1-2 page single spaced essay

ORIGINAL PAPER

Intensive Parenting: Does it Have the Desired Impact on Child Outcomes?

Holly H. Schiffrin • Hester Godfrey •

Miriam Liss • Mindy J. Erchull

Published online: 20 August 2014

� Springer Science+Business Media New York 2014

Abstract Although parental involvement is generally

thought to be beneficial for children, it is unclear whether

the intensive level of parenting that has become com-

monplace results in improved child outcomes. Intensive

parenting may involve the desire to anticipate and solve

children’s problems as well as to enroll them in numerous,

structured activities that might enhance their physical,

cognitive, and social abilities. We surveyed 241 parents to

assess intensive parenting beliefs, anticipatory problem

solving (APS), enrollment in structured activities, and

developmental outcomes of their children ages 2–5. Using

structural equation modeling, we found that intensive

parenting beliefs predicted more APS, which predicted

greater enrollment in creative and physical activities.

However, enrollment in structured activities did not predict

children’s developmental outcomes. Although parents may

believe that expensive and time-consuming activities are

the keys to ensuring their children’s health, happiness, and

success, this study does not support this assumption.

Keywords Helicopter parenting � Intensive parenting � Anticipatory problem solving � Fine motor � Gross motor � Language development � Subjective happiness � Child outcomes

Introduction

If you asked the average parent what they want for their

children, the typical response might be something like,

‘‘that they are happy, healthy, and successful.’’ While these

goals seem laudable and relatively straightforward, the best

way for parents to help their children achieve these goals is

not. Decades of research cite the importance of parental

involvement in promoting optimal child development. It is

likely that there is an optimal range of parental involve-

ment that promotes positive child outcomes. However, it is

not clear that more and more involvement is better for

children once some threshold level of involvement has

been reached. In fact, more recent research has suggested

that there is such a thing as too much involvement that can

potentially have a negative impact on child outcomes.

Thus, parental involvement can be envisioned as an

inverted U-shaped curve (Grant and Schwartz 2011) with

both too little and too much involvement undermining

child development (Liss and Schiffrin 2014).

There is a long history of research indicating that

parental involvement (e.g., cuddling, talking, and reading

to children) is crucial in achieving optimal child outcomes.

Children who experience impoverished environments early

in life (e.g., in Romanian orphanages) have been found to

have physical, cognitive, and social delays including mild

cognitive impairments and attention deficits (Chugani et al.

2001; Fisher et al. 1997; Rutter 1998). These findings

combined with data from animals on the impact of envi-

ronmental deprivation on brain development (Greenough

1975) have served as the impetus for parents’ increased

involvement for the purpose of providing intellectual

stimulation to maximize children’s cognitive development

(Wall 2010).

Research has supported the benefits of parental

involvement in early intellectual stimulation. Children

whose parents talk and read to them more experience gains

in their cognitive abilities (Neisser et al. 1996; Hart and

Risley 1995; Weisleder and Fernald 2013). Children from

H. H. Schiffrin (&) � H. Godfrey � M. Liss � M. J. Erchull Department of Psychology, University of Mary Washington,

1301 College Avenue, Fredericksburg, VA 22401, USA

e-mail: [email protected]

123

J Child Fam Stud (2015) 24:2322–2331

DOI 10.1007/s10826-014-0035-0

low socioeconomic (SES) backgrounds, who are less likely

to be exposed to language, had smaller vocabularies and

processed language slower at 18 months compared to

children from high SES backgrounds (Fernald et al. 2013).

This gap widened over time resulting in a 6-month lag in

language by age two on average. Thus, it is not surprising

to see children with parents who are actively involved and

provide developmentally appropriate structure exhibit

greater competence and academic performance during the

school years (Fan and Chen 2001; Grolnick and Ryan

1989; Pomerantz et al. 2007). A meta-analysis of 41 studies

concluded that parental involvement had a large effect on

academic achievement regardless of children’s gender or

racial/ethnic background. Different aspects of parental

involvement have been found to differentially impact a

variety of academic outcomes (Fan and Chen 2001). High

parental expectations for student achievement were found

to have the strongest impact on global indicators such as

grade point average (GPA) rather than more specific

involvement strategies (e.g., monitoring homework) or

outcomes (e.g., child’s grade in a specific subject).

