ORIGINAL PAPER

Maternal Empathy and Changes in Mothers’ Permissivenessas Predictors of Toddlers’ Early Social Competence with Peers:A Parenting Intervention Study

Caroline Christopher • Rachel Saunders •

Deborah Jacobvitz • Rosalinda Burton •

Nancy Hazen

Published online: 13 July 2012

� Springer Science+Business Media, LLC 2012

Abstract The goal of the current study was to examine

how changes in parenting due to a parenting intervention

designed to decrease permissive parenting affected the

quality of children’s peer interactions. Forty-nine mothers

of toddlers aged 2–3 years participated in a 12-week

intervention in which half got hands-on training and

practice using positive guidance in a toddler classroom

setting, while the other half learned positive guidance

solely via a seminar format. To observe children’s peer

interactions, toddlers were divided into 8 groups of 5–7

children mixed across condition. Observers coded mothers’

empathy, permissiveness, and positive guidance parenting

strategies. Children’s peer interactions were coded for

antisocial behaviors, verbal aggression, physical aggres-

sion, prosocial behaviors, positive social bids, and empa-

thy. Prior analysis of this intervention indicated that

mothers in both conditions showed reductions in permis-

siveness over the course of the intervention. Results from

the present study indicated that reductions in permissive-

ness predicted decreases in toddlers’ verbal aggression.

Maternal empathy was a moderator such that mothers low

in empathy who got hands-on training in positive guidance

had children who demonstrated the greatest reductions in

antisocial behaviors.

Keywords Peer relationships � Maternal empathy �Permissive parenting � Toddler � Social competence

Introduction

Studies have demonstrated that parenting relates to chil-

dren’s peer relationships (e.g., Cummings and Davies

1994); therefore, it is likely that a parenting intervention

would have an effect on the quality of children’s peer

interactions. The goal of the current study was to examine

how changes in parenting due to a parenting intervention

designed to decrease permissive parenting affected the

quality of children’s peer interactions.

Socially adaptive or maladaptive behavior patterns that

are established early in development may endure over time

and affect later psychosocial adjustment. Until children are

exposed to regular peer interactions, their family systems

are their primary mode of socialization. It seems crucial to

hone in on aspects of parents and parenting which may be

linked to both positive and negative child outcomes.

Although past research has directly examined the relation

of parenting styles (Dix et al. 2004) to children’s social-

emotional development (Cummings and Davies 1994), and

children’s behavioral outcomes (Cummings and Cicchetti

1990), most studies generally measure and correlate par-

enting styles and child behavioral outcomes either con-

currently or longitudinally. Even in longitudinal studies,

whether or not different parenting styles actually cause

different child outcomes cannot be ascertained. With this in

mind, the current study used an experimental design to test

whether or not changes in children’s behaviors in peer

interactions may be associated with changes in parenting

behaviors resulting from a parenting intervention.

C. Christopher (&) � R. Saunders � D. Jacobvitz � R. Burton �N. Hazen

Department of Human Development and Family Sciences,

The University of Texas at Austin, 1 University Station, A2700,

Austin, TX 78712, USA

e-mail: caroline.c.heaton@gmail.com

123

J Child Fam Stud (2013) 22:769–778

DOI 10.1007/s10826-012-9631-z

Positive Guidance Versus Permissive Parenting:

A Parenting Intervention

Permissive Parenting

Permissive parenting is characterized by a lack of healthy

limit setting for children. Permissive parents may be

responsive to a child’s expressed wants, but they may fail

to enforce behavioral expectations, which help a child be

safe, feel secure, and develop skills such as emotion reg-

ulation that enable successful social functioning (Lee et al.

1998).

Permissive parenting has been linked to poor self-

regulatory processes in children and adolescents (Patock-

Peckham et al. 2001). When parents are permissive, they

may not be consistently engaging in behaviors that support

their child’s development. Permissive parents have trouble

setting limits and providing logical consequences for their

children’s actions. In contrast, parents who enforce logical

consequences and respond sensitively to their children

encourage the development of emotion regulation and early

social skills (Gartrell 2004). While these behaviors may be

initially formed within the parent–child relationship, chil-

dren may then be able to carry over these skills to early

peer interactions.

