Parenting information seeking and accuracy and relation to maternal depression

While the influence of parenting style and techniques on child development is pervasive and well documented, little is currently known about how exactly new parents learn how to parent their children. The specific objective of the proposed research was to describe the resources that parents use or perceive as available to learn how to parent their children. This is an exploratory study that will investigates the specific sources of information that parents call upon when developing parenting styles and techniques or making decisions regarding the manner in which parents interact with their children. Additionally, we explore what resources parents believe are accessible and are likely to use when seeking such information, as well as some of their ideas about parenting and raising children. 62 mothers of infants and young children, recruited through parenting groups and medical practices, indicated on a questionnaire which sources of information they have consulted for advice on raising children, as well as how often they use these sources and how useful they find them. While many parenting resources may exist in a community, parents may not take advantage of all or any of them. Some parents may be unaware of or choose not to use particular sources of advice or information. Other parents may not have resources available that they would like to consult for parenting advice. An additional goal of this study was to evaluate the availability of parenting information sources to parents seeking information about childrearing. Mothers also completed measures of parenting self-esteem, attitudes and knowledge about raising children, and depression. The majority of mothers (at least 70% for each source) indicated that they consult their partner, parents, friends, pediatricians, parenting magazines, books and the internet for parenting information and advice. These were the sources perceived as available by most parents as well. There was not a significant relationship between use or perceived ability of parenting resources and depression in this sample. Both parenting sense of competence and expectations of children did appear related to parenting resources to some degree. By describing the resources that parents believe are available to them and those that they actually use to learn parenting information as well as how useful they find such resources, we can inform service providers as to the best ways to reach parents with important parenting information. We also hope to identify areas in which service providers can make parents more aware of beneficial sources of parenting advice and information that are available to them but not currently used and increase our ability to share important parenting information with parents. Implications of these findings as well as study limitations are discussed.