supposed to be strict and emotionally detached.
• Parents’ Influence on a Child Essay: How Parents Affect Behavior and Development Education level of the parents If the parents are well educated, they ought to understand the importance of education and will encourage their child to study better and up to high levels.
• Communication Between Parents and Teenagers Communication between parents and their children, especially teenagers, is an ongoing process that can be developed and modified in order to create a sense of openness and support that will become a basis for the […]
• The Three Parenting Styles This style of parenting is where the parents let their children to make decisions on their own. The good thing about this style is the fact that communication is always open and parents are able […]
• Single-Parent Families The chief materials that are to be used in the proposed experiment are the measurement scale to evaluate changes in adolescents’ attitudes towards single-parent families and the source of information about single-parent households.
• How Does Society View Single Parents? A single parent refers to one who cares for one or more children without the help of one of the biological parents of the child or children. It is therefore important to note that society […]
• Why I Am a Good Son to My Parents The third reason why I believe I am a good son to both my parents is grounded on the fact that I have been, and will always be, a shining star in academics and extra-curricular […]
• Are Peers More Important Than Parents During the Process of Development? On the other hand, children need to understand that they are under the authority of the parents. In the life of a human being, most of his/her time is spent with peers and not the […]
• Spoiled Children and Parenting Mistakes However, in order to bring a child who will earn the respect of the society at present and in the future, it is important for the parents to reverse this trend in spoiled brats by […]
• How Do Teenagers Deal With Problems and Consequence Without Parent’s Support? This is because the parents are not in a position to be of good guidance during the period of the problems and they are not reliable and therefore teenagers tend to rely on themselves.
• Parental Hopes and Standards for Sons and Daughters However, even in a contemporary society characterized by the evolution of tolerance and equality, families have different standards for their sons and daughters that are preconditioned by the power of some stereotypical representations about female […]
• Parents Should Spank Their Children While some parents uphold spanking as the most appropriate mode of disciplining their children, others argue that inflicting physical pain to the child can lead to negative consequences in the future. The parents should be […]
• Role of Parents in Physical Education and Sport The involvement of parents in physical education and sports is viewed differently in regard to how it affects the child’s participation in sports even later in life.
• Cybernetics and Parenting Styles in Family Therapy This concept will be very helpful in my future work since I will be able to notice negative behavior in children that is the result of the parenting style adopted by the parents.
• The Teacher Speech With Parents These instances are broadly meant to ensure that the parents get the best understanding of the information concerning the school and more importantly enable them to fully participate in the education of their children.
• Parental Responsibility for Crimes of Children Parents should be held responsible for the crime of their children because in most cases criminal involvement of children is the result of lack of parental control.
• Parental Rejection and Its Severe Consequences Parental rejection can either be from a mother, a father, or a guardian. However, rejection from a mother seems to have more severe consequences of the three categories.
• Importance of Parenting Concepts In this case, the child is aware of the conflict transpiring between parents and may be torn between whom to follow and who not to.
• Parenting Styles: Advantages and Disadvantages Kids do what they are made to do because they want to escape the punishment. As parents support children, they become independent and strong-willed.
• Personal Reflection on Parenting It is important for the parents to ensure that they are open-minded to their children. Therefore, it is important for the parents to ensure that they do not dictate everything to their children.
• Parental Differential Treatment and Favoritism As such, parents embrace differential treatment and favoritism of children based on age of the child, gender of the child, the personality of the child, or order of birth.
• The Struggles of Single Parenting The associated unavailability of proper housing, insecurity and abuse increase the influence of single-parenthood to development of a child in spite of the fact that wealth is no guarantee of positive outcome in character of […]
• Parents’ Role in Children-Technology Relations The aim of pilot study was to apply Day in the Life as method of research to understand how young children use technology in their daily lives.
• What Is a Parent? In the cases wherein the egg and sperm do not come from the couple, and a surrogate is used to carry the child, who is the real parent of the child?
• Marital and Parental Subsystems in Family In a conventional family system, these members include the husband and wife, the siblings, and the relatives who make up the extended family.
• Parental Involvement in Teenage Relationships Parents can monitor their child’s academic progress, engage them in conversations about romance and relationships, and give them career advice and guidance. Parental involvement in their children’s academic and social lives helps parents to understand […]
• Good Parent-Children Relationship Characteristics of the children compared to those of the parents can also influence the relationships between the parents and the children.
• Parents’ Involvement in Schoolwork Parent involvement is important in improving academic performance as students have to prove to teachers and parents that they are working hard at school.
• Parenting Education Programs: Pros and Cons To ensure that new pregnant couples are prepared to handle the responsibilities associated with raising kids and with helping alleviate stress and support families, it is essential that parents take parenting education programs.
• Parental Non-Involvement in Children’s Education The articles under consideration reveal the problem of the involvement of parents in children’s education. The second part of the article is devoted to the ways of parents’ involvement.
• Nuclear Family vs. Single Parenting Effects on Child The family is the main environment that contributes to the behavior of a person. The family environment in which these individuals are is the key contributor to the character and behavior of individuals.
• Child Obesity and Parental Negligence Purpose of the study The proposed study is aimed at establishing the influence of neglect on the part of the parents to childhood obesity.
• Four Styles of Parenting The authors continue to explain that parenting styles are affected by children’s and parents’ dispositions and mainly based on the influence of one’s culture, traditions and origins. The four types of parenting styles include Authoritarian […]
• How Ineffective Parenting Affects a Child’s Future In addition to impairing a child’s social skills, ineffective parenting may result in a codependent relationship between a parent and their child.
• Single Parent and Child Language Development The first-born child in a family is more likely to have a higher chance of better language development than the remaining children that follow him.
• Collectivist and Individualist Parents The grandparent’s role in a collectivist family would be similar to that of parents, and they would be expected to help with the upbringing, and children would need to bey them.
• Parent-Child Relationships in “Everyday Use” by Alice Walker The more distant and fractious relationship is between the narrator and Dee. The narrator is referred to as “Mama,” and a mama she is.
• Why Are Young People Living Longer With Their Parents? When referring to a young adult, who is “living at home with their parents,” “living at parental home,” “stays with parents,” the research means that the mentioned adult is a child or a stepchild of […]
• How Parents in Different Cultures Scaffold Their Children’s Learning Playing with the children is one of the most significant foundation for learning among young children, where learning of the child basically takes place through observations and associations with vastly skilled and highly developed members […]
• Respect, Honor, & Love Children for Their Parents They should never disrespect them or talk to them rudely and calmly listen to whatever they say. Children must always accompany their parents to the temples and worship wholeheartedly in front of the Gods.
• Adolescents’ Decision-Making and Parenting Concerns Parents are to give their children freedom of choice in love life and dating as anyway, teenagers will do whatever they want but without parental notification.
• Parenting Styles and Their Influence on Adulthood The family context is regarded as essential because it helps to establish the link between childhood and the relationships of a person with their parents with future behavior and performance.
• Parenting Style in Japan and USA Parenting encompasses the growth ecology of a growing up child, and hence it is very important in shaping up the behavior of the child and in their physical survival, social growth, cognitive development, and emotional […]
• Parental Involvement in Education From the analysis of the positive relation, research studies make of two-parent families and student achievement, it is correct to note that parental involvement in two-parent family setups is more preferred to single-parent family setups.
• The Relationship Between Parental Influence and Juvenile Delinquency Parents that do not allow their children to play with their neighbors, or discourage their children from associating with particular families lead to the children developing a negative attitude towards the families.
• Parental Care and Responsibilities In such a case, it is only logical for both parties to be involved in fending for, and taking care of the family.
• Parental Responsibility for Childhood Obesity It is widely known and proven by numerous studies that parents have the most significant influence on their children’s lifestyles, especially their eating habits; in addition to the fact that children copy everything their parents […]
• Should Parents Be Allowed to Choose the Characteristics of Their Children Through Genetic Manipulation? At the outset, genetic manipulation might be important to many parents as it trims down the prospects of grave infections in the newborn babies. The disadvantages of parents going for genetic manipulation seem to outweigh […]
• Conditioning in Parenting: Getting Kids to Do Chores One of those is an attempt to teach the child the love to the core and develop the initiative of helping with the housekeeping duties.
• Relationship Between Parents and Children The book is based on the story of a farmer and his family, who, due to the problematic nature of the head of the family, are forced to change their place of residence: “None of […]
• Disability Equality of a Disabled Lone Parent Although the officials were initially reluctant owing to her physical condition and the nature of work she was to perform, they allowed her to try.
• Parenting Styles and Authority Problems Authority or the right to influence the actions and opinions of other people plays an important part in many areas of our life, including the relations between a parent and a child.
• Sources of Conflict Between Parents and Teenagers One of the recurrent themes linked to dress codes and the conflict between parents and adolescents is the adherence to cultural norms.
• Parenting Styles: China vs. North America Since Chinese parenting styles pay critical emphasis on the role of parents in shaping their children’s outcomes, it may be viewed as better compared to the North American style that only focuses much on self-esteem.
• Different Parenting Styles The disadvantage of this style of parenting is that it over-estimates the value of discipline and forgets to highlight the importance of independence and self reliance, which is vital for maturity of an adolescent child.
• Group Therapy for Pregnant and Parenting Teenagers It is important for the girls to understand that life still has meaning in spite of their circumstances. If the girls are able to develop a positive perception of life, they will be motivated to […]
• Parental Dietary Behaviors and Children’s Eating Habits The child forms eating behavior based on the parental example and the traditions adopted in the house. I think the article is based on the theory that children tend to adopt their parents’ patterns of […]
• Parent Interview: Through the Generations I was wondering about her understanding of the roles of mothers and fathers in a family and society, as well as the changes modern parenting undergoes. The development of family relationships is a choice a […]
• Low-Functioning Parents: Resolving the Issue The first is to put the child in the custody of foster care. The first option is likely to cause trauma to the child and parents.
• Parenting Styles and Academic Motivation Lyengar and Brown conducted a study about the correlation between the academic achievements among the students and the parenting styles. This report paper tries to synthesize the literature review that surrounds the influence of parenting […]
• Self-Concept, Parental Labeling, and Delinquency The key objective is to point out broader determinants to specify the self and argue the dependence of appraisal from the standpoint of other people on delinquency.
• Parent–Child and Sibling Relationships In the literature on quality of sibling relationships, the focus has been made on studying psychological implications of sibling relationships, variations in sibling relationships in societies, and the implications of their successful and unsuccessful development.
• The Role of Parents in Children’s Life The effect that was brought up in the life of Lopez is that of a person who became bitter with life and looked forward to developing the life that he would value.
• “Against the Grain: Couples, Gender, and the Reframing of Parenting” The soundness of this suggestion can be explored in regards to Gillian Ranson’s book Against the grain: couples, gender, and the reframing of parenting, concerned with exposing the actual motivations behind the process of parental […]
• Principles of Parenting in Psychology The ego is the component of the psyche that interfaces and coordinates the super-ego and the id in the harmonization of the conflicting sexual instincts and cultural sexual constrains in the process of psychosexual development.
• Parenting and Its Influence on Adult Children My parents have different views and character traits from my grandparents, and sometimes these contrasts cause difficulties in their relationships. Thus, love in the bonds between children and parents is essential, but it is sometimes […]
• Relations of Parents and Teenagers This is although the children may be extremely proud of their parents and would like to take grow up to be just like them.
• Good Parents Traits and Raising Children – Psychology Some of the traits of a good parent include being a good listener, readiness to guide, self-discipline, setting time aside to spend with the children, and meeting the physical needs of children. In addition, good […]
• Helicopter Parents In the event of a problem, such parents are usually available to save the situation and ensure that the issue is solved amicably on behalf of the child.
• Why Chinese Parents Are Superior They deny their children many forms of popular leisure, are not shy to criticize them when they fail and drill them until they are perfect at whatever given task.’Western parents’ on the other hand, the […]
• Safety Promotion for Parents and Caregivers of Infants Recognizing and assessing the risk involved leads to the containment of the matter by identifying the plan required to promote infant safety.
• Technology and Parenting: Gaming and Social Media The current project is a social media campaign report targeted at addressing the increased use of social media and gaming among the growing generation.
• Single Parents in the Alcoholic Classification In this category, the single parent, either the father or the mother is a chronic alcoholic and heavily uses alcohol and other substances.
• Parent-Teacher Conferences and Their Forms The picture is a great example of a successful parent-teacher conference as all factors presented in it can greatly contribute to the mutual understanding and further cooperation of parents and a teacher.
• Parental Care and Its Role in Poor Families The findings of this analysis will explain the protective factors that may minimize the effects of living in poverty on infant development.
• Parenting for Healthy Emotional Development The development of emotions gives one the ability to be empathetic to others, handle conflicts in the right way, and understand the importance of regulating emotions.
• Relationship Between Parental Involvement and Children’s Motivation Parent will respect the teachers, the profession, the school and the teacher will perceive parents as supporters and partners in the provision of education to the students.
• Parental Issues in A Midsummer Night’s Dream: Reading the Science of Law Into a Cautious Tale About the Return Into the Lapse of Nature When Literature Meets Jurisdiction: The Mother, the Father and the Child As it has been mentioned above, the play incorporates the elements of a moral dilemma concerning who the parent of a child should be […]
• Teaching Project: The Tube-Fed Children’s Parents At the second one, the children were introduced to the food to be consumed orally, and the calories they could not manage to take through the mouth were given to them by the tube.
• Parental Behavior in the Great Apes In contrast to chimpanzees, orangutan and gorilla newborns are less frequently separated from their mothers and have highly developed motor skills.
• Impact of Free Childcare on Working Parents At the same time, having a free caregiver can improve the financial situation of parents and the child, as they can return to work.
• Parenting Practices and Theories in Early Childhood While modern parenting practices and thoughts do not specify precisely how to interact with children through the ages of 6-11, they suggest that parents can develop knowledge about children’s development process.
• Parenting Behaviors and Their Impact on Children The final research paper on the effect of good and bad parenting is the most important part of the portfolio. The question regarding the effects of good and bad parenting appears provocative and uncertain, and […]
• Parenting: Plan for a Program Evaluation The purpose of the evaluation is to assess the changes to the parenting style of foster parents. The data collected at the end of the evaluation will provide the valuable information on the effectiveness of […]
• Understanding and Addressing Family Stress: Parental Responses and Impact on Children The spousal relationship, employment, a lack of structure in the household, and psychological suffering all contribute to stress. They are regarded as potent mediators, and therefore, offending elders indicates disrespecting the father and may lead […]
• Parenting: The Role of Socioeconomic Level and Discipline The influence of stress on discipline was modulated by the parent’s perceptions and thought functions such as concerns about the future of the child and the availability of alternative correctional tactics.
• Addressing Single Parents’ Needs in Professional Counseling In conclusion, after reading the article, I understood the need to reinforce the positive aspects of being a single parent while adequately addressing the adverse impact such a state has on one’s psyche.
• Parental Perception of Weight Management Barriers The study examined the parents’ perception on factors that contribute to childhood obesity and sort their suggestions on the possible ways of overcoming the barriers.
• Society and Parenting: Survey Results Among the participants, the age group category of 30-40 was the highest, followed by 40+ years, then the 20-30 years category, and finally, the below 20 years.
• Good Parenting and Strong Social Development As a result, it is debatable whether the idea of rewarding children does or does not lead to an increase in their pro-social conduct.
• Parental Knowledge, Attitudes, and Cultural Beliefs Regarding Oral Health A good understanding of parental knowledge, attitudes, beliefs, and awareness regarding oral health is important for improving health promotion efforts focused on elevating the dental health of young children.
• The Role of Parental Involvement in School Life The expert states the pointlessness of the argument and the joint work of the institutions that are important in the education and life of the child.
• Parental Education on Overweight and Obese Children The search term used includes “Effect of parental education on BMI,” “the importance of parental Education in reducing Obesity,” and “BMI, parental education, and Bodyweight”.
• The Partnership With Parents and Community The relationship between parents and children is a complex system of relationships, the subject of the study of the psychology of parenthood, the purpose of which is to determine the mechanisms of the development of […]
• Old-Young and Parent-Child Relationships in Early Chinese Society It is possible to apply the same principle to the relationships of the parent and the child, where the child should always respect the parent and follow their orders and advice.
• “Black Parents Ask for a Second Look” by Adjei & Minka The authors claimed that the lack of understanding of the former often results in children of color being taken away from their families by Child and Family Services.
• Child-Parent Relationships in Contemporary International Cinema Understanding the quality of the relationships between parents and children plays an important role in modern society, and various methods are used to deliver the message and share opinions.
• Ethical Dilemma of Parental Refusal From Children’s Vaccination Kerry attempts to convince the Smiths of the relevance of vaccination in preventing infection by chronic diseases. Autonomy, beneficence, non-maleficence, and justice are ethical principles applicable in resolving the moral issue of whether or not […]
• Epilepsy and Seizure Disorder: A Guide for Parents The use of electrodes is completely painless, and it allows the detection of the movement of neurons in the patient’s brain. First, a child is likely to experience challenges in learning due to seizures and […]
• Parental Role in Adolescents’ Phone Addiction In other words, the connection between the guardian and the teenagers is critical and should be maintained to allow children experience the love of their parents.
• Education for Parents of Children With Cancer The hospital was selected because I am have been working there for a long time, and the personnel is willing to help me with the implementation of the process.
• “Parental Characteristics and Offspring Mental Health” by Jami The title of the article is “Parental characteristics and offspring mental health and related outcomes: A systematic review of genetically informative literature”.
• Teachers-Parents Partnership and Children’s Literature The literature also allows children to learn and appreciate their differences with other kids and families, facilitating the establishment and maintenance of friendship.
• Parental Leaves for Both Parents in the US and Other Countries In the absence of federal paid leave policies in the U. As of 2018, in addition to the FMLA, four states had paid family leave laws in place, and three more were determined to pass […]
• Minors Seeking Treatment for Sexually Transmitted Diseases Without Parental Consent Due to the severity of sexually transmitted diseases, it is very important for doctors to provide minors with the necessary care.
• Parental Control as a Guarantee of Children’s Safety on the Internet Parents are liable for the safety of children on the Net and therefore are obliged to control and expand their knowledge in this field constantly.
• The Four Basic Parenting Practices This type of parent listens to their children and provides love and comfort in conjunction with boundaries and reasonable chastisement. Children that have authoritarian parents are more personality and capable of thinking for themselves.
• Parental Differences in Eastern and Western Cultures The main finding of this study was that children of Chinese families were better equipped for school, when the family employed greater parental involvement combined with high authoritative parenting style.
• Should the Church Baptize Babies of Commited Christian Parents? One of the most common is the idea of the unity of the believers that surpass any genetic or race accessory.
• Adolescent Shoplifting: Infographics for Parents The consequences of unaddressed juvenile shoplifting are the involvement of teenagers in organized theft, other serious gang activities, and placement in a youth detention center.
• The Impact of Parental Incarceration and Foster Children to Delinquency It was proved that the causal relationship between events such as parental incarceration and foster care and the social phenomenon of juvenile delinquency truly exists.
• Case Study: Parental Dispute The threshold criteria are the evidence and facts that are to be proven by the social services in order for the court to consider making the Care and Supervision Order.
• A Generational Dance: How Parents and Kids Relate In summation, it is vital to note that the well-being and development of a child depend on the wholesome relations with their parents.
• How Does Having a Child With Autism Affects Parents’ Lifestyle? The creation of a system of psychological, pedagogical and social support can reduce the risk of a complete family life dedication to a child with autism.
• Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder and Parenting Style On a scale of 1 to 10, with 1 being lowest and 10 being highest, how much do you believe that kids need to learn early who the boss is in the family?
• Parental Corporal Punishment of Young Children But did you know that the States is the only permanent and non-permanent member of the United Nations that is not a signatory to Article 19, which condemns and prohibits all forms of physical abuse […]
• Parenthub as Resource for Parent-Child Relationships Building Unfortunately, not all parents understand effective methods of upbringing, do not realize the value of a favorable environment for the child’s independence, and neglect the appearance of the youth’s emotional anticipation.
• How Parents of Color Transcend Nightmare of Racism Even after President Abraham Lincoln outlawed enslavement and won the American Civil War in 1965, prejudice toward black people remained engrained in both the northern and southern cultural structures of the United States.
• Parenting Counseling in the New York City Community Overall, Cap4Kids has developed a wide range of resources and opportunities for children and their parents, thus, addressing the parenting issues that New York City community members are likely to experience presently.
• The Relationships Between Parents and Children and Keys to Their Success The key points, which people frequently neglect, are the need for parents to be nurturers, never-ending personal development, and the risks with which the prevalence of emotional motives for parenthood is associated.
• Impact of Free Childcare on Parents Willingness to Go Back to Work or College The study is unique in that it assesses the impact of free childcare in aiding parents to get back to college and work, unlike existing literature that focuses on parental return to work only.
• Children and Parent’s Adjustment Process The adjustment process of new children and their parents can be challenging for them and the teacher. Inviting the parents to the classroom can help with the separation anxiety in both children and their parents.
• The Experience of Parents of Children With Disabilities Enhancing support for the mental well-being of parents of children with a disability: developing a resource based on the perspectives of parents and professionals.
• “Home, School, and Community Relations”: The Complex Role Nature of Parenting However, emphasizing work sometimes leads to a lack of attention to the educator’s role, which can also hurt a child. From my perspective, such behavior is a warning signal, which has to be taken seriously […]
• The Sandwich Generation: Impact on the Parent Caring for Children and Parents The person who has the role of taking care of both the small children and the elderly parents meets multiple challenges while managing all the responsibilities simultaneously.
• The Sandwich Generation: Caring for Children and Parents The definition indicates a person “sandwiched” between managing the responsibilities of a parent and a caring child at the same time.
• Raising the Standards for Children of Incarcerated Parents The sources of their hardships extend to social, economic, and emotional levels, and it is up to the community to recognize that and affect change by advocating for appropriate programs, policies, and practices.
• The Relationship Between Single-Parent Households and Poverty The given literature review will primarily focus on the theoretical and empirical aspects of the relationship between single-parent households and poverty, as well as the implications of the latter on mental health issues, such as […]
• Parental Intervention on Self-Management of an Adolescent With Diabetes Diabetes development and exposure are strongly tied to lifestyle, and the increasing incidents rate emphasizes the severity of the population’s health problem.
• The Difference in Parenting an Adolescent Similarly, the father, who appears to be a disconnected and distant parent, has to support the mother and the child psychologically bonded to their adolescent to improve parenting.
• Parenting Models in Modern Family Unit of Emigrants in the USA The fact is that the Lee family has three children, one of whom is just a baby, and the other two are studying at the moment in high school.
• Empathy in Parent-Child Relationships It is the responsibility of parents to explain to their children what is right and what is wrong so that they can form their own opinion and develop a sense of self-worth.
• Single, Low-Income, or Homeless Mothers’ Health and Parenting Problems To promote their wellbeing, health professionals may support homeless mothers in practices such as the use of strengths-anchored nursing, supporting ideas of good parenting, overcoming stigma, and discovering and eliminating the unsurmountable hindrances encountered within […]
• Parents Who Teach Their Kids About Self-Worth Teaching their kids to be proud is essential because it can give them the strength to stand up for what is right and evaluate the situations around them with a sense of pride and self-worth.
• A Quality All Parents Should Cultivate Parents should be able to show their love to their children since they are not able to express themselves when they need it most. Parents’ love for their children is unparalleled, and they need to […]
• Parent-Child Relationships in Later Life My mother, in turn, seeks to demonstrate that she is not a child anymore, and the patronage of that kind insults her.
• What Every New Parent Should Know Undoubtedly, the issue of preparing for the baby is essential, and it touches almost every young couple, so the majority of people are familiar with it. For instance, the conflict between the parents and their […]
• Parenting Styles and Overweight Status The authoritarian parenting style has a strict disciplinarian and a high expectation of the child’s self-control from the parent but a low sensitivity.
• Infantilization: Adult Children Living With Parents When the time comes to leave home, young people are petrified of the idea of living on their own and not having the same level of everyday care and support that they are used to.
• What Is a Concept Good Parent? Overall, a good parent is a parent who can offer one’s child love and affection which is important for his or her normal development as a dignified and contented person, and is also successful in […]
• Analysis of Bullying and Parenting Style Since the given topic usually refers to children and adolescents, it is evident that their parents hold a portion of responsibility because the adults affect the growth and development of young individuals.
• Parent’s Right to Travel Out of the Country This paper seeks to analyze the parent’s right to travel out of the country and outlines why traveling has been an issue for the courts In the US, the Supreme Court acknowledges that every citizen […]
• Parent Involvement and Student Achievement The purpose of the study is to investigate whether parental involvement plays a role in elementary school student achievement.
• Autism and Vaccination Refusal Management Among Somalian Parents Somalian parents in their community in Minnesota refuse from their children being vaccinated, as they believe that vaccination causes autism.
• Parents’ Immunization Decisions and Complex Issues in Toddlers The child and family health nurse can collaborate with diverse professionals, including the state’s immunization specialists, to improve the child’s health prospects while also empowering the mother to get updated information from national authorities in […]
• The Home Interaction Program for Parents and Youngsters Aarash said that children’s well-being is his priority and mentioned that the family needs proper food for Hamdiya and a washing machine and iron to ensure the children look neat.
• Parents’ Perception of Attending an ADHD Clinic The main principles of the clinic’s specialists should be an objective diagnosis of the neurological status of the child and the characteristics of his/her behavior, the selection of drug treatment only on the basis of […]
• Assessment and Communicating With Parents Technology allows for an accurate quantitative measurement of the students’ progress. Technology helps compare and contrast the results of two assessments.
• Childhood Obesity and Parental Education The thesis is as follows: parents should cooperate with local organizations to receive and provide their children with education on healthy living and the dangers of obesity because they are responsible for their children’s diet.
• The Importance of Parenting Aspects First, it is essential to note the critical periods of prenatal development, when the mother and the baby are the most vulnerable.
• Success: How to Parent? Therefore, it is crucial to choose a competent approach to raising a child to not injure them in this way. This will help in choosing a profession and the entire path of life.
• Parent-School Communication The current paper includes an interview with the school’s principal regarding the opportunities for parent-school partnership.
• Positive Parenting Tips for Young Child’s Safety So to keep your child healthy and safe, the first two years of a child’s growth are very important and hence should be taken care of cautiously.
• Adverse Childhood Experiences With Incarcerated Parents The Method of Data Collection: Mixed: survey and secondary data will both be utilized. The Research Design: First, there will be a survey of families in which there are incarcerated parents.
• Jennifer Morse: Parents or Prisons Among the many reasons cited to have led to high the number of cases of juvenile offending is divorce and single parenthood.
• Teen Pregnancy and Early Parental Care The scholars established the high value of prenatal care for the teenage mothers that was likely to save thousands of dollars invested in the newborn care and support of the pregnancies.
• Parental Consent in Minors’ Abortions Thus, the parents or guardians of the teenage girl ought to be aware of the planned abortion and explain the possible consequences of abortion to the girl.
• Vicarious Liability of Parents for Their Children Vicarious liability is a term used to refer to situations where parents are punished because of the offenses committed by their children.
• Parenting Styles Concept Comprehensive Study
• Music in Parental Participation in Pediatric Laceration
• Conjugal Visits: Programs for Inmate Parents
• Care Needs of Children Whose Parents Have Incurable Cancer
• Parental Agony in Natal Alienation in Chesnutt’s The Sheriff’s Children & Harper’s The Slave Mother
• The Challenges of Teen Parenting: Socioeconomic Consequences and Child Development Risks
• Ethical Dilemma: Parental Notification
• Teens Talking With Their Partners About Sex: The Role of Parent Communication
• Parent-Teacher-Youth Mediation Program Analysis
• “Gender Differences in Work-Family Guilt in Parents of Young Children”: Quantitative Research Critique
• The Parent-Involvement Research
• Toddlers and Tiaras: Have Parents Gone Too Far
• “When Couples Become Parents” by Bonnie Fox
• Family Systems Theory: Parenting and Family Diversity Issues
• College Planning Brochure for Parents
• Incarceration of a Parent or a Guardian of Recidivist
• The Influence of Parents on Schoolchildren and Students
• Parenting in Battered Women: The Effects of Domestic Violence
• Lone Parents: Social Work and Exclusion
• Gender-Schema and Social Cognitive Theory in Parenting Styles
• Concern-Based Adoption Model in the Learning Process
• Parents’ Duty to Monitor Children’s Online Activities
• Behavioral Parenting Training to Treat Children With ADHD
• The Issue of Parents’ Censorship
• Why Single Parents Should Stop Working?
• “Blood Wedding” by F. G. Lorca and “The Metamorphosis” by F. Kafka: The Impact of Roles of Parents
• Should Parents Use Monitoring Software?
• Parenting Training Classes: A Psychology Experiment
• Pilgrims and Puritanism Parenting
• Teaching Parents of Schoolchildren on Sex and Sexuality
• “Home, School and Playroom” by Claire Etaugh: The Combined Effects and Interactions Among Parental Child-Rearing Practices
• Why Spanking Is Acceptable in Parenting
• Parental Rights Terminating: Reasons and Procedures
• Parental Rejection Effects on Homosexuals
• Hamlet’s Parental Relationships
• Parents Influence Sexuality, Based on Two Novels
• Parental Intervention for Abnormal Pubescence
• The Relationships Between Physiotherapists and Educators, Parents, and Service Providers
• Communication Plan for Students, Teachers and Parents
• Fine and Lee on Psychoeducational Program for Parents
• Male and Female Parents: Is There a Difference?
• The Idea of Gay Parenting
• Critical Issues in Education: Parenting and Its Implication on Student’s Achievement
• Parenting a Child with a Disability Study Books Used in Class
• A Critical Review of Corporal Punishment as a Form of Parental Discipline
• Problems of Learning and Mutual Understanding of Students, Teachers and Parents
• African-American Community: Parental Involvement
• Parental Roles and Changes in the Last 50 Years
• Parent-Child Relations in Poetry
• Parent Involvement in the Elementary School Setting
• Parent-School Online Communication Platforms
• Antibiotic and Analgesic Self-Medication Practices Among Parents for Childhood Problems
• Parenting in “Hey, Kiddo” by Jarrett J. Krosoczka
• Parental Beliefs’ Impact on Children’s Therapy
• Parental Refusal of Treatment: Ethical Decision-Making
• Parents’ Role in Youth Probation Outcomes
• Parental Divorce and Its Impact on Teenagers
• Parental Report of Vaccine Receipt in Children With Autism Spectrum Disorder
• Discharging Minors in a Psychiatric Facility While Parents Feel Unsafe
• Schools and Parents’ Fight Against Cyberbullying
• Parenting Topic in Developmental Psychology
• Parental Disclosure of Artificial Conception
• Mental Illness in Children and Its Effects on Parents
• Parental Responsibilities and Related Conflicts
• Parenting, Child Development, and Socialization
• Family, Marriage, and Parenting Concepts Nowadays
• Children With Disabilities and Parental Mistreatment
• Rights of Parents of Students With Disabilities
• Parent Education and Discipline-Training Programs
• Parenting Behaviors Throughout Child’s Life
• Abbreviated Plans: Parent or Guardian Incarceration
• The Importance of Right Parenting in America
• Developing an Effective Parenting
• Productive Communication With Parents
• Parenting Strategies for Early Childhood Development
• Parents as Teachers Program From Educator’s View
• Parent Volunteering in the Early Education Centers
• Disabled Child Guidance Through the Parents’ Eyes
• “The Economic Benefits of Paid Parental Leave” by C. Miller
• Parental Uninvolvement in Personality Development
• Education Effect on Cultural Practices of Parents
• Parent-Child Perceptions: Sexual Discussions
• Being a Father: Parenting Roles and Experiences
• Poverty in American Single-Parent Families
• Grandparents as Parental Figures in Modern Families
• Group Counseling for Children of Addicted Parents
• Child Counseling and Parenting Problems
• Infant-Parent Attachment: Secure or Insecure?
• The Physiological Impact of Autism on Children and Parents
• Saudi Parents’ Perceptions of Early Intervention
• School Communication and Interaction With Parents
• Vegan Parents’ Influence on Their Children’s Diet
• Children’s Right to Be Parented by the Best Parent
• Parenting Style and the Development
• Computer Literacy: Parents and Guardians Role
• Parental Investment Theory
• Children’s Success Requirements in Parents’ Views
• Authoritarian vs. Permissive Parenting Styles
• Parenting Children With Learning Disabilities
• Child Parenting Guide and Challenges
• Teacher-Parent Collaboration in Special Education
• Parent-Child Relationship in Early Modern England
• Parental Control and Young Adult Criminal Behavior
• Young Adults Increasingly Moving in With Parents
• Parental Narcissism and Adolescent Development
• Parents’ Participation in Cultural Activities
• Why Young People Live Longer With Their Parents
• Parenting, Divorce, Dating in the Dear Abby Letter
• Parental Participation in Educational Activities
• Parents’ Reasons Allowing Their Newborns to Die
• Parental Involvement and Children’s Aspirations
• Emotions in Parent of a Child With Special Needs
• Aljoudah School: Teachers and Students’ Parents Experiences
• Adolescent Self-Perception and Parental Care
• Parents and Community Involvement
• Parent-Teen Relations in the United States and Denmark
• Parents Challenges: Raising Bilingual Children
• “Parental Choice” of Son-In-Law or Daughter-In-Law
• Children Reading Skills: Parents and Babysitters Effect
• Parental Involvement in School-To-Work Transition
• Parents’ Education and Children’s Achievement
• Parenting Styles of Young Adults
• Cartoons, Young Children, and Parental Involvement
• Parenting: Learning That an Adolescent Is Gay or Lesbian
• Association of Parenting Factors With Bullying
• Aspects of Parenting Infants and Toddlers
• Parenting Methods: Pros and Challenges
• Parent-Teacher Interaction Strategies
• Parent Interview and Infant Observation
• Parents’ Depression and Toddler Behaviors
• Children Mental Illness and Its Effects on Parents
• Parenting and Its Major Styles
• Styles of Parenting as a Psychological Strategies
• Cross-Cultural Study: Parenting and Psychological Disorders in Adolescents
• Parents Impact on Children Obesity – Nutrition
• Children Learning Activities and Parental Involvement
• Parents Need Help on Snow Days
• Chinese Parenting Style in Raising Successful Children
• Academic Performance and Parental Influence
• Parents Conferences Role in Education
• Parenting Behavior Supporting Obesity in School-Aged Children
• Children Obesity Issues and Role of Parents in It
• The Lived Experiences of Native American Indian Women Parenting off the Reservation
• Parents’ Involvement and Factors Important for Children’s Growth and Development
• Suggestions for Future Strategies in Analysis of Parental Involvement in School Administration
• Parenting Variables in Antenatal Education
• Single Parents Raise Kids
• Effective Responses to Challenging Parental Behaviors
• “Dating and the Single Parent” by Ron Deal
• “Dating and the Single Parent” by Deal
• Designing Educational Spaces: A Birth-To-Eighteen-Year-Old Training for a Rich Parent
• First Time Parenting
• Abortion and Parental Consent
• The Effects of Parental Involvement on Student Achievement
• Teach Your Parents Well
• How Children of Incarcerated Parents Are Affected
• Parental Involvement in Adolescent’s Life: Contributing to Identity Formation
• Role of Parents in the Education of Young Children
• Does Parental Involvement and Poverty Affect Children’s Education and Their Overall Performance?
• Problems Experienced by Children of Homosexual Parents
• When Couples Become Parents
• Analysis of Psychoeducational Program for Parents of Dysfunctional Backgrounds
• Reflective Entry of “Trauma Through a Child’s Eyes: Awakening the Ordinary Miracle of Healing Children, Parenting and the Family Series” and “Udaan”
• Gay Marriage, Same-Sex Parenting, And America’s Children
• Parents and Families as Partners
• Parenting: Managing and Controlling Behavior of a Child
• Families and Young Children: What Constitutes Effective Parental Discipline?
• Plans for Caring for Elderly Parents
• The Development Psychology: Parents’ Probability of Having Another Children
• Milwaukee Parental Choice Program
• Parents Attitude Towards the Importance of Childhood Nutrition
• Psychology: Parents’ Decisions on Having the Second Child
• Parents Need Help: Restricting Access to Video Games
• The Mothers Who Are Not Single: Striving to Avoid Poverty in Single-Parent Families
• The Relationship Between Shin and His Parents. Escape From Camp 14
• What Defines Parental Techniques and Strategies: The Case of Soccer Moms
• Chinese Mothers and Their Incredible Parenting
• How Does the Gender of Parent Matters?
• A Dysfunctional Behavior Involving a Drunkard Parent
• Parent Involvement Interview
• Effects of Parental Promotion of the Santa Myth
• Freakonomics and Parenting: A Position Paper
• Social Network and Personal Loss Among Young Adults With Mental Illness and Their Parents: A Family Perspective
• Parents’ Influence on the Life of the Main Characters
• Harsh Parenting in Relation to Child Emotion Regulation and Aggression.
• Harsh Parenting: Emotion Regulation and Aggression
• Should Justin Ellsworth’s Parents Have Been Given Access to His Email?
• Parent Involvement and Educational Outcomes
• Gay Marriage and Parenting
• Cooperation Between Teachers and Parents
• How Divorce and Single Parenting Affects Children
• Effects of a Parental Death on Younger Children
• Adopted Children With Gay Parents Have Better Chances of Succeeding
• The Impact of Media on Adolescents, and the Roles Played by School and Parents
• Family Issues: Parents Should Stay at Home When They Have Babies
• Parents as Failed Role Models: A Doll’s House and Fight Club
• Parenting’s Skills, Values and Styles
• Psychological Effects of Parental Employment and Early Childcare
• Teenage Alcoholism: Parental Influence and How to Get Rid of Vice
• Gay Parenting and the Issue of Adoption
• Western and Eastern Parenting Styles
• Foster Parenting Together: Foster Parent Couples
• The Five Major Parenting Modes and the Most Effective Parenting Style
• Parenting Techniques and Their Influences on Their Child’s Behavior and Habits
• Family, Parenting and Child Conduct Problems
• Social and Legal Obstacles of Gay and Lesbian Parenting
• Work-Family Conflict and Mindful Parenting: The Mediating Role of Parental Psychopathology Symptoms and Parenting Stress in a Sample of Employed Parents
• Parenting and Family: What’s Intergenerational Transmission
• Valuable Strategies for Parenting an Impulsive Child
• The Correlation Between Cyberbullying and Parenting Style, the Gender Differences in Cyberbullying
• Same-Sex Couples, Adoption, and Parenting
• Gender Equality and Inequality in Parenting Other Chapter
• Parenting Styles According to Social Class
• Authoritarian Parenting- Negative Effects of Authoritarian Parenting
• The Relationship Between Teen Pregnancy and Parenting
• Health and Social Services for Pregnant and High-Risk Parenting Teens
• Socioeconomic Status and Parenting Styles
• Different Parenting Styles and Their Effect on Children’s Behavior
• Economic Deprivation, Maternal Depression, Parenting and Children’s Cognitive and Emotional Development in Early Childhood
• Single Parenting Versus Double Parenting
• Low-Income Single Mothers’ Community Violence Exposure and Aggressive Parenting Practices
• Parenting Stress and Emotional or Behavioral Problems in Adolescents
• Relationships Between Parenting Style and Self Reliance
• Homeownership and Parenting Practices: Evidence From the Community Advantage Panel
• Parenting Styles: Authoritarian, Authoritative, Permissive, and Uninvolved
• Parenting and Education During Early Childhood
• Effective Parenting-Early Development, Various Parenting Styles and Discipline
• Implementing Parenting Programmes Across Cultural Contexts: A Perspective on the Deficit Narrative
• The Social Norm for Parenting and the Three Classic Parenting Patterns
• Family Income, Parenting Styles, and Child Behavioral-Emotional Outcomes
• Parenting Stress Among Child Welfare Involved Families: Differences by Child Placement
• Bidirectional Longitudinal Relations Between Parent and Grandparent and Co-parenting Relationships
• Relationship Between Parenting Styles and Anxiety Sensitivity
• Attachment Theory and Maternal Drug Addiction: The Contribution to Parenting Interventions
• Ideal Family and Parenting Configurations
• Social Behavior, Crime, and Poor Parenting
• The Psychosocial Variables Associated With the Parenting a Child Having Special Needs
• Attachment and Parental Reflective Functioning Features in ADHD: Enhancing the Knowledge on Parenting Characteristics
• Adoptive Parenting and Attachment: Association of the Internal Working Models Between Adoptive Mothers and Their Late-Adopted Children During Adolescence
• Does Strength-Based Parenting Predict Academic Achievement?
• What Are the Different Parenting Types Used by Families?
• How Does Social Class Influence Parenting and Child Development?
• How Has Parenting Changed Over the Generations?
• What Challenges Do Parents Face by Their Gender or Sexual Identities?
• Are the Major Causes of Juvenile Crime Lack of Parenting?
• How Does Culture Affect Parenting Styles?
• What Are the Effect of Bad Parenting?
• What Unites All Parenting Styles?
• Are Testosterone Levels and Depression Risk Linked Based on Partnering and Parenting?
• How Parenting Styles Around With How Culture and Religion?
• When Children Rule: Parenting in Modern Families?
• How Has Technology Impacted Parenting?
• When Behavioral Barriers Are Too High or Low – How Timing Matters for Parenting Interventions?
• Does Parenting Style Matter?
• Does Mothers Self-Construal Contribute to Parenting Beyond Socioeconomic Status and Maternal Efficacy?
• Who Helps With Homework? Parenting Inequality and Relationship Quality Among Employed Mothers and Fathers?
• How Does Parenting Styles Influence a Child’s Development?
• Does Parenting Affect Children’s Eating and Weight Status?
• How Parenting Styles Affect the Psychological Growth of a Child?
• Does Homosexual Parenting Have Adverse Effects?
• How Different Parenting Styles Affect Children?
• When Parenting Fails: Alexithymia and Attachment States of Mind in Mothers of Female Patients With Eating Disorders?
• Does Authoritative Parenting Impact Juvenile Delinquency?
• Why Doesn’t Single Parenting Always Mean Tough Life for Children?
• Are Our Parenting Classes Needed?
• Why Has Parenting Gotten More Difficult?
• How Is Parenting Role and Parental Status Influence on Impatience?
• What Are Parenting Styles?
• How Does Gender and Sexuality Condition Influence Parenting?
• Chicago (A-D)
• Chicago (N-B)