Positive Guidance

Positive guidance is based on building positive adult–child

relationships, setting limits and reducing permissive par-

enting, explaining logical consequences, being attuned and

responsive to the needs of children, and providing children

with options of acceptable and appropriate behaviors

(Saunders et al. in press). Experts in the field of early

childhood education consider positive guidance techniques

to be the most effective for working with children (Flicker

and Hoffman 2002).

In the current study, a parenting intervention was

designed and implemented based on positive guidance

techniques (Saunders et al. in press). Parents were ran-

domly assigned to participate in one of two conditions. In

one condition, parents learned positive guidance techniques

via an instructional seminar format, and in the other con-

dition, parents had hands-on training in addition to

receiving information via the seminar format. This design

was chosen based on prior research demonstrating that

people learn more when they engage in experiential

learning combined with getting feedback on task perfor-

mance as compared to people who practice a task without

receiving feedback (Harvey and Fischer 2005). While the

seminar method of instruction conveyed the tenets of

positive guidance and descriptions of positive guidance

strategies, the hands-on training was believed to allow for a

greater depth of knowledge in that mothers were actually

in situations that required they set and enforce limits with

real children. Mothers in the hands-on condition also

received feedback from the instructors based on their

behaviors in the moment (Saunders et al. in press).

Mothers were videotaped interacting with their children

immediately following the conclusion of the intervention.

These observational measures revealed that mothers in the

hands-on training condition used significantly more posi-

tive guidance techniques than did those who had received

only the seminar format (Saunders et al. in press). Addi-

tional analyses revealed that permissiveness decreased

from before to after the intervention for mothers in both

conditions exposed to positive guidance (Burton et al.

2009).

Thus, previous analyses indicate that mothers increased

in their knowledge of positive guidance techniques in both

conditions, but showed greater ability to actually apply

positive guidance to their interactions with children in the

hands-on condition. However, the question of whether and

how this actually affected their children still remains. Thus,

the primary goal of the current study is to investigate if and

how children of these parent participants were affected by

their mother’s participation in either condition of the

positive guidance intervention.

Because prior results inform us that mothers who got

experiential training in the parenting intervention showed

greater use of their new parenting skills (Saunders et al. in

press), we expected that the children whose mothers were

in the hands-on condition would show greater improve-

ments in the quality of their peer interactions than children

whose mothers were in the seminar condition. In addition,

since mothers in both conditions demonstrated decreased

permissiveness (Burton et al. 2009), we expected to find

that decreases in maternal permissiveness would relate to

improvements in children’s peer interactions across both

conditions.

Maternal Empathy as a Moderator of the Relation

Between the Intervention Conditions and Child

Outcomes

Maternal Empathy

Caregiving characterized by empathy has been found to be

associated with positive child outcomes such as higher self-

esteem and positive socioemotional maturation (Cassidy

and Shaver 1999 cited in Johnson et al. 2007). But what

happens when parents are less empathic? When caregivers

have more parent-oriented concerns, their goals and

behaviors are less child-oriented; resulting in fewer sup-

portive behaviors, fewer child-oriented positive emotions,

and less sensitive parenting (Cummings and Davies 1994;

770 J Child Fam Stud (2013) 22:769–778

123

Dix et al. 2004 Downey and Coyne 1990). Sensitive par-

enting—that is, parenting that includes child-oriented goals

and consistently responsive behaviors aimed at satisfying a

child’s immediate needs–requires a certain amount of

empathy on the part of a parent for the child (Main et al.

1985). If this is the case, it seems that parents who are more

empathic are more likely to carry out behaviors they

believe will be beneficial for their children. Thus, parents

high in empathy may endorse more child-oriented con-

cerns, causing them to actively seek out and enact par-

enting strategies believed to be most beneficial to their

children.

Parents high in empathy are also likely to respond sen-

sitively and consistently to their children. Through mod-

eling empathic behaviors and being responsive to the wants

and needs of children, mothers high in empathy likely give

their children early exposure and practice with competent

interactions. Thus, empathy in parents likely encourages

the development of early social competence in children due

to empathy-driven parenting behaviors.

