Intergenerational Transmission of Constructive Parenting.

In this article the author investigates intergenerational transmission of constructive parenting using a 3-wave longitudinal data set that spanned two decades. Parenting has increasingly been recognized as an important predictor for the outcomes of the off-spring. Parenting tended to be treated as an independent variable in the U.S., the variation of which was taken for granted. Since the 1980s, an increased interest in the antecedents of parenting has been observed. These included early developmental history, personality, psychological state, marital satisfaction, social network support, economic hardship, parenting beliefs, and perception of the child, to name a few. Numerous research has documented the intergenerational continuity of parenting, demonstrating that present-day parents tend to use similar parenting strategies or practices that they themselves received in their childhood. Empirical studies from the child abuse literature reported the association between the early experience of parental abuse and individuals' later abusive treatment of their own children. The findings on the intergenerational transmission of supportive parenting mostly came from the studies of parent-infant relations.