It might seem obvious to most of us as parents/caregivers today that acting in a warm, loving, caring and interested ways towards our children is important – however it has actually only been in the last 50 or 60 years that this idea has been discussed and studied by researchers interested in child development.
However during this last period of time, the concept of parental warmth and Responsiveness has been researched and discussed extensively – so in this article I am going to answer some frequently asked questions about this concept and think about how we might use these ideas in parenting and caring for young people.
HOW IS PARENTAL WARMTH DEFINED?
There is some variation in how different writers/researchers refer to this concept, but usually warm and responsive caregiving is thought of as being when parents/caregivers consistently:
1. Act in loving, affection, interested and positive ways towards a child (sometimes referred to as parental warmth) and;
2. Noticing and responding in caring ways to a child or young person’s emotions and experiences (sometimes referred to as responsiveness or sensitivity).
These ideas have also been referred to as “sensitive parenting”, “positive parenting” or “attachment” parenting (more on this last concept in a minute).
WHEN DID THIS RESEARCH BEGIN?
In the late 1960’s, on the back of a few decades of research about specific parental practices (like smacking and praise for example), a psychologist called Diana Baumrind identified two dimensions of parenting, one of which she called “responsiveness” and one she called “demandingness”. Baumrind defined responsiveness as the degree to which parents respond to their child’s or teenager’s needs in a supportive and accepting manner”. A higher degree of responsivity was theorized to lead to better emotional health in the young person. Baumrind defined demandingness as the degree to which parents expect their children to act in positive ways. A higher degree of demandingness was also theorized to lead to better emotional health in children.
High and low levels on the dimensions of responsiveness and demandingness were used to identify three parenting styles (and later a fourth style was added). These styles were as follows:
1. High responsiveness and high demandingness was characterised as authoritative parenting;
2. Low responsiveness and low demandingness was identified as neglectful parenting;
3. High responsiveness and low demandingness was identified as permissive parenting and;
4. Low responsiveness and high demandingness was identified as authoritarian parenting.
Authoritative parenting was theorized as being positive for young people while authoritarian (and permissive and neglective) parenting – was theorized as being negative for young people (with the unfortunately similar words describing diametrically opposite things from this point onwards, confusing psychology students everywhere!)
Around the same time, another psychologist called John Bowl by was studying the mental health of homeless children who had been separated from their parents during World War 2. In 1951 he published a seminal paper for the World Health Organisation, in which he recommended that “the infant and young child should experience a warm, intimate, and continuous relationship with his mother (or permanent mother substitute) in which both find satisfaction and enjoyment”.
Over the next two decades, Bowlby went on to develop what he called “attachment theory” – in which he proposed that children are evolutionarily designed to be connected to one parent figure for protection against predators, that parents should act in warm and supportive ways in order to facilitate this connection and that this attachment was also essential for child psychological well-being and normal development.
Mary Ainsworth was influenced by Bowl by research and during the 50’s and 60’s developed a theory of “attachment styles” (how parents and children related to each other – especially at times when a child was stressed or challenged) between parents and children. She used a now classic “strange situation” experiment (in short – observing how children interact with their parents when new people come in the room) in an attempt classify children as having “secure” or “anxious/avoidant” attachment styles with their parents/caregivers. Ainsworth proposed that children who have consistently loving and reassuring parents will be “securely attached” and this would result in long term more positive outcomes for children.
In the 1980’s, William and Martha Spears – greatly influenced by Ainsworth – published their seminal book on attachment parenting, and suggested that parents (and at the time, this was especially directed at mothers) should follow principles of “child led” parenting, including but not limited to having bonding opportunities after birth, breast feeding, responding to crying, avoiding “sleep training” and warm and responsive talking to children.
WHAT HAS HAPPENED SINCE THEN?
In the decades since Bol by, Ainsworth and Baum rind, there has been an explosion in the number of books, programs and courses about the concepts of attachment parenting and warmth and responsiveness parenting. The underlying principle of all of these programs/books/courses is that warm and responsive parenting leads to better outcomes for children and young people.
Even more recently, a number of psychologists, academics and other writers in child development have gone further and theorized that not only is parental warmth and responsiveness good for children/teens, a lack of this type of caregiving might exacerbate emotional and mental health disorders in young people, and in extreme cases, even lead to neurological problems and deficits in young people who are not provided with this kind of parenting.
As a result, government funded parenting education campaigns and child mental health interventions started to include components designed to increase parental warmth and responsiveness and to promote a “secure attachment” between young people and caregivers.
WHAT DOES THE SCIENCE SAY ABOUT TA HOW WARMTH & WELL-BEING ARE LINKED?
There has been many studies which have examined these theories about caregiver warmth and child well-being. Usually these studies measure a) levels of parental warmth (they use observational, self report, child and parent measures) and also measure various aspects of child well-being (educational outcomes, emotional outcomes, social skills, physical health and so on) – and then look at the strength of the relationship between the two concepts.
Almost all of these studies have found that higher levels of parental warmth and responsivity are linked with positive child characteristics and lower levels of warmth have been linked with negative child characteristics.
For example, studies have linked higher levels of parental warmth and responsiveness with lower levels of conduct problems, anxiety symptoms, drug and alcohol use, depression, learning problems, symptoms of impulsiveness – and many other problematic child factors. Studies have also linked higher levels of warmth with higher levels of emotional regulation, school achievement, self esteem – and many other positive child factors.
There have also been a few experimental studies using rats in which they have been experimentally placed into either more or less nurturing (animal) parental environments. The animal equivalents of warm and responsive parenting leads to better outcomes for rats too.
WHAT ARE THE LINGERING QUESTIONS IN THE RESEARCH?
Despite the many hundreds of studies as described above, it is still worth acknowledging that we don’t yet have the answers to some questions about this topic – and there are also reasons to be cautious about the research we do have.