Close ties between parents and babies are good for families — and society, too — according to a study that tracked children from infancy to preschool.

Children who had positive relationships with parents as babies and toddlers showed more patience, restraint and maturity at the age of 4, according to researchers at the University of Iowa.

The study looked at 102 mostly white families, including mothers, fathers and babies, starting when the child was 7 months old. Researchers visited their homes to determine the quality of parent-and-child relationships, including how in sync they were, how well they picked up each other’s cues and how much they enjoyed each other’s company.

When the kids were 4, they were asked to do certain tasks requiring self-control, such as being told by a parent not to do something when Mom or Dad left the room or to hold a piece of candy in their mouths without eating it.

The children who scored highest in terms of their relationship to their parents performed much better on the tasks. The reason is that, when parents and babies are close, mothers don’t need to use forceful discipline with their children later on. The more subtle the mom’s relationship, the more compliant and better behaved the children were as preschoolers, researchers believe.

“Your investment in building a mutually responsive, positive, close relationship early on will generate considerable payoff several years later,” said Grazyna Kochanska, a developmental psychology professor and lead author of the study, which appeared in the journal Child Development.

Source: The Star-Ledger - NJ.com, NJ
http://blog.nj.com/parentalguidance/2008/03/study_finds_babies_benefit_fro.html