Domain-specific parenting.

New ‘domain-specific’ models have begun to describe parenting as multifaceted and situationally determined. That is, parents are seen as flexibly deploying different practices or strategies in various situations. Importantly, children also interpret parenting behaviors, so similar practices may have different meanings depending on children’s developmental status and cultural context. Proponents of these approaches claim that systematic consideration of these factors will lead to better precision both in describing parenting and in understanding its effects. Adopting a behavioral systems approach, Grusec and Davidov described parenting in terms of the different child rearing goals and needs that are activated in different situations. They describe five domains of socialization: 

  1. protection (security, protection against harm), 
  2. control (acquiring societal expectations, avoiding threats to autonomy occurring through parental overcontrol),
  3. guided learning (mastery of specific skills), 
  4. group participation (being part of a social group), and 
  5. reciprocity (reciprocating others’ behavior). 

These different domains are seen as associated with different parenting skills and practices, resulting in the development of different competencies. This model is promising but will require more elaboration regarding how to identify the relevant domains operative in particular situations. Specific hypotheses about links between domain-specific parenting and developmental outcomes need to be tested. 

Smetana and her colleagues have proposed a different domain-specific approach that focuses on the development of different types of social knowledge and behavior: moral (justice, fairness, others’ welfare), social-conventional (contextually determined norms), and prudential (comfort, safety, harm to self), and personal issues. Observational research has found that social interactions vary by domain and that mothers’ (and peers’) responses vary for different types of transgressions. New research shows that mothers communicate norms to toddlers through emotional vocal signals; signals are more intense and angry in response to moral transgressions, more fearful in response to prudential violations, and more comforting and playful in response to prudential and pragmatic transgressions. Domain-specific models have shown that links between parental behavioral control and adolescent adjustment vary by domain. Further, family decision-making (whether parents or teens decide issues jointly, alone, or with input from others) changes with age and varies by domain. Analyses also have examined within-family differences, including how links between family decision-making and autonomy vary for first- versus second-born offspring. For instance, an 11-year longitudinal study of families with two children found that developmental trajectories differed by birth order. Parents reported that first-borns had greater autonomy than second-borns, particularly when the first-born sibling reached age 10 and the second-born was younger. However, when siblings at the same age were compared, decision-making autonomy was greater among second than first-borns, particularly in middle childhood and early adolescence. Second-borns may seek more autonomy to differentiate themselves from their older siblings, or perhaps to gain the autonomy they see their older siblings as enjoying.

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