This content will become publicly available on July 11, 2024
Early mathematics skills relate to later mathematics achievement and educational attainment, which in turn predict career choice, income, health and financial decision‐making. Critically, large differences exist among children in early mathematics performance, with parental mathematics engagement being a key predictor. However, most prior work has examined mothers' mathematics engagement with their preschool‐ and school‐aged children. In this Registered Report, we tested concurrent associations between mothers' and fathers' engagement in mathematics activities with their 2‐ to 3‐year‐old toddlers and children's mathematics performance. Mothers and fathers did not differ in their engagement in mathematics activities, and both parents' mathematics engagement related to toddlers' mathematics skills. Fathers' mathematics engagement was associated with toddlers' number and mathematics language skills, but not their spatial skills. Mothers' mathematics engagement was only associated with toddlers' mathematics language skills. Critically, associations may be domain‐specific, as parents' literacy engagement did not relate to measures of mathematics performance above their mathematics engagement. Mothers' and fathers' mathematics activities uniquely relate to toddlers' developing mathematics skills, and future work on the nuances of these associations is needed.
more » « less- Award ID(s):
- 1760844
- NSF-PAR ID:
- 10441517
- Publisher / Repository:
- Wiley-Blackwell
- Date Published:
- Journal Name:
- British Journal of Developmental Psychology
- ISSN:
- 0261-510X
- Format(s):
- Medium: X
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
More Like this
-
Parents’ beliefs about the importance of math predicts their math engagement with their children. However, most work focuses on mothers’ math engagement with preschool- and school-aged children, leaving gaps in knowledge about fathers and the experiences of toddlers. We examined differences in mothers’ and fathers’ ( N = 94) engagement in math- and non-math activities with their two-year-old girls and boys. Parents reported their beliefs about the importance of math and literacy for young children and their frequency of home learning activities. Parents of sons did not differ in their engagement in math activities from parents of daughters. Mothers reported engaging more frequently in math activities with their toddlers than fathers did, but the difference reduced when parents endorsed stronger beliefs about the importance of math for children. Even at very early ages, children experience vastly different opportunities to learn math in the home, with math-related experiences being shaped by both parent gender and parents’ beliefs.more » « less
-
Remote Work, Gender Ideologies, and Fathers’ Participation in Childcare during the COVID-19 PandemicJacobs, Jerry (Ed.)
During the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic, remote work became the new reality for many fathers. Though time availability theory suggests that this newfound flexibility should lead to more domestic labor on the part of fathers, many were skeptical that fathers would step up to shoulder the load at home. Indeed, the findings are decidedly mixed on the association of fathers’ remote work with their performance of housework and childcare. Nonetheless, research has yet to consider how contextual factors, such as fathers’ gender ideologies and mothers’ employment, may condition these associations. Using data from Wave 1 of the Study on U.S. Parents’ Divisions of Labor During COVID-19 (SPDLC), we examine how gender ideology moderates the association between fathers’ remote work and their performance and share of childcare during the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic in both sole-earner and dual-earner families. The results show, for sole-earning fathers and dual-earner fathers with egalitarian gender attitudes, that the frequency of remote work was positively associated with fathers performing more, and a greater share of, childcare during the pandemic. Yet, only dual-earner fathers with egalitarian gender attitudes performed an equal share of childcare in their families. These findings suggest that the pandemic provided structural opportunities for fathers, particularly egalitarian-minded fathers, to be the equally engaged parents they desired.
-
Objective This study investigated how new mothers' perceptions of maternal grandmothers' gatekeeping behaviors and perceptions of fathers' parenting competence are associated with maternal gatekeeping behaviors.
Background In the development of coparenting relationships at the transition to parenthood, the roles of extended family members, although important, have received little research attention. Grandmothers' gatekeeping may serve as a reference for maternal gatekeeping behaviors, but its role depends on mothers' own perceptions of fathers' parenting competence.
Method Mothers from 172 dual‐earner, different‐gender couples reported their own mothers' gatekeeping behaviors and their own perceptions of fathers' parenting competence at 3 months postpartum. Maternal gatekeeping behaviors toward fathers were reported by mothers at both 3 and 9 months postpartum.
Results When mothers perceived that maternal grandmothers engaged in higher levels of gatekeeping behaviors, mothers engaged in more gate‐opening behaviors but only when mothers perceived fathers as highly competent. There were no significant associations between mothers' perceptions of grandmothers' gatekeeping and maternal gate‐closing behaviors.
Conclusion Adult mothers, who likely have developed their own sets of ideas about parenting, are still susceptible to support and criticism from their own mothers.
Implications Practitioners would do well to encourage expectant and new parents to consider the role of extended family in the development of their coparenting relationships and to develop plans for support‐seeking, boundary management, and negotiation of conflicts. To help reduce maternal gate‐closing and enhance maternal gate‐opening behaviors, practitioners could support fathers' development of parenting skills and help mothers develop awareness of fathers' skills.
-
Abstract Objective: This study examined how parental caregiving and parent–child closeness are associated with future fathering among 335 Filipino men who are participants in a long‐running birth cohort study.Background Few studies have multidecade longitudinal data to test the pathways through which parenting is transmitted across generations, with most relevant research conducted in the United States, Europe, and other similar settings. The roles of mothers and fathers in shaping their sons' future parenting is particularly understudied despite fathers having the potential to positively influence child health and development.Method: Participants' mothers (Generation 1 [G1]) reported on caregiving during Generation 2 (G2) participants' early life, and the G2 males reported parent–child closeness during adolescence. G2 fathers reported on their own child‐care involvement and the salience of caregiving to their parenting identity. We tested whether parent–child closeness moderated the effect of early‐life care to predict later‐life fathering.Results: G1‐G2 closeness moderated the association between G1 parents' caregiving and G2 fathers' parenting identity (for both G1 parents) and caregiving time (for G1 fathers only). When the G1‐G2 mother–son relationship was not close, there was a negative correlation between G1 maternal care and G2 fathers' caregiving identity. For G2 men who were close to their fathers, there were positive associations between G1 paternal care and G2 fathers' caregiving identity and time, respectively. Among G2 men who were not close to their fathers, the slopes relating G1 paternal care to G2 fathers' caregiving identity and time, respectively, were negative.Conclusion: These findings reflect that developmental experiences with both mothers and fathers are predictive of men's identity as parents in adulthood and that closeness between fathers and sons moderates whether sons' paternal care tends to emulate or diverge from their fathers' caregiving patterns. -
Abstract Parental ethnotheories shape socialization beliefs around childrearing more broadly, and children's friendships more specifically. While prior work has examined aspects of parental socialization of friendships among school‐aged children and adolescents, no studies have examined beliefs held around the function of friendships among ethnically diverse mothers of toddlers from low‐socioeconomic contexts. Toddlerhood marks a point in development when the concept of “friendship” gains impact and relevance due to leaps in children's social, cognitive, and motor skills, as well as children's increasing access to contexts where they organically encounter peers. Toddlerhood is also a time when caregivers may initially consider the influence of peers on their children, beliefs that could eventually guide and shift how they navigate socialization practices around friendship. In the present study, we document U.S. Dominican American, African American, and Mexican American mothers’ socialization beliefs around functions of friendship for their 2‐year‐old children. We found that mothers emphasized a variety of friendship functions, including learning of social skills and morality, and communicating and experiencing emotions. A majority of mothers viewed their children's friendships as unidirectional, and framed their children as undiscerning in their engagement with social information from peers. Findings are discussed in relation to mothers’ orientation to children and “childhood” via cultural and developmental beliefs.