In addition to cognitive outcomes, parental involvement

has been associated with better social and emotional out-

comes in children. Mothers who reported being more

involved and connected with their children had adolescents

who were more prosocial (Day and Padilla-Walker 2009)

and had better social skills (Nokali et al. 2010). In addition,

parental involvement has been associated with fewer

behavior problems (Day and Padilla-Walker 2009; Grol-

nick and Ryan 1989; Nokali et al. 2010). Finally, parental

involvement has been associated with better emotional

outcomes including fewer internalizing problems (Cicch-

etti and Toth 1998; Day and Padilla-Walker 2009) and

more hope (Day and Padilla-Walker 2009).

Parental involvement seems to be particularly important

in children who are raised in a low SES environment. A

study that reviewed nearly every randomized, controlled

intervention intended to increase children’s intelligence

from birth through kindergarten found that those who

participated in interventions scored an average of 4–7

points higher than those who did not on tests of intelligence

at the end of the intervention period (Protzko et al. 2013).

When parents were trained to be more involved by

engaging in rich communication exchanges and reading

interactively, their children made considerable cognitive

gains. Interventions conducted with children residing in

Romanian orphanages come to similar conclusions (Spar-

ling et al. 2005). When caregivers are trained to be more

involved (e.g., more physical and verbal interaction),

children made significant gains in motor, language, and

social outcomes compared to the control group of orphans.

Thus, there is substantial evidence for the benefits of

parental involvement for children who would otherwise not

experience it. However, it is unclear whether children

whose parents already provide the necessary level of

stimulation benefit from further involvement.

As a result of this research on the importance of parental

involvement for child outcomes, many parents may believe

that more and more involvement is always better resulting

in parenting becoming an all-consuming and extremely

expensive endeavor. Hays (1996) coined the term ‘‘inten-

sive mothering’’ to describe this style of parenting and

identified three primary tenets based on her interviews with

mothers of preschool-aged children. She described the

pressure women felt because mothers are viewed as the

essential parent responsible for all childcare tasks as well

as children’s outcomes. In addition, mothers described the

intensive methods required to ensure constant attention and

stimulation resulting in a child-centered environment that

promotes optimal intellectual, social, and emotional child

outcomes. Mothers often described sacrificing their own

needs to ensure optimal child outcomes. Finally, Hays

described mothers’ views of their children as innocent

beings who must be cherished and protected from the

dangerous world at all costs.

Subsequent research on intensive mothering has indi-

cated that it is the dominant way that parenting has been

conceptualized in the United States for the past several

decades (Arendell 2000). Women have embraced this

ideology as the definition of a good mother (Guendouzi

2005) and believe that adopting this intensive style of

parenting can promote optimal child outcomes (Wall

2010). The constructs associated with intensive parenting

have been recently operationalized and quantitative factors

were identified including that the mother is the essential

parent, that parenting must be child-centered, that parent-

ing is extremely fulfilling, that parents should provide

consistent intellectual stimulation, and that parenting is

extremely challenging (Liss et al. 2013). Mothers hold

these intensive parenting beliefs despite the fact that it may

have negative consequences on their well-being (Hays

1996; Liss et al. 2013; Rizzo et al. 2013). For example, the

belief that parenting is the most challenging job in the

world was related to increased stress and depression as well

as decreased satisfaction with life. The belief that children

primarily need their mothers was related to increased stress

and decreased life satisfaction (Rizzo et al. 2013).

Although mothers may be willing to sacrifice their own

well-being (e.g., increased stress and depression) to ensure

their children’s health, happiness, and success, there is not

much evidence to suggest that parenting in this manner

actually benefits children.

