Parenting in the Context of the Child: Genetic and Social Processes

Abstract

The focus on the role of parenting in child development has a long-standing history. When measures of parenting precede changes in child development, researchers typically infer a causal role of parenting practices and attitudes on child development. However, this research is usually conducted with parents raising their own biological offspring. Such research designs cannot account for the effects of genes that are common to parents and children, nor for genetically influenced traits in children that influence how they are parented and how parenting affects them. The aim of this monograph is to provide a clearer view of parenting by synthesizing findings from the Early Growth and Development Study (EGDS). EGDS is a longitudinal study of adopted children, their birth parents, and their rearing parents studied across infancy and childhood. Families (N = 561) were recruited in the United States through adoption agencies between 2000 and 2010. Data collection began when adoptees were 9 months old (males = 57.2%; White 54.5%, Black 13.2%, Hispanic/Latinx 13.4%, Multiracial 17.8%, other 1.1%). The median child age at adoption placement was 2 days (M = 5.58, SD = 11.32). Adoptive parents were predominantly in their 30s, White, and coming from upper-middle- or upper-class backgrounds with high educational attainment (a mode at 4-year college or graduate degree). Most adoptive parents were heterosexual couples, and were married at the beginning of the project. The birth parent sample was more racially and ethnically diverse, but the majority (70%) were White. At the beginning of the study, most birth mothers and fathers were in their 20s, with a mode of educational attainment at high school degree, and few of them were married. We have been following these family members over time, assessing their genetic influences, prenatal environment, rearing environment, and child development. Controlling for effects of genes common to parents and children, we confirmed some previously reported associations between parenting, parent psychopathology, and marital adjustment in relation to child problematic and prosocial behavior. We also observed effects of children's heritable characteristics, characteristics thought to be transmitted from parent to child by genetic means, on their parents and how those effects contributed to subsequent child development. For example, we found that genetically influenced child impulsivity and social withdrawal both elicited harsh parenting, whereas a genetically influenced sunny disposition elicited parental warmth. We found numerous instances of children's genetically influenced characteristics that enhanced positive parental influences on child development or that protected them from harsh parenting. Integrating our findings, we propose a new, genetically informed process model of parenting. We posit that parents implicitly or explicitly detect genetically influenced liabilities and assets in their children. We also suggest future research into factors such as marital adjustment, that favor parents responding with appropriate protection or enhancement. Our findings illustrate a productive use of genetic information in prevention research: helping parents respond effectively to a profile of child strengths and challenges rather than using genetic information simply to identify some children unresponsive to current preventive interventions.

Figure 1A.

Conceptual illustration of a parent-offspring study that incorporates both birth parent and adoptive parent participants

Figure 1B.

Conceptual illustration of a parent-offspring study with genetically related participants only

Figure 1C.

Conceptual illustration of the evocative pathway from birth parent to child to rearing parents made possible with the adoption design

Figure 1D.

Conceptual illustration of genetic moderation of environmental pathways in the adoption design

Figure 2.

The design of Early Growth and Development Study

Figure 3.

The timeline of EGDS assessment. Note. Assessments are currently ongoing; N represents the cases that completed data collection in winter 2022.

Figure 4.

The adoption design as a tool for isolating the effects of rearing parent characteristics and parenting behaviors on child outcomes over time.

Figure 5.

Adoptive Mother (AM) and Adoptive Father (AF) hostility during the toddler period and children’s aggression during early childhood, controlling for the effects of marital hostility, adoptive parent antisocial behavior, and children’s heritable and behavioral risks for aggression. From Stover et al., 2016.

Figure 6.

Adoptive parent harshness and child self-regulation, controlling for adoptive child gender, anger, and heritable influences. From Bridgett et al., 2018.

Figure 7.

Associations between Adoptive Parent Depressive Symptoms and Child Externalizing behavior at 27 months, controlling for Heritable and Prenatal Risks and Child Fussiness. From Pemberton et al., 2011.

Figure 8.

Associations between adoptive parents’ and children’s depressive symptoms from Infancy through early childhood. From _S1_Reference86Cioffi et al., 2021.

