Skip to main content

The Importance of Parenting in Influencing the Lives of Children

  • Chapter
  • First Online:
Handbook of Parenting and Child Development Across the Lifespan

Abstract

The quality of parenting children receive during childhood and adolescence plays a major role in influencing their developmental competence and ultimately their life course trajectories. The parent–child relationship has a pervasive impact on children, and affects many different areas of development including language and communication, executive function and self-regulation, sibling and peer relationships, academic attainment, and mental and physical health. This chapter provides an overview of evidence showing how parenting influences children’s development. In addition, we explore how the broader ecological contexts of parents’ lives influence parenting practices and family relationships. Proximal determinants of parenting (e.g., the parent–child relationship) and more distal factors (e.g., cultural and community context) combine to influence the quality of parenting children receive. We argue that evidence-based parenting support that is delivered at a whole of community level and is attuned to the broader ecological context of modern parenting is needed to promote competent parenting and to reduce the adverse effects of poor parenting on children. Policy-based investments in evidence-based parenting programs have great potential to enhance life course outcomes for both children and parents that can have major economic benefits to the entire community.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this chapter

Chapter
USD 29.95
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
eBook
USD 299.00
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as EPUB and PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
Hardcover Book
USD 379.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Durable hardcover edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info

Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout

Purchases are for personal use only

Institutional subscriptions

References

Download references

Disclosure

The Parenting and Family Support Centre is partly funded by royalties stemming from published resources of the Triple P—Positive Parenting Program, which is developed and owned by the University of Queensland (UQ). Royalties are also distributed to the Faculty of Health and Behavioural Sciences at UQ and contributory authors of published Triple P resources. Triple P International (TPI) Pty Ltd. is a private company licensed by UniQuest Pty Ltd. on behalf of UQ, to publish and disseminate Triple P worldwide. The authors of this chapter have no share or ownership of TPI. TPI has no involvement in the writing of this chapter. Matthew R Sanders is the founder of Triple P and receives royalties from TPI. He is a consultant to Triple P International and an employee at UQ. Karen Turner receives royalties from TPI and is an employee at UQ.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

Authors

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Matthew R. Sanders .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

Copyright information

© 2018 Springer International Publishing AG, part of Springer Nature

About this chapter

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this chapter

Sanders, M.R., Turner, K.M.T. (2018). The Importance of Parenting in Influencing the Lives of Children. In: Sanders, M., Morawska, A. (eds) Handbook of Parenting and Child Development Across the Lifespan . Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-94598-9_1

Download citation

Publish with us

Policies and ethics