This review by the Nuffield Foundation explores the changing nature of parenting, the relationship between parenting and young children’s outcomes and the effectiveness of interventions designed to support parents and children’s development.
Parents - in all their diverse forms - have a profound influence on their children’s well-being and early development. To understand parenting, we must consider both the context in which parents raise young children and the care parents provide.
The importance of parents, parenting and the home was brought into stark relief by the COVID-19 pandemic and lockdowns. Regular forms of support for parents and young children became unavailable and, in many cases, parents became the sole carers of young children, and homes the sole place of learning.
As a result, greater attention has been given to parents’ experiences and the pressures they face. This review
seeks to take the opportunity offered by the pandemic to reflect on the changing nature of modern parenthood and consider how best to support parents’ needs.
The review explored five aspects of parents and the home and considered why each is important, how they shape parents’ care and young children’s development and how they have changed over the last two decades.
- Parental sensitivity and responsiveness, appropriate discipline and limit-setting, and a positive home learning environment are all associated with better outcomes for children.
- Parents’ mental health and emotional well-being shape the care they provide.
- The quality of relationship between parents and the presence of high levels of unresolved and hostile conflict affects child outcomes at an early age and through adolescence.
- Features of low-quality housing, such as overcrowding, damp and problems with heating may significantly affect parents’ and children’s lives. Housing tenure and conditions contribute to inequalities in young children’s cognitive development.
- A lack of financial resources available to parents have profound impacts on families with young children. These impacts can be direct, through not having enough money to provide essentials such as food, clothing and warmth. They can also be indirect, through creating parental stress, depression and conflict between parents, which affects the care parents provide.