Observations of Positive Parenting from Online Parent–Child Interactions at Age 1

SYNOPSIS

Objective. Brief, reliable, and cost-effective methods to assess parenting are critical for advancing parenting research. Design. We adapted the Three Bags task and Parent Child Interaction Rating System (PCIRS) for rating online visits with 219 parent–child dyads (White, n = 104 [47.5%], Black, n = 115 [52.5%]) and combined the video data with survey data collected during pregnancy and when children were aged 1. Results. The PCIRS codes of positive regard, stimulation of child cognitive development, and sensitivity showed high reliability across the three parent–child interaction tasks. A latent positive parenting factor combining ratings across codes and tasks showed good model fit, which was similar regardless of parent self-identified race or ethnicity, age, socioeconomic disadvantage, marital/partnered status, and parity, as well as methodological factors relevant to the online video assessment method (e.g., phone vs. laptop/tablet). In support of construct validity, observed positive parenting was related to parent-reported positive parenting and child socioemotional development. Finally, parent reports of supportive relationships in pregnancy but not neighborhood safety or pandemic worries, were prospectively related to higher positive parenting observed at age 1. With the exception of older parental age and married/partnered status, no other parent, child, sociodemographic, or methodological variables were related to higher overall video exclusions across tasks. Conclusions. PCIRS may provide a reliable approach to rate positive parenting at age 1, providing future avenues for developing more ecologically valid assessments and implementing interventions through online encounters that may be more acceptable, accessible, or preferred among parents of young children.

ARTICLE INFORMATION

Conflict of Interest Disclosures

Each author signed a form for disclosure of potential conflicts of interest. R. Barzilay serves on the scientific board and reports stock ownership in Taliaz Health, with no conflict of interest relevant to this work. J. Seidlitz reports stock ownership in Centile Bioscience, with no conflict of interest relevant to this work. No other authors reported any financial or other conflicts of interest in relation to the work described.

Ethical Principles

The authors affirm having followed professional ethical guidelines in preparing this work. These guidelines include obtaining informed consent from human participants, maintaining ethical treatment and respect for the rights of human or animal participants, and ensuring the privacy of participants and their data, such as ensuring that individual participants cannot be identified in reported results or from publicly available original or archival data. Participants provided informed consent prior to completing surveys, online visits, and for relevant data to be extracted from their medical records. The Institutional Review Boards of the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia and the University of Pennsylvania approved all study procedures.

Role of the Funders/Sponsors

None of the funders or sponsors of this research had any role in the design and conduct of the study; collection, management, analysis, and interpretation of data; preparation, review, or approval of the manuscript; or decision to submit the manuscript for publication.

Acknowledgments

The authors wish to gratefully acknowledge the support of our research by the participants, staff, and volunteer undergraduate research assistants who are part of the InterGenerational Exposome (IGNITE) project at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia and the University of Pennsylvania, the Prenatal to Preschool (P2P) study at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia and the University of Pennsylvania, and the Emotion Development Environment & Neurogenetics (EDEN) lab at the University of Pennsylvania.

SUPPLEMENTARY MATERIAL

Supplemental data for this article can be accessed online at https://doi.org/10.1080/15295192.2023.2286454.

Data Availability Statement

The data that support the findings of this study are available from the corresponding author RW, upon reasonable request.

Additional information

Funding

Funding for this study was provided by the Lifespan Brain Institute (LiBI), the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, the University of Pennsylvania, and the National Institutes of Mental Health to W. Njoroge (MH128593), R. Waller (MH125904 and MH128593), S. Kornfield (MH128593), and B. Chaiyachati (K08MH129657). Y. Paz was supported in her efforts by the Israeli Science Foundation (ISF; 92/22) and post-doctoral fellowship funding from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.