Research-Based
What do we mean by "research based?"
Well, we DON'T mean technical, boring, or impractical. One look at the
newsletters should convince you of that!
WHO ARE THESE EXPERTS?
Most child rearing advice on the internet or print media
comes from people who have terrific experience and insight (thank goodness),
but who have seldom read the research literature on child development
and parent-child relations. They develop philosophies of child rearing,
which are useful tools for teaching and learning, but we should not be
surprised that these philosophies disagree with each other as you move
from one expert to another.
The authors of Parenting
the First Year and Parenting the
Second and Third Years have some practical experience, as parents
and parent educators. But we also have advanced degrees in child development.
One of us is a professor who conducts research, and we read and teach
the research results of others. We have tried to keep our advice as close
as possible to a base of knowledge that has been confirmed by actual observations
on large numbers of real families. We focus on what really works for most
families, rather than what ought to work according to some philosophy.
FOR EXAMPLE: SHOULD YOU COMFORT A CRYING BABY?
Some "experts" think you should comfort a baby
whenever it cries, while others think you will raise a spoiled child if
you go to baby every time he/she cries (i.e. if you "reward"
baby for crying). In Parenting the First
Year we support one side of this argument, but not because of our
philosophical leanings towards nurturance or independence training. Research
shows that babies stop crying sooner when parents respond more quickly
to their cries. On the other hand, the research is equivocal about whether
responding quickly to crying in the first three months of life leads to
less crying later on. An earlier study by Bell and Ainsworth (1972) showed
quicker response to crying led to a reduction in later crying. In contrast,
a replication study by Hubbard and van Ijzendoorn (1991) showed less responsiveness
to crying led to an initial reduction in crying (during the first six
months), although unresponsiveness did not lead to less crying in the
second half of the year. While responding quickly may not necessarily
reduce the amount of crying, it does not appear to increase it in the
long term. And we know from attachment research that sensitive responding
to babies' cries helps them learn to trust that caregivers will meet their
needs, which leads to a secure attachment.
We also know that when a group of parents are induced to
hold their babies more minutes per day (i.e. in a field experiment), actually
carrying them around more, then the babies end up crying less than comparison
babies. Other research shows that when mothers hold and sooth their extremely
fussy infants more at six weeks of age, their babies are rated lower in
negativity by fifteen months.
The idea that we will spoil a baby and encourage it to cry
more by responding to its cries just doesn't hold water once you see this
evidence. These are research findings, and regardless of your parenting
philosophy, it is tough to argue with results.
ANOTHER EXAMPLE: INBORN TEMPERAMENT
In our early issues we have several articles on infant temperament:
the inborn individual differences in such characteristics as mood, intensity
of response, activity level, biological rhythms, and adaptability to novelty
and changes. The information and advice in these articles is based largely
on several books and scientific articles from a large, longitudinal study
by Thomas and Chess (Temperament and Development, 1977). Their work is
largely consistent with many other studies, so we can be pretty confident
about the findings. This is what we mean when we say the newsletters are
"research based."
RESEARCH AND VALUES
We owe you two warnings. The first is that researchers can
never tell you what the AIM of your child rearing OUGHT to be, for that
is a matter of values. Different cultures, and even different families
on the same block, have different values and therefore seek to raise different
sorts of children. And values don't hold still: for example, our society's
ideas of a "competent female" have changed dramatically in the
past quarter century. If you tell us what kind of person you wish to raise,
we can tell you how to increase your chance of success. But we have no
business telling you to what you should aspire.
For the most part, then, we have tried to give advice based
on values that nearly everyone in North America has in common. There is
little disagreement on the basics of what a "competent" child
is: able to be calmed and comforted by parents, respectful of adults,
cooperative with peers, intellectually inquisitive and accomplished, ready
to do well in school when that time comes, and so forth.
But even these broad assumptions will not hold for all families.
