About this paper symposium

---

Panel information
Panel 14. Parenting & Parent-Child Relationships

Paper #1
Nurturing Attention Development and Self-Regulation in the Context of Childhood Poverty
Author information	Role
Dr. Ran Wei, Peking University, Beijing, China	Presenting author
Trevor Bissert, Division of Developmental Medicine, Boston Children’s Hospital, Harvard Medical School, Brookline, MA, USA	Non-presenting author
Krittika Paul, Division of Developmental Medicine, Boston Children’s Hospital, Harvard Medical School, Brookline, MA, USA	Non-presenting author
Olivia Dubrule, Division of Developmental Medicine, Boston Children’s Hospital, Harvard Medical School, Brookline, MA, USA	Non-presenting author
Eileen Sullivan, Division of Developmental Medicine, Boston Children’s Hospital, Harvard Medical School, Brookline, MA, USA	Non-presenting author
Talat Shama, International Centre for Diarrhoeal Disease Research, Bangladesh, Dhaka, Bangladesh	Non-presenting author
Shahria Hafiz Kakon, International Centre for Diarrhoeal Disease Research, Bangladesh, Dhaka, Bangladesh	Non-presenting author
Fahmida Tofail, International Centre for Diarrhoeal Disease Research, Bangladesh, Dhaka, Bangladesh	Non-presenting author
Rashidul Haque, International Centre for Diarrhoeal Disease Research, Bangladesh, Dhaka, Bangladesh	Non-presenting author
Charles Nelson, Division of Developmental Medicine, Boston Children’s Hospital, Harvard Medical School, Brookline, MA, USA	Non-presenting author
Abstract
Introduction. Endogenous regulation of attention is a significant achievement in human development and a core component of self-regulation. Understanding how infants learn to orient and sustain attention sheds light on the emergence of subjective experience and regulation and their influences on behavior. Research based on Western, high-income populations suggests that children’s attention and self-regulation are profoundly shaped by parental communicative input. However, less is known about the social origins of early variation in attention development in the context of childhood poverty. The current study is the first to examine how parents and infants negotiated their attention during naturalistic interactions in families in a low-resource community in urban Dhaka, Bangladesh. To highlight the cultural diversity in parental attention scaffolding and infants’ attention patterns, we compared Bangladeshi parent-infant interactions with those of families of mid socioeconomic-status in Boston, U.S., a demographic group frequently studied in literature. We sought to address four research questions: 1) What attention scaffolding strategies do Bangladeshi parents use when interacting with their 12-month-olds, compared to U.S. parents? 2) How do Bangladeshi infants respond to and initiate joint-attention episodes when interacting with their parents, compared to U.S. infants? 3) Are Bangladeshi parents’ attention scaffolding strategies concurrently correlated with 12-month-olds’ attention orienting skills? 4) Can Bangladeshi parents’ attention scaffolding at 12 months predict children’s self-regulation at 24 months? Method. Participants were 68 families with 12-month-olds from low-resource neighborhoods in Dhaka (with 50 families living in extreme poverty) and 35 families from Boston. We recorded parent-infant interactions across three settings: free play, joint object manipulation, and divided attention. Over 1500 minutes of interactions were transcribed and reliably coded for two dimensions of parental attention scaffolding: modality (encouraging infants’ verbal versus nonverbal attentional engagement) and responsiveness (following versus redirecting infants’ attention). Infants’ prompted and spontaneous attentional engagement was also coded. At 12 months, Bangladeshi infants completed a Disengagement Eye-Tracking Task (Figure 1) gauging their attentional orientation skill, a key indicator of maturation in attention-related neural networks. At 24 months, they completed two self-regulation tasks, “Spin the Pots” and “Glitter Wand”, both of which involve endogenous conflict resolution and top-down control of executive attention, in addition to tapping into working memory and inhibitory control skills, respectively. Results. The findings highlighted the cultural diversity in parental attention scaffolding strategies and child attention patterns in naturalistic social interactions (see Table 1 for descriptive statistics). Bangladeshi parents’ attention scaffolding at 12 months was positively associated with children’s attention orienting skills at 12 months and predicted self-regulation at 24 months. Most notably, our findings suggested the need to further understand the cultural embeddedness of sensitive responsiveness. Specifically, while following and redirecting are usually viewed as opposing strategies in prior literature based on Western ideals of scaffolding, they are each positively linked to Bangladeshi children’s self-regulation. Conclusions. Understanding the unique links between parental scaffolding and child outcomes may contribute to a culturally attuned understanding of the social protective factors supporting attention and self-regulation development in the challenging context of childhood poverty.

