Predictors of working mother's parenting practices in infancy on the competences of vocabulary and communication of two -year-old children

Abstract

Background: With an increasing number of working mother in Japan, resulted to the concomitant increase in the using of non-parental childcare facilities to help look after the child. This increase in non-parental care has led to a dramatic change in the traditional child-rearing environment. Besides, young children's vocabulary and communication competences were demonstrated to be tightly correlated with early parenting practice. Methods: A total of 398 children and their working mothers were recruited from Japanese government-licensed childcare facilities. Children's developments were assessed by childcare professionals and parenting behaviors were collected by questionnaire which was filled by mothers. Results: The results show that mother singing songs with child (OR=3.079, P=0.0024) and playing with child (OR=9.393, P=0.0137) are beneficial to children's vocabulary development one year later. Conversely, punishment (OR=4.702, P=0.0088) child would exacerbate child vocabulary developmental delay. Mother playing with child (OR=6.119, P=0.043) also contribute to child's competence of communication, meanwhile, mother has confidence about childrearing (OR=3.553, P=0.0233) promote to children's communication development as well. Daily mother-child interaction in early childhood is crucial predictor for young children's language development later. Conclusion: Working mothers should increase the daily parent-child interaction activities with young children consciously in their free time, so as to promote children's competence development in vocabulary and communication