An example: We advise parents to talk so your baby can see you talking,
and to teach turn-taking in communication even before baby can understand
what you are saying. Researchers confirm that this predicts earlier language
acquisition, which is associated with later ease of literacy learning.
But here in our home state of Wisconsin live several bands of the Chippewa
Indians who, like many other ethnic groups, place value on quiet children,
not talkative children. So our advice is somewhat out of sync with their
values. When we translated the newsletters into Spanish we faced this
issue squarely, and had the content reviewed for cultural fit as well
as for language translation. (We picked Mexico and Mexican-Americans as
the target culture, while trying to use more generic Latin American Spanish
in the writing).
INDIVIDUAL DIFFERENCES IN CHILDREN
If we do research on 1,000 families we can tell you what
usually works in raising children well. But does that mean that it will
work for you with your child?
No, it doesn't. Any parent who has had more than one child
knows that what worked with the first child often won't work with the
second. I am often astonished that we are able to derive predictive models
at all, given the amazing differences between individual humans. Our research-based
models tell us pretty well what will work on average, in the population
of all children and families. But they cannot tell us what is best for
any particular child and family.
So, the newsletters contain the best advice available if
we don't know which child we are talking about (i.e. the best advice for
the average child and family). And most of the time, the advice will be
best for you and your child. But you know your particular child best,
and we encourage you to use your expertise and good judgment to reject
our advice when it doesn't seem to fit with your child.
In the end, experts may know the most about kids in general.
But no expert knows as much about your baby as you do.
Evaluations of Parenting the First
Year Newsletter
We evaluated the effectiveness of the Parenting
the First Year newsletters to see if parents really use the newsletters
and if they change their behaviors as a result of reading the newsletters.
STUDY 1
Riley, D., et al. (1991). How effective are age-paced newsletters
for new parents? A replication and extension of earlier studies. Family
Relations, 40, 247-253.
The first study was published in the above article. For
this study, we surveyed parents who had given birth in six maternity hospitals
in four counties surrounding the Milwaukee metropolitan area. Each family
had received the Parenting the First Year
newsletter free in the mail, monthly for six months. Our sample
of 297 families represented 41% of those contacted. The data were collected
by self-report questionnaire.
Finding 1: High readership
Two-thirds of respondents reported reading "all articles in all issues."
Over two-thirds reported two or more readers for each issue, so that readership
was doubled. The most common additional reader was the spouse.
"My husband also reads it
cover-to-cover and we've had numerous discussions about information contained
in the newsletters." (First-time mother)
"I'm sending copies to an
out-of-state sister-in-law who's having her first child too."
(First-time mother)
Finding 2: People find it useful
We asked parents to rate how useful for parenting information they found
several sources of information, including their own parents, books and
magazines, other new parents, and relatives including their own parents.
The Parenting the First Year newsletter
was placed last on this list, so that respondents’ answers about
how useful it was would be gauged against their answers for all other
sources. To our surprise, respondents rated the newsletter series "very
useful" more often than any other source (61% of respondents gave
it this rating).
"I use the articles to confirm
what my doctor said when relatives said they did it different, so it made
me feel more confident about what I was doing and my doctor's advice.”
(First-time mother)
"I am an RN, work in perinatal
areas, so I already know same info as provided by the newsletter, BUT
I like the fact that the newsletters come to coincide with my baby's age.
I use much of the information to validate my parenting style since relatives
often challenge my beliefs and practices...” (First-time
mother)
Finding 3: Most respondents said
that reading the newsletters made them change their parenting But
these are self-reports so we need to be cautious; we don't know that actual
behavior change really took place, and that it was due to the newsletters.
But one way to feel a bit more confident in these conclusions would be
to compare the responses of first-time parents to experienced parents.
Since first-time parents need our advice more, they should have gained
more from reading the newsletters, and so should have reported significantly
more behavior change. This is, in fact, exactly what we found, and we
found it for each of the five areas of behavior change we measured: talking
more with baby, hugging baby more, being less angry when baby is difficult,
responding more quickly when baby cries, and providing more stimulation
to baby. We picked these areas of parenting to evaluate because prior
research had shown them to each be predictive of better child development.