Paper #2
Why do Parents Lie? Parenting Styles, Parental Goals, and Parenting by Lying
Author information	Role
Petrina Hui Xian Low, Psychology Division, School of Social Sciences, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore	Presenting author
Peipei Setoh, Psychology Division, School of Social Sciences, Nanyang Technological University; Institute for Human Development and Potential (IHDP), Agency for Science, Technology and Research (A*STAR), Singapore	Non-presenting author
Abstract
Introduction. Although many parents value and teach honesty to their children, they may also lie to their children for parenting purposes. This is a practice known as parenting by lying (Heyman et al., 2009; 2013), which has been associated with negative psychosocial outcomes in prior literature (e.g., Santos et al., 2017). However, few studies to date have examined the potential predictors of parenting by lying. Past studies implicitly assume that parental lies are used to achieve certain parenting goals, but it is unclear what these parenting goals are, or how parental lies are used in the context of broader parenting styles. Understanding these antecedents may provide insight into potential interventions to mitigate the negative implications of this parenting practice. Hence, we aimed to investigate how parental goals and parenting styles were associated with the use of parental instrumental lies (i.e., lies to obtain behavioral compliance) and parental white lies (i.e., lies for eliciting positive emotions). Method. Singaporean parents (N = 216, 86.1% mothers) reported on their endorsement of culturally relevant parenting goals (child interdependence, achievement, self-development), their engagement in supportive and harsh parenting styles, and the frequency of their use of parental instrumental and white lies, while their children aged 6 to 9 years old (N = 170, 49.5% girls) reported on the frequency of their exposure to parental instrumental and white lies. We examined how parenting goals were associated with parental lies and how they interacted with other parenting styles. Results. Multiple regressions (with parent-child demographics covaried) showed that of the three parenting goals, only the achievement goal was significantly associated with more frequent parental instrumental lies reported by both parents (B = 2.44, SE = 1.04, p = .020) and children (B = 2.96, SE = 1.12, p = .009). Parents who engaged in more supportive parenting reported using instrumental lies less frequently (B = -2.49, SE = 0.96, p = .010), while those who engaged in more harsh parenting reported using both instrumental (B = 8.24, SE = 0.88, p < .001) and white lies (B = 1.44, SE = 0.34) more frequently. However, when parents engaged in higher frequency of supportive parenting, their endorsement of the interdependence goal (B = 6.37, SE = 2.42, p = .009, Figure 1) and achievement goal (B = 5.73, SE = 2.74, p < .001, Figure 2) positively predicted the frequency of children’s exposure to instrumental lies instead. Conclusions. The context in which parenting practices occur are critical to their implications on children’s outcomes (Darling and Steinberg, 1993). Our results show that the use of parenting by lying was predicted by a nuanced interplay between parental goals and parenting styles. This study is the first step to situating the use of parenting by lying within the wider parenting scope, allowing future studies to investigate modifiable factors within this parenting context that may reduce the use of potentially harmful parental lies.

