University of Amsterdam, Research Institute of Child Development and Education, Amsterdam, The Netherlands.
Oxford University, Department of Social Policy and Intervention, Oxford, UK.
Res Child Adolesc Psychopathol. 2024 Jan;52(1):79-92. doi: 10.1007/s10802-023-01073-w. Epub 2023 May 19.
Consistent discipline is thought to reduce early child externalizing behavior. It is unclear, however, whether consistency is important mainly within episodes of misbehavior (e.g., threatening with discipline but then giving in) or across episodes of misbehavior (e.g., disciplining each instance of misbehavior). Using a daily diary approach, we examine whether these two types of consistency are associated with disruptive child behavior, concurrently and prospectively. We included two samples (Sample 1: N = 134, M = 30 months, 44% girls; Sample 2: N = 149, M = 5.88 years; 46% girls, at-risk sample) with daily reports of child disruptive behavior and parental responses (Sample 1 = 7 days; Sample 2 = 14 days). Sample 1 parents additionally reported on their reactions over the past month and their child's externalizing behavior one year later. Within-episode consistency was assessed by the average number of parental reactions per episode; across-episode consistency by the Index of Qualitative Variation; and general consistency by parents' report of how they had responded to child disruptive behavior in the past month. In both samples correlations between within- and across-episode consistency were significant, but not so strong that they were not differentiated. Again in both samples, regression analyses provided evidence for unique predictive value of across-episode, not within-episode, consistency for daily disruptive behavior. Parental general consistency was longitudinally associated with fewer externalizing problems, whereas within- and across-episode consistency were not. It appears meaningful to differentiate within- from across-episode consistency to better understand the relevance of different aspects of consistency.
一致的纪律被认为可以减少儿童早期的外化行为。然而，尚不清楚一致性是主要在行为不当的发作内（例如，威胁纪律但随后让步）重要，还是在行为不当的发作之间（例如，对每次不当行为进行纪律处分）重要。我们使用日常日记法来检查这两种类型的一致性是否与破坏性儿童行为相关，无论是并发还是前瞻性的。我们包括两个样本（样本 1：N = 134，M = 30 个月，44%为女孩；样本 2：N = 149，M = 5.88 岁；46%为女孩，高危样本），这些样本每天报告儿童破坏性行为和父母的反应（样本 1 = 7 天；样本 2 = 14 天）。样本 1 的父母还报告了过去一个月的反应和他们孩子的一年后的外化行为。发作内一致性通过每个发作中父母反应的平均数量来评估；发作间一致性通过定性变异指数来评估；父母对过去一个月中如何应对孩子破坏性行为的报告来评估一般一致性。在两个样本中，发作内和发作间一致性之间的相关性都是显著的，但并不强到无法区分。同样，在两个样本中，回归分析都为发作间一致性而不是发作内一致性对每日破坏性行为的独特预测价值提供了证据。父母的一般一致性与较少的外化问题相关，而发作内和发作间一致性则没有。看来区分发作内和发作间一致性以更好地理解一致性的不同方面的相关性是有意义的。