Because maternal empathy also affects mothers’ goals,

leading to the endorsement of more child-oriented concerns

(Dix et al. 2004), it seems likely that mothers high in

empathy would not only be more likely to benefit from a

parenting intervention, but they may also be more moti-

vated (through child-oriented goals) to practice and use

new skills to improve parenting which directly impacts

their children. Thus, empathic mothers in the positive

guidance parenting intervention—especially those who

have the added benefit of hands-on training in positive

guidance—may be more receptive to learning and using the

new positive guidance skills offered.

The Current Study

While past analyses have centered on how each condition

of the positive guidance intervention impacted mothers’

use of positive guidance (Saunders et al. in press), and

permissiveness (Burton et al. 2009), the current study

elaborates on existing knowledge of the impacts of this

intervention by looking at how mothers’ participation is

associated with children’s behaviors in peer interactions.

This study used videotaped observations to rate children’s

behaviors in peer interactions. These observations were

collected at two timepoints, both just before and after the

children’s mothers had participated in the positive guid-

ance intervention.

Thus, the purpose of this study was to examine changes

in children’s behaviors in peer interactions following

mothers’ participation in a parenting intervention. We

predicted (1) that children of mothers in the hands-on plus

seminar condition would demonstrate improved social

competence with peers relative to the children of mothers

in the seminar-only group, (2) increases in mothers’ use of

positive guidance would be associated with higher quality

peer interactions, (3) decreases in mothers’ permissiveness

would be associated with increases in positive child peer

interactions, and (4) maternal empathy and experimental

condition would interact such that mothers who are high in

empathy and who are in the hands-on condition would be

the most receptive to implementing the intervention, and

thus their children will show the most positive changes in

the quality of their peer interactions relative to other

mothers.

Method

Participants

Parent participants were recruited from the Austin area

early childhood classroom waiting lists to participate in a

positive guidance training program. The sample consisted

of 49 parent–child dyads. The ethnic distribution in the

sample consisted of 75 % Caucasian, 11.5 % Latino,

11.5 % Asian, and 2 % African American. The age range of

the mothers was 26–43 years, with a mean age of 34 years.

The children in our sample ranged in ages from 2 years

3 months to 3 years 7 months, with a mean age of 3 years.

The distribution of family income was as follows:

$0–20,000 (5.8 %), $20,001–40,000 (9.6 %), $40,001–

60,000 (11.5 %), $60,001–80,000 (25.0 %), and [$80,000

(48.1 %). The distribution of mothers’ education level was:

some post high school (9.6 %), finished college (57.7 %),

and graduate school (32.7 %) (Saunders et al. in press).

Procedure

Parents were recruited to participate in a 12-week parenting

education program, and their children participated in a

positive guidance early childhood classroom. Four class-

rooms were used, with children attending class 2 days a

week for 3 h each day (total of 6 h per week) for a 12-week

period. Once each week, mothers attended a 2 h instruc-

tional seminar on positive guidance. Mothers were ran-

domly assigned to one of two groups. A portion of mothers

(n = 22) were randomly assigned to a seminar-only group,

which only attended the positive guidance instructional

seminar portion of the intervention. The remaining mother

participants (n = 27) were assigned to the hands-on plus

seminar group. These participants also attended the weekly

positive guidance instructional seminars, but they addi-

tionally spent 3 h once a week observing a teacher (trained

in positive guidance) and interacting with children in one

of the four classrooms. Participants in the hands-on plus

seminar group were instructed to practice the positive

J Child Fam Stud (2013) 22:769–778 771

123

guidance techniques they had been taught in the seminars

and had observed from teachers in the classroom setting

under the supervision of the teachers (Saunders et al. in

press).