Paper #3
Longitudinal Associations between Maternal Parenting Styles, Self-regulation, and Childhood Depressive Symptoms: A Structural Equation Analysis
Author information	Role
Dr. Germaine Tng, Psychology Division, School of Social Sciences, Nanyang Technological University; School of Social Sciences, Singapore Management University, Singapore	Presenting author
Michelle Z. L. Kee, Institute for Human Development and Potential (IHDP), Agency for Science, Technology and Research (A*STAR), Singapore	Non-presenting author
Anne Rifkin-Graboi, Centre for Research in Child Development, National Institute of Education, Singapore	Non-presenting author
Birit F. P. Broekman, Department of Psychiatry, Amsterdam UMC and OLVG Location Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, Amsterdam, The Netherlands	Non-presenting author
Helen Y. Chen, Department of Psychological Medicine, KK Women’s and Children’s Hospital; Duke-NUS Medical School, Singapore	Non-presenting author
Michael J. Meaney, Institute for Human Development and Potential (IHDP), Agency for Science, Technology and Research (A*STAR), Singapore	Non-presenting author
Peipei Setoh, Psychology Division, School of Social Sciences, Nanyang Technological University; Institute for Human Development and Potential (IHDP), Agency for Science, Technology and Research (A*STAR), Singapore	Non-presenting author
Evelyn C. Law, Department of Paediatrics, Yong Loo Lin School of Medicine, National University of Singapore, Singapore; Institute for Human Development and Potential (IHDP), Agency for Science, Technology and Research (A*STAR); Khoo Teck Puat–National University Children’s Medical Institute, National University Health System, Singapore, Singapore	Non-presenting author
Abstract
Introduction. The increased severity and variation of depressive symptoms during middle-to-late childhood necessitate an empirical examination of modifiable risk factors (Racine et al., 2021; Rao et al., 2019; Xu et al., 2020). Early caregiving practices have consistently emerged as significant predictors of depressive symptoms in middle childhood (Dallaire et al., 2006; Liu & Merrit, 2018; Yap & Jorm, 2015). Moreover, competency-based models of child depression (Cole, 1991) posit child self-regulation as a potential mediating mechanism elucidating the relationship between parenting styles and subsequent depressive symptoms (e.g., Bernier et al., 2010; Perry et al., 2018). Previous research has emphasized a greater need for multi-method approaches, such as incorporating self-report and observational measures of parenting behaviors, to mitigate systematic measurement errors and strengthen construct validity. With parenting practices heavily influenced by sociocultural factors, a multi-method approach may be particularly crucial to identifying unique parenting styles in Asian settings that may diverge from established Western frameworks. The present study addresses these gaps by: (1) identifying maternal parenting styles in Singapore using a multi-method approach, and (2) investigating the mediating role of child self-regulation in the longitudinal associations between maternal parenting styles and children’s depressive symptoms. Method. This study utilized data from the ongoing Growing Up in Singapore Towards healthy Outcomes (GUSTO) birth cohort study (N = 743; 51.4% male; 55.9% Chinese; 27.6% Malay; 16.5% Indian). Maternal parenting was assessed at age 4.5 years across a self-report measure (Parenting Styles and Dimensions Questionnaire) and an observational assessment (Etch-a-Sketch task). Child self-regulation was reported at age 7 years by both mothers (Social Emotional Assets and Resilience Scale) and teachers (Behavior Rating Inventory of Executive Function-2), and depressive symptoms were reported at age 8.5 years by children (Child Depression Inventory 2). Demographic information, including socioeconomic status and child sex, was collected at recruitment in pregnancy and birth. A two-step analytical approach was adopted. First, exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses were performed to identify distinct parenting styles across multi-method parenting indices. Thereafter, structural equation analyses were conducted to examine indirect effects of parenting dimensions on childhood depressive symptoms via children’s self-regulation abilities. All analyses were performed using Mplus 8.8 (Muthén & Muthén, 2021). Results. Factor analyses identified a six-factor model of parenting dimensions including 1) warmth, 2) reasoning-oriented, 3) autonomy-granting, 4) controlling/critical, 5) physical punishment, and 6) in-sync parenting. Children’s self-regulation abilities mediated the association between specific parenting dimensions (i.e., reasoning-oriented parenting, controlling/critical parenting, and in-sync parenting) and subsequent depressive symptoms in middle childhood (Cohen’s f2 = .104 – .133). These findings held when child’s sex and maternal education levels were accounted for. Conclusions. Our findings highlight the importance of delineating parenting dimensions in their unique sociocultural context via a multi-method approach. We also elucidate a longitudinal process model in which reasoning-oriented, controlling/critical, and in-sync parenting underlie the emergence of later depressive symptoms through children’s self-regulation abilitiesthus informing intervention targets to mitigate depressive symptoms in middle childhood. To account for children’s influence on caregiving behaviors, future research should investigate reciprocal influences among parenting factors, self-regulation, and depressive symptoms.

