Diminishing demandingness of parents; children with recurrent infections

Abstract

Background and Method: Parenting and parenting styles are in favor of authoritative parents compared with non-authoritative parents. These parents display higher levels of both responsiveness and demandingness. We studied the aspect of demandingness using a questionnaire aimed at children aged between 1 and 4 years. 82 Children with recurrent respiratory infections (RRI) and 399 control children were included. Results: Parents of RRI children regulated the quantitative dietary intake of their child less; likewise they gave less stimulation to their children to eat. They also taught their children less on what they can or cannot touch and they argued more with their children (all p < 0.05). However, when it comes to simple rules like watching television or not, the parents of RRI children were very clear. There were however no differences in rules about television watching, computer time or bedtimes. Conclusions: Our study shows that parents of children with RRI are less demanding in complex pedagogic situations that ask for creativity from the parents. However, they are demanding with respect to simple rules. We found no child factors that could explain why children give their parents a hard time. We hypothesize that the parents of RRI children could be less capable of handling complex pedagogic situations (even more complicated by the infections) instead of being unwilling.