IvyPanda. (2024, March 2). 439 Parenting Essay Topics & Examples. https://ivypanda.com/essays/topic/parenting-essay-topics/

"439 Parenting Essay Topics & Examples." IvyPanda , 2 Mar. 2024, ivypanda.com/essays/topic/parenting-essay-topics/.

IvyPanda . (2024) '439 Parenting Essay Topics & Examples'. 2 March.

IvyPanda . 2024. "439 Parenting Essay Topics & Examples." March 2, 2024. https://ivypanda.com/essays/topic/parenting-essay-topics/.

1. IvyPanda . "439 Parenting Essay Topics & Examples." March 2, 2024. https://ivypanda.com/essays/topic/parenting-essay-topics/.

Bibliography

IvyPanda . "439 Parenting Essay Topics & Examples." March 2, 2024. https://ivypanda.com/essays/topic/parenting-essay-topics/.

• Childhood Essay Topics
• Childbirth Titles
• Relationship Research Ideas
• Child Labour Research Topics
• Toddler Paper Topics
• Childhood Obesity Research Ideas
• Parenting Styles Titles
• Child Development Research Ideas
• Attachment Theory Essay Topics
• Child Abuse Essay Topics
• Motherhood Ideas
• Spanking Ideas
• Child Welfare Essay Ideas
• Surrogacy Questions
• Caregiver Topics

• Bipolar Disorder
• Therapy Center
• When To See a Therapist
• Types of Therapy
• Best Online Therapy
• Best Couples Therapy
• Best Family Therapy
• Managing Stress
• Sleep and Dreaming
• Understanding Emotions
• Self-Improvement
• Healthy Relationships
• Student Resources
• Personality Types
• Guided Meditations
• Verywell Mind Insights
• 2023 Verywell Mind 25
• Mental Health in the Classroom
• Editorial Process
• Meet Our Review Board
• Crisis Support

50+ Research Topics for Psychology Papers

How to Find Psychology Research Topics for Your Student Paper

Kendra Cherry, MS, is a psychosocial rehabilitation specialist, psychology educator, and author of the "Everything Psychology Book."

Steven Gans, MD is board-certified in psychiatry and is an active supervisor, teacher, and mentor at Massachusetts General Hospital.

• Specific Branches of Psychology
• Topics Involving a Disorder or Type of Therapy
• Human Cognition
• Human Development
• Critique of Publications
• Famous Experiments
• Historical Figures
• Specific Careers
• Case Studies
• Literature Reviews
• Your Own Study/Experiment

Are you searching for a great topic for your psychology paper ? Sometimes it seems like coming up with topics of psychology research is more challenging than the actual research and writing. Fortunately, there are plenty of great places to find inspiration and the following list contains just a few ideas to help get you started.

Finding a solid topic is one of the most important steps when writing any type of paper. It can be particularly important when you are writing a psychology research paper or essay. Psychology is such a broad topic, so you want to find a topic that allows you to adequately cover the subject without becoming overwhelmed with information.

I can always tell when a student really cares about the topic they chose; it comes through in the writing. My advice is to choose a topic that genuinely interests you, so you’ll be more motivated to do thorough research.

In some cases, such as in a general psychology class, you might have the option to select any topic from within psychology's broad reach. Other instances, such as in an  abnormal psychology  course, might require you to write your paper on a specific subject such as a psychological disorder.

