Passive parenting and its Association with Early Child Development

ABSTRACT

This study aims to investigate the developmental status of rural Chinese children, the extent of interactive parenting they receive, and the relation between the two. A sample of 448 six to eighteen-month-old children and their caregivers were randomly selected from two rural counties in Hebei and Yunnan provinces. According the third edition of the Bayley Scales of Infant and Toddler Development, 48.7% of sample children exhibited cognitive delays, 40.6% language delays, and 35% social-emotional delays. According to responses from caregivers, parenting in rural China is largely passive, lacking in interactive practices like storytelling, singing, and playing. Children-with-siblings, left-behind children, and children with less-educated mothers were even less likely to receive interactive practices. Children of caregivers who did engage in best parenting practices showed better cognitive, language, and social-emotional development; however, the public health system provides no platform for learning about optimal parenting.

KEYWORDS:

• Parenting
• early childhood
• rural China

Acknowledgements

We would also like to thank the dedicated leaders and local cadres at the National Health and Family Planning Commission for their unparalleled assistance in implementing this study.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes on contributors

Renfu Luo is an associate professor at the Center for Chinese Agricultural Policy (CCAP) at Peking University.

Fang Jia is a Master’s student at CEEE at Shaanxi Normal University.

Ai Yue is an assistant professor with the Center for Experimental Economics in Education (CEEE) at Shaanxi Normal University.

Linxiu Zhang currently is the Deputy Director of CCAP at the Chinese Academy of Sciences.

Qijia Lyu is a student at the Chinese Academy of Sciences and works at CCAP at Chinese Academy of Sciences.

Yaojiang Shi is a Professor of Economics at Shaanxi Normal University in Xi'an, China and the founding director of CEEE.

Meredith Yang is an editor based at CEEE at Shaanxi Normal University.

Sarah Kotb is a research associate at the Rural Education Action Program (REAP) at Stanford University.

Alexis Medina is a project manager at REAP.

Scott Rozelle is a Professor and the director of REAP at Stanford University.

ORCID

Ai Yue http://orcid.org/0000-0003-4241-1628

Additional information

Funding

We are grateful for funding from Save the Children, 111 project [grant number: B16031] and the National Natural Science Foundation of China [grant number: 71473239].