Negative parenting can affect childhood friendships: Study
New York, May 13: Negative features of parenting, such as depression and psychological control, increase the risk of breaking up childhood friendships, finds a study.
The results showed that for children with clinically depressed parents, the risk of best friendship dissolution increased by up to 104 per cent, Xinhua reported.
There was a similar, although not quite as dramatic, increase in the risk of best friendship dissolution for children with psychologically controlling parents.
Parent depression and parent psychological control uniquely predicted subsequent child friendships breaking up, above and beyond contributions of peer difficulties.
"We already know that peer status plays an important role in friendship outcomes. For example, well-liked children have more long-lasting relationships than do their classmates," said Brett Laursen, Professor at Florida Atlantic University (FAU), US.
But "children with depressed and psychologically controlling parents are not learning healthy strategies for engaging with other people, which could have long-term consequences for their future relationships", Laursen added.
However, contrary to the researchers' expectations, there were no evidence that positive parenting behaviours like warmth and affection altered the stability of children's best friendships.
"We were hoping that positive behaviours would help extend the life of friendships and that it would be a buffer or a protective factor," said Laursen.
"This was not the case. Warmth and affection don't appear to make that much of a difference. It is the negative characteristics of parents that are key in determining if and when these childhood friendships end," he noted.
For the study, published in the Journal of Family Psychology, the team looked at 1,523 children. Among them 766 were boys, from grades one to six. They conducted a survival analysis to identify the characteristics of parents that predict the stability of their children's friendships.
The researchers also examined the parenting styles to predict the occurrence and timing of the dissolution of kids' best friendships from the beginning to the end of elementary school (grades one to six).
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Quad leaders to launch Cancer Moonshot initiative with focus on cervical cancer in Indo-Pacific
At this week’s leaders’ conference, the Quad grouping of Australia, the US, India, and Japan—will reveal an ambitious project to prevent, detect, and treat cancer, with an initial focus on cervical cancer throughout the Indo-Pacific region. Biden will serve as the host of the Quad Leaders' Summit, which will also be attended by PM Modi, Fumio Kishida of Japan, and Anthony Albanese of Australia.
The "Cancer Moonshot," which will be unveiled at a special event on the fringes of the Quad Leaders' Summit in Wilmington, Delaware, on September 21, was hailed by Foreign Secretary Vikram Misri on Thursday as a "very significant" initiative that will bring a human element to the "otherwise geopolitically dominated" Quad agenda.
This is a top concern. The Quad hopes to apply cutting-edge techniques to prevent, detect, treat, and lessen the impact of cancer on patients and their families through this historic initiative, Misri said at a press conference prior to Prime Minister Narendra Modi's visit to the US on Saturday. "Our initial goal is to work together to lessen the incidence of cervical cancer in the Indo-Pacific area," he declared.
The Quad project seems to be designed to expand upon the Cancer Moonshot, which former US President Barack Obama started in 2016. President Joe Biden and his wife Jill brought the program back to life with the intention of averting over four million cancer-related deaths in the US by 2047 and enhancing the quality of life for those who are affected by the disease.
More than 95 new programs, policies, and resources have been made possible by the US Cancer Moonshot. Originally coined to describe the act of sending a spaceship to the moon, the term "moonshot" now denotes extremely difficult and creative initiatives.
According to Misri, the Quad will publish a separate factsheet on the Cancer Moonshot that will list all of the initiative's components. He continued by saying that a major focus of the Quad meeting's agenda will be achieving health security, public goods delivery, and sustainable development goals.
The Indo-Pacific region has long been the center of attention for the Quad. The organization came up with the audacious plan to provide one billion vaccination shots to nations in the Indo-Pacific region during the Covid-19 pandemic. The Quad extended this project in late 2022 to include study on pandemic and health emergency preparedness.