Figure 9.

The Contributions of adoptive family financial stress and adoptive parents’ antisocial behavior, toddler aggression, and heritable antisocial risk to the spillover of marital hostility to parenting and child aggression. From Stover et al., 2012.

Figure 10.

The association between birth mother reward dependence, Adoptive parent reward dependence and marital quality and hostile parenting of adoptive mothers and fathers. From Hajal et al., 2015.

Figure 11.

The association between birth mother low behavioral motivation, toddler low social motivation and adoptive mother and father hostility predicting parent reports of disruptive peer behavior at age 4.5 years. * p < .05. ** p < .01. *** p < .001. From Elam et al., 2014.

Figure 12.

Associations, for Cohorts I/II, among birth mother ADHD symptoms composite, child impulsivity, maternal hostility and depressive symptoms and child ADHD symptoms and aggression. *p<.05, **p<.01 + significantly different pathways. From Sellers et al., 2020.

Figure 13.

Child effects on adoptive parents’ parental negativity via child negative reactivity: the role of heritable and prenatal factors. Standardized parameter estimates and 95% credible intervals of parameter estimates. AM = adoptive mother; AF = adoptive father; BM = birth mother; BF = birth father; EXT = externalizing problems; INT = internalizing problems; SUB = substance use. The parameter estimates of the covariance among birth parents’ psychopathology scores were omitted due to space. Nonsignificant parameter estimates are not shown. From Liu et al., 2020.

Figure 14.

A diagram of significant indirect paths linking birth parent temperament with child social competence and externalizing via primary child effects on parental hostility. Adapted from Shewark et al., 2021.

Figure 15.

The interaction between genetic risk and marital problems of the rearing parents on maternal negativity. From Fearon et al., 2015.

Figure 16.

A schematic illustrating the analyses to be reported in this chapter: the effects of genetically influenced characteristics of the child on the influences of rearing parents.

Figure 17.

The interaction between genetic risk for a broad range of psychopathology and structured parenting. Structured parenting is inversely related to child problems for those at high genetic risk but positively associated with child problems for those at low genetic risk.

Figure 18.

Top: The interaction mother-reported parenting stress and the little p factor on father-rated child social competence. Middle: The interaction mother-reported parenting stress and the little p factor on father-rated child externalizing. Bottom: the interaction of mothers’ reports of their internalizing symptoms and little p on father reported child social competence. From Cree et al., 2020.

Figure 19.

The interaction of maternal laxness (vs. structure) with birth mother personality (agreeableness, emotion dysregulation) on child effortful control. From Ganiban et al., 2021.

Figure 20.

Interaction between parental responsiveness and birth parent sociability and its association with child social competence at age 6. From Van Ryzin et al., 2015.

Figure 21.

The relationship of birth mothers’ antisocial behavior, measured at child aged 3 months, adoptive mothers observed positive reinforcement at child age 18 months and their interaction on three measures of child behavior at 27 months. In addition to child gender, adoption openness and perinatal complications, children’s callous and deceitful behavior at age 18 months is held constant. ^a Severe biological mother antisocial behavior predicts adoptive child callous-unemotional behaviours, but the effect is buffered by adoptive parent positive reinforcement. *p<0.05. **p<0.01. ***p<0.001.

Figure 22.

In the association of biological mothers’ temperament with child temperament at 18 months and callous unemotional behavior at 27 months. The broad, grey arrow indicates the indirect effect of adult personality to child temperament to child callous unemotional traits. These analyses control for child gender, adoption openness, perinatal complications, adoptive mother personality, child ADHD and oppositional behavior.

Figure 23.

Genetically influenced self-defeating feedback: Separate influences from adoptive mothers and birth mothers imply that in biological related mother child pairs, mother’s parenting acts to enhance a genetically influenced child behavior that, in turn, exacerbates her own depressive symptoms.

Figure 24.

A genetically influenced self-defeating spiral for callous unemotional traits in children and hostile parenting. Coefficients outside of parentheses are those for the low genetic risk group and those within parentheses are those for children at genetic risk as indexed by maternal low social affiliation and fearlessness.