Although some involvement is clearly beneficial, it is

possible that there is an upper limit to the benefits of

intensive parental involvement. Children of highly involved

mothers are more likely to experience internalizing

J Child Fam Stud (2015) 24:2322–2331 2323

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problems such as depression and anxiety (Barber et al. 1994;

Bayer et al. 2006; Fischer et al. 2007), even when their

mothers’ initial levels of anxiety are taken into account (Gar

and Hudson 2008). Over-involvement becomes even more

problematic as children age because they are expected to

become increasingly independent over time (Erikson 1968;

Kins et al. 2009: Soenens et al. 2007). For example, extre-

mely high levels of parental involvement have been asso-

ciated with more externalizing problems in adolescence

(Grolnick et al. 2000).

In college-aged students, parental over-involvement

(sometimes referred to as helicopter parenting) has been

associated with a decreased sense of school engagement

(Padilla-Walker and Nelson 2012) and lower academic

achievement (Kim et al. 2013; Shoup et al. 2009). These

students also experience decreased well-being (LeMoyne

and Buchanan 2011; Schiffrin et al. 2014) including

higher rates of medication for anxiety and depression

(LeMoyne and Buchanan 2011; Kim et al. 2013) as well

as decreased coping skills and increased anxiety (Segrin

et al. 2013). Despite the likely intended goal of enhancing

the parent–child relationship, over-involved parenting has

also been associated with reduced parent–child commu-

nication, satisfaction with family life, and sense of family

obligation (Kim et al. 2013; Segrin et al. 2012) as well as

lower levels of autonomy support from parents (Padilla-

Walker and Nelson 2012). In addition, rather than

enhancing child outcomes, over-involved parenting has

been associated with having adult-aged children with

higher levels of narcissism (Segrin et al. 2013) and enti-

tlement (Segrin et al. 2012) as well as a decreased sense

of autonomy, competence, and relatedness to others (Kim

et al. 2013; Padilla-Walker and Nelson 2012; Schiffrin

et al. 2014).

Problems with parental involvement appear to develop

when parents fail to adjust their child-rearing strategies to

ensure they continue to be developmentally appropriate

(Segrin et al. 2012). What might be viewed as ‘‘best

practices’’ in parenting a two-year-old (e.g., constant

monitoring, directing child behaviors, and intervening to

solve problems for child) are not developmentally appro-

priate as children grow and mature. Parents who fail to

modulate their parenting styles in an age appropriate

manner may quickly find themselves being over-involved

rather than appropriately involved. Parents who try to

anticipate and solve all of their children’s problems may

find themselves with adult-aged children who do not feel

autonomous or competent enough to solve their own

problems (Schiffrin et al. 2014). In fact, research has

shown that when people even think about how someone

has helped or supported them in the past, it decreases their

motivation and effort when completing a task (Fitzsimons

and Finkel 2011).

Thus, parents who anticipate and solve their children’s

problems for them may be inadvertently contributing to a

cycle of dependence in which their children do not develop

the competence to become independent and make auton-

omous choices for themselves (Liss and Schiffrin 2014).

However, it is unclear when the potential negative effects

of problem solving begin. It may be that anticipatory

problem solving (APS) that is developmentally appropriate

(e.g., among preschool-aged children) may be beneficial

for children.

One way that parents may try to anticipate and solve

their children’s problems is to have them participate in

activities designed to promote their children’s physical,

cognitive, and emotional development. Such structured

activities may be seen as a way to ensure health, happiness,

and future success for their children. Fostering children’s

knowledge, skills, and talents has become the hallmark of

high SES parenting regardless of child’s gender or racial/

ethnic background (Lareau 2002). While this ‘‘concerted

cultivation’’ provides some significant advantages that

allow children to successfully navigate their environments,

is it always beneficial?

There are some benefits to participating in structured

activities (Mahoney et al. 2006). The breadth of different

activities that high school students participate in has been

associated with greater academic achievement, fewer

internalizing and externalizing problems, as well as lower

usage of alcohol and drugs (Fredricks and Eccles 2010). In

one study, the variety and amount of activities youth par-

ticipated in during 10th grade predicted positive academic

outcomes in 12th grade as well as educational status

2 years after graduation (Fredricks 2012). A meta-analysis

of 29 studies suggested that the relationship between

extracurricular activities and academic achievement was

relatively small. Participation in leadership activities (e.g.,

student council) seemed to have the strongest effect on

GPA, while participation in sports was not related to

grades, but was associated with high school completion

(Shulruf 2010). However, the causal direction of the find-

ings cannot be determined given the methodologies of the

studies available.

