Responsive parenting: interventions and outcomes
Open accessAbstract
In addition to food, sanitation and access to health facilities children require adequate care at home for survival and optimal development. Responsiveness, a mother's/caregiver's prompt, contingent and appropriate interaction with the child, is a vital parenting tool with wide-ranging benefits for the child, from better cognitive and psychosocial development to protection from disease and mortality. We examined two facets of responsive parenting -- its role in child health and development and the effectiveness of interventions to enhance it -- by conducting a systematic review of literature from both developed and developing countries. Our results revealed that interventions are effective in enhancing maternal responsiveness, resulting in better child health and development, especially for the neediest populations. Since these interventions were feasible even in poor settings, they have great potential in helping us achieve the Millennium Development Goals. We suggest that responsiveness interventions be integrated into child survival strategies.
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Parenting behaviors such as sensitive responsiveness and warmth have been linked to a variety of advantageous outcomes in children worldwide, including language.
“These parenting behaviors have been linked to a variety of advantageous outcomes in children worldwide, 18 -21 including in language.”
From Parenting Behavior and Child Language: A Meta-analysis. (2019) · cites this paper as [20]
Supportive parenting early in life has positive effects on cognitive, behavioral, and psychological development throughout the lifespan.
“supportive parenting early in life has been shown to have positive effects on cognitive, behavioral, and psychological development throughout the lifespan (Beckwith et al., 1992, Eshel et al., 2006, Landry et al., 2008).”
From Positive parenting predicts the development of adolescent brain structure: a longitudinal study (2014) · cites this paper as Eshel et al., 2006
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- Authors
- Cabral de Mello, M.
- Venue
- Bulletin of the World Health Organization
- Publisher
- WHO Press
- Published
- 2006-12-01
- Volume
- 84
- Issue
- 12
- Pages
- 991-998
- ISSN
- 0042-9686 (ISSN-L)
- PMC
- PMC2627571
- OpenAlex
- W1838458589
- Cited by
- 324
- References
- 41
- Citations by year
- 2026: 10 · 2025: 20 · 2024: 25 · 2023: 26 · 2022: 23 · 2021: 27 · 2020: 24 · 2019: 24 · 2018: 13 · 2017: 19 · 2016: 24 · 2015: 20 · 2014: 14 · 2013: 11 · 2012: 12
- FWCI
- 2.35
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- diamond
- doi.org
- Licence
- cc-by
- Locations
- Bulletin of the World Health Organization (publishedVersion, cc-by)
- Europe PMC (PubMed Central) (publishedVersion)
- PubMed Central (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- DOAJ (DOAJ: Directory of Open Access Journals) (submittedVersion)
- UCL Discovery (University College London) (submittedVersion)
- Topics
- Health Sciences › Nursing › Nutrition and Dietetics › Child Nutrition and Water Access
- Health Sciences › Medicine › Pediatrics, Perinatology and Child Health › Global Maternal and Child Health
- Health Sciences › Medicine › Pediatrics, Perinatology and Child Health › Infant Development and Preterm Care
- Keywords
- responsive parenting, maternal responsiveness, caregiver-child interaction, child health, child development, parenting support, intervention effectiveness, child survival, psychosocial development, cognitive development, Millennium Development Goals, low-income settings
- MeSH terms
- Child, Child Development, Developing Countries, Female, Humans, Maternal Behavior, Mother-Child Relations, Parenting, Developed Countries
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