ABSTRACT
Parenting is a dynamic, multiply determined process that is influenced by a range of extra-familial and intra-familial factors. This chapter discusses the "genetics" of parenting by outlining how genetically informed designs can provide important information for parenting research. It describes various genetically informed research designs and discusses the utility of each. The chapter summarizes extant literature of the genetics of parenting during infancy and early childhood (ages birth-6 years), middle childhood (ages 6-10 years), and adolescence (ages 10-18 years). It also describes contemporary approaches for studying parenting from a behavioral genetics perspective. During the late 1970s and early 1980s, researchers began thinking about gene-environment interplay. Two early twin studies found heritable effects on adolescent twins’ reports of accepting and rejecting parenting—a construct that had been previously assumed to be a measure of the environment. The field of behavioral genetics has seen major growth in theory and method since the publication of the field’s namesake text in 1960.
