Results of regressionequations controlling for multiple family, parent, and child characteristics revealed that both greaterelaboration and positive emotional valence were uniquely related to parents’sensitivity (standardizedβ=.15,p=.05, andβ=.13,p=.04, respectively), but only elaboration was uniquely related to learning support(β=.35,p<.001).

This study highlights the special importance of the elaboration of parents’schemas inunderstanding caregiving behaviors among families living in poverty and the potential value of enhancingelaboration in family-focused preventive interventions.

The elaboration and emotional valence of parents’schemas were codedfrom brief responses to open-ended questions about children’s personality; observations of parents’sensitivity and learning support were assessed in structured and unstructured settings.

Thus, the elaboration of parents’schemas may represent a vitalmeans of supporting caregiving behaviors among families living inpoverty

In this way, we might help ensure thatparents living in poverty are as successful as possible in nurturingtheir children’s resilience

This study highlights the potential value of the elaboration ofparents’schemas as a target of preventive interventions. Somepreventive interventions appear successful in helping parents tobe more reflective in the ways they think about their children

It seemslikely that reciprocal and transactional relations between parents’schemas and caregiving behaviors unfold over time

Most important, because this study was cross-sectionaland parents’schemas and caregiving behaviors were not experi-mentally manipulated, the direction of effects are uncertain.

can provide such a powerful snapshot into parents’schemas

Second, thisstudy included a relatively large racially diverse sample of families,and it relied on multiple informants and methods of assessment.

First, it focused onthe independent contributions of two aspects of parents’schemas,elaboration, and emotional valence, and their associations with twoaspects of caregiving behaviors especially important in the contextof poverty, parents’sensitivity, and learning support.

parents strive tofigure out what theirchildren need from them and adapt their caregiving behaviorsaccordingly

Theamount of elaboration of parents’schemas was virtually indepen-dent of how positively or negatively parents perceived their chil-dren.

It highlights the potential value of parents’schemas,especially the elaboration of those schemas, as a means of under-standing and promoting family resilience.

This suggests that relationsbetween elaboration and parents’sensitivity and between emotionalvalence and parents’sensitivity were quite similar across differentkindsoffamilies

Of special note,there was virtually no relation between the elaboration and emo-tional valence of parents’schemas (r=.02,p=.82), and there was amoderate relation between parents’sensitivity and learning support(r=.37,p<.001).

Multiple covariates were included in this study to ensure thatestimates of the relations between parents’schemas of their childrenand caregiving behaviors were as precise as possible and not the resultof common factors that also were associated with differences amongfamilies.

Research assistants completed seven items,such as“Parent attempted to teach the child something about the task,”rated on a 5-point Likert scale, with 1=almost neverand 5=almostalways

Parents’learning support was assessed by lab-based and manual-trained research assistants—who were different from and did notknow the project interviewers—based on each of three 3-min videorecordings of parents and children bowling with a stuffed ball and

Parents’sensitivity was assessed by project interviewers, basedon everything they observed while in families’homes (adapted fromDodge et al., 1990). They completed seven items, such as“Parentwas positive and reinforcing to child,”rated on a 5-point Likertscale, with 1=almost neverand 5=almost always

Parents’sensitivity was assessed by project interviewers, basedon everything they observed while in families’homes

Project interviewersasked three open-ended questions, with no follow-up prompts: (a)How would you describe your child’s personality? (b) What’sthebestthing about your child? and (c) Knowing your child as you do, what doyou think will be their biggest challenge as they grow up?

Children were 21–39-months old, and 51%were girls. Thirty-seven percent of children were White, 25% wereBlack, 19% were Latine, 17% were Multiracial, 2% were Asian, andless than 1% were Native American.

Forty-seven percent of parentswere single, 65% had a high school degree or less, and 60% did notwork outside the home.

Parents were recruited through Early Head Start home-basedprograms in seven cities, small towns, and rural areas of Wisconsinand Pennsylvania. Altogether, 242 families participated in thisstudy, representing about 65% of all families asked. Most familieswere living in poverty, with a median family income of $1,555 permonth and a median income-to-needs ratio of 0.75.

The data for this study werecollected in 2016–2018,

This studyexamined individual differences among families living in povertybecause knowing more about how parents’schemas affect caregivingbehaviors in this specific context may help us understand resilienceand better support parents and children in greatest need.

whereas learning support, which includes both cognitive stimulationand the ways in which parents help children master novel challenges,is a critically important but rarely examined caregiving behavior inthis area of research.

Parents’sensitivity, which involvesthe ability to identify and contingently respond to children’s needs in apositive manner without being harsh, is a commonly examinedcaregiving behavior

parents’schemasmay have a special role in reducing internalizing andexternalizingproblems (Meins et al., 2013) and supporting academic achievement(Meins et al., 2019) among families with lower incomes.

Parents living in poverty face chronic stressors, which caninterfere with thinking and deplete the psychological resourcesnecessary to solve problems, be sensitive and responsive, andprovide the learning support necessary to promote children’s posi-tive adjustment

there isgreater pressure on parents living in poverty because their childrenface more risks.

emotion, warmth is related to being sensitive and responsive andexhibiting competent caregiving behaviors, whereas critical state-ments and negative affect are related to harsh and coercive parent–child interactions

the emotional valence of parents’schemas reflects how positively or negatively parents perceive theirchildren

Schemas are patterns of thought that organizecategories of information, including information about other people.