A 12-week positive guidance curriculum was developed

for parent training seminars. During seminars, mothers

were given instructions on how to use positive, specific

language to communicate with children, and the rationale

for this was explained. Mothers were also instructed to give

their child options of appropriate and acceptable behaviors

rather than simply telling the child ‘‘no’’ or to stop what he/

she is doing. The tenets of positive guidance suggest that

when children are told to ‘‘stop,’’ they may be confused

because they are told what not to do, but they are not given

options of what is acceptable behavior. Additionally, to aid

mothers in using positive guidance to set limits, instructors

explained that mothers should communicate logical con-

sequences as a way of letting children know why certain

limits were put in place. For example, a mother may tell a

child to keep his/her shoes on while playing on the play-

ground. If this request is accompanied by an explanation

(e.g., ‘‘there may be sharp rocks or other objects that might

hurt your feet’’), the child will understand there is a reason

for the specific limit/request (Saunders et al. in press).

At the beginning of the 12-week period, mothers in the

hands-on plus seminar group attended an orientation to get

acquainted with the rules and routines involved in being in

the classroom. During the intervention, these mothers

practiced using positive guidance in a toddler classroom

weekly. Teachers trained in positive guidance were in each

classroom and available to give feedback to mothers

(Saunders et al. in press).

Also, at the beginning and end of the program, mothers

in both the control and experimental groups were video-

taped interacting with their child in a room for 25 min.

These videotaped mother–child interactions were taken

both just before the parenting intervention began (i.e.,

within a week prior to the intervention) and after the

completion of the intervention (i.e., within a week after the

intervention). During these observations, the time was

structured to involve 20 min of play and 5 min for cleaning

up. The room used for these videotaped interactions was set

up with toys (including bats, tennis rackets, and a water

table), and an area which containing jelly beans, a com-

puter, a VCR, and a cell phone. To elicit limit-setting,

mothers were instructed that these items were research

equipment, and that it would be helpful if they could keep

their children away from the area of the room housing this

equipment (Saunders et al. in press).

Observational data were also collected on the children’s

social behaviors during peer interactions. Children in each

of the four classrooms (eight groups of five to seven chil-

dren) were videotaped for 25 min at the beginning and end

of the 12-week program. As with the mother–child inter-

actions, these videotaped peer interactions were taken both

just before the parenting intervention began (i.e., within a

week prior to the intervention) and after the completion of

the intervention (i.e., within a week after the intervention).

Each of the interaction groups contained children from

both the seminar-only intervention group and the hands-on

plus seminar intervention group. Due to the larger number

of mothers assigned to the hands-on plus seminar condition

(n = 30) as compared to the seminar-only condition

(n = 22), the number of children in some of the interaction

groups from the hands-on plus seminar condition was

greater than the number of children from the seminar-only

condition. To avoid classroom effects, children were

assigned to classrooms mixed across conditions such that

roughly half of the children in each classroom had mothers

in the hands-on plus seminar condition and the other half

were children of mothers in the seminar-only condition. Of

the 52 child participants, there were 21 girls and 31 boys.

Because the sample contained more boys than girls, three

of the interaction groups consisted of a female to male ratio

of 2:7, 2:7 and 1:5. The remaining groups had even (or

roughly even in groups made up of five or seven children)

numbers of girls versus boys, including two groups in

which there were more girls than boys by one.

Measures

Observational Coding of Mother–Child Interaction

To discern the success of the positive guidance training,

two groups of trained coders (two undergraduate research

assistants, and two graduate students) individually coded

videos of the 25-min mother–child play sessions. Coders

were blind to the intervention condition of the mothers and

were thus unaware of which intervention condition may

have contributed to any changes in children’s behaviors.

Mothers were also rated on empathy and permissiveness.

The scales for each variable were 7-point scales ranging

from 1 (minimally empathetic) to 7 (pervasively empa-

thetic). The coding scales included a definition of empathy

and examples of what might constitute empathetic behav-

iors (e.g., ‘‘Showing them ways for the toys to work when

they are confused’’). Mothers receiving a low rating did not

respond when their children expressed distress or were in

need of assistance. A rating of 7 indicated that the mother

was able to respond to the child’s immediate and non-

immediate needs, often anticipating possible needs of the

child and addressing those needs.

