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Columns::October 7, 2002
Pillar to pillar: J.W. Fanning Building will be dedicated on Oct. 10
Former education professor leaves UGA $1.7 million
D.W. Brooks Award winners announced
Report: Agreements insufficient to contain weapons of mass destruction
Tricia Kalivoda is named associate VP designee for public service and outreach
An ill wind: Researchers link human illness to sludge fertilizer
UGA welcomes new faculty
Sitting in judgment
Take it from the top
Campus News
Study: Moms in poor, rural areas can rise above their surroundings
By Kim Carlyle
kosborne@uga.edu
Good parenting style and a positive personal outlook can help single black mothers in poor, rural areas raise children who do well in school and cope well with life in general, according to new research conducted at the University of Georgia.
Despite poor surroundings and little access to services, single black mothers in rural areas can raise socially and emotionally competent children, concluded Gene H. Brody, Distinguished Research Professor of Child and Family Development, in a study in the September/October issue of Child Development.
The mothers in the study who had good self-esteem and who were more often optimistic than depressed also were more likely to implement good parenting practices--talking with their children, knowing what their children were doing and where they were, and generally supervising them. These factors were linked to children who developed good self-regulation, which in turn predicted performing well in school, handling social situations well and staying out of trouble.
“Active involvement in discussions with parents leads children to perceive that they have input into the norms that govern their behavior,” Brody says. “This increases the likelihood that the children will behave in accordance with those norms in their parents’ absence and evince higher levels of self-regulation.”
Self-regulation is defined as the ability to set and attain goals, to consider the consequences of actions and to plan a course of action and persist in it.
The study included three sets of interviews, in three years, with the mothers and teachers of 150 children who were 11 years old when the study began. Three quarters of the families had incomes below the poverty level as set by the U.S. Census Bureau.
The study showed that mothers with more years of formal education had higher incomes but also higher levels of self-esteem and optimism. They were less likely to be depressed. They were, in turn, more likely to be supportive and involved in their children’s lives and to engage them in regular conversations.
“Children approaching early adolescence are more inclined to adopt parental norms and values when they and their parents openly discuss issues and potential areas of disagreement as part of the flow of daily events," says Brody. “Such discussions have been found to promote the development of conventional standards of conduct.”
Over their lifetimes, children who are able to set goals, plan how to attain them and work persistently toward them are better able to adapt to their environment and develop their potential.
“Implicit in this study’s theory and design is the idea that involved, vigilant, supportive home environments provide a context that fosters the development of these abilities, a hypothesis that our prospective findings support,” says Brody.
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