ABSTRACT
Effective parents are sensitive and responsive to children. Although conceptions of parental sensitivity and responsiveness vary, these qualities recur in one guise or another in most analyses of why some children develop more favorably than others. An impressive volume of research has demonstrated the importance of responsive parenting to child development. Compared with children of unresponsive parents, children of responsive parents develop better socially. They form more secure attachments with their parents (Ainsworth, Bleher, Waters, & Wall, 1978; Belsky, Rovine, & Taylor, 1984; Crockenberg, 1981; Smith & Pederson, 1988), are more cooperative with adults (Maccoby & Martin, 1983; Parpal & Maccoby, 1985), are more socially attentive and engaging (Brazelton & Tronick, 1980; Field, 1977), and display greater general social competence (Bakeman & Brown, 1980; Baumrind, 1989; Clarke-Stewart, 1973). Children of responsive parents also develop better cognitively. They explore and engage objects better (Ainsworth, 1979; Goldberg & Easterbrooks, 1984; Jennings, Harmon, Morgan, Gaiter, & Yarrow, 1979), are more active, persistent, and competent during problem solving (Skinner, 1986; Sroufe, 1979; Sroufe & Waters, 1977), and have greater general cognitive ability (Bakeman & Brown, 1980; Baumrind, 1989; Bournstein, 1989; Lyons-Ruth, Connell, & Zoll, 1989). They are more advanced than other children in language development (Clarke-Stewart, 1973) and more mature in their play (Jennings et al., 1979). Lack of responsiveness, furthermore, characterizes parenting in a variety of dysfunctional families from which children are known to be at risk for serious cognitive and behavioral problems (Lyons-Ruth, Connell, & Zoll, 1989; Crittenden & Ainsworth, 1989).