Similarly, ratings for permissiveness were on a 7-point

scale from 1 (not permissive) to 7 (pervasively permissive).

Permissiveness was defined, and examples of what might

constitute permissive behaviors were given (e.g., ‘‘Mother

772 J Child Fam Stud (2013) 22:769–778

123

may completely ignore child’s inappropriate behavior

when it should be addressed’’). Scores of 1 indicated that

mothers had set appropriate limits during child interactions.

Alternatively, scores of 7 were assigned when mothers

were unwilling or unable to set limits, or when mothers

verbally stated a limit that they then did not enforce.

Acceptable interrater reliability was achieved for both

groups at r = .88 and r = .67, respectively.

Observational Coding of Peer Interactions

The extent to which children’s social competence in peer

interactions improved in relation to the positive guidance

training was examined by rating each child’s social

behaviors with peers at the beginning and at the end of the

intervention. Coders rated each child’s antisocial behav-

iors, physical aggression, verbal aggression, prosocial

behaviors, positive social bids, and empathy. Coders for the

peer interactions were blind to the intervention condition of

the mothers and, thus, did not know which intervention

condition may have contributed to any changes they

observed in children’s behaviors.

The coding scales included a definition of each construct

and examples of behaviors that would constitute a partic-

ular rating on a given variable code. Antisocial behavior

was defined as the extent to which the child behaves in

ways likely to anger or upset peers. The coding guide

indicated that a lower number should be assigned if a child

exhibited very little antisocial behavior, and the few

instances exhibited were mild and in response to peers,

whereas a higher number was appropriate if a child showed

a very high level of strong antisocial behavior throughout

the play session, required frequent teacher intervention, or

frequently enacted behaviors that were upsetting to peers.

Physical aggression was described as the amount of

physical aggression the child displays during conflicts.

Strong instances included hitting, kicking, throwing

objects, pushing, biting, and any other physical acts done

with anger and apparent intent to hurt. Mild instances

included the above behaviors when they seemed to be done

as play fighting, or when the act may have been accidental

but still might have hurt a child. Similarly, verbal aggres-

sion was defined as the amount of verbal aggression the

child displays during conflicts. The coding guide gave the

following examples of strong instances of verbal aggres-

sion: calling a peer mean names, threatening a peer,

directly excluding a peer (e.g., ‘‘You can’t play with us!’’),

and teasing a peer. These instances could include an angry

or taunting tone of voice. Mild instances of verbal

aggression included criticism (‘‘You didn’t do that right’’),

mitigated exclusion (excluding a peer in a ‘‘softened’’ way,

i.e., when peer asks is he can play, responding, ‘‘We don’t

have enough room in the tent’’), or hurting a peer’s

feelings, perhaps without meaning to.

A positive social bid was defined as a positive or

friendly attempt to interact with another child either ver-

bally or nonverbally. Children who received high scores on

this scale verbally invited a child to play, offered a toy, or

otherwise included another child in an ongoing activity.

Positive social bids were categorized as weak if the child

simply joined other children’s play in a non-disruptive

way, and lowest scores on this scale were assigned when a

child’s attempts to initiate social interaction reflected a lack

of social skills. These social bids included physical contact

that was not welcome (e.g., trying to get a toy from a child

or touching the child’s arm and saying, ‘‘I need that’’).

Coders also rated children’s prosocial behaviors, which

were defined as actively helping peers or offering to share,

and empathy, defined as clearly showing concern for peers

who were hurt or sad. The prosocial and empathy scales

were subsequently dropped from the analyses because

frequencies of behaviors that were clearly prosocial were

extremely low, and ass a result, the scores for these two

scales were very skewed.

Each of the 7-point scales conveyed the degree to which

these behaviors were exhibited in peer interactions, with

‘1’ assigned when a particular behavior was rarely or never

demonstrated and ‘7’ assigned when a behavior was

exhibited very frequently. Excellent inter-rater reliability

was achieved for the aforementioned rating scales

(r = .94). Refer to Table 1 for descriptive statistics for

study variables. Correlations of study variables are pre-

sented in Table 2.