As you begin your search for a topic for your psychology paper, it is first important to consider the guidelines established by your instructor.

Research Topics Within Specific Branches of Psychology

The key to selecting a good topic for your psychology paper is to select something that is narrow enough to allow you to really focus on the subject, but not so narrow that it is difficult to find sources or information to write about.

One approach is to narrow your focus down to a subject within a specific branch of psychology. For example, you might start by deciding that you want to write a paper on some sort of social psychology topic. Next, you might narrow your focus down to how persuasion can be used to influence behavior .

Other social psychology topics you might consider include:

• Prejudice and discrimination (i.e., homophobia, sexism, racism)
• Social cognition
• Person perception
• Social control and cults
• Persuasion, propaganda, and marketing
• Attraction, romance, and love
• Nonverbal communication
• Prosocial behavior

Psychology Research Topics Involving a Disorder or Type of Therapy

Exploring a psychological disorder or a specific treatment modality can also be a good topic for a psychology paper. Some potential abnormal psychology topics include specific psychological disorders or particular treatment modalities, including:

• Eating disorders
• Borderline personality disorder
• Seasonal affective disorder
• Schizophrenia
• Antisocial personality disorder
• Profile a  type of therapy  (i.e., cognitive-behavioral therapy, group therapy, psychoanalytic therapy)

Topics of Psychology Research Related to Human Cognition

Some of the possible topics you might explore in this area include thinking, language, intelligence, and decision-making. Other ideas might include:

• False memories
• Speech disorders
• Problem-solving

Topics of Psychology Research Related to Human Development

In this area, you might opt to focus on issues pertinent to  early childhood  such as language development, social learning, or childhood attachment or you might instead opt to concentrate on issues that affect older adults such as dementia or Alzheimer's disease.

Some other topics you might consider include:

• Language acquisition
• Media violence and children
• Learning disabilities
• Gender roles
• Child abuse
• Prenatal development
• Parenting styles
• Aspects of the aging process

Do a Critique of Publications Involving Psychology Research Topics

One option is to consider writing a critique paper of a published psychology book or academic journal article. For example, you might write a critical analysis of Sigmund Freud's Interpretation of Dreams or you might evaluate a more recent book such as Philip Zimbardo's  The Lucifer Effect: Understanding How Good People Turn Evil .

Professional and academic journals are also great places to find materials for a critique paper. Browse through the collection at your university library to find titles devoted to the subject that you are most interested in, then look through recent articles until you find one that grabs your attention.

Topics of Psychology Research Related to Famous Experiments

There have been many fascinating and groundbreaking experiments throughout the history of psychology, providing ample material for students looking for an interesting term paper topic. In your paper, you might choose to summarize the experiment, analyze the ethics of the research, or evaluate the implications of the study. Possible experiments that you might consider include:

• The Milgram Obedience Experiment
• The Stanford Prison Experiment
• The Little Albert Experiment
• Pavlov's Conditioning Experiments
• The Asch Conformity Experiment
• Harlow's Rhesus Monkey Experiments

Topics of Psychology Research About Historical Figures

One of the simplest ways to find a great topic is to choose an interesting person in the  history of psychology  and write a paper about them. Your paper might focus on many different elements of the individual's life, such as their biography, professional history, theories, or influence on psychology.

While this type of paper may be historical in nature, there is no need for this assignment to be dry or boring. Psychology is full of fascinating figures rife with intriguing stories and anecdotes. Consider such famous individuals as Sigmund Freud, B.F. Skinner, Harry Harlow, or one of the many other  eminent psychologists .

Psychology Research Topics About a Specific Career

​Another possible topic, depending on the course in which you are enrolled, is to write about specific career paths within the  field of psychology . This type of paper is especially appropriate if you are exploring different subtopics or considering which area interests you the most.

In your paper, you might opt to explore the typical duties of a psychologist, how much people working in these fields typically earn, and the different employment options that are available.

Topics of Psychology Research Involving Case Studies

One potentially interesting idea is to write a  psychology case study  of a particular individual or group of people. In this type of paper, you will provide an in-depth analysis of your subject, including a thorough biography.

Generally, you will also assess the person, often using a major psychological theory such as  Piaget's stages of cognitive development  or  Erikson's eight-stage theory of human development . It is also important to note that your paper doesn't necessarily have to be about someone you know personally.

In fact, many professors encourage students to write case studies on historical figures or fictional characters from books, television programs, or films.

Psychology Research Topics Involving Literature Reviews

Another possibility that would work well for a number of psychology courses is to do a literature review of a specific topic within psychology. A literature review involves finding a variety of sources on a particular subject, then summarizing and reporting on what these sources have to say about the topic.

Literature reviews are generally found in the  introduction  of journal articles and other  psychology papers , but this type of analysis also works well for a full-scale psychology term paper.

Topics of Psychology Research Based on Your Own Study or Experiment

Many psychology courses require students to design an actual psychological study or perform some type of experiment. In some cases, students simply devise the study and then imagine the possible results that might occur. In other situations, you may actually have the opportunity to collect data, analyze your findings, and write up your results.

Finding a topic for your study can be difficult, but there are plenty of great ways to come up with intriguing ideas. Start by considering your own interests as well as subjects you have studied in the past.

Online sources, newspaper articles, books , journal articles, and even your own class textbook are all great places to start searching for topics for your experiments and psychology term papers. Before you begin, learn more about  how to conduct a psychology experiment .

What This Means For You

After looking at this brief list of possible topics for psychology papers, it is easy to see that psychology is a very broad and diverse subject. While this variety makes it possible to find a topic that really catches your interest, it can sometimes make it very difficult for some students to select a good topic.

If you are still stumped by your assignment, ask your instructor for suggestions and consider a few from this list for inspiration.

• Hockenbury, SE & Nolan, SA. Psychology. New York: Worth Publishers; 2014.
• Santrock, JW. A Topical Approach to Lifespan Development. New York: McGraw-Hill Education; 2016.

By Kendra Cherry, MSEd Kendra Cherry, MS, is a psychosocial rehabilitation specialist, psychology educator, and author of the "Everything Psychology Book."

An official website of the United States government

The .gov means it’s official. Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

The site is secure. The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

• Publications
• Account settings

Preview improvements coming to the PMC website in October 2024. Learn More or Try it out now .

• Advanced Search
• Journal List

Parenting Styles: A Closer Look at a Well-Known Concept

Sofie kuppens.

1 Erasmus School of Health Policy & Management, Erasmus University Rotterdam, Rotterdam, The Netherlands

2 Department of Public Health and Primary Care, KU Leuven, Leuven, Belgium

Eva Ceulemans

3 Faculty of Psychology and Educational Sciences, KU Leuven, Leuven, Belgium

Although parenting styles constitute a well-known concept in parenting research, two issues have largely been overlooked in existing studies. In particular, the psychological control dimension has rarely been explicitly modelled and there is limited insight into joint parenting styles that simultaneously characterize maternal and paternal practices and their impact on child development. Using data from a sample of 600 Flemish families raising an 8-to-10 year old child, we identified naturally occurring joint parenting styles. A cluster analysis based on two parenting dimensions (parental support and behavioral control) revealed four congruent parenting styles: an authoritative, positive authoritative, authoritarian and uninvolved parenting style. A subsequent cluster analysis comprising three parenting dimensions (parental support, behavioral and psychological control) yielded similar cluster profiles for the congruent (positive) authoritative and authoritarian parenting styles, while the fourth parenting style was relabeled as a congruent intrusive parenting style. ANOVAs demonstrated that having (positive) authoritative parents associated with the most favorable outcomes, while having authoritarian parents coincided with the least favorable outcomes. Although less pronounced than for the authoritarian style, having intrusive parents also associated with poorer child outcomes. Results demonstrated that accounting for parental psychological control did not yield additional parenting styles, but enhanced our understanding of the pattern among the three parenting dimensions within each parenting style and their association with child outcomes. More similarities than dissimilarities in the parenting of both parents emerged, although adding psychological control slightly enlarged the differences between the scores of mothers and fathers.

Parenting has gained ample research attention from various scientific disciplines. Many theoretical frameworks emphasize that parenting plays a vital role in child development, which has fueled research investigating the impact of parenting on child development for over 75 years. When studying parenting, researchers can take various strategies by considering parenting practices, parenting dimensions or parenting styles. Parenting practices can be defined as directly observable specific behaviors that parents use to socialize their children (Darling and Steinberg 1993 ). For example, parenting practices intended to promote academic achievement are showing involvement by attending parent–teacher meetings or regular supervision of children’s homework. Other parenting practices pertain to positive reinforcement, discipline, or problem solving.

Rather than focusing on specific parenting practices, other researchers have identified overarching parenting dimensions that reflect similar parenting practices, mostly by modeling the relationships among these parenting practices using factor analytic techniques. There is consensus among scientists about the existence of at least two broad dimensions of parenting, labeled parental support and parental control. Parental support pertains to the affective nature of the parent-child relationship, indicated by showing involvement, acceptance, emotional availability, warmth, and responsivity (Cummings et al. 2000 ). Support has been related to positive development outcomes in children, such as the prevention of alcohol abuse and deviance (Barnes and Farrell 1992 ), depression and delinquency (Bean et al. 2006 ) and externalizing problem behavior (Shaw et al. 1994 ).

The control dimension has been subdivided into psychological and behavioral control (Barber 1996 ; Schaefer 1965 ; Steinberg 1990 ). Parental behavioral control consists of parenting behavior that attempts to control, manage or regulate child behavior, either through enforcing demands and rules, disciplinary strategies, control of rewards and punishment, or through supervisory functions (Barber 2002 ; Maccoby 1990 ; Steinberg 1990 ). An appropriate amount of behavioral control has been considered to positively affect child development, whereas insufficient (e.g., poor parental monitoring) or excessive behavioral control (e.g., parental physical punishment) has been commonly associated with negative child developmental outcomes, such as deviant behavior, misconduct, depression and anxious affect (e.g., Barnes and Farrell 1992 ; Coie and Dodge 1998 ; Galambos et al. 2003 ; Patterson et al. 1984 ). While parental behavioral control refers to control over the child’s behavior, parental psychological control pertains to an intrusive type of control in which parents attempt to manipulate children’s thoughts, emotions, and feelings (Barber 1996 ; Barber et al. 2005 ). Due to its manipulative and intrusive nature, psychological control has almost exclusively been associated with negative developmental outcomes in children and adolescents, such as depression, antisocial behaviour and relational regression (e.g., Barber and Harmon 2002 ; Barber et al. 2005 ; Kuppens et al. 2013 ). The three parenting dimensions (support, psychological control, and behavioral control) have been labelled conceptually distinct, although they are related to some extent (Barber et al. 2005 ; Soenens et al. 2012 ).

Other authors have taken yet a different approach to studying parenting by emphasizing that specific combinations of parenting practices within a parent particularly impact child development rather than separate parenting practices or dimensions (e.g., Baumrind 1991 ; Maccoby and Martin 1983 ). Within such a configurational approach, one examines which patterns of parenting practices occur within the same parent and how these patterns—commonly labelled as parenting styles— are related to children’s development. Such parenting styles have the clear advantage of accounting for different parenting practices at the same time within the same person. As such, it comprises a person–centered approach that focuses on configurations within individuals rather than a variable–centered approach that focuses on relationships among variables across individuals as has been used to identify parenting dimensions (Magnusson 1998 ).

Baumrind ( 1966 , 1967 , 1971 ) is commonly considered a pioneer of research into parenting styles. She introduced a typology with three parenting styles to describe differences in normal parenting behaviors: the authoritarian, authoritative and permissive parenting style. Baumrind ( 1971 ) suggested that authoritarian parents try to shape, control, and evaluate their children’s behavior based on the absolute set of standards; whereas permissive parents are warmer and more autonomy granting than controlling. She considered an authoritative parenting style to fall between those two extremes. Later on in the 1980s, Maccoby and Martin ( 1983 ) attempted to bridge Baumrind’s typology and parenting dimensions. Based on the combination of two dimensions – demandingness and responsiveness – they defined four parenting styles: authoritative (i.e., high demandingness and high responsiveness); authoritarian (i.e., high demandingness and low responsiveness); indulgent (i.e., low demandingness and high responsiveness); and neglectful (i.e., low demandingness and low responsiveness). These two parenting dimensions are similar, yet not identical to the dimensions ‘parental support’ and ‘parental behavioral control’. Based on Maccoby and Martin’s work, Baumrind ( 1989 , 1991 ) expanded her typology with a fourth parenting style, namely the ‘neglectful’ parenting style.

Maccoby and Martin ( 1983 ) research efforts primarily focused on the configuration of the parenting styles and to a lesser extent on their association with children’s development. Baumrind, in contrast, has also extensively studied the association between parenting styles and child development (1967, 1971, 1989, 1991). This work consistently demonstrated that youth of authoritative parents had the most favorable development outcomes; authoritarian and permissive parenting were associated with negative developmental outcomes; while outcomes for children of neglectful parents were poorest. These aforementioned associations have also been replicated by other researchers. An authoritative parenting style has consistently been associated with positive developmental outcomes in youth, such as psychosocial competence (e.g., maturation, resilience, optimism, self-reliance, social competence, self-esteem) and academic achievement (e.g., Baumrind 1991 ; Lamborn et al. 1991 ; Steinberg et al. 1994 ). Findings regarding permissive/indulgent parenting have been inconsistent yielding associations with internalizing (i.e., anxiety, depression, withdrawn behavior, somatic complaints) and externalizing problem behavior (i.e., school misconduct, delinquency), but also with social skills, self–confidence, self–understanding and active problem coping (e.g., Lamborn et al. 1991 ; Steinberg et al. 1994 ; Williams et al. 2009 ; Wolfradt et al. 2003 ). An authoritarian parenting style has consistently been associated with negative developmental outcomes, such as aggression, delinquent behaviors, somatic complaints, depersonalisation and anxiety (e.g., Hoeve et al. 2008 ; Steinberg et al. 1994 ; Williams et al. 2009 ; Wolfradt et al. 2003 ). Children of neglectful parents have shown the least favorable outcomes on multiple domains, such as lacking self-regulation and social responsibility, poor self-reliance and social competence, poor school competence, antisocial behavior and delinquency, anxiety, depression and somatic complaints (e.g., Baumrind 1991 ; Hoeve et al. 2008 ; Lamborn et al. 1991 ; Steinberg et al. 1994 ).

Baumrind’s typology (1966) was initially determined on theoretical grounds, although with time she did conduct empirical validation research (1967, 1971, 1989, 1991). Nonetheless, the empirical studies always started with parenting styles that were predefined in a prototypical score profile in terms of minimum or maximum limit scores (e.g., scores above or below the median) on the different parenting practices; thus parents were first classified using cut–off scores for these predefined parenting styles and afterwards associations with child developmental outcomes were examined. However, such a confirmatory approach is not preferred to investigate parenting styles types (Mandara 2003 ) as it does not allow the identification of the naturally occurring typology, because people are actually forced into some predefined category defined on theoretical grounds. To empirically identify typologies in a certain population an exploratory clustering approach is needed (Everitt et al. 2001 ; Mandara 2003 ). Such clustering methods entail that persons are assessed on different variables (e.g., parenting practices) and patterns that naturally occur in the data are identified. Persons with a similar score profile are classified in the same cluster and those with distinctly different profile scores are classified into other clusters; with the number of clusters and associated score profiles being unknown a priori. The literature shows that researchers started to adopt such clustering methods in research into parenting styles about 15 to 20 years ago (Aunola et al. 2000 ; Beato et al. 2016 ; Brenner andand Fox 1999 ; Carlson and Tanner 2006 ; Chaudhuri et al. 2009 ; Dwairy et al. 2006 ; Gorman-Smith et al. 2000 ; Heberle et al. 2015 ; Hoeve et al. 2008 ; Lee et al. 2006 ; Mandara and Murray 2002 ; Martin et al. 2007 ; McGroder 2000 ; McKinney and Renk 2008 ; Meteyer and Perry-Jenkins 2009 ; Metsäpelto and Pulkkinen 2003 ; Pereira et al. 2008 ; Russell et al. 1998 ; Shucksmith et al. 1995 ; Tam and Lam 2004 ; van der Horst and Sleddens 2017 ; Wolfradt et al. 2003 ). These studies have generally identified three or four parenting styles that resemble the initial theoretical parenting styles.

Although Baumrind’s typology has greatly influenced parenting research, two issues have largely been overlooked in the existing knowledge. A first issue relates to the psychological control dimension which is currently considered the third parenting dimension. Initially, Baumrind paid little attention to the role of psychological control because her control dimension solely referred to parental socializing practices aimed at integrating the child in the family and society (Darling and Steinberg 1993 ). In her later work (1971, 1989, 1991), Baumrind did incorporate aspects of psychological control but the confirmatory nature of that research (cf. using predefined clusters) makes it impossible to determine which parenting styles would naturally evolve when psychological control would be taken into account. Empirical studies have also rarely explicitly included parental psychological control when modeling parenting styles. So far, the limited research including psychological control indices (e.g., Pereira et al. 2008 ; Wolfradt et al. 2003 ) has mostly identified four parenting styles that match the theoretically distinct styles. Within these parenting styles psychological control coincided with behavioral control levels in the authoritarian parenting style, yet cumulative knowledge remains too limited to draw firm conclusions.

A second issue is that existing research provides little insight into the coexistence of maternal and paternal parenting styles and their joint impact on child development. Although Baumrind included both parents in her studies, she assigned a (pre-defined) parenting style to each one separately. In some studies (1991), data was limited to mothers if both parents were assigned a different parenting style; in others (1971) families were entirely excluded in such instances. Not only Baumrind, but research on parenting styles in general has paid less attention to the impact of joint parenting styles on child development (Martin et al. 2007 ; McKinney and Renk 2008 ; Simons and Conger 2007 ), but has mainly focused on the unique, differential or interaction effects of maternal and paternal parenting styles adopting a variable-oriented perspective (e.g., Beato et al. 2016 ; Miranda et al. 2016 ). Children in two-parent households are influenced by the combined practices of both parents (Martin et al. 2007 ); and some studies have clearly shown that mothers and fathers can differ in their parenting style (Conrade and Ho 2001 ; McKinney and Renk 2008 ; Russell et al. 1998 ). Considering how the parenting styles of both parents cluster together, therefore, aligns more closely with the real experiences of children growing up in two-parent households. Only such an approach can shed light onto possible additive and compensatory effects (Martin et al. 2007 ). For example, Simons and Conger ( 2007 ) found evidence for an additive effect as having two authoritative parents was associated with the most favorable outcomes in adolescents, as well as a compensatory effect where one parent’s authoritative parenting style generally buffered the less effective parenting style of the other parent. Similarly, McKinney and Renk ( 2008 ) suggested that in late adolescence perceiving one parent as authoritative while the other parent has a different parenting style, partly buffered for emotional adjustment problems.

Only two studies have simultaneously clustered maternal and paternal practices into joint parenting styles and examined how they are associated with child development (for other approaches, see Martin et al. 2007 ; Simons and Conger 2007 ; Steinberg et al. 1994 ). Meteyer and Perry-Jenkins ( 2009 ) modeled the warmth and dysfunctional discipline practices of both parents resulting in three parenting styles that aligned with Baumrind’s typology, namely supportive parents (i.e., similar to Baumrind’s authoritative style), mixed–supportive parents (i.e., mother’s parenting style is similar to Baumrind’s ‘good enough parenting’–style and father’s to Baumrind’s authoritarian style) and non–supportive parents (i.e., similar to Baumrinds’ authoritarian style). Although insightful, this study did not incorporate aspects of psychological control; was limited to early elementary school children (6– to 7– year olds); and was based on a rather small sample size (85 families). McKinney and Renk ( 2008 ) identified four joint parenting styles in their cluster analyses using late adolescents’ (18–22 years) reports of authoritative, authoritarian, and permissive parenting: congruent authoritative (i.e., an authoritative parenting style by both parents), congruent authoritarian (i.e., an authoritarian parenting style by both parents), an authoritarian father–authoritative mother combination, and a permissive father–authoritarian mother combination. This study used ratings of parenting styles as input for cluster analysis leaving the role of separate parenting dimensions unclear.

We aimed to extend the existing research on the well-known parenting styles concept by identifying joint parenting styles in an exploratory manner using data on three major parenting dimensions (i.e., support, behavioral control and psychological control) and their associations with child behavioral outcomes in a large sample of mothers and fathers raising elementary school children. In particular, we first examined whether the configuration of exploratory identified parenting styles differed when the – often neglected – psychological control dimension was considered in addition to the support and behavioral control dimensions. Secondly, we identified how parenting practices of mothers and fathers clustered together into joint parenting styles. We were particularly interested in exploring whether similarity or dissimilarity would depict the joint parenting styles. Incongruence could be expected from attachment or gender theories that particularly stress differences between parents’ roles, while assortative or socialization processes could result in highly congruent parenting styles. Thirdly, we associated these joint parenting styles to child behavioral outcomes. For incongruent parenting styles, we particularly examined whether the different parenting styles may buffer each other’s impact on child outcomes. For congruent parenting styles, we looked at additive effects in which parents’ (very) similar styles may reinforce each other’s impact on child outcomes.

Participants

Participants were 600 Flemish families with an elementary-school child (301 boys; 299 girls). The children’s age ranged from 8 to 10 years ( M =  9.27, SD  = 0.83). For 556 children both parents participated, while for the remaining children only the mother ( n  = 40) or father ( n  = 4) took part in the study. The participating mothers and fathers were on average 38.09 ( SD  = 4.00) and 40.39 years old ( SD  = 4.85), respectively. Most parents received 12 to 15 years of education. The vast majority of children (92%) were of Belgian origin (i.e., children and both parents born in Belgium). The remaining children mostly originated from another European country ( n =  28); a limited number had an African ( n  = 7), US ( n  = 4), Middle East ( n =  1), Asian ( n =  1) or unknown origin ( n  = 7). Most children (84%) lived in traditional two-parent families with married biological parents; others belonged to a blended family (5%), a household with shared custody (2%), or a single-parent household (9%). In this study, we focused on the subsample of families for which both parents consented to participate. Of the initial 556 families, data were available for a final sample of 527 families due to some non-response.

We used data on parenting collected in a Flemish large-scale study on social determinants of child psychosocial functioning including three cohorts: 8–, 9– and 10– year olds. To safeguard representativeness, a two-stage proportional stratified random sample of elementary school children enrolled in mainstream Flemish schools was drawn. In a first stage, 195 Flemish schools were randomly selected taking into account the distribution of schools across the five Flemish provinces and the Brussels region of which 55 schools agreed to participate. In a second stage, 913 children (2nd to 4th grade) were randomly selected within the participating schools. Parents received an introductory letter and consent form via the teachers. Informed consent to participate in the study was obtained for 600 families with both parents participating for 556 children. We used information on parenting practices collected from both parents. The parents received their questionnaires via the teacher during the second trimester and were asked to complete them individually and independently of each other. Given that 583 mothers (98%), and 538 fathers (96%) actually completed the questionnaire, non-response was fairly low.

