Does Mothers' Self-Construal Contribute to Parenting Beyond Socioeconomic Status and Maternal Efficacy? an Exploratory Study of Turkish Mothers.

This study examined the relative contribution of mothers' self-construal to parenting above and beyond family socioeconomic status (SES) and maternal efficacy beliefs about parenting. A total of 58 Turkish mothers and their preschool-aged children participated in dyadic tasks in the laboratory setting. For the measurement of parenting, direct behavioral observations of mother-child interactions in three interaction contexts were utilized, and mother ratings of emotion socialization were obtained. Mothers also reported on their parenting efficacy, self-construal, child temperament, and family demographics. Results revealed a more balanced endorsement of autonomous and relational self-characteristics as well as more sensitive parenting among higher SES mothers. Furthermore, mothers' self-construal contributed unique variance to the prediction of sensitive parenting over and above SES, maternal efficacy and child temperament. Yet, in the prediction of negatively controlling parenting, mothers' self-construal did not account for unique variance. Lower parenting efficacy and lower SES were the only predictors of punishing, overriding, and distress magnifying responses. Finally, results indicated a marginally significant indirect effect from SES to sensitive parenting via autonomous-related self-construal, controlling for the indirect effect of maternal efficacy.

Maternal Self-Construal, Maternal Socialization of Emotions and Child Emotion Regulation in a Sample of Romanian Mother-Toddler Dyads.

Over the recent years, there is growing recognition of the social and cultural regulatory processes that act upon individual emotions. The adult-to-child social regulation of emotion is even more relevant, given the development of child self-regulatory abilities during early years. Although it is acknowledged that parental regulatory attempts to their children's emotional expressions are influenced by cultural models, relatively little is known about the specific relationship between parental cultural models and socialization practices that foster emotion self-regulation, particularly in the case of toddlers. Therefore, in the present study, our first aim was to examine, in a Romanian sample of mother-toddler dyads, the relationships between maternal cultural model of self and maternal regulatory attempts targeting toddlers' emotions during a delay of gratification task, while controlling for maternal perceptions of child individual characteristics, namely temperament. The second aim was to analyze, within the delay of gratification task, the relations between maternal regulatory attempts, child regulatory strategies and child affect expression, as the outcome of emotion regulation. Results showed that mothers scored higher for Independence as compared to Interdependence dimensions of self-construal. Also, the multidimensional analysis of self-construal revealed that Autonomy/Assertiveness scores were significantly higher than Relational Interdependent scores. Moreover, different dimensions of Independence predicted different maternal regulatory strategies employed during the delay of gratification task. This pattern of results suggests that maternal representations of an independent self, evidenced in our sample, are reflected in regulatory practices, aimed to develop primary control in the toddler. Moreover, our data revealed several significant associations between maternal regulatory strategies and child regulatory strategies expressed during the delay of gratification task. Finally, we demonstrated that child self-regulation mediated the relation between maternal regulatory attempts and child expression of affect during this task.

Emotion displays in media: a comparison between American, Romanian, and Turkish children's storybooks.

Children's books may provide an important resource of culturally appropriate emotions. This study investigates emotion displays in children's storybooks for preschoolers from Romania, Turkey, and the US in order to analyze cultural norms of emotions. We derived some hypotheses by referring to cross-cultural studies about emotion and emotion socialization. For such media analyses, the frequency rate of certain emotion displays can be seen as an indicator for the salience of the specific emotion. We expected that all children's storybooks would highlight dominantly positive emotions and that US children's storybooks would display negative powerful emotions (e.g., anger) more often and negative powerless emotions (e.g., sadness) less often than Turkish and Romanian storybooks. We also predicted that the positive and negative powerful emotion expressions would be more intense in the US storybooks compared to the other storybooks. Finally, we expected that social context (ingroup/outgroup) may affect the intensity emotion displays more in Turkish and Romanian storybooks compared to US storybooks. Illustrations in 30 popular children's storybooks (10 for each cultural group) were coded. Results mostly confirmed the hypotheses but also pointed to differences between Romanian and Turkish storybooks. Overall, the study supports the conclusion that culture-specific emotion norms are reflected in media to which young children are exposed.

Longitudinal evaluation of externalizing and internalizing behavior problems following iron deficiency in infancy.

