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The views of parents who experience intergenerational poverty on parenting and play: a qualitative analysis

Version 2 2024-06-03, 09:03
Version 1 2015-07-16, 03:58
journal contribution
posted on 2024-06-03, 09:03 authored by RL Smith, Karen StagnittiKaren Stagnitti, AJ Lewis, Genevieve PepinGenevieve Pepin
BACKGROUND: There is minimal literature on how parents experiencing intergenerational poverty view their role as parents and the value they place on children's play. The objective of this study was to examine how these parents view their parenting role and their beliefs about children's play. METHODS: Thirteen mothers of preschool-aged children who experienced intergenerational poverty were recruited to the study. Semi-structured interviews were conducted and were analysed using interpretive phenomenological analysis. RESULTS: Parents described their role as guiding their children to become 'good' people, to teach them skills and provide a routine within the home. There were two disconnections in the data including the view that whilst parenting was hard and lonely, it was also a private matter and participants preferred not to seek support. A second disconnection was in terms of their beliefs about play. Parents believed that whilst play was valuable to their child's development, it was not their role to play with children. However, if parents did play with their child, they noticed positive changes in their child's behaviour. CONCLUSION: The views of parents who experienced intergenerational poverty were similar to other reported findings in parenting studies. However, the current sample differed on not seeking help for support as well as not seeing their role as playing with their children, even though occasions of joining their child in play were associated with a positive change in their relationship with their child. This has implications for communicating about parenting issues with parents who have experienced intergenerational poverty.

History

Journal

Child care health and development

Volume

41

Pagination

873-881

Location

London, Eng.

ISSN

1355-5626

eISSN

1365-2214

Language

eng

Publication classification

C1 Refereed article in a scholarly journal, C Journal article

Copyright notice

2015, Wiley

Issue

6

Publisher

Wiley