Paper #4
A Framework to Enhance Cultural Responsiveness of Relational Savoring for Asian American Families
Author information	Role
Elayne Zhou, Department of Psychology, University of Southern California, USA, United States	Presenting author
Frances Haofei Li, Department of Psychological Science, University of California Irvine, USA, USA	Non-presenting author
Jessica Borelli, Department of Psychological Science, University of California Irvine, USA, USA	Non-presenting author
Abstract
Relational savoring (RS), a brief and accessible relationship-based intervention, may benefit Asian American, Native Hawaiian, and Pacific Islander (AANHPI) families by bolstering parent-child relationships. Although family ties often serve as protective factors for AANHPI families, acculturation-related stress may impede children’s and parents’ ability to fully leverage this cultural asset. Additionally, support-seeking rates among AANHPI individuals remain markedly lower than within other racial/ethnic groups, in part due to stigma and inaccessibility of culturally responsive therapies. RS may be particularly congruent with AANHPI-relevant cultural concepts and perceptions such as interconnectedness, while circumventing existing barriers via its strengths-based, non-stigmatizing approach. Developed on the theoretical foundation of attachment theory (Bowlby, 1969) and positive psychology (Seligman et al., 2005), RS centers around positive care-giving and care-receiving processes, which may also align with AANHPI groups’ cultural values of family cohesion. To date, RS has yielded promising effects in increasing relationship quality, adaptive parenting behaviors, and health-related outcomes, but has yet to be tested specifically with AANHPI families. In this theory-based presentation, we provide an integrative framework that illustrates the rationale behind selective and directed adaptations of RS for application with AANHPI families guided by Lau’s framework (2006), as well as the role of community-elicited feedback and participatory research in informing future intervention efforts. We argue that adaptations may be warranted on the basis of cultural differences in ideal affect and family hierarchies to increase the acceptability of the intervention via an iterative process conducted in partnership with AANHPI families (i.e., a community-based participatory research [CBPR] model (Parra-Cardona et al., 2023). This iterative process would proceed according to the following steps: 1) recruit a community advisory board of parents and community health workers, 2) deliver RS to a subgroup of parents and gather feedback on the degree and types of potential adaptations as well as feasibility and acceptability, 3) conduct a pilot study on the efficacy of the adapted form of RS, collecting quantitative and qualitative data, and 4) discuss findings with community advisory board to finalize adaptations and navigate implementation barriers. Contingent on feedback from the community, the resultant modifications may include adaptations in the areas of content (e.g., content of memory savored), format (e.g., group setting), framing used to describe the intervention rationale and memory sought, and mode of delivery (e.g., virtual intervention). We will propose that engaging in an iterative and rigorous process would elucidate whether adaptations of RS are necessary in this understudied population, and if so, which elements should be the target of such efforts. Ultimately, these steps would further our goal to promote flourishing and address disparities in both health outcomes and access to care among marginalized and underserved families. The discussion will focus on remaining questions and future areas of investigation, including the need for group-specific research (e.g., Vietnamese American versus Korean American), as well as generalizable principles emerging from this theorizing that can be applied more broadly to the cultural adaptation of parenting interventions.

⇦ Back to session