OBJECTIVE: This study examined externalizing and internalizing behavior problem trajectories as a function of both iron status in infancy and infant characteristics. METHODS: A sample of 185 healthy Costa Rican children who either had chronic, severe iron deficiency or good iron status in infancy were followed for 19 years. RESULTS: Mother ratings of externalizing and internalizing problems from age 5 to 11-14 years were higher for the chronic iron deficiency group compared with those with the good iron status. Iron deficiency in infancy predicted persisting externalizing problems over this time period, especially for those with low physical activity in infancy. Beyond adolescence, youth in the chronic iron deficiency group did not report more problems than those in the good iron group. CONCLUSIONS: These findings underscore the importance of considering infant iron status along with early behavioral characteristics to better identify those children at greatest risk for persisting long-term behavior problems.

Preschool-aged children with iron deficiency anemia show altered affect and behavior.

This study compared social looking and response to novelty in preschool-aged children (47-68 mo) with or without iron deficiency anemia (IDA). Iron status of the participants from a low-income community in New Delhi, India, was based on venous hemoglobin, mean corpuscular volume, and red cell distribution width. Children's social looking toward adults, affect, and wary or hesitant behavior in response to novelty were assessed in a semistructured paradigm during an in-home play observation. Affect and behavior were compared as a function of iron status: IDA (n = 74) vs. nonanemic (n = 164). Compared with nonanemic preschoolers, preschoolers with IDA displayed less social looking toward their mothers, moved close to their mothers more quickly, and were slower to display positive affect and touch novel toys for the first time. These results indicate that IDA in the preschool period has affective and behavioral effects similar to those reported for IDA in infancy.

Iron deficiency in infancy and mother-child interaction at 5 years.

Five-year-old Costa Rican children, who had either chronic, severe iron deficiency or good iron status in infancy, were observed with their mothers during a structured interaction task in a laboratory setting and everyday interactions in their home. Child affect and behavior as well as the quality of mother-child interaction of the formerly chronic iron-deficient children (n = 40) were compared to those with good iron status in infancy (n = 102). Children who had chronic iron deficiency in infancy were more likely to display lower levels of physical activity, positive affect, and verbalization during the structured task at 5 years, despite iron therapy that corrected their iron deficiency anemia in infancy. Mother-child reciprocity during the structured task (e.g., eye contact, shared positive affect, turn taking) was more likely to be lower in the chronic iron deficiency group compared to the good iron group. Mothers of children in the chronic iron deficiency group showed less responsivity in both settings. These results show that children with chronic, severe iron deficiency in infancy continue at behavioral disadvantage relative to their peers at school entry. Sustained differences in mother-child interaction might contribute to the long-lasting behavioral and developmental alterations reported in children with chronic, severe iron deficiency in infancy.

The role of verbal competence and multiple risk on the internalizing behavior problems of Costa Rican youth.

This longitudinal study examined internalizing behavior problems (anxiety/depression) in early adolescence in relation to adversity in early childhood and child verbal competence. We hypothesized that verbal competence would act as a protective factor in the face of early adversity, that is, high verbal IQ would predict relatively lower internalizing problems in early adolescence primarily for those children who experienced the greatest adversity. The sample was based on 191 Costa Rican children and their mothers, who were recruited in infancy from an urban community and assessed again at 5 and 11-14 years. Families were generally lower-middle to working class. A total of 165 children (94 boys) participated in the early adolescent follow-up (mean age = 12.3 years). Internalizing problems were based on maternal report (Spanish Child Behavior Checklist). Our cumulative risk index (CRI)_of adversity in early childhood consisted of home environment quality (HOME score), socioeconomic status, maternal depressed mood (CESD), and maternal IQ. Controlling for the effects of age, gender, internalizing problems at 5 years, and verbal IQ at 5 years, there was a significant interaction between early adversity and verbal IQ at age 11-14 years in predicting internalizing problems in early adolescence. Youth with high verbal IQ had comparable levels of internalizing problems regardless of high or low adversity in early childhood. In contrast, youth with low verbal IQ received higher internalizing problem ratings if they experienced high adversity early in life. The results raise the possibility that interventions to improve verbal competence might help lower the risk of internalizing problems in the face of early adversity.