The skills that make us a good partner make us a good parent

http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2012-12/sfpa-tst120612.php

Public release date: 6-Dec-2012
Contact: Lisa M.P. Munoz
Society for Personality and Social Psychology

December 7, 2012 - Being a good partner may make you a better parent, according to a new study. The same set of skills that we tap to be caring toward our partners is what we use to nurture our children, researchers found.

The study sought to examine how caregiving plays out in families – "how one relationship affects another relationship," says Abigail Millings of the University of Bristol, lead author of the work published online this week in Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin. "We wanted to see how romantic relationships between parents might be associated with what kind of parents they are."

Previous research had looked at similar caregiving processes within romantic relationships or between parents and children, but rarely for both groups. "Our work is the first to look at romantic caregiving and parenting styles at the same time," Millings says.

Looking at 125 couples with children aged 7 to 8 years, the study, carried out at the University of East Anglia, examined a few factors: the way the couples are attached toward each other; the parenting styles they use with their children; and their "caregiving responsiveness." Caregiving responsiveness is the "capacity to be 'tuned in' to what the other person needs," Millings says. "In romantic relationships and in parenting, this might mean noticing when the other person has had a bad day, knowing how to cheer them up, and whether they even want cheering up." And, she says, it's not "just about picking you up when you're down, it's also about being able to respond appropriately to the good stuff in life."

They found that a common skill set underpins caregiving across different types of relationships, and for both mothers and fathers. "If you can do responsive caregiving, it seems that you can do it across different relationships," Millings says. Surprisingly, however, the researchers found that how you care toward your partner does not relate to how your partner behaves as a parent.

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