Parenting and Child Development

Description

In recent years, parenting research has demonstrated that toxic stressors such as intimate partner violence, postpartum depression, and substance abuse significantly diminish the quality of mother-child interaction. Moreover, research has shown that childhood is a sensitive period, during which cumulative exposure to adversities inhibits relationship quality, mother-child interaction and subsequent child health and developmental outcomes. Researchers have focused upon identifying populations at risk and interventions to improve related outcomes.

Parenting and Child Development: Issues and Answers encompasses a collection of seminal studies by renowned researcher Dr Nicole Letourneau. The book starts with an examination of the mechanisms by which parent-child interaction and child developmental outcomes are diminished among high-risk families. Promising results of peer support and reflective functioning interventions to promote parent-child interaction and healthy child development are then presented. Finally, the book includes studies that investigate the relationship between genetics, parent-child relationships and child behaviour.

A unique collection of research papers that focuses on improving the quality of mother-child interaction and child developmental outcomes among high-risk populations. Demonstrates the efficacy and importance of related interventions.

Content

SECTION I – PREDICTORS OF PARENT-CHILD INTERACTION AND CHILD DEVELOPMENT

Fostering Resiliency in Infants and Young Children through Parent-Infant Interaction; Postpartum Depression is a Family Affair: Addressing the Impact on Mothers, Fathers, and Children; Socioeconomic Status and Child Development: A Meta-analysis; Adolescent Mothers: Support Needs, Resources, and Support-education Interventions; Intergenerational Transmission of Adverse Childhood Experiences via Maternal Depression and Anxiety and Moderation by Child Sex; Mothering and Domestic Violence: A Longitudinal Analysis.

SECTION II – INTERVENTIONS TO PROMOTE PARENT-CHILD INTERACTION AND CHILD DEVELOPMENT

Improving Adolescent Parent-infant Interactions: A Pilot Study; Supporting Parents: Can Intervention Improve Parent-child Relationships?; Interventions with Depressed Mothers and their Infants: Modifying Interactive Behaviours; The Effect of Home-based Peer Support on Maternal-infant Interactions Among Women with Postpartum Depression: A Randomized, Controlled Trial; Quasi-experimental Evaluation of a Telephone-based Peer Support Intervention for Maternal Depression; A Narrative and Meta-analytic Review of Interventions Aiming to Improve Maternal-child Attachment Security.

SECTION III – EPIGENETICS AND NEW DIRECTIONS

How Do Interactions Between Early Caregiving Environment and Genes Influence Health and Behavior?; Parenting Interacts With Plasticity Genes in Predicting Behavioral Outcomes in Preschoolers; Epilogue – Relationships are the Antidote to Toxic Stress.

Author and editors

Dr Nicole Letourneau PhD is a Registered Nurse. She is a Professor in the Faculty of Nursing and Cumming School of Medicine (Pediatrics, Psychiatry and Community Health Sciences), University of Calgary, where she holds the Alberta Children’s Hospital Chair in Parent-Infant Mental Health and is Director of RESOLVE.

Dr Martha Hart PhD is a researcher at the University of Calgary/Alberta Children’s Hospital, past board member of the International Association for the Study of Attachment and founder of The Owen Hart Foundation.

Jason Novick MA is a Research Assistant at the University of Calgary/Alberta Children’s Hospital.