Parental behavioral control

Parental behavioral control was operationalized via 19 items of the subscales Rules (8 items; α mother  = 0.79; α father  = 0.82)), Discipline (6 items; α mother  = 0.78; α father  = 0.80) and Harsh Punishment (5 items; α mother  = 0.76; α father  = 0.80) of the Ghent Parental Behavior Scale (Van Leeuwen and Vermulst 2004 ). Each item was scored on a 5–point Likert scale from 1 = never true to 5 = always true. The subscale Rules reflects the extent to which parents provide rules for their children’s behavior (e.g., “I teach my child that it is important to behave properly”; “I teach my child to obey rules”). The subscale Discipline pertains to effective punishments after unwanted behavior (e.g., ‘…taking away something nice’; ‘… give him/her a chore for punishment); whereas the subscale Harsh Punishment points towards parental physical punishment when children misbehave (e.g., “I slap my child in the face when he/she misbehaves”; “I spank my child when he/she doesn’t obey rules”; “I shake my child when we have a fight”). We included multiple subscales to represent the multidimensional nature of the behavioral control dimension, as demonstrated by others (Van Leeuwen and Vermulst 2004 ). In addition, we consider aspects of adequate (i.e., subscales Rules and Discipline) and inadequate behavioral control (i.e., subscale Harsh Punishment) in this study, given the differential association with child outcomes. While the first has been linked to positive child development, the latter has commonly been associated with negative child outcomes. Correlations between maternal and paternal reports were moderate for the subscales Rules ( r  = .31; p <  .001) and Discipline ( r  = 0.47; p <  0.001), but strong for the subscale Harsh Punishment ( r  = 0.52; p <  0.001). Within each parent, weak-to-moderate positive correlations were found between the subscales Rules and Discipline ( r mother  = 0.32; r father  = 0.26; p <  0.001); weak positive correlations between the subscales Discipline and Harsh Punishment ( r mother  = 0.22; r father  = 0.22; p <  0.001); and small negative correlations between the subscales Rules and Harsh Punishment ( r mother  = −0.14, p  = 0.009; r father  = −0.11; p =  0.001).

Parental support

Parental support was operationalized by 11 items (1 = never true to 5 = always true) of the subscale Positive Parenting of the Ghent Parental Behavior Scale (Van Leeuwen and Vermulst 2004 ). This subscale (α mother  = 0.85; α father  = 0.88) pertains to parental involvement, positive reinforcement and problem solving (e.g., “I make time to listen to my child, when he/she wants to tell me something”; “I give my child a compliment, hug, or a tap on the shoulder as a reward for good behavior”). Maternal and paternal reports were moderately correlated ( r  = 0.35, p <  0.001).

Parental psychological control

Parents assessed their own psychologically controlling behavior by means of a Dutch version of the Psychological Control Scale (Barber 1996 ; Kuppens et al. 2009a ) via a 5–point Likert scale from 1 = never true to 5 = always true. This scale (α mother  = 0.70; α father =  0.71) included 8 items pertaining to invalidating feelings, constraining verbal expressions, personal attack, and love withdrawal (e.g., “I am less friendly with my child when (s)he doesn’t see things my way”; “If my child has hurt my feelings, I don’t speak to him/her until (s)he pleases me again”; “I change the subject when my child has something to say”). Correlations between maternal and paternal reports were moderate ( r  = 0.32, p <  0.001).

Child behavioral outcomes

Both parents completed the 20-item Dutch Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire (SDQ; van Widenfelt et al. 2003 ) using a 3–point scale in order to assess child psychosocial behavior (0 = not true to 2 = certainly true). Externalizing problems were operationalized via the subscales Conduct Problems (5 items; α mother  = .60; α father  = 0.61) and Hyperactivity (5 items; α mother =  0.80; α father  = 0.76), while internalizing problems were reflected by the subscale Emotional Symptoms (5 items; α mother =  0.73; α father  = 0.72). We also included the subscale on Prosocial Behavior (5 items; α mother =  0.67; α father  = 0.64). Because high correlations ( r =  0.54–0.71; p <  0.001) between mother and father reports was obtained, an average parental score was created for each subscale.

Data Analyses

To identify joint parenting styles, we conducted cluster analysis in MATLAB. Cluster analysis is an overarching term for procedures used to identify groups or clusters of individuals based on their scores on a number of variables (Everitt et al. 2001 ). Greater similarity emerges between individuals of the same cluster (or who lie geometrically closer according to some distance measure) than between individuals from different clusters (Steinly and Brusco 2011 ). We first ran a cluster analysis based on the four parenting subscales of mothers and fathers (i.e., eight variables as input) that reflect parental support and parental behavioral control to identify joint parenting styles based on these two parenting dimensions (i.e., without considering parental psychological control). To gain insight into the role of parental psychological control in identifying joint parenting styles, we subsequently conducted a cluster analysis on all five parenting subscales of mothers and fathers (i.e., ten variables as input) representing the three parenting dimensions.

We used the conceptual framework of Milligan for a stepwise implementation of cluster analysis (Steinly & Brusco 2011 ) by (1) determining the observations to be clustered; (2) selecting the variables to be included in the clustering procedure; (3) determining whether and how the selected variables should be standardized; (4) selecting a cluster algorithm and association measure (e.g., a distance measure); (5) determining the number of clusters; and (6) validating clustering (i.e., interpretation, testing, and replication). During steps 1 through 3, we performed analyses on the sum scores of the different parenting subscales which were standardized to give each variable equal weight in the analysis. In step 4, we chose Mac Queens K–means cluster algorithm which aims to identify K –clusters with the largest possible between–cluster differences and the smallest possible within–cluster differences (Everitt et al. 2001 ), while the value of K is specified by the user. K-means consists of a reallocation procedure by which persons, starting from an initial random or rational clustering, are reallocated in clusters as long as this yields a decrease in the loss function (i.e., sum of squared Euclidean distance from the corresponding cluster mean). Because the resulting clustering strongly depends on the initial clustering (Steinley 2003 ), we used 1000 random starts and retained the clustering with the lowest loss function value. To determine the optimal number of clusters in step 5, or in other words to define the value of K , we used the CHull procedure (Ceulemans and Kiers 2006 ; Wilderjans et al. 2013 ). CHull is an automated model selection procedure that scans a complexity versus fit plot to find the model with the best complexity versus fit balance. Applied to K-means clustering, this means that we look for the model after which allowing for additional clusters does not substantially decrease the loss function. To interpret the resulting clusters (step 6), we visually inspected the pattern emerging in the cluster profile plots. When comparing the cluster-specific profile scores between parents, we focused on the position of the corresponding profile scores compared to zero (i.e., the standardized mean of the sample) and differences in its substantial interpretation. For example, the terms above and below average mean that a parent scores higher or lower than the standardized mean of the sample.

To assess the validity of the empirically identified joint parenting styles representing all parenting dimensions, we examined their association with child behavioral outcomes via four analyses of variance (ANOVA) using SPSS Version 23 with the SDQ-subscales as dependent variables and the identified joint parenting styles based on the three parenting dimensions as the independent variable. Analyses of residuals did not reveal meaningful violations of model assumptions.

In the following sections, the empirically identified joint parenting styles based on the four subscales reflecting the two parenting dimensions ‘support’ and ‘behavioral control’ are first presented; followed by the results of analyses also considering ‘parental psychological control’ as input behavior. We end with linking the identified joint parenting styles based on three parenting dimensions to child behavioral outcomes.

Clusters with Two Parenting Dimensions

In a first step, we conducted a K –means cluster analysis on the maternal and paternal ratings only using the four parental support and behavioral support subscales for each parent (i.e., eight variables) as input, representing the two parenting dimensions. The analysis was conducted for 1 to 8 clusters each with a 1000 random starts. The corresponding number of clusters versus loss function plot is shown in Fig. ​ Fig.1. 1 . Applying the CHull procedure to this plot pointed towards a solution with four clusters.

Number of clusters vs. loss function plots for the cluster analyses based on the two parenting dimensions (left) and on the three parenting dimensions (right)

Parents belonging to the first cluster (Fig. ​ (Fig.2) 2 ) scored above average on positive parenting, rules and discipline; and scored below average on harsh punishment. A visual inspection of the cluster plot did not reveal notable differences between mothers and fathers. These parents show warmth and involvement in their interaction with their child, but at the same time set clear rules and expectations for children’s behavior. They also discipline the child’s undesirable behavior, but rarely use strict physical punishment when doing so. Because these parents demonstrate elevated support and (adequate) behavioral control levels, we labeled this parenting style as the congruent authoritative parenting style.

Cluster profiles of the analysis based on two parenting dimensions

Parents belonging to the second cluster (Fig. ​ (Fig.2) 2 ) also scored above average on positive parenting and rules, but clearly below average on effective (subscale Discipline) and harsh disciplining (subscale Harsh Punishment). Based on a visual inspection, levels of positive parenting and providing rules of mothers seemed somewhat higher, while effective discipline was somewhat lower compared to fathers, but the substantive interpretation was similar across parents. These parents show warmth and involvement in their parenting while also setting clear rules for children’s behavior, yet they hardly discipline their child in any manner after showing unwanted behavior. Because these parents showed elevated support levels combined with aspects of behavioral control that focus on promoting desired behavior (instead of discouraging unwanted behavior), we labeled this cluster as the congruent positive authoritative parenting style.

The third cluster (Fig. ​ (Fig.2) 2 ) included parents who scored clearly above average on harsh punishment, above average on discipline, and below average on positive parenting and rules; without any notable visual differences between mothers and fathers. These parents are therefore less warm and involved in the relationship with their child. Their parenting is particularly characterized by strict physical punishment following unwanted behavior, without setting clear rules for their children’s behavior. This cluster reflected the congruent authoritarian parenting style .

A fourth cluster (Fig. ​ (Fig.2) 2 ) was identified that yielded below average scores for both parents on all subscales; without salient visual differences between mothers and fathers. These parents do not show marked warmth and involvement with their child, and also do not prominently provide rules or discipline unwanted behavior. Because these parents demonstrated below average scores on both dimensions, we labeled this cluster as a congruent uninvolved parenting style.

Clusters with Three Parenting Dimensions

In a second step, we performed the same K –means cluster analysis, but now psychological control was included as a third parenting dimension. The analysis was again conducted for 1 to 8 clusters each time using 1000 random starts. Applying the CHull procedure to the number of clusters versus loss function plot (Fig. ​ (Fig.1) 1 ) pointed toward a solution with 2 or 3 clusters. However, to enable comparisons between the cluster solution based on the two parenting dimensions, we again selected the solution with four clusters of which the cluster profiles are visualized in Fig. ​ Fig.3 3 .

Cluster profiles of the analysis based on three parenting dimensions

When comparing both cluster solutions, a remarkable similarity in the cluster profiles was observed with the cluster scores on parental psychological control for the congruent authoritative, congruent positive authoritative and congruent authoritarian parenting styles covarying with scores on harsh punishment. These three clusters could thus be interpreted and labeled in a similar manner as earlier. For the congruent uninvolved parenting styles, the pattern for parental support and behavioral control remained fairly unchanged, but both showed slightly above-average psychological control scores. It seems that these parents are thus less supportive and behavioral controlling, yet showing somewhat elevated levels of psychologically intrusive practices. As such, we relabeled the congruent uninvolved cluster as a congruent intrusive parenting style. Adding the psychological control dimension slightly enlarged the differences between the scores of mothers and fathers within each parenting style, but the substantive interpretation remained similar across parents

Given the substantial similarity in emerging parenting styles after including two or three parenting dimensions, we computed the agreement in classification of the corresponding parents. Analyses revealed that parents were generally assigned to the same parenting style if psychological control was taken into account, (Cramer’s V  = .87). Note that the agreement was substantial regardless of the retained number of clusters (2 clusters: V =  .77; 3 clusters: V =  .86; 5 clusters: V =  .83; 6 clusters: V =  .69; 7 clusters: V =  .68; 8 clusters: V =  .65).

Parenting Styles and Child Behavioral Outcomes

The four joint parenting styles were associated to significantly different behavioral outcomes: Prosocial Behavior [ F (3, 520) = 20.15, p <  0.001, R 2 = 0.10]; Hyperactivity [ F (3, 520) = 12.98, p <  0.001, R 2 =  0.07]; Emotional Symptoms [ F (3, 520) = 3.77, p =  .011, R 2 = 0.02]; and Conduct Problems [ F (3, 520) = 20.15, p <  0.001, R 2 = 0.10]. The mean subscale score per joint parenting style are presented in Fig. ​ Fig.4. 4 . To gain more insight into the nature of the differences, pairwise contrasts (Tukey–Kramer) were computed for each ANOVA.

Mean subscale scores on child behavioral outcomes per parenting style

For each child behavioral outcome, a significant difference ( p  < 0.05) was established between the congruent authoritarian parenting style and at least one other parenting style. Children of authoritarian parents demonstrated more negative (i.e., hyperactivity, conduct problems, emotional symptoms) and less positive (i.e., prosocial behavior) child outcomes compared to children whose parents belonged to another parenting style. For conduct problems, the associated standardized mean difference involving authoritarian parents was most pronounced compared to positive authoritative parents ( d =  1.06, p <  0.001), whereas a medium difference (range d =  0.67 – 0.73, p <  .001) with the authoritative and intrusive parenting styles was found. Similarly, for hyperactivity standardized mean differences involving authoritarian parents were large ( d =  0.85, p <  0.001) compared to positive authoritative parents; and medium (range d =  0.60 – 0.63, p <  0.001) compared to authoritative and intrusive parents. Standardized mean differences involving authoritarian parents were large (range d =  0.83–0.93, p <  0.001) for prosocial behavior, but only a small difference ( d =  0.37, p =  0.031) with the intrusive parenting style emerged. Standardized mean differences for emotional symptoms between the authoritarian parenting style were small in magnitude (range d =  0.40 – 0.43, p <  0.05), except for a non-significant ( d =  0.28, p =  0.159) difference with the intrusive parenting style.

In addition, the congruent positive authoritative parenting style yielded significantly lower conduct problem levels in children (range d =  0.33 – 0.39, p <  0.05) compared to authoritative and intrusive parents. In contrast, significantly less prosocial child behavior (range d =  0.46–0.56, p ≤  0.001) was found for the congruent intrusive parenting style compared to (positive) authoritative parents.

With this study, we aimed to add to the parenting styles literature by identifying empirically derived joint parenting styles based on data regarding the three major parenting dimensions as perceived by both mothers and fathers raising elementary school children. These resulting joint parenting styles were subsequently associated with child behavioral outcomes. As highlighted in the introduction, the commonly used parenting typologies have a theoretical underpinning, although empirical studies have generally identified three or four similar parenting styles. Our empirically derived parenting styles based on the two parenting dimensions Support and Behavioral Control bear resemblance to the initial authoritative, authoritarian, and neglectful parenting styles, yet some differences also emerged.

The authoritative parenting style was further broken down into a disciplinary and non-disciplinary subtype. Similarly, although differences between parents within each parenting style were minor, they were more pronounced for the non-disciplinary than for the disciplinary control strategies. These findings highlight that all parenting practices aimed at controlling, managing or regulating child behavior are not necessarily simultaneously used by the same parent, suggesting that considering a variety of parenting practices is crucial to identifying naturally occurring parenting substyles. Some parents seem to provide clear rules, guidelines and expectations for child behavior, but hardly have deviant child behavior followed by an effective disciplinary strategy. One subgroup appears to reflect parents that mostly adopt positive parenting practices (i.e., high support, high rule setting), whereas another subgroup uses a combination of positive (i.e., high support, high rule setting) and negative (i.e., high effective discipline) parenting practices. The latter closely resembles the authoritative parenting style as originally defined (Baumrind 1966 , 1967 , 1971 ), while the former clustering aligns more with a second–order positive dimension obtained in research adopting a variable–oriented approach (Van Leeuwen et al. 2004 ).

In this study, the positive dimension tapped into parenting practices such as parental involvement, positive reinforcement, rule setting, and autonomy–stimulating behavior, while the negative dimensions pertained to negatively controlling efforts such as effective discipline, ignoring or harsh punishment following children’s unwanted behavior. In the uninvolved parenting style, parenting practices bear a resemblance to the neglectful parenting style given the below average scores on all subscales suggesting that parents show less warmth, place fewer restraints on and display little monitoring of children’s behavior. However, we did not identify extreme low scores on parenting dimensions that would suggest a truly neglectful parenting style as originally defined; thus an uninvolved parenting style seems a more appropriate label. Although parent self-reports could overestimate scores of positive parenting and underestimate scores of negative parenting due to social desirability bias, it should be noted that a previous study using adolescent reports also did not find extreme scores for the parenting style clusters (McKinney and Renk 2008 ).

We were not able to empirically identify the originally proposed permissive parenting style reflecting parents that are very loving, warm and involved (high support), yet have relatively few rules for children’s behavior and hardly discipline (low behavioral control). This finding diverges from some previous empirical studies in which the latter parenting style did emerge using an a theoretical (Aunola et al. 2000 ; Carlson and Tanner 2006 ; Shucksmith et al. 1995 ; Wolfradt et al. 2003 ) or empirical clustering approach (McKinney and Renk 2008 ). Our operationalization of the support dimension via the positive parenting subscale of the Ghent Parental Behavior Scale could underlie this divergent finding, because the subscale does not only pertain to warm and responsive parenting practices, but also includes items on problem solving. In contrast to other studies tapping only into warmth and responsiveness, lower scores on solving problems together with the child can attenuate overall scores on parental support. As a result, the pronounced scores on parental support which typify a permissive parenting style may have been somewhat masked in the present study. Alternatively, the parent self-reports may not accurately reflect their actual parenting practices due to a social desirability bias, hampering the identification of the permissive parenting style.

Regarding the role of psychological control in empirically deriving parenting styles, cluster analyses revealed a very similar configuration with four parenting styles when parental psychological control was taken into account. Thus, its addition did not lead to the identification of additional parenting styles, but the third parenting dimension did enhance our understanding. Results clearly pointed toward a substantial overlap between parental psychological control and parental harsh punishment for the congruent authoritarian, authoritative and positive authoritative parenting styles. This finding coincides with research suggesting that inadequate behavior control (e.g., physical punishment) and psychological control by parents are correlated, whereas parental psychological control and adequate behavioral control are considered orthogonal dimensions (Barber 1996 ; Gray andand Steinberg 1999 ; Steinberg 1990 ). For example, Pettit et al. ( 2001 ) found that parental psychological control was preceded in adolescence by harsh, restrictive disciplinary parenting during childhood. Barber and Harmon ( 2002 ) have further argued that parental psychological control may be a marker of a hostile and dysfunctional parent – child relationship, including the use of harsh disciplinary parenting practices.

For the congruent uninvolved parenting style, including parental psychological control actually led to an improved understanding of the previously considered uninvolved parents. As it turned out these parents did use psychologically controlling strategies to some extent, regardless of their lower levels on the other parenting dimension. This pattern could mean that in the parents–child relationship these parents are not so much concerned with the child and their behavior, but with manipulating children’s thoughts, emotions, and feelings to fit their own. It is commonly recognized that by using psychologically controlling strategies, parents intrude into children’s ‘psychological world’, exert parental authority over the children’s own life, and intervene in the individuation process (Barber and Xia 2013 ; Steinberg 2005 ). A recent study by Zhang et al. ( 2015 ) also demonstrated that parental psychological control indeed positively correlated with parent–centered intentions, implying that parents intend to satisfy their own needs by applying controlling behaviors with their children.

Several theories point towards differences in parenting between mother and father (McKinney and Renk 2008 ). For example, psychoanalytic theory argues that mothers are children’s primary attachment figure whereas a greater distance between fathers and their children occurs; the gender and role theory link differences in child rearing to male and female characteristics (e.g., expressiveness and instrumentality) with the traditional mother role as caring figures and fathers taking on the role of authority figure and family provider. The literature also indicates that differences in parenting between mothers and fathers may arise if one parent wants to compensate for the other parent (Meteyer and Perry-Jenkins 2009 ; Simons and Conger 2007 ). Nonetheless, our results revealed more similarities than dissimilarities in the parenting styles of both parents, despite small-to-moderate correlations between mother and father reports. These similarities may reflect an assortative process when choosing a partner, meaning that people tend to look for a partner with similar characteristics (Botwin et al. 1997 ; Buss 1984 , 1985 ; Larsen and Buss 2010 ). Similarity in parenting could also result from socialization processes (Simons and Conger 2007 ); through a process of mutual influence or reciprocity partners gradually form similar views and beliefs on parenting. The slight differences that emerged pertained particularly to a dissimilar position on positive parenting and rule setting. Although less pronounced, this finding aligns with the study by Meteyer and Perry-Jenkins ( 2009 ) that yielded congruent parenting styles for mothers and fathers of 7-year old children, except for a dissimilar position on self-reported parental warmth. Another study using adolescent reports of parenting (McKinney and Renk 2008 ) found more pronounced sex differences. Perhaps sex differences in parenting styles become more apparent as children grow older or when children’s perspectives are considered.

Results on associations between the joint parenting styles and child behavioral outcomes indicated that children of two authoritarian parents showed the poorest behavioral outcomes. These children were perceived as showing significantly more internalizing and externalizing problem behavior and less prosocial behavior compared to children of parents adopting other parenting styles. In contrast, children of two positive authoritative parents demonstrated the lowest levels of conduct problems. These findings could suggest an additive effect in which the impact of similar parenting styles is reinforced as having two authoritarian and two positive authoritative parents was associated with the least and most favorable child behavioral outcomes, respectively.

The obtained associations between parenting styles and child behavioral outcomes partially align with previous research. Firstly, it has repeatedly been demonstrated that an authoritative parenting style coincides most with positive developmental outcomes in children (e.g., Aunola et al. 2000 ; Baumrind 1967 , 1971 , 1989 , 1991 , Darling and Steinberg 1993 ; Dornbusch et al. 1987 ; Lamborn et al. 1991 ; Querido et al. 2002 ; Shucksmith et al. 1995 ; Steinberg et al. 1994 ; Steinberg et al. 1992 ). Our findings confirm this pattern for the children having parents who employ an authoritative parenting style, but children with parents both using a positive authoritative parenting style even showed less conduct problems. This finding could point towards the value of rule setting – in contrast to disciplinary strategies – in preventing behavioral problems. However, as parenting is a reciprocal process with children and parents mutually influencing each other, it is equally likely that parents show less disciplinary strategies simply because their children pose fewer behavior problems as demonstrated by others (Kerr et al. 2012 ; Kuppens et al. 2009b ; Laird et al. 2003 ).

Secondly, previous research has repeatedly linked an authoritarian parenting style with externalizing and internalizing behavior problems in children (e.g., Hoeve et al. 2008 ; Lamborn et al. 1991 ; Steinberg et al. 1994 ; Williams et al. 2009 ; Wolfradt et al. 2003 ). The present findings extend this body of research, although the association was most pronounced for externalizing behavior problems which may be due to children’s age (8 to 10 year olds). In younger children, having authoritarian parents may be more strongly associated with externalizing problem behavior, whereas the association with internalizing problems only emerges as children grow older. The shift in the nature of behavior problems as children age has been linked to the physical, cognitive and social maturation of children and the associated changes in social demands and expectations.