Despite these potential benefits, there is mounting evi-

dence that participation in too many activities may have a

negative impact on child outcomes. A non-linear relation-

ship has been found suggesting that there is an upper limit

to the benefits of participating in activities with the possi-

bility of declining academic performance at the highest

levels of activity (Fredricks 2012; Fredricks and Eccles

2010). Involvement in in more than five extracurricular

activities for a total of 14 h per week was associated with

lower levels of academic achievement (Fredricks 2012).

Another study found a similar inverted U-shaped rela-

tionship between extracurricular activities and academic

2324 J Child Fam Stud (2015) 24:2322–2331

123

outcomes. High school students who were involved in two

different types of extracurricular activities (e.g., leadership,

sports, etc.) benefitted, but students involved in more than

two types of activities reported lower levels of academic

achievement, engagement, and belongingness (Knifsend

and Graham 2012). It is possible that overscheduling

children in extracurricular activities could have the oppo-

site effect desired by parents. Rather than increasing chil-

dren’s happiness and success, overscheduling can take time

away from their ability to succeed academically and par-

ticipate in social activities with friends in family (Farb and

Matjasko 2012), which may increase their stress and anx-

iety levels (Melman et al. 2007).

The majority of studies on the relationship between

extracurricular activity participation and child outcomes

have focused on adolescent-aged children. However, par-

ents are enrolling their children in enrichment activities at

younger and younger ages out of fear that their children

may get left behind (Warner 2005). Thus, the question

remains whether participation in a variety of physical and

creative activities does, in fact, promote children’s physi-

cal, cognitive, and emotional development.

The primary goal of this study was to examine how

belief in the ideology of intensive parenting predicted

behaviors associated with over-involved parenting (i.e.,

APS and overscheduling) to determine if these behaviors,

in turn, predicted the physical skills (i.e., gross and fine

motor skills), cognitive abilities (i.e., language), and hap-

piness of children. To do this, we tested a model to

determine whether parents were accurate in their assess-

ment that holding intensive parenting beliefs and engaging

in intensive parenting behaviors would benefit child out-

comes (see Fig. 1). We hypothesized that beliefs associated

with intensive parenting such as considering the mother to

be the essential parent, providing constant stimulation,

believing parenting is challenging, and being child-cen-

tered would positively predict APS by parents. We

believed that APS would, in turn, positively predict chil-

dren’s involvement in creative and physical activities.

Finally, we believed that involvement in creative and

physical activities would positively predict the outcomes of

gross motor skills, fine motor skills, language development,

and subjective happiness.

Method

Participants

Data were collected from 241 parents of children who were

4 years old on average (M = 48.27, SD = 14.15). The

parents were 33.47 years old (SD = 5.95) on average with

a range of 20–54 years old. The majority of participants

self-identified as White (77.2 %), followed by Black

(5.4 %), Multi-Racial (3.3 %), Asian or Pacific Islander

(2.1 %), American Indian or Alaskan Native (.8 %), and

1.2 % identified as ‘‘other.’’ In terms of socioeconomic

status, participants primarily identified as being upper-

middle class (16.2 %), middle (45.6 %), or working

(24.5 %) class; smaller numbers identified as being weal-

thy (0.8 %) or living in poverty (2.5 %). All participants

had at least a high school education with 7.1 % having a

high school diploma or equivalent, 19.9 % reporting some

college experience, 9.5 % having an associate’s degree,

32 % graduating from college, 14.5 % completing a Mas-

ter’s level degree, and 7.1 % having a Doctoral or

Fig. 1 Hypothesized model

J Child Fam Stud (2015) 24:2322–2331 2325

123

professional degree. The majority (71.8 %) reported being

married or with a domestic partner, 8.7 % reported being

single, 5 % were engaged or in a committed relationship,

and 5 % were separated or divorced. Approximately half of

participants were employed full-time (46.1 % outside of

home and 5.0 % from home), a fifth were employed part-

time (14.1 % outside of the home and 4.6 % from home),

and a fifth (20 %) were not currently employed. Approxi-

mately 10 % of participants elected not to provide demo-

graphic information.