STUDY 2
The findings of the first evaluation were very promising,
but the study suffered from methodological weaknesses. Those weaknesses
have been corrected in a second evaluation, for which we now have results.
This second study, with a new and larger sample, used a
treatment and control group design (i.e. a field experiment), allowing
stronger inferences about causality. It also used a self-report measure
of parental beliefs, the AAPI, which has considerable validity (it has
been able to differentiate abusing from non-abusing parents in validation
studies). It also used a shortened form of the Home Screening Questionnaire
(HSQ, based on the HOME scale), which is a measure of home environment
that correlates with IQ at age 4. Thus, both measurement and research
design have been strengthened.
All data collection took place during the second half of
1990 in six South East Wisconsin counties. Approximately 55% of 2,000
recruited subjects completed and returned the mailed questionnaire (n
= 1104). Half had received the newsletter series for a year, and half
had not; all had 14-month olds at the time of the study. Two of the findings
are noteworthy.
1. The newsletter reduces the
frequency of parents striking their babies.
First, parents who received the newsletter scored significantly lower
than control group parents on the AAPI scale that measures strong belief
in the use of corporal punishment (t = 2.37, p < .02). This result
is consistent with a finding from the earlier evaluation, in which over
half of new parents (and fully 70% of first-time parents) agreed with
the statement, "Reading the newsletters caused me to be less angry
when my baby is difficult." The current investigation also included
an item from the HSQ that was related to corporal punishment, and so provided
another cross-check against the above finding. When asked "About
how many times in the past week did you have to spank or slap your infant
to get him/her to mind", treatment group parents reported spanking
or slapping their 14-month olds an average of 1/2 time less per week (t
= 2.16, p = .03). This effect held for new parents in both risk group
categories (e.g. single parents, low income parents, etc.) and non-risk
parents.
Because this research employed an experimental design, which
allows strong inferences about causality, we can estimate the effect (upon
spanking and slapping babies) of the newsletter across the state. Since
the newsletter now reaches about 40,000 Wisconsin parents each year, this
means we prevented about 20,000 occurrences of parents slapping or spanking
their babies "in the previous week." If this effect held up
for a year (which we do not yet know) it would amount to over one million
prevented occurrences of babies being struck.
2. The newsletter causes parents
to provide a more intellectually stimulating home environment for their
babies. This effect is limited to parents who are socially isolated from
other young parents.
The newsletter series can be thought of as a "channel of information"
for new parents. We expected it would have an especially strong effect
on parents who lack another, normally potent, source of parenting information:
other parents of young children (i.e. their peer network of social support).
We asked our respondents, "Do you have any friends with young children
about the same age as your child?" Those who answered "no"
we called isolated. Our results confirmed our hypothesis. If a parent
had either or both sources of information (friends, and / or the newsletter),
then they had similar, high scores on our index of how stimulating the
home environment was. On the other hand, if they lacked both sources of
information, then they scored significantly lower. We can conclude that
the newsletter series fills the gap for parents who lack other young parents
to learn from.
In sum:
The newsletter series appears to have an impact upon both
the spanking / slapping of babies and intellectual stimulation of the
infants.
Although slapping or spanking a baby (which we measured)
is not necessarily child abuse (which we did not directly measure), we
want to make two further points. First, physical punishment of babies
is highly ineffective discipline. It is never necessary, and is usually
an indication of frustration and emotional acting-out on the part of the
parent. Second, even when spanking is not dangerous, it can lead to trouble.
Parents who physically abuse their children usually begin with small slaps
and hits, but then begin to hit more often and harder when small slaps
stop working. Our newsletter series, we hope, prevents eventual child
abuse even before it begins, by preventing the small slaps of babies that
are the precursor of a later style of parenting in which physically hurting
a child becomes the unthinking, automatic response of a parent.