Thirdly, the neglectful parenting style has been associated with the poorest developmental outcomes in children (Baumrind 1991 ; Lamborn et al. 1991 ; Mandara and Murray 2002 ; Shucksmith et al. 1995 ; Steinberg et al. 1994 ). As this parenting style did not emerge in the present study, we were not able to model its association with child outcomes. Even children having parents who were less involved, but intrusive, were doing better than children having authoritarian parents. Findings did reveal that prosocial behavior and conduct problems were significantly lower for children having parents who adopted an intrusive parenting style compared to children of (positive) authoritarian parents. This findings coincides with a growing body of evidence on the deleterious of impact of psychologically controlling parenting in children and adolescents adopting a variable approach (Barber et al. 2005 ; Kuppens et al. 2013 ; Soenens et al. 2012 ), but likewise extends this evidence-base with person-oriented findings on the impact of an intrusive parenting style on child development.

Limitations and Future Research

Although the present study has several merits, it falls short in that only parent self-reports were used to assess parenting and child behavioral outcomes; children’s perspective on their parenting practices may be quite different. For example, Smetana ( 1995 ) found that adolescents perceived their parents as being more permissive and authoritarian compared to parents’ own view on the matter, whereas parents perceived themselves as being more authoritative than their adolescent children. Although a significant convergence between child and parent reports on parenting dimensions has been established in elementary school (Kuppens et al. 2009a ), future research should explicitly take a multiple informant approach when identifying parenting styles as informant perspectives on parenting styles in this age period may differ. In a related vein, multiple informant assessments of child behavioral problems have been shown to be context–specific with differences occurring according to the context (e.g., home, school) that forms the basis for informant’s assessment (Achenbach et al. 1987 ). Involving informants other than parents in the assessment of child behavioral outcomes therefore seems particularly interesting in future research on parenting styles.

Furthermore, inspecting a normally developing sample generally results into a low occurrence of inadequate parenting practices and child behavioral problems. Studying parenting styles in a clinical sample could certainly supplement this view because more variation in parenting practices may yield more or different parenting styles. Hoeve et al. ( 2008 ) have conducted one of the few studies using a sample of children with a high or low risk of antisocial and behavioral problems; and they were able to identify a neglectful parenting style. In addition, the role of parental psychological control in identifying parenting styles may be more pronounced in a clinical sample; an issue that to date remains unresolved.

The present sample closely resembled the population distribution with regard to family composition and paternal educational level, but it was rather homogeneous for ethnicity and mothers were more highly educated. As such, the present findings may not generalize to minority groups or families with less educated mothers; an issue that should be resolved by future studies. For example, previous research has demonstrated that harsh punishment and psychological control are more common among lower SES parents (e.g., Eamon 2001 ; El‐Sheikh et al. 2010 ) and that Caucasian caregivers were more prevalent in an authoritative parenting style cluster (van der Horst and Sleddens 2017 ). The present study clearly complements the scarce body of research on naturally occurring joint parenting styles conducted in US samples, but additional research is needed to replicate these findings. Moreover, as parenting occurs within a cultural belief system that influences attitudes towards particular parenting practices (Durrant et al. 2003 ), cross-cultural research could further clarify the role of culture in identifying naturally occurring (joint) parenting styles incorporating three parenting dimensions. Finally, the cross-sectional associations among joint parenting styles and child outcomes should be complemented by longitudinal research to gain more insight into the directionality of these associations. Longitudinal research covering the entire childhood and adolescence period could also increase our understanding of age-of-child and sex-of parent differences in naturally occurring parenting styles.

Despite these limitations, this study adds to the literature by further empirically validating well-known parenting styles and by increasing our understanding of the role of parental psychological control and joint parenting. The overlap between harsh punishment and parental psychological control in congruent parenting styles and its unique role in the uninvolved parenting style suggests that this intrusive parenting dimension should be routinely considered in practice settings. We also found that adequate behavior controlling practices may be particularly interesting in preventing behavioral problems; and that not only an authoritarian but also a (psychologically) intrusive parenting style can impede upon child development.

Author Contributions

SK: designed and executed the study, conducted part of the data-analysis, and wrote the paper. EC: conducted the cluster analyses, and collaborated in the writing and editing of the final manuscript.

Conflict of Interest

The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest.

Ethical Approval

All procedures performed in this study were in accordance with the ethical standards of the KU Leuven (University of Leuven) and with the 1964 Helsinki declaration and its later amendments or comparable ethical standards.

Informed Consent

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

• Achenbach TM, McConaughy SH, Howell CT. Child/adolescent behavioral and emotional problems: implications of cross-informant correlations for situational specificity. Psychological Bulletin. 1987; 101 :213–232. doi: 10.1037/0033-2909.101.2.213. [ PubMed ] [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Aunola K, Stattin H, Nurmi JE. Parenting styles and adolescents’ achievement strategies. Journal of Adolescence. 2000; 23 :205–222. doi: 10.1006/jado.2000.0308. [ PubMed ] [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Barber BK. Parental psychological control: revisiting a neglected construct. Child Development. 1996; 67 :3296–3319. doi: 10.2307/1131780. [ PubMed ] [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Barber BK. Reintroducing parental psychological control. In: Barber BK, editor. Intrusive parenting: How psychological control affects children and adolescents. Washington, DC: American Psychological Association; 2002. pp. 3–11. [ Google Scholar ]
• Barber BK, Harmon EL. Violating the self: Parental psychological control of children and adolescents. In: Barber BK, editor. Intrusive parenting: How psychological control affects children and adolescents. Washington, DC: American Psychological Association; 2002. pp. 15–52. [ Google Scholar ]
• Barber, B. K., Stolz, H. E., Olsen, J. A., Collins, W. A., & Burchinal, M. (2005). Parental support, psychological control, and behavioral control: Assessing relevance across time, culture, and method. Monographs of the society for research in child development , 70 , i -147. [ PubMed ]
• Barber BK, Xia M. The centrality of control to parenting and its effects. In: Larzelere RE, Morris AS, Harrist AW, editors. Authoritative parenting: Synthesizing nurturance and discipline for optimal child development. Washington: APA; 2013. pp. 61–87. [ Google Scholar ]
• Barnes GM, Farrell MP. Parental support and control as predictors of adolescent drinking, delinquency, and related problem behaviors. Journal of Marriage and the Family. 1992; 54 :763–776. doi: 10.2307/353159. [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Baumrind D. Effects of authoritative parental control on child behavior. Child Development. 1966; 37 :887–907. doi: 10.2307/1126611. [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Baumrind D. Child care practices anteceding three patterns of preschool behaviour. Genetic Psychology Monographs. 1967; 75 :43–88. doi: 10.1037/h0024919. [ PubMed ] [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Baumrind D. Current patterns of parental authority. Developmental Psychology. 1971; 4 :1–103. doi: 10.1037/h0030372. [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Baumrind D. Rearing competent children. In: Damon W, editor. Child Development Today and Tomorrow. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass; 1989. pp. 349–378. [ Google Scholar ]
• Baumrind D. The influence of parenting style on adolescent competence and substance abuse. Journal of Early Adolescence. 1991; 11 :56–95. doi: 10.1177/0272431691111004. [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Bean RA, Barber BK, Crane DR. Parental support, behavioral control, and psychological control among African American youth: The relationships to academic grades, delinquency, and depression. Journal of Family Issues. 2006; 27 :1335–1355. doi: 10.1177/0192513X06289649. [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Beato A, Pereira AI, Barros L, Muris P. The relationship between different parenting typologies in fathers and mothers and children’s anxiety. Journal of Child and Family Studies. 2016; 25 :1691–1701. doi: 10.1007/s10826-015-0337-x. [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Botwin MD, Buss DM, Shackelford TK. Personality and mate preferences: five factors in mate selection and marital satisfaction. Journal of Personality. 1997; 65 :107–136. doi: 10.1111/j.1467-6494.1997.tb00531.x. [ PubMed ] [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Brenner V, Fox RA. An empirically derived classification of parenting practices. The Journal of Genetic Psychology. 1999; 160 :343–356. doi: 10.1080/00221329909595404. [ PubMed ] [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Buss DM. Toward a psychology of Person-Environment (PE) correlation: the role of spouse selection. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. 1984; 47 :361–377. doi: 10.1037/0022-3514.47.2.361. [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Buss DM. Human mate selection: Opposites are sometimes said to attract, but in fact we are likely to marry someone who is similar to us in almost every variable. American Scientist. 1985; 73 :47–51. [ Google Scholar ]
• Carlson L, Tanner JF. Understanding parental beliefs and attitudes about children: Insights from parental style. Journal of Consumer Affairs. 2006; 40 :144–162. doi: 10.1111/j.1745-6606.2006.00049.x. [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Ceulemans E, Kiers HAL. Selecting among three-mode principal component models of different types and complexities: A numerical convex hull based method. British Journal of Mathematical and Statistical Psychology. 2006; 59 :133–150. doi: 10.1348/000711005X64817. [ PubMed ] [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Chaudhuri JH, Easterbrooks MA, Davis CR. The relation between emotional availability and parenting style: cultural and economic factors in a diverse sample of young mothers. Parenting: Science and Practice. 2009; 9 :277–299. doi: 10.1080/15295190902844613. [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Coie JD, Dodge KA. Aggression and antisocial behavior. In: Damon W, Eisenberg N, editors. Handbook of Child Psychology. 3: Social, Emotional and Personality Development. New York, NY: Wiley & Sons; 1998. pp. 779–862. [ Google Scholar ]
• Conrade G, Ho R. Differential parenting styles for fathers and mothers. Australian Journal of Psychology. 2001; 53 :29–35. doi: 10.1080/00049530108255119. [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Cummings EM, Davies PT, Campbell SB. Developmental Psychopathology and Family Process. New York, NY: The Guilford Press; 2000. [ Google Scholar ]
• Darling N, Steinberg L. Parenting style as context: an integrative model. Psychological Bulletin. 1993; 113 :487–496. doi: 10.1037/0033-2909.113.3.487. [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Dornbusch SM, Ritter PL, Liederman PH, Roberts DF, Fraleigh MJ. The relation of parenting style to adolescent school performance. Child Development. 1987; 58 :1244–1257. doi: 10.2307/1130618. [ PubMed ] [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Durrant JE, Rose-Krasnor L, Broberg AG. Physical punishment and maternal beliefs in Sweden and Canada. Journal of Comparative Family Studies. 2003; 34 :585–604. [ Google Scholar ]
• Dwairy M, Achoui M, Abouserie R, Farah A, Sakhleh AA, Fayad M, Khan HK. Parenting styles in Arab societies: a first cross-regional research study. Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology. 2006; 37 :230–247. doi: 10.1177/0022022106286922. [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Eamon MK. Antecedents and socioemotional consequences of physical punishment on children in two-parent families. Child Abuse & Neglect. 2001; 25 (6):787–802. doi: 10.1016/S0145-2134(01)00239-3. [ PubMed ] [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• El‐Sheikh M, Hinnant JB, Kelly RJ, Erath S. Maternal psychological control and child internalizing symptoms: vulnerability and protective factors across bioregulatory and ecological domains. Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry. 2010; 51 (2):188–198. doi: 10.1111/j.1469-7610.2009.02140.x. [ PubMed ] [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Everitt BS, Landau S, Leese M. Cluster analyses. 4th Ed. London: Hodder Arnold; 2001. [ Google Scholar ]
• Galambos NL, Barker ET, Almeida DM. Parents do matter: trajectories of change in externalizing and internalizing problems in early adolescence. Child Development. 2003; 74 :578–594. doi: 10.1111/1467-8624.7402017. [ PubMed ] [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Heberle AE, Briggs‐Gowan MJ, Carter AS. A person‐oriented approach to identifying parenting styles in mothers of early school‐age children. Infant and Child Development. 2015; 24 :130–156. doi: 10.1002/icd.1888. [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Gorman-Smith D, Tolan PH, Henry DB. A developmental-ecological model of the relation of family functioning to patterns of delinquency. Journal of Quantitative Criminology. 2000; 16 :169–198. doi: 10.1023/A:1007564505850. [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Gray MR, Steinberg L. Unpacking authoritative parenting: Reassessing a multidimensional construct. Journal of Marriage and the Family. 1999; 61 :574–587. doi: 10.2307/353561. [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Hoeve M, Blokland A, Dubas JS, Loeber R, Gerris JRM, van der Laan PH. Trajectories of delinquency and parenting styles. Journal of Abnormal Child Psychology. 2008; 36 :223–235. doi: 10.1007/s10802-007-9172-x. [ PMC free article ] [ PubMed ] [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Kerr M, Stattin H, Özdemir M. Perceived parenting style and adolescent adjustment: revisiting directions of effects and the role of parental knowledge. Developmental Psychology. 2012; 48 :1540. doi: 10.1037/a0027720. [ PubMed ] [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Kuppens S, Grietens H, Onghena P, Michiels D. Measuring parenting dimensions in middle childhood: multitrait-multimethod analysis of child, mother, and father ratings. European Journal of Psychological Assessment. 2009; 25 :133–140. doi: 10.1027/1015-5759.25.3.133. [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Kuppens S, Grietens H, Onghena P, Michiels D. Relations between parental psychological control and childhood relational aggression: reciprocal in nature? Journal of Clinical Child and Adolescent Psychology. 2009; 38 :117–131. doi: 10.1080/15374410802575354. [ PubMed ] [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Kuppens S, Laurent L, Heyvaert M, Onghena P. Associations between parental psychological control and relational aggression in children and adolescents: A multilevel and sequential meta-analysis. Developmental Psychology. 2013; 49 :1697–1712. doi: 10.1037/a0030740. [ PubMed ] [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Laird RD, Pettit GS, Bates JE, Dodge KA. Parents’ monitoring-relevant knowledge and adolescents’ delinquent behavior: Evidence of correlated developmental changes and reciprocal influences. Child Development. 2003; 74 :752–768. doi: 10.1111/1467-8624.00566. [ PMC free article ] [ PubMed ] [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Lamborn SD, Mounts NS, Steinberg L, Dornbusch SM. Patterns of competence and adjustment among adolescents from authoritative, authoritarian, indulgent, and neglectful families. Child Development. 1991; 62 :1049–1065. doi: 10.2307/1131151. [ PubMed ] [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Larsen RJ, Buss DM. Personality and Social Interaction. In: Larsen RJ, Buss DM, editors. Personality Psychology. Domains of Knowledge about Human Nature. 4th Ed. New York, NY: McGraw-Hill; 2010. pp. 464–491. [ Google Scholar ]
• Lee SM, Daniels MH, Kissinger DB. Parental influences on adolescent adjustment: Parenting styles versus parenting practices. The Family Journal. 2006; 14 :253–259. doi: 10.1177/1066480706287654. [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Maccoby EM. Social Development: Psychological Growth and the Parent–child Relationship. New York, NY: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich; 1990. [ Google Scholar ]
• Maccoby, E. E., & Martin, J. A. (1983). Socialization in the context of the family: Parent-child interaction. In P. H. Mussen (Series Ed.) & E. M. Hetheringtono(Vol. Ed.), Handbook of Child Psychology: Vol . IV . Socialization, Personality and Social Development (4 th Ed., pp. 1-101). New York: Wilepy.
• Magnusson D. The logic and implications of a person-oriented approach. In: Cairns RB, Bergman LR, Kagan J, editors. Methods and Models for Studying the Individual. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage; 1998. pp. 33–63. [ Google Scholar ]
• Mandara J. The typological approach in child and family psychology: a review of theory, methods, and research. Clinical Child and Family Psychology Review. 2003; 6 :129–146. doi: 10.1023/A:1023734627624. [ PubMed ] [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Mandara J, Murray CB. Development of an empirical typology of African American family functioning. Journal of Family Psychology. 2002; 16 :318–337. doi: 10.1037/0893-3200.16.3.318. [ PubMed ] [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Martin A, Ryan RM, Brooks-Gunn J. The joint influence of mother and father parenting on child cognitive outcomes at age 5. Early Childhood Research Quarterly. 2007; 22 :423–439. doi: 10.1016/j.ecresq.2007.07.001. [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• McGroder SH. Parenting among low-income, African-American single mothers with preschool-age children: patterns, predictors, and developmental correlates. Child Development. 2000; 71 :752–771. doi: 10.1111/1467-8624.00183. [ PubMed ] [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• McKinney C, Renk K. Differential parenting between mothers and fathers. implications for late adolescents. Journal of Family Issues. 2008; 29 (6):806–827. doi: 10.1177/0192513X07311222. [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Meteyer KB, Perry-Jenkins M. Dyadic parenting and children’s externalizing symptoms. Family Relations. 2009; 58 :289–302. doi: 10.1111/j.1741-3729.2009.00553.x. [ PMC free article ] [ PubMed ] [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Metsäpelto RL, Pulkkinen L. Personality traits and parenting: neuroticism, extraversion, and openness to experience as discriminative factors. European Journal of Personality. 2003; 17 :59–78. doi: 10.1002/per.468. [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Miranda MC, Affuso G, Esposito C, Bacchini D. Parental acceptance–rejection and adolescent maladjustment: mothers’ and fathers’ combined roles. Journal of Child and Family Studies. 2016; 25 (4):1352–1362. doi: 10.1007/s10826-015-0305-5. [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Patterson GR, Dishion TJ, Bank L. Family interaction: a process model of deviancy training. Aggressive Behavior. 1984; 10 :253–267. doi: 10.1002/1098-2337(1984)10:3<253::AID-AB2480100309>3.0.CO;2-2. [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Pereira AI, Canavarro C, Cardoso MF, Mendonça D. Patterns of parental rearing styles and child behaviour problems among Portuguese school-aged children. Journal of Child and Family Studies. 2008; 18 :454–464. doi: 10.1007/s10826-008-9249-3. [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Pettit GS, Laird RD, Dodge KA, Bates JE, Criss MM. Antecedents and behavior-problem outcomes of parental monitoring and psychological control in early adolescence. Child Development. 2001; 72 (2):583–598. doi: 10.1111/1467-8624.00298. [ PMC free article ] [ PubMed ] [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Querido JG, Warner TD, Eyberg SM. Parenting styles and child behavior in African American families of preschool children. Journal of Clinical Child and Adolescent Psychology. 2002; 31 :272–277. doi: 10.1207/S15374424JCCP3102_12. [ PubMed ] [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Russell A, Aloa V, Feder T, Glover A, Miller H, Palmer G. Sex-based differences in parenting styles in a sample with preschool children. Australian Journal of Psychology. 1998; 50 :89–99. doi: 10.1080/00049539808257539. [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Schaefer ES. Children’s reports of parental behavior: an inventory. Child Development. 1965; 36 :413–424. doi: 10.2307/1126465. [ PubMed ] [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Shaw DS, Keenan K, Vondra JI. Developmental precursors of externalizing behavior: ages 1 to 3. Developmental Psychology. 1994; 30 :355–364. doi: 10.1037/0012-1649.30.3.355. [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Shucksmith J, Hendry LB, Glendinning A. Models of parenting: Implications for adolescent well-being within different types of family contexts. Journal of Adolescence. 1995; 18 :253–270. doi: 10.1006/jado.1995.1018. [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Simons LG, Conger RD. Linking mother-father differences in parenting to a typology of family parenting styles and adolescent outcomes. Journal of Family Issues. 2007; 28 :212–241. doi: 10.1177/0192513X06294593. [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Soenens B, Park SY, Vansteenkiste M, Mouratidis A. Perceived parental psychological control and adolescent depressive experiences: A cross-cultural study with Belgian and South-Korean adolescents. Journal of Adolescence. 2012; 35 :261–272. doi: 10.1016/j.adolescence.2011.05.001. [ PubMed ] [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Smetana JG. Parenting styles and conceptions of parental authority during adolescence. Child Development. 1995; 66 :299–316. doi: 10.2307/1131579. [ PubMed ] [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Steinberg L. Autonomy, conflict, and harmony in the family relationship. In: Feldman SS, Elliot GR, editors. At the Threshold: The developing Adolescent. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press; 1990. pp. 255–276. [ Google Scholar ]
• Steinberg L. Psychological control: Style or substance? New Directions for Child and Adolescent Development. 2005; 108 :71–78. doi: 10.1002/cd.129. [ PubMed ] [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Steinberg L, Lamborn SD, Darling N, Mounts NS, Dornbusch SM. Over-time changes in adjustment and competence among adolescents from authoritative, authoritarian, indulgent, and neglectful families. Child Development. 1994; 65 :754–770. doi: 10.2307/1131416. [ PubMed ] [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Steinberg L, Lamborn SD, Dornbusch SM, Darling N. Impact of parenting practices on adolescent achievement: authoritative parenting, school involvement and encouragement to succeed. Child Development. 1992; 63 :1266–1281. doi: 10.2307/1131532. [ PubMed ] [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Steinley D. Local Optima in K-Means Clustering: what you don’t know may hurt you. Psychological Methods. 2003; 8 :294–304. doi: 10.1037/1082-989X.8.3.294. [ PubMed ] [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Steinly D, Brusco MJ. Choosing the number of clusters in K-means clustering. Psychological Methods. 2011; 16 (3):285–297. doi: 10.1037/a0023346. [ PubMed ] [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Tam VC, Lam RS. A cultural exploration based on structured observational methods in Hong Kong. Marriage & Family Review. 2004; 35 :45–61. doi: 10.1300/J002v35n03_04. [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• van der Horst K, Sleddens EF. Parenting styles, feeding styles and food-related parenting practices in relation to toddlers’ eating styles: a cluster-analytic approach. PloS One. 2017; 12 (5):e0178149. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0178149. [ PMC free article ] [ PubMed ] [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Van Leeuwen KG, Mervielde I, Braet C, Bosmans G. Child personality and parental behavior as moderators of problem behavior: variable-and person-centered approaches. Developmental Psychology. 2004; 40 :1028–1046. doi: 10.1037/0012-1649.40.6.1028. [ PubMed ] [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Van Leeuwen KG, Vermulst A. Some psychometric properties of the Ghent Parental Behavior Scale. European Journal of Psychological Assessment. 2004; 20 :283–298. doi: 10.1027/1015-5759.20.4.283. [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• van Widenfelt BM, Goedhart AW, Treffers PD, Goodman R. Dutch version of the strengths and difficulties questionnaire (SDQ) European Child and Adolescent Psychiatry. 2003; 12 :281–289. doi: 10.1007/s00787-003-0341-3. [ PubMed ] [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Wilderjans TF, Ceulemans E, Meers K. CHull: a generic convex hull based model selection method. Behavior Research Methods. 2013; 45 :1–15. doi: 10.3758/s13428-012-0238-5. [ PubMed ] [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Williams LR, Degnan KA, Perez-Edgar KE, Henderson HA, Rubin KH, Pine DS, Fox NA. Impact of behavioral inhibition and parenting style on internalizing and externalizing problems from early childhood through adolescence. Journal of Abnormal Child Psychology. 2009; 37 :1063–1075. doi: 10.1007/s10802-009-9331-3. [ PMC free article ] [ PubMed ] [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Wolfradt U, Hempel S, Miles JN. Perceived parenting styles, depersonalisation, anxiety and coping behaviour in adolescents. Personality and Individual differences. 2003; 34 (3):521–532. doi: 10.1016/S0191-8869(02)00092-2. [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Zhang L, Wan WW, Tam VC, Wu P, Luk CL. An exploratory study on school children’s intent attributions for parental structuring behaviors. Psychological Reports. 2015; 116 :249–273. doi: 10.2466/21.PR0.116k17w3. [ PubMed ] [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]

61 intriguing psychology research topics to explore

Last updated

11 January 2024

Reviewed by

Brittany Ferri, PhD, OTR/L

Psychology is an incredibly diverse, critical, and ever-changing area of study in the medical and health industries. Because of this, it’s a common area of study for students and healthcare professionals.