Procedure

A survey was created and distributed online using Sur-

veyGizmo. Participants were mainly recruited for our study

through Amazon Mechanical Turk (MTurk). MTurk is an

online source that can be used to recruit participants who

are paid a nominal amount to complete a number of pos-

sible tasks, including research surveys. Research has sug-

gested that data from MTurk has a similar level of

reliability to data from other recruitment sources (Buhr-

mester et al. 2011). When our survey was selected, par-

ticipants were taken to an introductory page on the website

SurveyGizmo containing our consent form; once consent

was given, participants completed the survey and then were

shown a debriefing statement. Participants were paid a

nominal sum (i.e., $0.50) through MTurk for their time and

participation upon completion of the survey. Other partic-

ipants were recruited through online parenting blogs, and

social media sites, such as Facebook and Tumblr, and were

not compensated for completing the questionnaire. A link

was posted to each site that led participants to an informed

consent form prior to taking the survey and presented them

with an electronic debriefing form at the close of the

survey.

Measures

Parenting Beliefs

The Intensive Parenting Attitudes Questionnaire (IPAQ)

has 25 items and 5 scales: Essentialism (e.g., ‘‘Although

fathers may mean well, they generally are not as good at

parenting as mothers.’’); Fulfillment (e.g., ‘‘Being a parent

brings a person the greatest joy they can possibly experi-

ence’’); Stimulation (e.g., ‘‘Finding the best educational

opportunities for children is important as early as pre-

school’’); Challenging (e.g., ‘‘It is harder to be a good

mother than to be a corporate executive’’), and Child-

centered (e.g., ‘‘Children’s needs should come before their

parents’’; Liss et al. 2013). Questions were answered on a

6-point scale from 1 (strongly disagree) to 6 (strongly

agree). In the original development of the scale internal

consistency was good based on Cronbach’s alpha for

Essentialism (a = .85), Fulfillment (a = .77), Challenging (a = .76), and Child-centered (a = .70) as well as ade- quate for Stimulation (a = .64). In the current study, Cronbach’s alpha was .87 for Essentialism, .68 for Chal-

lenging, .78 for Child-centered, and .72 for Stimulation.

One item was inadvertently left out of the on-line measure

for the three item Fulfillment scale, and it was, therefore,

omitted from further analysis.

Anticipatory Problem Solving

Behaviors indicative of overparenting were assessed using

the APS scale of an overparenting measure (Segrin et al.

2012). The APS scale was selected because it best opera-

tionalized behaviors that might occur as a result of inten-

sive parenting beliefs. This scale consists of 12 items (e.g.,

‘‘I try to help my child steer clear of any troubles that s/he

might encounter in the world.’’) measured on a scale of 1

(strongly disagree) to 5 (strongly agree). The reliability of

this measure was .87 in the original study and .88 in the

current study.

Structured Activities

We asked parents to indicate the number of hours per week

(0–10) that they enrolled their children in both creative

(e.g., music lessons, art classes, etc.) and physical activities

(e.g., gymnastics, soccer, t-ball, etc.).

Gross and Fine Motor Skills

We created a measure to assess gross (e.g., ‘‘Jump rope’’)

and fine motor skills (e.g., ‘‘Cuts paper with scissors’’)

based on developmental milestones for children ages 2–5

from the Child Development Review (Ireton 1996). Parents

responded to the 33-item list answering whether or not

their child could do the activities. The number of affir-

mative responses were summed for both gross and fine

motor skills yielding reliable measures of these skills;

Cronbach’s alphas were of .85 and .90, respectively.

