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The current study aims to clarify the temporal associations between maternal sensitivity and children's sleep problems across early childhood. This study comprised 942 Dutch mother–child dyads from the Generation R Study, a population-based prospective cohort study. Throughout early childhood, maternal sensitivity was observed in mother–child interactions and coded using Ainsworth's 9-point rating scales (1.5 years) and the revised Erickson 7-point rating scales (3 and 4 years). Caregivers reported children's sleep problems on the Sleep Problems Scale of the Child Behaviour Checklist 1½−5 at child ages 1.5, 3, and 6 years. Cross-lagged panel modelling revealed that higher levels of maternal sensitivity (3 years) were associated with fewer sleep problems (6 years); all other temporal associations between maternal sensitivity and children's sleep problems were nonsignificant. In conclusion, some indication of an association of parenting with children's sleep across early childhood was found, but there was no evidence for bidirectional associations over time. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Parental involvement in children's education contributes to children's educational success. Most schools, therefore, aim to increase parental involvement and organise school-based activities that provide parents with interaction opportunities with teachers, school administrators, and other parents. Although the impact of parental involvement is studied frequently, little attention has gone into examining the interparental dynamics during school-based parental involvement activities. An ethnographic study conducted in five primary schools in The Netherlands shows how interactions among parents shape school-based parental involvement activities (in specific Parent Coffee Mornings). On the one hand, the interactions during Parent Coffee Mornings contributed to increased parental involvement, parents' network, and social capital of parents. On the other hand, these interactions created patterns of exclusion among parents in what were intended to be inclusionary activities. Knowledge about the dual nature of these activities is likely vital for researchers and school administrations alike. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The current meta-analysis examined and compared the relative associations of maternal and paternal parenting behavior with children's prosocial behavior from 29 studies. In total 502 effect sizes (N = 14,627) were subjected to Meta-Analytic Structural Equation Modeling. Controlling for the other parent, both maternal and paternal parenting behavior showed small positive pooled associations with children's prosocial behavior (rfather =.10 and rmother =.12). The partial effect sizes for paternal and maternal parenting did not differ significantly from each other and were significant regardless of parenting dimension, study design (concurrent versus predictive) and average sample age (pre-adolescence versus adolescence). High levels of paternal and maternal warmth and positive control, and low levels of paternal and maternal harshness were associated with more prosocial behavior in children. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective.Relations between maternal and paternal expressed emotion during pregnancy and observed sensitive parenting behavior of mothers (N = 553) and fathers (N = 518) in early childhood were examined.Design.Expressed emotion, represented by emotional overinvolvement and criticism, was measured around the 34th week of gestation using an adapted version of the Five-Minute Speech Sample. Maternal and paternal sensitivity, indexed by supportiveness and intrusiveness, was observed in a semi-structured interaction between parent and child at age 4. Multilevel analyses were conducted to account for shared variance among the families. Associations between expressed emotion and sensitive parenting behavior were subsequently stratified by parent gender.Results. Emotional overinvolvement during pregnancy was associated with lower levels of sensitive parenting. More specifically, mothers’ emotional overinvolvement was related to lower levels of supportive parenting, and fathers’ overinvolvement was related to higher levels of intrusiveness. Criticism during pregnancy was not associated with dimensions of sensitivity.Conclusions.Mothers’ and fathers’ emotional overinvolvement before the birth of their child was differently related to supportive and intrusive parenting 4 years later, suggesting gender-specific effects of parental expressed emotion. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this longitudinal population-based study (N = 544), we investigated whether early parenting and corpus callosum length predict child executive function abilities at 4 years of age. The length of the corpus callosum in infancy was measured using postnatal cranial ultrasounds at 6 weeks of age. At 3 years, two aspects of parenting were observed: maternal sensitivity during a teaching task and maternal discipline style during a discipline task. Parents rated executive function problems at 4 years of age in five domains of inhibition, shifting, emotional control, working memory, and planning/organizing, using the Behavior Rating Inventory of Executive Function-Preschool Version. Maternal sensitivity predicted less executive function problems at preschool age. A significant interaction was found between corpus callosum length in infancy and maternal use of positive discipline to determine child inhibition problems: The association between a relatively shorter corpus callosum in infancy and child inhibition problems was reduced in children who experienced more positive discipline. Our results point to the buffering potential of positive parenting for children with biological vulnerability. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]