The influence of parenting style on the action possibilities of two years-old children.

Background: Balance and locomotion, object manipulation and visualmotor integration skills all depend on the child’s internal state and on the basis of engagement with the environment (Newell 1986). The main aim of this study is to explore the way that parent-child interactions during movement experiences can influence motor development. Methods: Forty- two typically developing children between 24 and 38 months and one of their parents were involved in this study. Data were collected in nursery schools. The children’s medical history was negative and no parent reported problems on the SCL-90-Revised questionnaire. Each child wasindividually assessed on the Peabody Developmental Scales-2; each parent filled out the socio-demographic and Parenting Stress Index-Short Form (PSI-SF) questionnaires. The quality of parenting interaction was judged by the experimenter using the Parent Interaction with children checklist of Observation Linked to Outcomes (PICCOLO). Results: The parental education correlates positively with the child’s manipulation skills (rho = 0.37 (p = 0.02) and parents with high socio-economic status had children who scored better on Locomotion (t = 2.493, p < 0.01) and had a higher Gross Motor Quotient (GMQ; t = 2.094, p = 0.04). The parental subgroup (16 of the 42 parents), with PSI-SF scores higher than 1-standard deviation above the mean, showed that Parent-Child Dysfunctional Interaction predicts lower GMQ (ß -0,449; p < 0.003) and Locomotion (ßeta - 0.365; p < 0.02). Furthermore, a high Parenting Affection seems to have a negative effect to locomotion (ß -0.412; p < 0.05) and to visual-motor integration skills (ß -0.425; p < 0.02) while high Parenting Affection plus high Parental Distress seems to predict lower scores in stationary ability (ß -0.401; p = 0.009). Conclusions: Typical parent-child dyads were studied to see how the environmental context, in which the child develops, can facilitate or hinder their motor development during the second year of life. The findings support the causal relationship between parental attitudes and child motor skills, particularly in parents with lower education and socialeconomical status, and when they felt an increase of parental distress or showed high emotional involvement. Relevance: This is one of the few studies that highlights the effect of parental distress and of parenting interaction quality on the development of some motor areas, such locomotion and visual-motor integration skills. Recognizing when the parental stress or emotional level represents a negative environmental constraint for the child’s motor learning can have important clinical implications. References: Crnic, K., & Ross, E. (2017). Parenting stress and parental efficacy. In K. Deater Deckard, & R. Panneton, Parental stress and early child development: Adaptive and maladaptive outcomes (p. 263 284). AG: Springer International Publishing. Newell, K. (1986). Contrains on the Development of Coordination. In M. Wade, & H. Whiting, Motor development in children: Aspects of coordination and control (p.341-360). Boston : Martinus Nijhoff Publishers.