KEY FINDINGS FROM ADDITIONAL EVALUATIONS
The age-paced parenting newsletters have been evaluated in several other states besides Wisconsin, as well as in England where they have been adapted. Here is a summary of the key findings (with references).
- Parents rate the newsletters highly useful for childrearing advice more often than any other source of information, including physicians, nurses, relatives, and other printed materials. (1)
- The newsletters are shared and discussed within the parents’ social networks, averaging two readers per newsletter. Over two-thirds of fathers read them. (2)
- In studies in California, Delaware, and Wisconsin, those who reported changes in their behaviors and attitudes most, as a result of reading the newsletters, were the youngest, poorest and least educated. (1)
- The above findings on usefulness, sharing of the newsletter, and self-reported behavior change have been replicated in an interview study with Spanish-speaking mothers in Oregon, whose educational levels averaged 8th grade. (3)
- Parents receiving the newsletters for a year, compared to comparison group parents who did not, had beliefs about children significantly less like those of child abusing parents. They also reported spanking or slapping their babies significantly fewer times in the previous week. (4)
- Parents receiving the newsletters for a year, compared to control group parents who did not, provided a significantly more intellectually stimulating home environment for their infants and toddlers. (4)
- The newsletter has been successfully adapted for parents in England. Parents reported changing their behaviors in positive ways, especially with regard to providing more stimulating experiences for their baby. (5)
- Mothers who received the newsletters for one year, as compared to those who did not, significantly increased their feelings of well-being, reduced both the frequency and intensity of reported “daily hassles,” and had more appropriate expectations of their infant’s behavior. (6)
References to Evaluation Studies.
1. Cudaback, D., Darden, C., Nelson, P., O=Brien, S., Pinsky, D., & Wiggins, E. (1985). Becoming
successful parents: Can age-paced newsletters help? Family Relations, 34, 271-275.
Dickinson, N. & Cudaback, D. (1992). Parent education for adolescent mothers. Journal of Primary
Prevention, 13, 23-35.
Nelson, P. T. (1986). Newsletters: An effective delivery mode for providing educational information and
emotional support to single parent families? Family Relations, 35, 183-188.
Riley, D., Meinhardt, G., Nelson, C., Salisbury, M., & Winnet, T. (1991). How effective are age-paced
newsletters for new parents? A replication and extension of earlier studies. Family Relations, 40, 247-253.
Walker, S.K. 2005. Use of a parenting newsletter series and other child-rearing information sources
by mothers of infants. Family & Consumer Sciences Journal, 34, 153-172
2. Riley, D., & Waterston, T. (2002). Helping teenage mothers with child rearing advice: Report on an
intervention. Paper presented to Parent-Child 2002 International Conference, London, April 19, 2002.
Waterston, T. & Welsh, B. (in press). Helping fathers understand their new infant: A pilot study of a
parenting newsletter. Community Practitioner.
Walker, S. W., & Riley, D. (2001). Involvement of the personal social network as a factor in parent
education effectiveness. Family Relations, 50, 186-193.
3. Weatherspoon, M.S., Bowman, S., Hernandez, & Pratt (2006). Using age-paced parenting newsletters
as teaching tools in home visitation programs with at-risk Mexican immigrant families. The
Forum for Family & Consumer Issues, 11(1), 1-7. (www.ces.ncsu.edu.depts/fcs/pub/11_1/ar1.html)
4. Riley, D. (1997). Using local research to change 100 communities for children and families. American
Psychologist, 52, 424-433.
5. King, A. (2006). Age-paced parenting newsletters: Delivering healthy messages. Community
Practitioner, 79(3), 89-92.
6. Waterston, T., Welsch, B., McConachie, H., Cook, M., Hammal, D., Parker, L., & Keane, B. (under
review). Improving emotional attachment: A randomized study of an age-paced newsletter.
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