We’re walking you through picking the perfect topic for your upcoming paper or study. Keep reading for plenty of example topics to pique your interest and curiosity.

• How to choose a psychology research topic

Exploring a psychology-based topic for your research project? You need to pick a specific area of interest to collect compelling data. 

Use these tips to help you narrow down which psychology topics to research:

Focus on a particular area of psychology

The most effective psychological research focuses on a smaller, niche concept or disorder within the scope of a study. 

Psychology is a broad and fascinating area of science, including everything from diagnosed mental health disorders to sports performance mindset assessments. 

This gives you plenty of different avenues to explore. Having a hard time choosing? Check out our list of 61 ideas further down in this article to get started.

Read the latest clinical studies

Once you’ve picked a more niche topic to explore, you need to do your due diligence and explore other research projects on the same topic. 

This practice will help you learn more about your chosen topic, ask more specific questions, and avoid covering existing projects. 

For the best results, we recommend creating a research folder of associated published papers to reference throughout your project. This makes it much easier to cite direct references and find inspiration down the line.

Find a topic you enjoy and ask questions

Once you’ve spent time researching and collecting references for your study, you finally get to explore. 

Whether this research project is for work, school, or just for fun, having a passion for your research will make the project much more enjoyable. (Trust us, there will be times when that is the only thing that keeps you going.) 

Now you’ve decided on the topic, ask more nuanced questions you might want to explore. 

If you can, pick the direction that interests you the most to make the research process much more enjoyable.

• 61 psychology topics to research in 2024

Need some extra help starting your psychology research project on the right foot? Explore our list of 61 cutting-edge, in-demand psychology research topics to use as a starting point for your research journey.

• Psychology research topics for university students

As a university student, it can be hard to pick a research topic that fits the scope of your classes and is still compelling and unique. 

Here are a few exciting topics we recommend exploring for your next assigned research project:

Mental health in post-secondary students

Seeking post-secondary education is a stressful and overwhelming experience for most students, making this topic a great choice to explore for your in-class research paper. 

Examples of post-secondary mental health research topics include:

Student mental health status during exam season

Mental health disorder prevalence based on study major

The impact of chronic school stress on overall quality of life

The impacts of cyberbullying

Cyberbullying can occur at all ages, starting as early as elementary school and carrying through into professional workplaces. 

Examples of cyberbullying-based research topics you can study include:

The impact of cyberbullying on self-esteem

Common reasons people engage in cyberbullying 

Cyberbullying themes and commonly used terms

Cyberbullying habits in children vs. adults

The long-term effects of cyberbullying

• Clinical psychology research topics

If you’re looking to take a more clinical approach to your next project, here are a few topics that involve direct patient assessment for you to consider:

Chronic pain and mental health

Living with chronic pain dramatically impacts every aspect of a person’s life, including their mental and emotional health. 

Here are a few examples of in-demand pain-related psychology research topics:

The connection between diabetic neuropathy and depression

Neurological pain and its connection to mental health disorders

Efficacy of meditation and mindfulness for pain management

The long-term effects of insomnia

Insomnia is where you have difficulty falling or staying asleep. It’s a common health concern that impacts millions of people worldwide. 

This is an excellent topic because insomnia can have a variety of causes, offering many research possibilities. 

Here are a few compelling psychology research topics about insomnia you could investigate:

The prevalence of insomnia based on age, gender, and ethnicity

Insomnia and its impact on workplace productivity

The connection between insomnia and mental health disorders

Efficacy and use of melatonin supplements for insomnia

The risks and benefits of prescription insomnia medications

Lifestyle options for managing insomnia symptoms

The efficacy of mental health treatment options

Management and treatment of mental health conditions is an ever-changing area of study. If you can witness or participate in mental health therapies, this can make a great research project. 

Examples of mental health treatment-related psychology research topics include:

The efficacy of cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) for patients with severe anxiety

The benefits and drawbacks of group vs. individual therapy sessions

Music therapy for mental health disorders

Electroconvulsive therapy (ECT) for patients with depression 

• Controversial psychology research paper topics

If you are looking to explore a more cutting-edge or modern psychology topic, you can delve into a variety of controversial and topical options:

The impact of social media and digital platforms

Ever since access to internet forums and video games became more commonplace, there’s been growing concern about the impact these digital platforms have on mental health. 

Examples of social media and video game-related psychology research topics include:

The effect of edited images on self-confidence

How social media platforms impact social behavior

Video games and their impact on teenage anger and violence

Digital communication and the rapid spread of misinformation

The development of digital friendships

Psychotropic medications for mental health

In recent years, the interest in using psychoactive medications to treat and manage health conditions has increased despite their inherently controversial nature. 

Examples of psychotropic medication-related research topics include:

The risks and benefits of using psilocybin mushrooms for managing anxiety

The impact of marijuana on early-onset psychosis

Childhood marijuana use and related prevalence of mental health conditions

Ketamine and its use for complex PTSD (C-PTSD) symptom management

The effect of long-term psychedelic use and mental health conditions

• Mental health disorder research topics

As one of the most popular subsections of psychology, studying mental health disorders and how they impact quality of life is an essential and impactful area of research. 

While studies in these areas are common, there’s always room for additional exploration, including the following hot-button topics:

Anxiety and depression disorders

Anxiety and depression are well-known and heavily researched mental health disorders. 

Despite this, we still don’t know many things about these conditions, making them great candidates for psychology research projects:

Social anxiety and its connection to chronic loneliness

C-PTSD symptoms and causes

The development of phobias

Obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) behaviors and symptoms

Depression triggers and causes

Self-care tools and resources for depression

The prevalence of anxiety and depression in particular age groups or geographic areas

Bipolar disorder

Bipolar disorder is a complex and multi-faceted area of psychology research. 

Use your research skills to learn more about this condition and its impact by choosing any of the following topics:

Early signs of bipolar disorder

The incidence of bipolar disorder in young adults

The efficacy of existing bipolar treatment options

Bipolar medication side effects

Cognitive behavioral therapy for people with bipolar 

Schizoaffective disorder

Schizoaffective disorder is often stigmatized, and less common mental health disorders are a hotbed for new and exciting research. 

Here are a few examples of interesting research topics related to this mental health disorder:

The prevalence of schizoaffective disorder by certain age groups or geographic locations

Risk factors for developing schizoaffective disorder

The prevalence and content of auditory and visual hallucinations

Alternative therapies for schizoaffective disorder

• Societal and systematic psychology research topics

Modern society’s impact is deeply enmeshed in our mental and emotional health on a personal and community level. 

Here are a few examples of societal and systemic psychology research topics to explore in more detail:

Access to mental health services

While mental health awareness has risen over the past few decades, access to quality mental health treatment and resources is still not equitable. 

This can significantly impact the severity of a person’s mental health symptoms, which can result in worse health outcomes if left untreated. 

Explore this crucial issue and provide information about the need for improved mental health resource access by studying any of the following topics:

Rural vs. urban access to mental health resources

Access to crisis lines by location

Wait times for emergency mental health services

Inequities in mental health access based on income and location

Insurance coverage for mental health services

Systemic racism and mental health

Societal systems and the prevalence of systemic racism heavily impact every aspect of a person’s overall health.

Researching these topics draws attention to existing problems and contributes valuable insights into ways to improve access to care moving forward.

Examples of systemic racism-related psychology research topics include: 

Access to mental health resources based on race

The prevalence of BIPOC mental health therapists in a chosen area

The impact of systemic racism on mental health and self-worth

Racism training for mental health workers

The prevalence of mental health disorders in discriminated groups

LGBTQIA+ mental health concerns

Research about LGBTQIA+ people and their mental health needs is a unique area of study to explore for your next research project. It’s a commonly overlooked and underserved community.

Examples of LGBTQIA+ psychology research topics to consider include:

Mental health supports for queer teens and children

The impact of queer safe spaces on mental health

The prevalence of mental health disorders in the LGBTQIA+ community

The benefits of queer mentorship and found family

Substance misuse in LQBTQIA+ youth and adults

• Collect data and identify trends with Dovetail

Psychology research is an exciting and competitive study area, making it the perfect choice for projects or papers.

Take the headache out of analyzing your data and instantly access the insights you need to complete your next psychology research project by teaming up with Dovetail today.

Get started today

Go from raw data to valuable insights with a flexible research platform

Editor’s picks

Last updated: 21 December 2023

Last updated: 16 December 2023

Last updated: 6 October 2023

Last updated: 5 March 2024

Last updated: 25 November 2023

Last updated: 15 February 2024

Last updated: 11 March 2024

Last updated: 12 December 2023

Last updated: 6 March 2024

Last updated: 10 April 2023

Last updated: 20 December 2023

Latest articles

Related topics, log in or sign up.

Get started for free

Two key brain systems are central to psychosis

Inside the brains of people with psychosis, two key systems are malfunctioning: a "filter" that directs attention toward important external events and internal thoughts, and a "predictor" composed of pathways that anticipate rewards.

Dysfunction of these systems makes it difficult to know what's real, manifesting as hallucinations and delusions.

The findings come from a Stanford Medicine-led study, publishing April 11 in Molecular Psychiatry , that used brain scan data from children, teens and young adults with psychosis. The results confirm an existing theory of how breaks with reality occur.

"This work provides a good model for understanding the development and progression of schizophrenia, which is a challenging problem," said lead author Kaustubh Supekar, PhD, clinical associate professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences.

The findings, observed in individuals with a rare genetic disease called 22q11.2 deletion syndrome who experience psychosis as well as in those with psychosis of unknown origin, advance scientists' understanding of the underlying brain mechanisms and theoretical frameworks related to psychosis.

During psychosis, patients experience hallucinations, such as hearing voices, and hold delusional beliefs, such as thinking that people who are not real exist. Psychosis can occur on its own and is a hallmark of certain serious mental illnesses, including bipolar disorder and schizophrenia. Schizophrenia is also characterized by social withdrawal, disorganized thinking and speech, and a reduction in energy and motivation.

It is challenging to study how schizophrenia begins in the brain. The condition usually emerges in teens or young adults, most of whom soon begin taking antipsychotic medications to ease their symptoms. When researchers analyze brain scans from people with established schizophrenia, they cannot distinguish the effects of the disease from the effects of the medications. They also do not know how schizophrenia changes the brain as the disease progresses.

To get an early view of the disease process, the Stanford Medicine team studied young people aged 6 to 39 with 22q11.2 deletion syndrome, a genetic condition with a 30% risk for psychosis, schizophrenia or both.

Brain function in 22q11.2 patients who have psychosis is similar to that in people with psychosis of unknown origin, they found. And these brain patterns matched what the researchers had previously theorized was generating psychosis symptoms.

"The brain patterns we identified support our theoretical models of how cognitive control systems malfunction in psychosis," said senior study author Vinod Menon, PhD, the Rachael L. and Walter F. Nichols, MD, Professor; a professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences; and director of the Stanford Cognitive and Systems Neuroscience Laboratory.

Thoughts that are not linked to reality can capture the brain's cognitive control networks, he said. "This process derails the normal functioning of cognitive control, allowing intrusive thoughts to dominate, culminating in symptoms we recognize as psychosis."

Cerebral sorting

Normally, the brain's cognitive filtering system -- aka the salience network -- works behind the scenes to selectively direct our attention to important internal thoughts and external events. With its help, we can dismiss irrational thoughts and unimportant events and focus on what's real and meaningful to us, such as paying attention to traffic so we avoid a collision.

The ventral striatum, a small brain region, and associated brain pathways driven by dopamine, play an important role in predicting what will be rewarding or important.

For the study, the researchers assembled as much functional MRI brain-scan data as possible from young people with 22q11.2 deletion syndrome, totaling 101 individuals scanned at three different universities. (The study also included brain scans from several comparison groups without 22q11.2 deletion syndrome: 120 people with early idiopathic psychosis, 101 people with autism, 123 with attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder and 411 healthy controls.)

The genetic condition, characterized by deletion of part of the 22nd chromosome, affects 1 in every 2,000 to 4,000 people. In addition to the 30% risk of schizophrenia or psychosis, people with the syndrome can also have autism or attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, which is why these conditions were included in the comparison groups.

The researchers used a type of machine learning algorithm called a spatiotemporal deep neural network to characterize patterns of brain function in all patients with 22q11.2 deletion syndrome compared with healthy subjects. With a cohort of patients whose brains were scanned at the University of California, Los Angeles, they developed an algorithmic model that distinguished brain scans from people with 22q11.2 deletion syndrome versus those without it. The model predicted the syndrome with greater than 94% accuracy. They validated the model in additional groups of people with or without the genetic syndrome who had received brain scans at UC Davis and Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile, showing that in these independent groups, the model sorted brain scans with 84% to 90% accuracy.

The researchers then used the model to investigate which brain features play the biggest role in psychosis. Prior studies of psychosis had not given consistent results, likely because their sample sizes were too small.

Comparing brain scans from 22q11.2 deletion syndrome patients who had and did not have psychosis, the researchers showed that the brain areas contributing most to psychosis are the anterior insula (a key part of the salience network or "filter") and the ventral striatum (the "reward predictor"); this was true for different cohorts of patients.

In comparing the brain features of people with 22q11.2 deletion syndrome and psychosis against people with psychosis of unknown origin, the model found significant overlap, indicating that these brain features are characteristic of psychosis in general.

A second mathematical model, trained to distinguish all subjects with 22q11.2 deletion syndrome and psychosis from those who have the genetic syndrome but without psychosis, selected brain scans from people with idiopathic psychosis with 77.5% accuracy, again supporting the idea that the brain's filtering and predicting centers are key to psychosis.

Furthermore, this model was specific to psychosis: It could not classify people with idiopathic autism or ADHD.

"It was quite exciting to trace our steps back to our initial question -- 'What are the dysfunctional brain systems in schizophrenia?' -- and to discover similar patterns in this context," Menon said. "At the neural level, the characteristics differentiating individuals with psychosis in 22q11.2 deletion syndrome are mirroring the pathways we've pinpointed in schizophrenia. This parallel reinforces our understanding of psychosis as a condition with identifiable and consistent brain signatures." However, these brain signatures were not seen in people with the genetic syndrome but no psychosis, holding clues to future directions for research, he added.

Applications for treatment or prevention

In addition to supporting the scientists' theory about how psychosis occurs, the findings have implications for understanding the condition -- and possibly preventing it.

"One of my goals is to prevent or delay development of schizophrenia," Supekar said. The fact that the new findings are consistent with the team's prior research on which brain centers contribute most to schizophrenia in adults suggests there may be a way to prevent it, he said. "In schizophrenia, by the time of diagnosis, a lot of damage has already occurred in the brain, and it can be very difficult to change the course of the disease."

"What we saw is that, early on, functional interactions among brain regions within the same brain systems are abnormal," he added. "The abnormalities do not start when you are in your 20s; they are evident even when you are 7 or 8."

The researchers plan to use existing treatments, such as transcranial magnetic stimulation or focused ultrasound, targeted at these brain centers in young people at risk of psychosis, such as those with 22q11.2 deletion syndrome or with two parents who have schizophrenia, to see if they prevent or delay the onset of the condition or lessen symptoms once they appear.

The results also suggest that using functional MRI to monitor brain activity at the key centers could help scientists investigate how existing antipsychotic medications are working.

Although it's still puzzling why someone becomes untethered from reality -- given how risky it seems for one's well-being -- the "how" is now understandable, Supekar said. "From a mechanistic point of view, it makes sense," he said.

"Our discoveries underscore the importance of approaching people with psychosis with compassion," Menon said, adding that his team hopes their work not only advances scientific understanding but also inspires a cultural shift toward empathy and support for those experiencing psychosis.

"I recently had the privilege of engaging with individuals from our department's early psychosis treatment group," he said. "Their message was a clear and powerful: 'We share more similarities than differences. Like anyone, we experience our own highs and lows.' Their words were a heartfelt appeal for greater empathy and understanding toward those living with this condition. It was a call to view psychosis through a lens of empathy and solidarity."

Researchers contributed to the study from UCLA, Clinica Alemana Universidad del Desarrollo, Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile, the University of Oxford and UC Davis.

The study was funded by the Stanford Maternal and Child Health Research Institute's Uytengsu-Hamilton 22q11 Neuropsychiatry Research Program, FONDEYCT (the National Fund for Scientific and Technological Development of the government of Chile), ANID-Chile (the Chilean National Agency for Research and Development) and the U.S. National Institutes of Health (grants AG072114, MH121069, MH085953 and MH101779).

• Birth Defects
• Brain Tumor
• Nervous System
• Psychology Research
• Schizophrenia
• Disorders and Syndromes
• Brain-Computer Interfaces
• Brain Injury
• Dopamine hypothesis of schizophrenia
• Cognitive dissonance
• Electroconvulsive therapy
• Brain damage
• Psycholinguistics
• Memory-prediction framework

Story Source:

Materials provided by Stanford Medicine . Original written by Erin Digitale. Note: Content may be edited for style and length.

Journal Reference :

• Kaustubh Supekar, Carlo de los Angeles, Srikanth Ryali, Leila Kushan, Charlie Schleifer, Gabriela Repetto, Nicolas A. Crossley, Tony Simon, Carrie E. Bearden, Vinod Menon. Robust and replicable functional brain signatures of 22q11.2 deletion syndrome and associated psychosis: a deep neural network-based multi-cohort study . Molecular Psychiatry , 2024; DOI: 10.1038/s41380-024-02495-8

Cite This Page :

Explore More

• Quantum Effects in Electron Waves
• Star Trek's Holodeck Recreated Using ChatGPT
• Cloud Engineering to Mitigate Global Warming
• Detecting Delayed Concussion Recovery
• Genes for Strong Muscles: Healthy Long Life
• Brightest Gamma-Ray Burst
• Stellar Winds of Three Sun-Like Stars Detected
• Fences Causing Genetic Problems for Mammals
• Ozone Removes Mating Barriers Between Fly ...
• Parkinson's: New Theory On Origins and Spread

Trending Topics

Strange & offbeat.

ORIGINAL RESEARCH article

Parenting by mothers from marginalized communities and the role of socioeconomic disadvantage: insights from marginalized roma communities in slovakia.

• 1 Department of Health Psychology and Research Methodology, Faculty of Medicine, Pavol Jozef Šafárik University, Kosice, Slovakia
• 2 Graduate School Kosice Institute for Society and Health, Faculty of Medicine, Pavol Jozef Šafárik University, Kosice, Slovakia
• 3 Olomouc University Social Health Institute, Palacky University Olomouc, Olomouc, Czechia
• 4 Department of Community and Occupational Medicine, University Medical Center Groningen, University of Groningen, Groningen, Netherlands
• 5 Institute of Applied Psychology, Faculty of Social and Economic Sciences, Comenius University, Bratislava, Slovakia
• 6 Department of Public Health and Primary Care, Environment and Health, Youth Health Care, University of Leuven, KU Leuven, Leuven, Belgium

Background: Roma living in marginalized communities often face poor living conditions and material deprivation, which may negatively impact parenting. Our aim is to compare the parenting behavior (support, harsh discipline, and stimulation) of mothers from marginalized Roma communities and the majority population in Slovakia. We also examine the role of socioeconomic disadvantage and related worries in the differences in parenting behavior between these groups.

Methods: We obtained cross-sectional data from mothers of children aged 14–18 months using the first wave of the longitudinal RomaREACH study dataset. Two groups were included in the sample: 93 mothers from MRCs and 102 mothers from the majority. We performed multiple regression and mediation analyses to assess whether the educational level of mothers, the degree of poverty, and poverty-related feelings of stress and worries explain parenting behavior differences between the groups of mothers.

Results: We found significant differences in parenting, especially in harsh disciplining and stimulation. These two domains were significantly associated with maternal education, degree of poverty, and poverty-related stress and worries. The degree of poverty partially mediated stimulation differences between the two groups of mothers.

Conclusion: Parenting in MRCs seems harsher and less stimulative than parenting in the Slovak majority. These differences are associated with the socioeconomic disadvantage of mothers. The degree of poverty partially explains why parenting in MRCs is less stimulative. These results may inform intervention efforts aimed at disadvantaged families.

1 Introduction

The experience of motherhood is very diverse and influenced by structural factors such as social exclusion, marginalization, and discrimination. Such unfavorable circumstances affect how women with different ethnic backgrounds from disadvantaged groups constitute their motherhood and raise their children in the context of poverty and stress ( Čanigová and Souralová, 2024 ). The association of poverty with parenting practices and their effect on early childhood development is well documented across countries worldwide ( Tran et al., 2017 ). Responsive parenting considered to be the optimal approach across cultures ( Ekmeci et al., 2016 ). It is defined by characteristics such as attention to the child, relevance and predictability of response, or sufficient socio-emotional support provided to the child present in every parent–child interaction ( Cortés-Moreno, 2017 ). The quality of parenting can be negatively affected by stress stemming from both a disadvantaged socioeconomic status and ethnic minority status ( Nomaguchi and Milkie, 2020 ).

The Roma are one of the largest disadvantaged populations in Europe ( European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights, 2022 ). A major contributor to this disadvantage regards anti-Roma racism ( Alexiadou, 2023 ) perpetuated through a stereotypical, racist, and discriminatory discourse, which hampers the successful inclusion of Roma ( Izsak-Ndiaye, 2015 ). Roma across the EU continue to face high levels of discrimination in the education and labor market, in healthcare and in other public or private services based on their origin ( European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights, 2022 ). Accordingly, they are among the most discriminated groups in Europe. According to the Pew Research Center (2019) , more than three-quarters of people in Slovakia hold negative views of Roma, which is more than in the neighboring countries. However, also in these countries, such views were found to be common for 50–60% of the respondents.