Language Usage

A parent report measure of children’s language usage

adapted from the MacArthur Communicative Development

Inventory by the Early Childhood Longitudinal Survey–

Birth Cohort (ECLS-B 2014) was used. It consisted of 6

questions asking parents to rate their child’s general com-

munication skills (e.g., ‘‘Child uses appropriate social

greetings’’) on a 5-point scale from 0 (not at all) to 5

(always). In the current study, Cronbach’s alpha was .82.

2326 J Child Fam Stud (2015) 24:2322–2331

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Subjective Happiness Scale

This was a 4-item scale that measured global subjective

happiness (Lyubomirsky and Lepper 1997). We converted

this self-report measure into parent-report of child’s hap-

piness. Parents responded to choices on a 7-point scale with

different descriptive anchors (e.g., In general, I consider

my child: 1 (not a very happy child) to 7 (a very happy

child). The scale had an alpha of .80 in the original study

and .83 in the current study.

Results

The means, standard deviations, and ranges for partici-

pants’ scores for all measures can be found in Table 1.

Participants scored relatively high on the IPAQ scales for

being child-centered, providing constant stimulation for

children, and finding parenting challenging. However,

endorsement for mothers being the essential parent was

generally low with the group average falling below the

mid-point on the scale. In terms of parenting behaviors,

parents scored above the average on APS; however, chil-

dren between the ages of 2 and 5 years old were in \2 h each of creative and physical activities. Although there was

variability among participants in child outcomes, the

average levels of gross motor, fine motor, and language

skills as well as subjective happiness were above the mid-

point.

Partial correlations among all variables can be found in

Table 2. Variance due to the age of the child was partialed

out to control for the natural developmental progression on

outcome variables due to age (i.e., older children would be

expected to score higher regardless of parenting beliefs and

behaviors). Other than essentialism and stimulation, the

IPAQ scales were highly correlated with each other, and all

of the IPAQ scales had a strong correlation with the APS.

However, the parenting beliefs and behaviors examined in

this study had only small relationships to relatively few of

the child outcomes under examination. Essentialist beliefs

were related to slightly lower fine motor skills. Beliefs in

the importance of providing constant stimulation for chil-

dren were associated with slightly higher scores on child’s

language use and happiness. Participants who reported that

they find parenting to be challenging also reported having

children who were happier. Finally, parents who believed

that they should be more child-centered also reported

putting their children in more hours of creative and phys-

ical activities per week. In terms of parenting behaviors,

parents who reported more APS also put their children in

more creative activities. Participating in these creative

activities was associated with being enrolled in more

physical activities and having better gross motor skills.

Although parenting beliefs and behaviors were not highly

correlated with child outcomes, positive child outcomes

tended to be related to each other; parents who reported

that their children had better motor skills also tended to

report higher language and happiness scores as well.

Path analysis with maximum likelihood estimation was

used to test our hypothesized model (see Fig. 1) using

M-plus version 6.12 (Muthén and Muthén 1998–2010).

The effects of age on each variable were controlled for, and

variables at the same level of the model were allowed to

intercorrelate. The model had good fit to the data,

v2(28) = 31.78, p = .28; CFI = .996; RMSEA = .03; SRMR = .04 (see Fig. 2 for standardized path loadings).

While the model fit well, we did not find many of the

relationships among the modeled variables that we had

anticipated. Three of the IPAQ scales, essentialism, stim-

ulation, and child-centered, predicted APS. As hypothe-

sized, APS did positively predict child involvement in both

creative and physical activities. However, the only signif-

icant relationship between activity involvement and the

outcome variables was a positive relationship between

involvement in physical activities and gross motor skills.

Discussion

In this study, we had anticipated a path wherein intensive

parenting beliefs would predict APS, which would predict

enrolling children in structured activities, which would, in

turn, predict increased skills. We found partial support for

this model, but little prediction of gains in children’s skills.

