1. Objectifs

Intentions :
«The aim of this study was to investigate the prospective relations between two dimensions of negative emotionality (i.e., irritability and fearfulness) of 17‐month‐old toddlers and their mothers’ parenting behaviours (i.e., involvement, coercion, and overprotection) 1 year later, at 29‐month‐old, while taking into account a number of potential risk factors for detrimental parenting (i.e., being a boy, having a high birth rank in the family, neonatal health problems, maternal depression, and having a low SES).» (p. 5)

Questions/Hypothèses :
«In the light of previous studies, we expected fearfulness to be positively correlated with involvement and overprotection. In addition, we predicted that irritability would be negatively associated with involvement and positively associated with coercion.» (p. 5)

2. Méthode

Échantillon/Matériau :
«The data analysed for this study were collected as part of the Quebec Longitudinal Study of Child Development (QLSCD), conducted by the Institut de la statistique du Québec from 1998 to present date. […] Of the 2,940 families initially selected, 2,223 accepted to participate to the study. […] The target child was the firstborn of the family in 41.7% of the sample, whereas 58.3% already had a sibling at birth.» (p. 5)

Instruments :
Questionnaire

Type de traitement des données :
Analyse statistique

3. Résumé

«First, as predicted, children’s irritability was associated with more parental coercion, an externally controlling practice. […] Second, in line with our initial hypothesis, fearfulness was positively correlated to overprotection, an internally controlling practice. This finding is congruent with those of Rubin et al. (1999), who have established that parents of fearful children were less encouraging toward manifestations of independence, and with those of Coplan and colleagues (2009) and Hudson and Rapee (2005), who have found that fearful or shy children seem to have more protective parents. […] Interestingly, our results suggest that parents are at risk of using one of the two types of controlling parenting practices (coercion or overprotection) according to their child’s temperament. Parents of more irritable children were found to be more coercive, whereas parents of fearful children reported being more overprotective, over and above the impact of other significant risk factors. […] The expected positive relation between fearfulness and involvement has not been found in our study. Instead, we found a marginal negative correlation between these two variables, which was no longer significant once these variables were introduced in the model, along with other risk factors for nonoptimal parenting.» (p. 10)