The Roma minority often faces poor living conditions and material deprivation, particularly in marginalized communities. It is estimated that more than half out of 440,000 Roma in Slovakia live in marginalized Roma communities (MRCs) ( Atlas of Roma Communities in Slovakia, 2019 ). Recent data show that 87% of households in MRCs are at risk of poverty and more than half face poor housing conditions and serious material deprivation ( Markovic, 2020 ). This extremely unfavorable socioeconomic situation (regardless of ethnicity) can highly influence the family environment toward greater instability in daily family routines and higher levels of chaos ( Evans, 2004 ). Material hardship such as food insecurity, residential instability or financial troubles can lead to marital conflict, parenting stress and depressive symptoms, which may impact parenting practices and further fuel a downward cycle impacting the healthy development of children ( Gershoff et al., 2007 ). In the first 1,000 days of life, the rapid process of neurodevelopment takes place, and the foundation is laid for all future learning, behavior, and health of a human being ( Campbell et al., 2014 ). Child poverty may have a detrimental effect on children from MRCs who are exposed to many early life stressors.

Extensive evidence shows supportive and stimulating caregiving can promote children’s developmental outcomes ( McCartney et al., 2007 ). Parental support manifests as showing affection, involvement, acceptance, emotional availability, warmth, and responsivity to the child ( Cummings et al., 2000 ). Parents form a reliable base from which children can explore and safely return for reassurance when encountering difficulties ( Verhoeven et al., 2010 ). They can provide an engaging environment and opportunities where children can learn and develop ( Urke et al., 2018 ). On the other hand, children’s development and regulatory capacities can be undermined by harsh disciplining, such as physical punishment, yelling, criticism, and controlling children’s behavior ( Baydar and Akcinar, 2018 ). Parental influence seems vital to the child’s development ( Belsky and de Haan, 2011 ; Tost et al., 2015 ).

Research on the quality of parenting behavior in MRCs is very scarce. The limited evidence shows that parenting in Roma families is primarily a task of the mother and the oldest siblings, but that also wider relatives and the whole community participate in the upbringing of their children ( Šebková, 1996 ; Žigová, 1996 ; Smith, 1997 ). The parenting approach in Roma families is less restrictive than the parenting approach in the majority population. Children are often left to explore the world on their own and experiment and learn by observing the usual daily activities of their community ( Smith, 1997 ). Mothers from MRCs in Slovakia seem to prefer responsive parenting, which can be described as noticing and acting on children’s interests, speech, and nonverbal communication, as an optimal parental approach ( Chovan, 2019 ). However, evidence to what extent Roma mothers can live up to their parental ideals is non-existent.

Gaining insight into the parenting behavior of mothers from MRCs may inform evidence-based early interventions favoring an adaptive child development of marginalized Roma children. Understanding the differences in parenting behaviors and recognizing the interplay between poverty, stress and parenting practices might help to change unfavorable public and political discourses and help to design and target interventions. Interventions that address the elementary needs of the families in MRCs or support parents’ knowledge and skills in providing a nurturing environment for their children can draw on this evidence to prioritize and achieve the greatest possible synergistic effect. Therefore, we undertook the longitudinal RomaREACH study on early childhood, which is one of the first to examine parenting in MRCs and address selected psychological and socio-cultural aspects of the processes shaping parenting quality and child development.

Our aim is to compare the parenting behavior (support, harsh discipline, and stimulation) of mothers from marginalized Roma communities and the majority population in Slovakia. We also examine the role of socioeconomic disadvantage and related worries in the differences in parenting behavior between these groups.

2 Materials and methods

2.1 sample and setting.

We used cross-sectional data from the first wave of the longitudinal RomaREACH study. The data were collected in 2021–2022 in Slovakia’s Prešov and Košice regions. Our sample consisted of 195 mothers of children aged 14–18 months. We chose this age because all children in Slovakia are invited for a mandatory preventive check-up at this age. Also, around this age, children typically enter a phase of rapid development of complex skills such as walking, talking, and problem-solving; progress can be seen in social interaction and emotional regulation, which enables to assess larger differences between children than at younger ages. Moreover, at this age, the influence of parenting becomes clearer since the quality of interactions with caregivers and opportunities for exploration and learning highly influence development ( Benson, 2020 ). We focused on children and their mothers as mothers (especially in MRCs) are primary caregivers, and fathers who are involved in caregiving with infants of such a young age to a much lesser extent ( Obrovská and Sidiropulu Janků, 2021 ; Čvorović, 2022 ) are less willing to participate in family research ( Voicu and Popescu, 2009 ).

We included two groups of mothers in the sample: 93 mothers were from marginalized Roma communities (MRCs), and 102 mothers were from the Slovak majority population (general population of mostly middle-to-high socioeconomic status). Participants were recruited in three ways: (1) via pediatricians during regular preventive check-ups (mothers from both populations), (2) via Roma health mediators and social workers directly in the communities (mothers from MRCs), (3) via parental groups on social media (mothers from the majority). The primary recruitment route was via pediatricians during mandatory preventive check-ups. However, due to a crisis in primary pediatric care induced during the COVID-19 pandemic, which led to a work overload of pediatricians and thus less room to invest in recruitment, we also employed other recruitment routes. Using Roma health mediators and social workers who have the trust of community members as intermediaries for recruitment enabled us to reach a sufficient sample size, which would not have been possible otherwise, especially considering that the population living in MRCs is challenging to engage and thus underrepresented in the research.

The data were collected through a self-report questionnaire. The data collection took place either in the cooperating outpatient departments, in the community centers, or the households of mothers from medium to high socioeconomic status Slovak majority population. Mothers filled out paper questionnaires independently or with the assistance of researchers. We used assisted self-administered interviews to cope with the low literacy of mothers from MRCs. This regards a modification of other methods of collecting survey data, which has been shown to lead to data with good validity ( Tourangeau and Smith, 1996 ). We obtained signed informed consent from all participating mothers. Participation in the study was entirely voluntary and confidential. The Roma REACH study was approved by the Ethics Committees in both the Prešov and the Košice regions and by the Ethics Committee of the Medical Faculty at P.J. Šafárik University in Košice under No. 03682/2022/OZ-20, “RomaREACH,” and 16 N/2021, respectively.

2.2 Measures

We assessed parenting, sociodemographic variables, and poverty-related feelings of stress and worries of mothers from marginalized Roma communities and mothers from the Slovak majority. To assess the degree of poverty, we included relatively objective indicators, such as maternal education and availability of water and electricity in the household, but also a subjective indicator, i.e., the degree to which everyday struggles of people living in poverty translate into feelings of stress. These measures were developed in close cooperation with Roma health mediators who have intimate knowledge of the context of MRCs and used in other studies with MRCs enabling to assess the degree of poverty on the lower socioeconomic spectrum, which is not possible using only educational level as an indicator ( Gecková et al., 2014 ; Belák, 2020 ). Before the data collection, measures were tested in a pilot study, which included 405 mother–child dyads from MRCs and the majority population. A subsample of 30 mothers was interviewed about problematic items they found challenging to answer or understand. Qualitative and statistical analyses were performed. Necessary adaptations were made to increase the understandability of problematic items while preserving their meaning.

2.2.1 Parenting

Parenting was assessed using three domains of the comprehensive early childhood parenting questionnaire (CECPAQ), which covers five domains of parenting: i.e. support, harsh discipline, stimulation, structure, and positive discipline ( Verhoeven et al., 2016 ). The CECPAQ was developed in the Netherlands to measure the parenting behavior of parents with children aged one to five, i.e., it covered our age group of interest. The questionnaire showed good psychometric characteristics ( Verhoeven et al., 2016 ). The tool is currently used in diverse settings across and outside Europe. For our study aims, we excluded the domains Positive discipline and Consistency, which contain items asking about parental approaches applicable to older children of around 3 years of age with sufficient cognitive skills and self-regulation to understand and process rules and their explanations or consequences of certain behaviors ( Montroy et al., 2016 ). We thus used the domains of the CECPAQ that are relevant for the optimal development of children in the targeted age range of 14–18 months, i.e., (1) support (13 items, Cronbach’s α = 0.81), which includes data on sensitivity, responsiveness, and affection, (2) harsh discipline (12 items, Cronbach’s α = 0.90), which includes data on verbal, physical, and psychological control, and (3) stimulation (13 items, Cronbach’s α = 0.83), which includes data on activities, exposure, and toys. The response categories indicated how often parents showed the described behavior: (1) never/does not concern me, (2) very rarely, (3) rarely, (4) occasionally, (5) very often, (6) always. Sum-scores ranged from 0 to 65 in support and stimulation and from 0 to 60 in harsh discipline. A higher score indicates more support and stimulation and more frequent use of harsh discipline practices.

2.2.2 Sociodemographic variables

The sociodemographic variables included in the study were the educational level of mothers and the availability of water and electricity in the household as a proxy variable of the degree of poverty.

The level of maternal education ( Kolarcik et al., 2009 ) was assessed by the question: “What education did you complete? (Elementary school, Apprentice school, Secondary school, University).” We categorized mothers’ education into three categories: (1) elementary education, (2) secondary education, including apprentice school, and (3) university education.

We assessed the degree of poverty by determining the availability of water and electricity in the household using the question: “Is the following in your household? (Running water, Electricity)” ( Gecková et al., 2014 ). The response categories were “Yes” and “No.” The households with the availability of both were categorized as: water and electricity available in the household. The households missing either water or electricity or both were categorized as: having no water and/or no electricity in the household.

2.2.3 Poverty-related feelings of stress and worries

We measured the Poverty-related feelings of stress and worries ( Belák, 2020 ) by asking the questions: “Have you been worried/experienced stress about the following in the past 3 months?” (10 items, Cronbach’s α  = 0.79) (see Appendix 1 for the topics that might generate feelings of stress and worries used in the questionnaire). The response categories for each topic were “Yes” and “No.” We created a sum score for each participant, i.e., a sum of the ‘Yes’ answers provided for each question, with a higher score indicating more poverty-related feelings of stress and worries. This sum-score was categorized as: (1) no worries, (2) one to two worries, and (3) three or more worries.

2.3 Statistical analyses

First, we described the sample using descriptive statistics. Differences between the two groups (mothers from marginalized Roma communities vs. mothers from the majority) were assessed using non-parametric Mann–Whitney U -tests for continuous variables which were not normally distributed and Chi-square tests for dichotomous variables. Second, we performed simple regression analyses (Model 1) to assess the relationship between belonging to one group and parenting domains ‘support’, ‘harsh discipline’, and ‘stimulation’. After that, we performed multiple regression analyses adjusting for infants’ sex and maternal age (Model 2) as these might influence the relationships as found ( Camberis et al., 2016 ; Morawska, 2020 ). We created dummy variables for elementary and secondary education with university education as a reference category. Next, we performed multiple regression analyses additionally for maternal education, availability of water and electricity in the household, and poverty-related feelings of stress and worries (Model 3) to assess the contribution of these indicators of disadvantage to the differences in parenting between mothers from MRCs and the majority population. We computed bootstrapped estimates and confidence intervals (CIs) for the support and the harsh parenting domains, as the residuals of these models were not normally distributed. Third, we conducted mediation analyses to assess whether the educational level of mothers, the degree of poverty, and poverty-related feelings of stress and worries mediated the differences in parenting behavior between the two groups. SPSS 23 for Windows was used for the first two steps, and the R Package for Causal Mediation Analysis ( Tingley et al., 2014 ) was used for the third one.

3.1 Description of the sample

Table 1 and Figure 1 show the descriptive statistics for mothers from marginalized Roma communities and mothers from the majority population. A few significant differences between the groups were found. In MRCs, compared to the majority population, the maternal age and education were lower. In contrast, the number of children in the household and poverty-related feelings of stress and worries were higher in MRCs. Access to water and electricity was less available in MRCs compared to the households of mothers from the majority. Significant differences were also found between the two groups in all three parenting domains, with mothers from the majority scoring higher in support and stimulation and mothers from MRCs scoring higher in harsh discipline.

Table 1 . Description of the studied groups: mothers from the marginalized Roma communities vs. mothers from the majority population in Slovakia.

Figure 1 . Comparisons of the mean scores (Mann–Whitney U test) and standard deviations for support, stimulation, and harsh discipline in mothers from marginalized Roma communities (MRCs) and mothers from the majority population in Slovakia.

3.2 Differences between mothers from marginalized Roma communities and the majority

Table 2 shows the results of the linear regression analyses. In all three parenting domains, mothers from marginalized Roma communities and mothers from the majority population differed significantly (Model 1; Figure 1 ). Mothers from MRCs reported less support and stimulation and more use of harsh discipline practices compared to mothers from the majority population. After adjusting for sex and maternal age (Model 2), the relationships remained statistically significant for harsh discipline and stimulation.

Table 2 . Comparison of parenting (support, harsh discipline, and stimulation) of mothers from marginalized Roma communities (MRCs) with that of the majority population (‘majority’) in Slovakia, crude and adjusted for infant sex and maternal age using simple and multiple linear regression analyses.

Adding maternal education, availability of water and electricity in the household, and poverty-related feelings of stress and worries to Model 2 further decreased the strength of the relationships for all three parenting domains and left stimulation as the only domain with a significant association. In the presence of other covariates in Model 3, the availability of water and electricity was significantly associated with stimulation only (see Model 3).

3.3 Mediation analyses

Out of the three studied socioeconomic disadvantage-related variables (maternal educational level, availability of water and electricity in the household, and poverty-related feelings of stress and worries), none were significantly associated with support. As for stimulation, all three socioeconomic disadvantage-related variables were significantly associated: elementary maternal education (B/CI: −11.41/−13.68; −9.14), availability of water and electricity in the household (11.57/8.97; 14.17), and poverty-related feelings of stress and worries (−1.76/−2.40; −1.12). The same was the case for harsh disciplining: elementary maternal education (4.93/2.49; 7.37), availability of water and electricity (−3.05/−5.85; −0.26), and poverty-related feelings of stress and worries (0.90/0.27; 1.52).

Next, we found only one mediation effect. The effect of belonging to the marginalized Roma communities vs. belonging to the majority population on the outcome of stimulation in parenting was mediated by the availability of water and electricity in the household. This model ( Figure 2 ) showed a significant direct effect (−8.57/−12.63; −4.17) and a significant indirect effect (−1.32/−3.04; −0.10), both contributing to a significant total effect of the exposure on the outcome (−9.90/−14.16; −5.72).

Figure 2 . The mediation effect of availability of water and electricity in the household in the association between MRC vs. majority mothers and stimulation in parenting. * p  < 0.05; ** p  < 0.01; *** p  < 0.001.

Notes: a is the effect of MRC vs. majority mothers on the availability of water and electricity in the household, b is the effect of availability of water and electricity in the household on the stimulation parenting domain, c’ is the direct effect of MRC vs. majority mothers on the stimulation parenting domain and c is the total effect of MRC vs. majority mothers on the stimulation parenting domain.

4 Discussion

Our study aimed to compare the parenting behavior (support, harsh discipline, and stimulation) of mothers from marginalized Roma communities and the majority population in Slovakia and examine the role of socioeconomic disadvantage and related worries in the differences in parenting behavior between these groups. We found significant differences in parenting between the two populations, especially in harsh disciplining and stimulation. We also found that the degree of poverty (availability of water and electricity in the household) partially explained the differences in stimulation in parenting.

First, our findings indicate that mothers from MRCs use harsh discipline practices (verbal, physical, and psychological control) more frequently compared to mothers from the majority population and that lower education, higher degree of poverty, and the number of poverty-related feelings of stress and worries are significantly associated with more frequent use of harsh disciplining. These findings align with previous research. Numerous researchers confirm that parents reporting higher levels of stress use more punitive and control-oriented exchanges with their children ( Conger and Donnellan, 2007 ; Roubinov and Boyce, 2017 ) and that additional years of maternal schooling reduce the usage of harsh parenting practices ( Jansen et al., 2012 ; Cuartas, 2022 ). Financial hardship concerning harsh disciplining was studied, for example, by Anderson et al. (2022) , Jansen et al. (2012) , Ho et al. (2022) , and Respler-Herman et al. (2011) , confirming its contribution to harsh parenting. Our results suggest that the level of harsh parenting mothers engage in is related to their socioeconomic disadvantage and related worries.

Second, we found that mothers from MRCs stimulated their children less than mothers from the majority with the included sociodemographic variables (maternal education, degree of poverty) and the number of poverty-related feelings of stress and worries being significantly associated with stimulation. Our results align with previous research confirming that highly educated mothers invest more time in basic care and play with their children than less-educated mothers ( McLanahan, 2004 ). Low income, typically associated with poverty, is also proven to be related to poorer involvement of parents in children’s play activities ( Kalil and Ryan, 2020 ). The experience of poverty seems to be linked to the lack of stimulation via parental emotional distress ( Iruka et al., 2012 ). When it comes to belonging to the group (MRC vs. majority) being a predictor of stimulation, the explanation may be that ethnic minority mothers do not only experience heightened stress related to their socioeconomic status but also experience stressors specific to their minority status, which has also been previously found to affect parenting quality negatively ( Leidy et al., 2010 ; Nomaguchi and Milkie, 2020 ). The level of maternal involvement in interacting with their children in a stimulating way depends on their educational level, the degree of poverty, and the amount of stress and worries related to the poverty they experience. The differences in how mothers stimulate their children also seem to have their origin in the group a mother belongs to, MRC or majority.

Third, we found that support differed little between mothers from MRCs and mothers from the majority, and the differences disappeared when adjusting for the lower age of Roma mothers. The findings on the role of maternal age as a significant predictor of the level of support confirm previous research. For example, Camberis et al. (2016) found that older mothers are more psychologically mature and that this maturity indirectly contributes to more sensitive and mind-minded interactions between the mother and her infant. At the same time, the environment created by poverty makes adolescent motherhood more likely ( Cook and Cameron, 2020 ). Thus, it is likely that the younger the mother from MRC, the more challenges she faces in providing sensitive, responsive, and affectionate parenting to her children.

Finally, we found that only poverty, i.e., ‘availability of water and electricity in the household’, partly mediated the differences in stimulation between mothers from MRCs and mothers from the majority in Slovakia. Deprived parents who experience a high degree of poverty may face a range of challenges that can impact their ability to provide a nurturing environment for their children ( Gershoff et al., 2007 ; Kalil and Ryan, 2020 ). Households with limited access to basic amenities cannot afford to create a more stimulating environment for their children to engage in learning activities together. However, limited access to water and electricity does not prevent mothers from being supportive or using a positive disciplinary approach. A possible explanation for poverty-related distress, not explaining the differences between the two groups of mothers in stimulation, is that stress is a highly subjective experience. Two individuals experiencing the same stressful event may appraise and thus cope with the stressful event differently ( Jacoby et al., 2021 ). Regarding maternal education, the collinearity with the group a mother belongs to may be too high for the mediation effect to occur. It seems understandable that poverty explains the differences in stimulation between the groups of mothers since only when the most elementary needs are met can parents acquire the capacity to provide a stimulative environment for their children ( Maslow, 1954 ). There may also be other potential mediators related to stimulation, which we did not study. Often, families in MRCs have a higher number of children. Thus, the attention of mothers must be split between more siblings who take over some of the responsibilities and engage in activities with their younger siblings simultaneously. Nevertheless, poverty partially explains less stimulating parenting in MRK, which might be related to the fact that the parental mental and material capacity to focus on their children is limited in an environment characterized by poverty, such as in MRCs.

4.1 Strengths and limitations

Our study, which uses cross-sectional data from the first wave of the longitudinal RomaREACH study, is one of the first to focus on mothers’ parenting in MRCs. It brings insights into how parenting in this specific context differs from that of the majority population in the same region and addresses the contribution of severely adverse socioeconomic factors using multiple regression and mediation analyses. Moreover, studies on parenting usually do not focus on parenting approaches to children at such a young age. Using CECPAQ to measure parenting allowed us to look at multiple dimensions simultaneously. Our findings confirm the adverse effect of poverty on the quality of parenting on one hand and on the other hand point to the complexity of disadvantage accumulated in the environment of MRCs, which translates into the challenges of parenthood. These findings have a potential for informing evidence-based early interventions aimed at disadvantaged families. The study’s main limitations are the size of the sample and its cross-sectional design. The limited sample size lowered the power of the study to detect all effects and differences, implying that only large differences and a strong mediation could be detected. A cross-sectional design hinders conclusive inferences about causality and long-term outcomes. Furthermore, we collected self-reported data, which may be prone to social desirability. However, we reduced the likelihood of that by providing a safe environment for the mothers when answering the questions. Data from the mothers living in MRCs were mostly collected via assisted self-administered interviews in the Slovak language, whereas data from mothers out of the majority were collected via self-reported questionnaires. We did so to cope with illiteracy, which we considered a more serious source of non-response and bias than using two different types of administration, with both types having been shown to lead to reliable and valid data ( Tourangeau and Smith, 1996 ). Also, the challenging setting in which the study was conducted led to lower response rates and might have impacted the selection of the respondents (especially approaching mothers via social media). We were not able to include either Roma mothers with higher socioeconomic status outside of MRCs nor mothers from a majority living at a level of disadvantage comparable to that of the vast majority of mothers from MRCs included in our sample. This implies that the groups, as compared, are rather distinct and represent opposite sides of the socioeconomic spectrum. This somewhat limits the generalizability of the findings as Roma are a very heterogeneous ethnic group in terms of living conditions and levels of integration ( Zachar Podolinská and Škobla, 2018 ). However, our findings may be representative of the subsection of the Roma population living in poverty in communities characterized by social and physical distance from the majority population; because of their novelty, they need confirmation in future studies.

4.2 Implications for practice, policy, and research

We found differences in harsh disciplining and stimulation, which imply a need for supporting marginalized Roma mothers to provide stimulating care to their children by having a range of respectful alternatives to harsh disciplining at hand. A good example of a culturally sensitive and effective intervention in the Slovak environment is the project Omama ( Cesta von, 2023 ). Trained women from MRCs called Omamy regularly visit hundreds of families in their home environment. They teach mothers how to effectively stimulate their children’s development by playing with them during regular lessons. The advantage lies in employing women who speak the community’s language and live within it, thus having an in-depth knowledge of the settings and of the families they work with. We also found that maternal education, access to water and electricity in the household, and poverty-related stress and worries are all significantly associated with harsh discipline and stimulation. Supporting the education of women from MRCs, in general, can give them the tools they need to break the cycle of poverty and ultimately provide a more nurturing environment for their children. Securing access to water and electricity would undoubtedly make parenting less challenging and stressful.

The differences in stimulation between the two groups of mothers were partly mediated by the degree of poverty, i.e., the availability of water and electricity in the household. The very first step in supporting mothers in better stimulating their children should be securing access to basic amenities such as water and electricity. Only after the fundamental needs are met all other policies aimed at marginalized Roma mothers and their children can be of benefit. Further research should explore whether the differences between mothers from MRCs and mothers from a majority group also hold for other countries and settings. Moreover, enriching self-reported with observational data on parents interacting with their children may add, as well as qualitative research providing insights into how optimal parenting is perceived in MRCs and what challenges mothers face in parenting. Future research might also consider assessing the role of different social and cultural capital ( Qi et al., 2023 ) in parenting. On top of that, adding measures on stress and worries specific to their minority status could be considered in addition to stress and worries stemming from poverty. Finally, longitudinal designs and use of biological parameters could give more insight into the causal pathways between the predictors and parenting domains.

