A Strong Relationship Between Parents is Key

Why does everyone else get a baby who sleeps?” “How could anyone want to have more than one child?” “Will she ever grow out of this?” “What am I doing wrong?”

For moms and dads who ask themselves these questions as they pace up and down hallways with a difficult infant, take heart. Two recent studies suggest that these trying first months—and maybe years—can have a positive outcome, with the help of good parenting and a healthy marriage.

Recent research from Indiana University and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill has shown that among first-graders who had “excellent parenting,” those who had been classified with difficult temperaments as six-month-olds had equally good or, frequently, better grades, social skills, and teacher and peer relationships than first-graders who had been easygoing babies.

Because a child’s temperament can begin to be determined in infancy, parents of high-maintenance babies have worried that their child will grow up to have problems with social skills, authority, or even intelligence. But little could be said for certain about the future of such infants.

Now, the study led by Anne Dopkins Stright, professor of human development at Indiana University, has shed some light on the subject. Stright and her colleagues’ research has suggested that babies with difficult temperaments tend to be highly influenced by parenting styles—for better or for worse.

“Everyone wants an easy baby, and it certainly does make life easier,” Stright says in her study. “But having a difficult baby doesn't mean that the child will have trouble in first grade.”
Difficult infants who had poor parenting—deficiencies in consistent discipline, physical touch and/or emotional support—were statistically the least well adjusted first-graders, while those who had excellent parenting often performed the best.

While it’s no new discovery that good parents make for good kids, the focus of the study was the more extreme responsiveness and sensitivity of difficult babies over easier ones.

So while high-strung infants may retain that temperament as they grow, neither they nor their moms and dads are doomed to failure. Rather, it is up to parents to make the difference. "The key to first-grade adjustment for both difficult and easy infants was good parenting," stresses Stright.

Her research is complemented by another study, from the University of Illinois and Ohio State University, which gives more insight into rearing “difficult” babies. According to this research, a couple’s relationship with each other is the key to determining how they respond as a “co-parenting” team when faced with a temperamental newborn.

Rather than being a matter of the quality of each parent’s individual style, parents need to work well together in order to cope with and nurture their difficult baby, says the study.
The team of scholars found that a couple’s marital and co-parenting relationships are distinct entities. But in general, those with strong marriages also function better as co-parents—sharing responsibilities and encouragement rather than undermining criticism. In turn, this kind of co-parenting is a significant benefit to a child in the long run.

Conversely, when parents have a poor marital relationship, they are more likely to be poor co-parents, and their children are more likely to show “aggressive and inappropriate behavior.”

Between sleepless nights and cranky days, taking steps to ensure the health of your marriage and the quality of your parenting can be one of the greatest gifts you can give to yourself, your spouse and your crying little one. —Carissa Abrego