Attributions and Attitudes of Mothers and Fathers in Kenya

Parenting-science and Practice, 2011

Objective. The present study examined mean level similarities and differences as well as correlations between mothers' and fathers' attributions regarding successes and failures in caregiving situations and progressive versus authoritarian attitudes. Design. Interviews were conducted with mothers and fathers in 77 Swedish families. Results. Fathers reported higher adult-controlled failure and child-controlled failure attributions than did mothers; these differences remained significant after controlling for parents' age, education, and possible social desirability bias. Significant positive correlations were found for mothers' and fathers' progressive attitudes, authoritarian attitudes, and modernity of attitudes after controlling for parents' age, education, and possible social desirability bias. Conclusions. In Sweden, fathers are more likely to attribute failures in caregiving situations to themselves and to children than are mothers, and there is moderate concordance between fathers and mothers within the same family in progressive and authoritarian parenting attitudes.

2021

Background: This study was part of a project funded by the Hilton Foundation in partnership with Episcopal Relief and Development to conduct implementation research in rural communities in Kenya and Zambia. This involves testing the feasibility and effectiveness of community-based parenting empowerment in improving nurturing care of young children in rural communities in Zambia and Kenya. Few studies have investigated fathers’ roles in nurturing care of young children (birth-age to 3), particularly responsive care and stimulation (i.e. providing opportunities for early learning) in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA). Fathers are often perceived to be mainly responsible for the provision of the family's economic needs. However, past studies have demonstrated that fathers’ involvement in parenting has great significance for the child’s holistic growth and development.Methods: Qualitative interviews and discussions with caregivers (primary caregivers and secondary caregivers) with children b...

BMC Psychology

Background Fathers are often perceived to be mainly responsible for the provision of the family's economic needs. However, past studies have demonstrated that fathers’ involvement in parenting has great significance for the child’s holistic growth and development. Few studies have investigated fathers’ roles in the nurturing care of young children, particularly responsive care and stimulation, in sub-Saharan Africa. The study reported here was carried out as part of a larger study that sought to evaluate the effectiveness of the Moments That Matter (MTM) program in improving the nurturing care of young children in rural communities in Zambia and Kenya. The MTM program uses a parenting empowerment approach to promote bonding and interactions between caregivers and their children within the home, focusing on responsive care, early learning, and security and safety so that children reach their full developmental potential. Trained volunteers facilitated monthly primary caregiver su...

International Journal of Behavioral Development, 2003

The present study examined the discipline methods used and personal and social determinants of power assertive strategies amongst 113 part-time and 128 full-time adoptive grandmothers of Kenyan children aged 1-10 years. Most of these children had been orphaned by AIDS. Evidence obtained from the study suggested that these caregivers' employment of power assertive strategies were linked to the total stress experienced, educational attainment, and child age but not to the gender of children adopted. The results also indicated a higher prevalence of the assertive and behaviour modification strategies amongst participants over the mean age of 62 years, respondents having basic education (1-12yrs), and those dealing with transgressions of children aged 6 years and above. Coercive verbal forms of control were mainly used by younger grandmothers, or caregivers of children aged less than 6 years. The least preferred inductive strategies were employed by younger respondents, persons lacking formal education, or those dealing with children of both gender aged below 6 years. These findings suggested that the antecedents of power assertive strategies lay both within personal and contextual factors.

1980

The social psychology literature largely ignores attribution patterns made by both sexes of differing generations on an activity with salience for both sexes. "Parenting" is an activity with such salience. In estimating parental success for stimulus situations involving parent-child interactions, undergraduates and their parents were virtually identical. with respect tc parental failure, the data suggest that some of the gender-related attribution patterns found for other failure situations hold true, and that "generation" is an important variable to consider in analyzing attribution patterns. Parents, in contrast to their children, tended to avoid explaining parental failure in terms of disqualifying factors such as an unhappy childhood, poor health, and inadequate education. Males of both generations made substantially more use of the factor "Child's Fault" as an explanation of parental failure. Females were more inclined to explain failure in terms of bad luck than were their male counterparts. (Author/CS)