The intensive parenting components of essentialism,

stimulation, and child-centered did predict APS. Parents

Table 1 Means, standard deviations, and ranges for measured variables

Measures M (SD) Possible

range

Actual

range

1. IPAQ-essentialism 2.40 (0.95) 1.00–6.00 1.00–5.00

2. IPAQ-stimulation 4.78 (0.93) 1.00–6.00 1.00–6.00

3. IPAQ-challenging 4.24 (0.89) 1.00–6.00 1.00–6.00

4. IPAQ-child centered 3.92 (1.15) 1.00–6.00 1.00–6.00

5. Anticipatory problem

solving

3.37 (.71) 1.00–5.00 1.00–5.00

6. Creative activities 1.82 (2.53) 0.00–10.00 0.00–10.00

7. Physical activities 1.69 (2.30) 0.00–10.00 0.00–10.00

8. Gross motor 11.00

(3.69)

0.00–17.00 0.00–17.00

9. Fine motor 11.18

(4.22)

0.00–16.00 0.00–16.00

10. Language 2.93 (0.68) 0.00–4.00 0.00–4.00

11. Subjective happiness 5.32 (0.85) 1.00–7.00 3.00–7.00

J Child Fam Stud (2015) 24:2322–2331 2327

123

who desire to create a child-centered environment where

children are consistently intellectually stimulated may be

more likely to try to anticipate and solve problems for their

children. To date, much of the research on APS focuses on

adult children, for whom APS is more clearly develop-

mentally inappropriate (e.g., Segrin et al. 2012). APS is

clearly a tactic frequently used by parents of younger

children as the average score was above the midpoint of the

scale and is related to intensive parenting beliefs.

Anticipatory problem solving also predicted engage-

ment in both structured creative and physical structured

activities. It could be that one problem that parents hope to

solve for their young children is how to fill up their time.

Furthermore, parents may view engagement in structured

activities as skill building, designed to solve potential

future problems by ensuring that their children excel in

both the cognitive and motor domains. They may also hope

that these activities will make their children happy and,

thus, improve their level of subjective happiness.

However, our model showed almost no links between

participating in cognitive and motor activities and improved

skill levels or happiness. Although there was a link between

participation in physical activities and gross motor skills, no

other links between structured activities and motor, cogni-

tive, or emotional benefits were found. Thus, parents who

are trying to anticipate and solve future problems by

enrolling their children in activities that would allow them to

gain critical skills for social and academic success may find

that these activities have little or no effect. In addition, many

activities that pre-school students may be enrolled in are

time intensive and expensive. Engaging in them may con-

tribute to the sense that parenting is expensive, challenging,

Table 2 Summary of partial correlations among measured variables controlling for age of child

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10

1. IPAQ-essentialism –

2. IPAQ-stimulation .02 –

3. IPAQ-challenging .31*** .48*** –

4. IPAQ-child centered .26*** .51*** .40*** –

5. Anticipatory problem solving .21** .50*** .33*** .55*** –

6. Creative activities .12 .11 .05 .18** .17** –

7. Physical activities .05 .13 -.002 .15* .16 .52*** –

8. Gross motor -.02 .13 .06 .09 .05 .20** .32*** –

9. Fine motor -.15* .08 -.02 -.06 -.10 .10 .14 .61*** –

10. Language -.06 .15* .13 .02 .03 .06 .11 .37*** .42*** –

11. Subjective Happiness .02 .14* .14* .12 .10 .10 .10 .31*** .23*** .28***

N = 203; * p \ .05; ** p \ .01; *** p \ .001

Fig. 2 Final path model of the relationships among the

variables of interest. The fit of

the model to the data was good,

v2(28) = 31.78, p = .28; CFI = .996; RMSEA = .03;

SRMR = .04. Standardized

path coefficients are reported.

Variables at the same level of

the model were allowed to

intercorrelate, and the effects of

age on all the variables was

controlled for (relationships not

pictured). *p \ .05; **p \ .01; ***p \ .001

2328 J Child Fam Stud (2015) 24:2322–2331

123

and time consuming. It may be that parents enroll children in

these activities at the expense of allowing children to par-

ticipate in unstructured play with parents or peers. However,

unstructured play has been shown to have positive benefits

for both parents and children (Ginsburg 2007; Milteer and

Ginsburg 2012).