Results

To account for possible influence of clustering on the data,

the mixed model sub program in SPSS was used in all

analyses. To test each hypothesis, separate models were

conducted in which each variable representing the main

effect of interest (i.e., mothers’ pre- to post- change in

permissiveness, empathy, and intervention condition) was

entered as the independent variable. The pre-intervention

scores of both the predictor and the outcomes variables

along with the dummy code representing the intervention

condition were entered into the model as controls.

The first hypothesis concerned whether or not children’s

behaviors in toddler peer interactions were facilitated by

mothers’ participation in the hands-on plus seminar or

seminar-only conditions of the positive guidance parenting

intervention. To address this hypothesis, models were

conducted in which the variable representing the main

effect of maternal intervention condition along with pre-

intervention score on the child outcome variable were

J Child Fam Stud (2013) 22:769–778 773

123

entered into the model. Separate models were run for each

of the child variables (physical aggression, verbal aggres-

sion, antisocial behaviors, and positive social bids). Anal-

yses revealed no significant main effects of the intervention

condition on children’s behavioral outcomes. This suggests

that while the parent intervention may have been beneficial,

children of mothers in the hands-on plus seminar condition

did not have substantially more behavioral changes than

children of mothers in the seminar-only condition.

The second hypothesis explored how the intervention’s

effects on mother–child interactions, especially for mothers

in the hands-on condition, affected children’s behaviors.

To assess how changes in mothers’ parenting interactions

(positive guidance and permissiveness) over the 12 week

program related to changes in children’s behaviors in peer

interactions, separate models were conducted. Each child

outcome behavior served as the dependent variable (e.g.,

children’s post-intervention rating on verbal aggression). A

difference score was calculated to represent changes in

mother’s use of positive guidance from before to after the

intervention. This difference score was entered as an

independent variable. Therefore, analyses controlled for

pre-intervention scores for child outcome variables.

Counter to our hypothesis that mothers’ increased use of

positive guidance would be associated with improved

social competence in peers, no significant differences in

children’s behaviors from pre- to post-test were found.

Though prior analyses indicated that the intervention suc-

cessfully lead to mothers’ increased use of positive guid-

ance (Saunders et al. in press), these increases were not

directly associated with changes in children’s behaviors.

Hypothesis 3 posited that the decreased permissiveness of

mothers in both conditions, found in prior analyses (Burton

et al. 2009) would be associated with increases in children’s

positive behaviors and decreases in their negative behaviors.

As predicted, analyses demonstrated that decreases in

maternal permissiveness were significantly related to

decreases in children’s verbal aggression during peer inter-

actions (b = .16, t = 3.26, p \ .01). Results of analyses

including other child outcome variables were nonsignificant.

Hypothesis 4 investigated the effects of maternal empathy

on receptiveness to the parenting intervention and sub-

sequent changes to children’s behaviors in peer interactions.

The interaction term for maternal empathy by intervention

condition was included to examine whether maternal

empathy moderated the effect of the intervention condition

on peer interaction outcomes. For this set of analyses, pre-

intervention scores of child variables were controlled.

Simple slope analyses were used to interpret any interactions

that were found (Holmbeck 2002). The interaction term was

made by centering the continuous predictor variable and

then using the product of the terms (condition X pre-inter-

vention maternal empathy) to create the interaction term, as

recommended by Aiken and West (1991). For each of the

child outcome variables, a single interaction analysis was set

up with the child outcome behavior as the dependent variable

(e.g., children’s post-intervention rating on antisocial

behavior). The pre-intervention rating of maternal empathy,

the condition (hands-on plus seminar versus seminar-only),

the pre-intervention rating on child behavior (e.g., pre-

intervention antisocial behavior), and the interaction term

(i.e., condition X pre-intervention empathy) were entered as

independent variables.

As predicted, models demonstrated that an interaction of

maternal empathy and intervention condition led to dif-

ferential outcomes for children. But although we expected

that children of mothers high in empathy who were in the

hands-on condition might have shown the most improve-

ments, we actually found that mothers who were low in

empathy and got the hands-on training benefited the most.

