Association between knowledge of child development and parenting: a systematic review

Abstract

BACKGROUND: Parents who understand early child development are better informed on how to respond to children’s needs. They are also in a better position to identify developmental delays as opposed to a parent with less knowledge of child development. OBJECTIVE: The aim of the review was to systematically appraise quantitative studies to establish the association between knowledge of child development and parenting styles. METHODS: A comprehensive search, through databases namely: Ebscohost (Academic search complete, Africa-Wide information, PsychArticles, SocIndex, Cinahl), JStor, Sciencedirect, Springerlink, Pubmed and Sage was conducted in August 2014 for the previous 12 years. The methodological quality of the studies were independently evaluated and reviewed by two reviewers. RESULTS: The findings indicate that there is an association between knowledge of child development and parenting styles. While there is an association it may be more of a moderating factor. CONCLUSION: Future studies may benefit from using other forms of assessment in con-junction with self report assessments.