Journal of Family Psychology, 2013

There is now substantial evidence that parental attributions for power over negative caregiving outcomes play an important role in the intergenerational transmission of child maltreatment. Despite the substantial research and clinical significance of this construct, and the widely held assumption that it represents a trait-like attributional style, there is a lack of empirical support for its long-term stability, especially over the transition to parenthood. The present study examined the stability of 88 at-risk women's perceived power over caregiving failure from the 3rd trimester of their 1st pregnancy to 18 months postnatal. Although results showed no significant change in overall self-reported perceived power over caregiving failure across time, subcomponents that separately assess perceived importance of adult and child factors both decreased over time, driven by increasing external attributions. Examination of subscale scores further revealed consistency in women's attributional style for their own and their child's behavior, and for positive and negative events, over time. Individual differences in these patterns suggested that past and present difficulties interfered with normative shifts such that maternal stress and history of trauma were associated with an increased sense that children control problematic events while decreasing mothers' own sense of control. Research and clinical implications are discussed.

International Journal of Academic Research in Business and Social Sciences

Children need to grow in an open and friendly environment where they know what to expect and what is expected of them for a positive parenting outcome. The right environment provides a sense of security and comfort to the child. Research is rife with evidence that the environment in which children are brought up today has transformed as society and family continue to adjust to social and economic changes, but none has delved deeper into that of the contemporary Agĩkũyũ community living in Karũrĩ Catholic Parish. Our study therefore examines the parenting environment within the Agĩkũyũ community responsible in bringing up morally upright individuals. This is done with the aim of proffering strategic choices for recovery of some of its application towards holistic parenting today. The descriptive survey research design is engaged and data collected through questionnaires, interviews and observation techniques. The study finds the environment in which children were brought up in the older Agĩkũyũ society to have changed significantly resulting in deprived parenting. Today personal goals prevail over those of the community. Family and community relationships have also changed and a new culture is taking place among the youth. It is recommended that parents reach out to extended family and community members and involve them in parenting of children. This will expose the children to new thinking, experiences, shared values, and allow important social bonds to develop. Overall, a new parenting approach is necessary in view of the changed parenting environment and new culture.

Developmental Psychology, 1998

This study investigated and compared ideas about parenting in Argentine, Belgian, French, Israeli, Italian, Japanese, and U.S. mothers of 20-month-olds. Mothers evaluated their competence, satisfaction, investment, and role balance in parenting and rated attributions of successes and failures in 7 parenting tasks to their own ability, effort, or mood, to difficulty of the task, or to child behavior. Few cross-cultural similarities emerged; rather, systematic culture effects for both self-evaluations and attributions were common, such as varying degrees of competence and satisfaction in parenting, and these effects are interpreted in terms of specific cultural proclivities and emphases. Child gender was not an influential factor. Parents' self-evaluations and attributions help to explain how and why parents parent and provide further insight into the broader cultural contexts of children's development. In the burgeoning study of parenting, what and how parents think about their own parenting have both descriptive and explanatory values. Two salient aspects of parental thought are self-evaluations of parenting and attributions of parental successes and failures. In this study, we obtained information about mothers' self-evaluations of their competence, satisfaction, investment, and role balance in parenting and about mothers' attributions for their successes and failures in diverse parenting tasks; we compared these self-evaluations and attributions among mothers in seven nations, including Argentina,

International Journal of Social Science and Human Research

The present study aims to examine the influence of father’s and mother’s demographic characteristics in positive and negative parenting practices. Research sample consisted of 480 married parents who had children in the public primary school 6 – 12 years old. 68% of parents resided in urban areas, 75% were mothers, 72% had one or two children, 65% of parents were higher educated and 70% of parents had medium and high family income. Parents completed Alabama Parenting Questionnaire which refers to positive and negative parenting practices that parents adopt to raise their children. Research findings showed that parents’ gender, age, family income, residence, educational level and the number of children in the family and children’ gender are factors that affected parents’ effectiveness. Results indicated that mothers were more involved in their children lives and applied more positive parenting practices than fathers. Also, parent’s educational level, family income and parents’ reside...