Social Support Can Help Break the Cycle of Adversity

Last month, we began looking at the importance of social support for parents and their children. Throughout December, we’ll be taking a closer look at the mechanisms through which social support benefits families—specifically, by buffering parents and their children from the negative effects that persistent stress can have on social and emotional development.

Friends & family can keep stress from interfering with parenting! Tweet this!

Social support encourages positive parenting.

From the time they’re born, infants are social beings with an innate drive to engage with others. They send nonverbal cues to indicate when they want attention, need a rest, or feel anxious. How parents respond to these cues can have long-term effects on social and emotional development. Sensitive and responsive parenting provides a baby with a sense of safety and security that encourages healthy development and serves as the foundation for positive relationships throughout life.

Unfortunately, negative life circumstances, such as poverty or poor mental health, can interfere with parents’ ability to meet their children’s for social and emotional needs. One factor that has received less attention is social support. Social support refers to the informal, unpaid emotional or practical assistance that parents receive from relatives, friends, coworkers, or neighbors.

Social support helps parents cope with stress.

Social support has been linked to positive and effective parenting. The primary reason that social support is associated with better parenting is that parents with higher levels of social support are better able to cope with stress. Stress can be directly related to parenting—for example, dissatisfaction with parental responsibilities, negative perceptions of the parent-child relationship, or feelings of incompetence as a parent. Additionally, stress that originates in other areas of life (work or marriage, for instance) can have negative effects that spill over into the parenting domain.

More stress often means less time and energy for parenting.

Both types of stress can interfere with effective parenting. Research has linked parental stress with insecure child attachment, harsh discipline, decreased parental involvement, and other outcomes that threaten children’s social and emotional development. This can create a cycle of adversity: Children without strong social and emotional skills are likely to become adults who find it difficult to create and maintain a supportive social network. This increases the likelihood that they will engage in ineffective parenting with their own children.

Social support is often overlooked in efforts to help at-risk families.

Our community can benefit from an increased awareness of the importance of social support. A strong social support network of friends and family who are available in times of need can keep stress from interfering with parenting quality, buffer children from poor social and emotional outcomes, and prevent the negative effects of life adversities from being passed along to the next generation.

Although the body of research on social support remains relatively small, there is convincing evidence that programs like support groups and home visitation interventions can increase parents’ social support. Additionally, parental education efforts should include a focus on support building as well as recognizing stress and minimizing its effects on parenting.