5 Conclusion

We found significant differences in parenting between mothers from MRCs and mothers from the majority in Slovakia, especially in the harsh discipline and stimulation domains. Both harsh discipline and stimulation were significantly associated with the age of mothers, maternal education, degree of poverty, and the amount of poverty-related stress and worries. The degree of poverty had a mediator role, partly explaining the differences in stimulation between mothers from MRCs and mothers from the majority in Slovakia. Our results may inform intervention efforts aimed at families from disadvantaged environments to overcome the negative effects of poverty on parenting practices.

Data availability statement

The raw data supporting the conclusions of this article will be made available by the authors, without undue reservation.

Ethics statement

The studies involving humans were approved by Ethics Committees in both the Prešov (No. 03682/2022/OZ-20) and the Košice (“RomaREACH”) regions and by the Ethics Committee of the Medical Faculty at P.J. Šafárik University in Košice (16N/2021). The studies were conducted in accordance with the local legislation and institutional requirements. Written informed consent for participation in this study was provided by the participants’ legal guardians/next of kin.

Author contributions

SL: Conceptualization, Data curation, Formal analysis, Investigation, Writing – original draft, Writing – review & editing. DF: Data curation, Funding acquisition, Investigation, Methodology, Project administration, Supervision, Writing – review & editing. PK: Formal analysis, Methodology, Writing – review & editing. OE: Formal analysis, Writing – review & editing. AM: Supervision, Writing – review & editing. SR: Conceptualization, Supervision, Writing – review & editing. MK: Conceptualization, Supervision, Writing – review & editing.

The author(s) declare financial support was received for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article. This work was supported by the Slovak Research and Development Agency under Contract No. APVV-19-0493 and by the Scientific Grant Agency of the Ministry of Education, Science, Research and Sport of the Slovak Republic and the Slovak Academy of Sciences, Reg. No. 1/0593/21.

Conflict of interest

The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.

Publisher’s note

All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article, or claim that may be made by its manufacturer, is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.

Supplementary material

The Supplementary material for this article can be found online at: https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2024.1362179/full#supplementary-material

Anderson, A. S., Siciliano, R. E., Henry, L. M., Watson, K. H., Gruhn, M. A., Kuhn, T. M., et al. (2022). Adverse childhood experiences, parenting, and socioeconomic status: associations with internalizing and externalizing symptoms in adolescence. Child Abuse Negl. 125:105493. doi: 10.1016/j.chiabu.2022.105493

Crossref Full Text | Google Scholar

Alexiadou, E. A. (2023). Identifying a Human Rights Approach to Roma Health Vulnerabilities and Inequalities in Europe: From Concept to Action. Human Rights Review 24. 413–431. doi: 10.1007/s12142-023-00684-6

Atlas of Roma Communities in Slovakia . (2019). Bratislava: Úrad splnomocnenca vlády SR pre rómske komunity. Available at: https://www.romovia.vlada.gov.sk/atlas-romskych-komunit/atlas-romskych-komunit-2019/ .

Google Scholar

Baydar, N., and Akcinar, B. (2018). Reciprocal relations between the trajectories of mothers’ harsh discipline, responsiveness and aggression in early childhood. J. Abnorm. Child Psychol. 46, 83–97. doi: 10.1007/s10802-017-0280-y

PubMed Abstract | Crossref Full Text | Google Scholar

Belák, A. (2020). Úrovne podmienok pre zdravie a zdravotné potreby vo vylúčených rómskych osídleniach na Slovensku. Available at: https://www.zdraveregiony.eu/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/ZK_potreby_e-verzia.pdf .

Belsky, J., and de Haan, M. (2011). Annual research review: parenting and children’s brain development: the end of the beginning. J. Child. Psychol. Psychiatry 52, 409–428. doi: 10.1111/j.1469-7610.2010.02281.x

Benson, J. B. (2020). Encyclopedia of infant and early childhood development . Elsevier, Netherlands

Camberis, A.-L., McMahon, C. A., Gibson, F. L., and Boivin, J. (2016). Maternal age, psychological maturity, parenting cognitions, and mother-infant interaction. Infancy 21, 396–422. doi: 10.1111/infa.12116

Campbell, F., Conti, G., Heckman, J. J., Moon, S. H., Pinto, R., Pungello, E., et al. (2014). Early childhood investments substantially boost adult health. Science. 343, 1478–1485. doi: 10.1126/science.1248429

Čanigová, K., and Souralová, A. (2024). Low-income Roma mothers negotiating mothering in the context of poverty. J. Poverty 28, 110–133. doi: 10.1080/10875549.2022.2128975

Cesta von . (2023). OMAMA. Available at: https://cestavon.sk/program-omama/ .

Chovan, S. (2019). Prežívanie materstva v marginalizovanej rómskej komunite. Available at: https://is.muni.cz/th/wvssx/Final_diplomka.pdf .

Conger, R. D., and Donnellan, M. B. (2007). An interactionist perspective on the socioeconomic context of human development. Annu. Rev. Psychol. 58, 175–199. doi: 10.1146/annurev.psych.58.110405.085551

Cook, S. M., and Cameron, S. T. (2020). Social issues of teenage pregnancy. Obstet. Gynaecol. Reprod. Med. 30, 309–314. doi: 10.1016/j.ogrm.2020.07.006

Cortés-Moreno, A. (2017). Child Undernourishment and Development: The Influence of Caregiver Practices. Caregiving and Home Care . doi: 10.5772/intechopen.72616

Cuartas, J. (2022). The effect of maternal education on parenting and early childhood development: an instrumental variables approach. J. Fam. Psychol. 36, 280–290. doi: 10.1037/fam0000886

Cummings, E. M., Davies, P., and Campbell, S. B. (2000). Developmental psychopathology and family process . New York: Guilford Press.

Čvorović, J. (2022). Paternal investment, stepfather presence and early child development and growth among Serbian Roma. Evol. Hum. Sci. 4:e15. doi: 10.1017/ehs.2022.14

Ekmeci, H., van IJzendoorn, M. H., Yagmur, S., and Bakermans-Kranenburg, M. (2016). The discrepancy between sensitivity beliefs and sensitive parenting behaviors of ethnic majority and ethnic minority mothers. Canadian Journal of Behavioral Science 48, 60–67. doi: 10.1037/cbs0000032

European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights . (2022). Roma in 10 European countries: Main results: Roma survey 2021 . Luxembourg: Publications Office of the European Union

Evans, G. W. (2004). The environment of childhood poverty. American Psychologist 59:77–92. doi: 10.1037/0003-066X.59.2.77

Gecková, A. M., Babinská, I., Bobáková, D., Veselská, Z. D., Bosáková, L., Kolarcik, P., et al. (2014). Socioeconomic characteristics of the population living in Roma settlements and their association with health and health-related behaviour. Cent. Eur. J. Public Health 22, S57–S64. doi: 10.21101/cejph.a3903

Gershoff, E. T., Aber, J. L., Raver, C. C., and Lennon, M. C. (2007). Income is not enough: incorporating material hardship into models of income associations with parenting and child development. Child Dev. 78, 70–95. doi: 10.1111/j.1467-8624.2007.00986.x

Ho, L. L. K., Li, W. H. C., Cheung, A. T., Luo, Y., Xia, W., and Chung, J. O. K. (2022). Impact of poverty on parent–child relationships, parental stress, and parenting practices. Front. Public Health 10:849408. doi: 10.3389/fpubh.2022.849408

Iruka, I. U., LaForett, D. R., and Odom, E. C. (2012). Examining the validity of the family investment and stress models and relationship to children’s school readiness across five cultural groups. J. Fam. Psychol. 26, 359–370. doi: 10.1037/a0028290

Izsak-Ndiaye, R. (2015). Report of the special rapporteur on minority issues, Rita Iizsák: Comprehensive study of the human rights situation of Roma worldwide, with a particular focus on the phenomenon of anti-Gypsyism. Technical report, UN, Geneva. Available at: http://digitallibrary.un.org/record/797194 Submitted pursuant to Human Rights Council resolution 26/4. (Accessed September 26, 2023).

Jacoby, R., Greenfeld Barsky, K., Porat, T., Harel, S., Hanalis Miller, T., and Goldzweig, G. (2021). Individual stress response patterns: preliminary findings and possible implications. PLoS One 16:e0255889. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0255889

Jansen, P. W., Raat, H., Mackenbach, J. P., Hofman, A., Jaddoe, V. W. V., Bakermans-Kranenburg, M. J., et al. (2012). Early determinants of maternal and paternal harsh discipline: the generation R study. Fam. Relat. 61, 253–270. doi: 10.1111/j.1741-3729.2011.00691.x

Kalil, A., and Ryan, R. (2020). Parenting practices and socioeconomic gaps in childhood outcomes. Futur. Child. 30, 29–54. doi: 10.1353/foc.2020.0004

Kolarcik, P., Geckova, A. M., Orosova, O., van Dijk, J. P., and Reijneveld, S. A. (2009). To what extent does socioeconomic status explain differences in health between Roma and non-Roma adolescents in Slovakia? Soc. Sci. Med. 68, 1279–1284. doi: 10.1016/j.socscimed.2008.12.044

Leidy, M. S., Guerra, N. G., and Toro, R. I. (2010). Positive parenting, family cohesion, and child social competence among immigrant Latino families. J. Fam. Psychol. 24, 252–260. doi: 10.1037/a0019407

Markovic, F., and Placha, L. (2020). Income and living conditions in marginalized Roma communities: Selected EU SILC_MRK 2020 survey indicators. [Príjmy a životné podmienky v marginalizovaných rómskych komunitách: Vybrané ukazovatele zo zisťovania EU SILC_MRK 2020.]. Bratislava: Office of the Plenipotentiary of the Slovak Government for Roma Communities. Available at: https://www.romovia.vlada.gov.sk/site/assets/files/1561/analyticka_sprava_eu_silc_mrk_2020_elektronicka_final.pdf (Accessed September 18, 2023).

Maslow, A. H. (1954). Motivation and personality . New York: Harper & Row.

McCartney, K., Dearing, E., Taylor, B. A., and Bub, K. L. (2007). Quality child care supports the achievement of low-income children: direct and indirect pathways through caregiving and the home environment. J. Appl. Dev. Psychol. , [online] 28(5-6), 28, 411–426. doi: 10.1016/j.appdev.2007.06.010

McLanahan, S. (2004). Diverging destinies: how children are faring under the second demographic transition. Demography 41, 607–627. doi: 10.1353/dem.2004.0033

Montroy, J. J., Bowles, R. P., Skibbe, L. E., McClelland, M. M., and Morrison, F. J. (2016). The development of self-regulation across early childhood. Dev. Psychol. 52, 1744–1762. doi: 10.1037/dev0000159

Morawska, A. (2020). The effects of gendered parenting on child development outcomes: a systematic review. Clin. Child. Fam. Psychol. Rev. 23, 553–576. doi: 10.1007/s10567-020-00321-5

Nomaguchi, K., and Milkie, M. A. (2020). Parenthood and well-being: a decade in review. J. Marriage Fam. 82, 198–223. doi: 10.1111/jomf.12646

Obrovská, J., and Sidiropulu Janků, K. (2021). Resilience capacity and supportive factors of compulsory education in ethnic minority families: mixed methods study of Czech Roma mothers. Contemp. Soc. Sci. 16, 448–463. doi: 10.1080/21582041.2020.1869813

Pew Research Center . Unfavorable views of Roma are widespread in Central, and Eastern Europe . (2019). Washington, D.C: Pew Research Center.

Qi, Y., Vrooman, J. C., Almansa, J., Ots, P., Brouwer, S., and Reijneveld, S. A. (2023). A capital-based approach to better understand health inequalities: theoretical and empirical explorations. SSM Popul. Health 21:101309. doi: 10.1016/j.ssmph.2022.101309

Respler-Herman, M., Mowder, B. A., Yasik, A. E., and Shamah, R. (2011). Parenting beliefs, parental stress, and social support relationships. J. Child. Fam. Stud. 21, 190–198. doi: 10.1007/s10826-011-9462-3

Roubinov, D. S., and Boyce, W. T. (2017). Parenting and SES: relative values or enduring principles? Curr. Opin. Psychol. 15, 162–167. doi: 10.1016/j.copsyc.2017.03.001

Šebková, H. (1996). Úloha nejstaršího syna v romské rodině. Roman. Džanib. 3, 52–57.

Smith, T. (1997). Recognising difference: the Romani ‘gypsy’ child socialisation and education process. Br. J. Sociol. Educ. 18, 243–256. doi: 10.1080/0142569970180207

Tingley, D., Yamamoto, T., Hirose, K., Keele, L., and Imai, K. (2014). Mediation: RPackage for causal mediation analysis. J. Stat. Softw. 59, 69–84. doi: 10.18637/jss.v059.i05

Tost, H., Champagne, F. A., and Meyer-Lindenberg, A. (2015). Environmental influence in the brain, human welfare, and mental health. Nat. Neurosci. 18, 1421–1431. doi: 10.1038/nn.4108

Tourangeau, R., and Smith, T. W. (1996). Asking sensitive questions: the impact of data collection mode, question format, and question context. Public Opin. Q. 60, 275–304. doi: 10.1086/297751

Tran, T. D., Luchters, S., and Fisher, J. (2017). Early childhood development: impact of national human development, family poverty, parenting practices and access to early childhood education. Child Care Health Dev. 43, 415–426. doi: 10.1111/cch.12395

Urke, H. B., Contreras, M., and Matanda, D. J. (2018). The influence of maternal and household resources, and parental psychosocial child stimulation on early childhood development: A cross-sectional study of children 36–59 months in Honduras. International journal of environmental research and public health. 15, 926. doi: 10.3390/ijerph15050926

Verhoeven, M., Deković, M., Bodden, D., and van Baar, A. L. (2016). Development and initial validation of the comprehensive early childhood parenting questionnaire (CECPAQ) for parents of 1–4 year-olds. Eur. J. Dev. Psychol. 14, 233–247. doi: 10.1080/17405629.2016.1182017

Verhoeven, M., Junger, M., van Aken, C., Deković, M., and van Aken, M. A. G. (2010). Mothering, fathering, and externalizing behavior in toddler boys. J. Marriage Fam. 72, 307–317. doi: 10.1111/j.1741-3737.2010.00701.x

Voicu, M., and Popescu, R. (2009). Roma women known and unknown: family life and the position of woman in the Roma communities. Available at: http://www.euromanet.eu/upload/80/83/Research_Report_Roma_Women_engl_09___OSI-Romania_.pdf .

Zachar Podolinská, T., and Škobla, D. (2018). Why labelling matters: on social construction of Roma/Gypsies in Europe. Slovak Ethnol. 66, 378–384. doi: 10.26363/SN.2018.4.01

Žigová, A. (1996). Úloha najstaršej sestry v rómskej rodine. Roman. Džanib. 2, 60–71.

Keywords: parenting, mothers, marginalized Roma community, socioeconomic disadvantage, stress and worries, early childhood

Citation: Van Laer S, Fiľakovská Bobáková D, Kolarcik P, Engel O, Madarasová Gecková A, Reijneveld SA and de Kroon MLA (2024) Parenting by mothers from marginalized communities and the role of socioeconomic disadvantage: insights from marginalized Roma communities in Slovakia. Front. Psychol . 15:1362179. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2024.1362179

Received: 27 December 2023; Accepted: 22 March 2024; Published: 05 April 2024.

Reviewed by:

Copyright © 2024 Van Laer, Fiľakovská Bobáková, Kolarcik, Engel, Madarasová Gecková, Reijneveld and de Kroon. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY) . The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

*Correspondence: Daniela Fiľakovská Bobáková, [email protected]

Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.

How Parents’ Stress Can Hurt Kids

New research finds a link between parental stress and later self-harm in children..

Posted April 8, 2024 | Reviewed by Devon Frye

• What Is Self-Harm?
• Find a therapist near me
• New research finds a link between parents’ level of stress when the child was age 6 and later self-harm.
• The parent-child relationship remains crucially important in the healthy development of children.
• Your stress, even when your child is young, could influence the parent-child relationship in negative ways.
• It's important for parents to recognize and manage their stress, for their own benefit and their child's.

I’ve always disliked the common saying, “Big kids, big problems; little kids, little problems,” for a few reasons.

First, it invalidates or dismisses the concerns and questions of parents who are in the throes of raising little kids. It sends an unhelpful signal: “If you think this is hard, wait to see what things will be like when you have teenagers!”

Second, it implies there is no connection between how we deal with the “little problems” of little kids and how this may influence the types of issues these children face when they are older. It reduces childrearing to a series of sequential stages that are not necessarily connected to each other when, in reality, child development is much more nuanced than that.

Third, it lacks empathy and diminishes how excruciatingly vulnerable the brains of little kids are to psychological adversity. What an adult may view as a “little problem” might not feel little to the kid experiencing it.

Finally, it seems to imply the problem lies within the kid, thus downplaying the power parents and caregivers hold in creating, exacerbating, or resolving these problems via their own attitudes, behaviors, and ways of coping.

Why It’s Important to Pay Attention to Young Children’s Problems

A recent European study challenges many of the issues raised by this problematic saying. The research aimed to identify what factors predicted non- suicidal self-injury (NSSI) in adolescence by studying a group of 759 children, over time, starting from age 6, then age 12 and age 16.

Non suicidal self-injury is defined as the deliberate destruction of one’s body tissue e.g. via cutting or burning without suicidal intent. Self-injury, in these situations, is viewed as an unhealthy way to cope with psychological pain and stress that releases tension and eventually restores a sense of calm. Rates of NSSI increase sharply in adolescence; it is typically more common among girls than boys.

The researchers hypothesized that parents’ level of stress earlier in the child’s life would be one of the factors predicting NSSI in adolescence. They measured this stress using the parenting stress index , a validated self-report tool that assesses the magnitude of stress in the parent-child relationship in three key areas: characteristics of the child (e.g. demandingness, hyperactivity); characteristics of the parent (e.g. health, attachment , and competence); and general stress (e.g. financial, social isolation ).

One of the most salient findings from the study was a link between the parents’ level of stress when the child was 6 years old and NSSI, in the same child, in subsequent adolescence.

The results of this study suggest that parental stress plays a role in increasing the risk of NSSI, whereas child-specific factors and exposure to negative events (e.g. the death of a close adult, serious vehicular accident, burn incidents, near-drowning incidents) did not. These findings hint at the uniquely powerful influence parents, and the quality of the parent-child relationship, exert in the healthy psychological development of children.

What Parents Can Do Now

The parent-child relationship remains a crucially important determinant in the healthy development of children—even though parenting , in today’s world, can sometimes feel disempowering and make us feel as though this is not the case.

Your own stress, even when your child is young, could influence the parent-child relationship in negative ways, leading to further complications for both later. If you are a new parent, it is vital to ensure you have the support you need as soon as possible. Possible action steps include:

1. Start early. When it comes to stress and parenting, think of your unique points of vulnerability as early as possible in your parenting journey. For example: are you a single parent? Does your child have special needs? Did you experience adversity in childhood? How might your relationship with your own parents influence your parenting style? In good ways? In not-so-good ways? Who are the people in your life you can turn to when you’re feeling stressed or overwhelmed? Are there other major sources of stress such as your finances, work, or a personal illness that you are dealing with?

Recognizing these areas will heighten your awareness of them and that in itself can help minimize negative repercussions. Furthermore, identifying them early allows an opportunity for proactively safeguarding against how these factors may negatively impact your ability to parent.

2. Be a role model to your child for how to proactively deal with stress in healthy ways. Aim to eliminate unhealthy ways of coping with stress in your own life.

3. Be kind to yourself. Perfection is overrated when it comes to parenting. Strive for a consistently healthy dynamic that is sustainable over time. Allow room for growth and learning for when things do not go as planned. In tough times, always remain compassionate to yourself and your child.

4. Be consistent. Even 30 minutes per day of stress-free bonding and playfulness (e.g. dinner time, bath time, and bedtime reading routines) with your child can do so much to protect the quality of your relationship. Ensure you are present in those moments and free of distractions.

5. Seek professional help. If you’re not getting the traction you need, feel consistently overwhelmed, or have concerns your child is struggling, it’s OK to ask for help. Find a therapist near you in the Psychology Today Therapy Directory.

Shaili Jain, M.D., is an Adjunct Clinical Professor of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at the Stanford University School of Medicine.

• Find a Therapist
• Find a Treatment Center
• Find a Psychiatrist
• Find a Support Group
• Find Teletherapy
• United States
• Brooklyn, NY
• Chicago, IL
• Houston, TX
• Los Angeles, CA
• New York, NY
• Portland, OR
• San Diego, CA
• San Francisco, CA
• Seattle, WA
• Washington, DC
• Asperger's
• Bipolar Disorder
• Chronic Pain
• Eating Disorders
• Passive Aggression
• Personality
• Goal Setting
• Positive Psychology
• Stopping Smoking
• Low Sexual Desire
• Relationships
• Child Development
• Therapy Center NEW
• Diagnosis Dictionary
• Types of Therapy

Understanding what emotional intelligence looks like and the steps needed to improve it could light a path to a more emotionally adept world.

• Coronavirus Disease 2019
• Affective Forecasting
• Neuroscience

• Work & Careers
• Life & Arts

Psychology class: Scientists use brain-like tissue in advance for ‘biocomputing’ research

• Psychology class: Scientists use brain-like tissue in advance for ‘biocomputing’ research on x (opens in a new window)
• Psychology class: Scientists use brain-like tissue in advance for ‘biocomputing’ research on facebook (opens in a new window)
• Psychology class: Scientists use brain-like tissue in advance for ‘biocomputing’ research on linkedin (opens in a new window)
• Psychology class: Scientists use brain-like tissue in advance for ‘biocomputing’ research on whatsapp (opens in a new window)

Roula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.

This article picked by a teacher with suggested questions is part of the Financial Times free schools access programme. Details/registration  here .

Read all our psychology class picks .

Specification:

Biopsychology

Click the link below to read the and then answer the questions:

Scientists use brain-like tissue in advance for ‘biocomputing’ research

Researchers grew a ‘brain organoid’ from stem cells. Explain what stem cells are

Stem cells are one possible way of helping the brain to recover from trauma. Explain other methods of functional recovery after trauma

Explain the term ‘localisation of function’

The technology created by researchers could identify Japanese vowel sounds.

Which part(s) of the brain might this be simulating?

In the mid 20th century, advancement in computer science inspired psychology. Now it seems that advancement in psychology might inspire computer science. According to the article, what do Johns Hopkins scientists say are the possible applications, benefits and risks of this area of research?

Danny Galbraith, St Bartholomew’s School

Promoted Content

Follow the topics in this article.

• FT Schools Add to myFT

International Edition