Specifically, children of the low empathy mothers in the

hands-on condition demonstrated significantly fewer anti-

social behaviors (b = -.59, t = -2.18, p = .037) than

any of the other groups (i.e., children of low empathy

mothers in the seminar only condition, or children of high

empathy mothers in either condition). Figure 1 illustrates

changes in antisocial behaviors from before to after the

intervention in each of four categories—low-empathy

mothers in the seminar only condition, low-empathy

mothers in the hands-on condition, high-empathy mothers

Table 1 Descriptive statistics for pre- and post- intervention

parenting behaviors and children’s peer interaction behaviors

Variables N M (SD)

Pre-intervention variables

Parenting behaviors

Positive guidance 50 3.98 (1.19)

Empathy 50 4.56 (1.32)

Permissiveness 50 3.71 (1.46)

Peer interaction variables

Antisocial behaviors 40 1.81 (1.64)

Physical aggression 40 1.81 (1.62)

Verbal aggression 40 1.53 (1.45)

Positive social bids 39 4.06 (1.25)

Post-intervention variables

Parenting behaviors

Positive guidance 49 4.26 (1.48)

Empathy 49 5.45 (1.29)

Permissiveness 49 2.97 (1.65)

Peer interaction variables

Antisocial behaviors 40 1.75 (1.13)

Physical aggression 40 1.31 (.58)

Verbal aggression 40 1.20 (.59)

Positive social bids 38 3.92 (.75)

774 J Child Fam Stud (2013) 22:769–778

123

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J Child Fam Stud (2013) 22:769–778 775

123

in the seminar only condition, and high-empathy mothers

in the hands-on condition.

Discussion

The present study explored how changes to parenting due to

a positive guidance-based parenting intervention were

related to the quality of toddlers’ interactions with peers.

This parenting intervention was comprised of two condi-

tions—a hands-on plus seminar condition and a seminar

only condition. Based on coded observations of mothers, it

was found that participation in both intervention conditions

was associated with greater knowledge of positive guidance

parenting skills (Saunders et al. in press) and an overall

reduction in mothers’ permissiveness (Burton et al. 2009).

Observations of toddlers revealed that children of mothers

who got hands-on training in positive guidance demon-

strated changes in their behaviors during peer interactions.

These behavioral changes seem to have improved the

quality of children’s peer interactions. Specifically, moth-

ers’ reduction in permissiveness was related to decreases in

children’s verbal aggression in peer interactions. Because

the intervention resulted in reductions in permissive par-

enting, the decline in verbal aggression found in the current

study may be due to mothers’ increased limit setting gained

over the course of the intervention.

Although the data suggest that both methods of teaching

positive guidance were related to decreased permissive-

ness, and this decreased permissiveness may have quickly

led to decreases in children’s verbal aggression, it should

be noted that changes in permissiveness were unrelated to

decreases in physical aggression. Further inspection of the

data revealed that initial levels of physical aggression were

low (M = 1.81), which is why the decline in physical

aggression (M = 1.31 at post-test) did not reach signifi-

cance. Changes in permissiveness were also unrelated to

increases in positive social bids. Thus, the intervention may

have produced immediate effects on reducing children’s

negative peer behaviors, perhaps due to limit setting. But

positive guidance leading to improvements in children’s

positive peer behaviors may be a more gradual process

requiring modeling and scaffolding over time. Although

the post-test observational measures gathered just after the

intervention assessed the immediate effects of the inter-

vention, we cannot attest to whether or not mothers con-

tinue to use these skills over time or if children’s behaviors

in peer interactions change more or in different ways in the

weeks and months following their mothers’ participation in

the intervention. If they do, children’s positive peer

behaviors may show greater improvement over time as

they gain increased practice in prosocial skills. On the

other hand, some past research has found that delayed

follow-up assessments of parental training interventions

show some attenuation of positive results over time (Honig

and Martin 2009). Thus, mothers and their children may

benefit if we were to add ‘‘booster sessions’’ to give par-

ticipants more follow-up practice with the skills they

learned in the original intervention. More long-term fol-

low-ups are necessary to see if changes in positive peer

behaviors or additional changes to negative peer behaviors

occur some time after the intervention.

