Prioritizing Children’s Well-Being: Child-Centrism and Parent and Relationship Outcomes

Child-centrism is a highly endorsed parenting approach in which parents prioritize their children’s well-being over their own. Despite initial evidence that child-centrism may promote better parenting experiences—particularly for mothers—research has yet to examine child-centrism in fathers, and test whether these benefits extend to other aspects of parent well-being (e.g., health, sleep), or relationships within the family system (i.e., parent-child, romantic, and coparenting relationships). Thus, in this mixed method dissertation, I provided a nuanced examination of mother and father child-centrism, including its manifestations, motivations, and potential consequences for parents and family relationships. In Study 1 (N = 192 parents from the U.S.), I demonstrated that mothers and fathers interpret and respond to the child-centrism scale similarly and established the validity of child-centrism measures included in all studies. Across three studies, including an online mixed method study of American parents (N = 195), and in-depth interview studies with Canadian (Study 3a; N = 26) and Swiss (Study 3b; N = 40) parents, I conducted gender comparisons of child-centrism endorsement, and identified qualitative themes among parents’ child-centric behaviors and motivations, and their impact on parents’ well-being and relationships. In the next three studies, I analyzed two sets of triadic data (Study 4 and 5b; N = 2009 couples and 960 of their children, Study 5a; N = 178 couples and their children) to examine mother and father trajectories of child-centrism over time and reveal how within-couple (mis)matches in child-centrism are linked with parent well-being and relationship outcomes. Four key findings emerged, including that (1) mothers and fathers endorse child-centrism to a similar extent, (2) child-centrism normatively declines as children age, (3) mothers are particularly expected to be child-centric and exhibit different manifestations and motivations of child-centrism than fathers, and (4) child-centrism was a mixed blessing for parents, associated with benefits and costs for their well-being, and their parent-child, romantic, and coparenting relationships. Overall, this research suggests that mother and father child-centrism are both impactful for shaping family well-being and highlights the importance of studying parenting constructs at the dyadic level and across the whole family system.

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