Help-Seeking and Help-Giving: Impact of Childhood Food Allergy on Autonomy Development and Parenting Practices

Abstract

During early childhood, parents play a key role in supporting children?s autonomy development; however, some parenting practices are more effective for scaffolding autonomy than others. Highly involved and protective parenting behaviors are particularly concerning as they may interfere with optimal autonomy development. Parents of children with food allergy may be vulnerable to reliance on such parenting behaviors as they are medically warranted in domains related to food allergy; however, they may overgeneralize to unrelated domains and inadvertently interfere with autonomy development. Therefore, the current study explored the impact of food allergy on children and parents by asking: 1) whether mothers of young children with food allergy are more likely than mothers of healthy children to demonstrate highly involved and protective parenting behaviors in domains unrelated to food allergy and 2) whether young children with food allergy evidence less autonomy than healthy peers during structured interaction with their mothers. Mother-child dyads participated in a memory game task adapted from the developmental and clinical literature. Maternal help-giving and child help-seeking was observed. Mothers of younger children (i.e., 3- and 4-year-olds) were significantly more likely to engage in over-involvement during the memory game task than mothers of older children (i.e., 5- and 6-year-olds). Younger children demonstrated significantly more indirect help-seeking in the memory game task than older children, regardless of health status. Broadly, the current study contributes to the current literature on parenting practices and child development.