The aforementioned results reiterate past findings that

maternal permissiveness negatively impacts children. But

in addition, findings of the present analyses build on these

ideas, suggesting not only that reductions in permissiveness

(even over a short period of time) may benefit children in

terms of the mother–child relationship, but children also

may benefit in terms of their behaviors in early peer

interactions.

It was also found that children were differentially

affected by their mother’s participation in the intervention

depending on maternal characteristics that were present

before the intervention took place. Results of the present

study suggest that maternal empathy, assessed prior to the

intervention, interacted with the intervention condition to

bring about different child behavioral outcomes. In other

words, when participating in a parenting intervention in

which mothers either got hands-on instruction in addition to

a seminar versus receiving information via a seminar only,

mothers’ levels of empathy differentially impacted how the

two intervention conditions effected changes to parenting

behaviors and subsequent child behavioral outcomes. Spe-

cifically, mothers low in empathy who were in the hands-on

plus seminar condition had toddlers who demonstrated

fewer antisocial behaviors compared to children of low

empathy mothers in the seminar only condition and high

empathy mothers who were in either the hands-on or the

seminar only condition. Thus, mothers who were low in

empathy to begin with were the ones who may have bene-

fited the most from participating in the hands-on condition

Fig. 1 Illustration of the interaction of maternal empathy and

intervention condition with changes in children’s antisocial behaviors

(y-axis represents changes in children’s antisocial behaviors from

before the after the intervention)

776 J Child Fam Stud (2013) 22:769–778

123

of this interaction. Furthermore, mothers who were low in

empathy and only got the seminar portion of the interven-

tion had children who fared the worst. These children

demonstrated slight increases in antisocial behaviors at the

end of the intervention, although these changes were not

significant.

Different explanations to account for the finding that

maternal empathy interacted with the intervention condi-

tion should be explored. Research on attachment theory,

which emphasizes the importance of the child’s relation-

ship with their primary caregiver, suggests that caregiving

marked by sensitivity and responsiveness fosters positive

social development in children (Sroufe and Fleeson 1986).

In fact, Honig (2002) found that infants’ secure attachment

is related to toddlers being more cooperative with maternal

requests in the toddler period. With this in mind, additional

research should explore the idea that fostering maternal

empathy could cultivate more secure attachments in tod-

dlers, which might affect children’s behaviors in toddler-

hood, decreasing antisocial behaviors in peer interactions.

It is also possible that mothers who are high in empathy

experienced a ceiling effect in that they were already using

fairly effective parenting skills and, thus their participation

in either condition of this intervention made less of an

impact. Concomitantly, it could be the case that mothers

who were low in empathy benefitted from the experiential

or ‘‘hands-on’’ portion of the intervention due to the

practice with in-the-moment problem solving and parent-

ing skills that require mothers to engage in perspective-

taking as they think how best to instruct and interact with

their child.

Taken together, findings suggest that the quality of

toddlers’ early peer interactions is facilitated by parenting

strategies aimed at reducing permissiveness and increasing

(or maintaining high levels of) empathy. Limitations in our

design—including a relatively small sample size, a lack of

zero-treatment group, and no third timepoint follow-up—

suggest that results should be interpreted with caution. But

the strengths of having low-dose and high-dose interven-

tion groups and using observational (as opposed to self-

report) measures improve on much of the prior research

using parenting interventions which have used less valid

measures and have failed to look at the changes in chil-

dren’s behaviors associated with the changes in parenting.

Our results indicate that hands-on training with parenting

skills facilitates the learning process when it comes to the

dissemination of information in intervention programs.

These skills, in turn, may lead to changes in parenting

(including reduced permissiveness) which encourage chil-

dren’s social competence in peer interactions. Based on this

evidence, it is likely that parenting interventions aimed at

increasing and fostering maternal empathy (especially for

parents of young children) would not only benefit children

directly through changes in parenting behaviors and

parent–child relationships, but would also benefit children

in terms of promoting positive social development.

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