Examination of the bivariate correlations also indicated

few direct relationships between intensive parenting beliefs

and child outcomes. There was a small negative relation-

ship between a belief in the mother as the essential parent

and fine motor skills. There were also small positive rela-

tionships between the belief in the importance of intellec-

tual stimulation and language as well as between both

stimulation and the belief that parenting is challenging and

subjective happiness. It makes sense that the belief that

parents should provide intellectual stimulation to their

children would relate to language abilities. However, it is

important to note that this benefit was not mediated by

enrolling a child in structured activities in order to promote

language. Promoting language can be as simple and cost

efficient as talking to and reading to children (Weisleder

and Fernald 2013), rather than enrolling them in expensive

and time-consuming activities.

Research has consistently shown that parental involve-

ment has positive benefits on children’s social, academic,

and developmental outcomes (e.g., Neisser et al. 1996;

Hart and Risley 1995; Weisleder and Fernald 2013);

however, our study does not indicate that such involvement

needs to include expensive and time consuming activities

for pre-school aged children. We did not specifically doc-

ument any negative effects of overinvolvement; however,

research does indicate that involvement in too many

extracurricular activities among school-aged children can

be related to negative outcomes (Fredricks 2012; Fredricks

and Eccles 2010). The desire to enroll children in such

activities appears to be part of a belief that parenting

should be intensive, expensive, and time-consuming and

that parents should anticipate and solve their children’s

problems. Although we did not find any directly negative

effects associated with APS, parents who attempt to

anticipate and solve their children’s problems as their

children age are more likely to have adult children with

mental health difficulties (Segrin et al. 2012).

It should be noted that the families in this study were

largely middle and upper-middle class. The pressures on

parents to ‘‘cultivate’’ children and ensure their optimal

success have been described as being concentrated on this

socio-demographic group (Lareau 2002). It is not clear

whether the lack of relationship we found between

involvement in activities and cognitive or motor skills

would also been seen in different demographic groups. It

may be that our middle and upper-middle class families are

already at the top of the inverted U-shaped curve of

involvement such that further engagement in activities does

not result in additional benefit. Children that have very

uninvolved parents may benefit from engaging in struc-

tured outside activities such as those they may receive in

early intervention programs (e.g. Protzko et al. 2013;

Sparling et al. 2005).

In addition, the results of our study should be interpreted

in light of the limitations associated with self-report data.

Future research should consider using direct assessments of

children’s language or motor skills to determine more

clearly whether intensive parenting attitudes or engaging in

structured activities relate to increased skill levels. It

should also be noted that all of the relationships are cor-

relational and, while we modeled a specific causal direc-

tion, it is probable that the relationships we measured work

in both directions. For example, the positive relationship

between participation in motor activities and gross motor

skills may indicate that those activities improve gross

motor skills, but is just as likely to indicate that parents of

children with advanced gross motor skills are more likely

to enroll their children in sports-related activities.

In sum, parents feel a lot of pressure to provide constant

activities for their children in an attempt to ‘‘cultivate’’

them and optimize their developmental outcomes. This

desire is related to intensive parenting beliefs, a set of

beliefs that includes the ideas that parenting should be

child-centered, involve intellectual stimulation, be chal-

lenging, and primarily involve the mother (Hays 1996; Liss

et al. 2013). Intensive parenting has been linked to poor

mental health consequences for mothers (Rizzo et al.

2013), but some parents may consider it to be worth sac-

rificing their own mental health if it would ensure their

children’s optimal development. We found intensive par-

enting beliefs to predict APS, which may be a precursor to

overinvolved, helicopter parenting if parents do not learn to

let children solve their own problems as they become more

developmentally mature (Segrin et al. 2012). In older

children, APS has been linked coping deficits and narcis-

sism (Segrin et al. 2013). Our results indicate that intensive

parenting beliefs, APS, and engagement in structured

activities have few beneficial effects on child outcomes, at

least among the largely middle and upper middle class

participants in our study. Thus, parents may wish to re-

think their emphasis on concerted cultivation and the

expense and effort that it requires.

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