Background: Definitions of child maltreatment vary widely between studies, and even more so between different cultural contexts. Objective: In this pilot study, we examine between-country variations in maternal notions about what constitutes child maltreatment. Participants and setting: The sample consisted of 466 mothers recruited in Chile, China, Greece, Iran, the Netherlands, Portugal, South Africa, Turkey, ...
Maternal attachment representations have been investigated in relation to sensitivity and emotional support, but rarely in relation to other important areas of daily parent–child interactions in early childhood, like limit setting and discipline strategies. This study investigates maternal attachment representations in relation to parenting sensitive and discipline behaviours. The sample consists of 37 Portugue...
In this paper we test the hypothesis that beliefs about the ideal mother are convergent across cultures and that these beliefs overlap considerably with attachment theory’s notion of the sensitive mother. In a sample including 26 cultural groups from 15 countries around the globe, 751 mothers sorted the Maternal Behavior Q-Set to reflect their ideas about the ideal mother. The results show strong convergence be...
Socioeconomic disadvantage is an important predictor of maternal harsh discipline, but few studies have examined risk mechanisms for harsh parenting within disadvantaged samples. In the present study, parenting stress, family conflict, and child difficult temperament are examined as predictors of maternal harsh discipline among a group of 58 mothers from socioeconomically disadvantaged backgrounds and their you...
This study tested the attachment-based intervention program Video-feedback Intervention to promote Positive Parenting and Sensitive Discipline (VIPP-SD) in a randomized controlled trial with poor families of toddlers screened for professional’s concerns about the child’s caregiving environment. The VIPP-SD is an evidence-based intervention, but has not yet been tested in the context of poverty. The sample inclu...
This study tested the effectiveness of the attachment-based program Video-feedback Intervention to promote Positive Parenting and Sensitive Discipline (VIPP-SD; F. Juffer, M.J. Bakermans-Kranenburg, & M.H. van IJzendoorn, 2008) in decreasing harsh discipline of 43 mothers and their 1- to 4-year-old-children from severely deprived families. Based on previous studies, parenting stress was tested as a potential mo...
This study tested the attachment-based intervention program Video-feedback Intervention to promote Positive Parenting and Sensitive Discipline (VIPP-SD) in a randomized controlled trial with poor families of toddlers screened for professional's concerns about the child's caregiving environment. The VIPP-SD is an evidence-based intervention, but has not yet been tested in the context of poverty. The sample inclu...