Hedwig Ja van Bakel

• Tilburg University

Music training positively influences the cognitive ability of children. However, it is unclear whether music training can offer skills beyond music performance. We aim to develop a new perspective on the transfer of music training through the development of self-regulation skills. Previous studies indicated that music training relates positively to...

Abstract Eminent musicians like Paul McCartney and Brian May are often accomplished multi-creative achievers in diverse domains, suggesting that music training may foster multi-creativity in areas such as art and science. We propose that acquiring creative self-regulation skills is key for (multi)creative achievement. Previous studies indicate that...

Parent–child coregulation, the active dyadic adaptation of biological states, behaviors, and emotions, is an important developmental process. Especially in challenging situations, children need coregulatory support from their parents, which supports the formation of their self-regulation skills. While research has established that coregulation occu...

Under usual circumstances, without a global pandemic, numerous parents might encounter stress associated with their roles as caregivers. However, with the added impact of the health crisis and the widespread adoption of lockdown measures, family routines were disrupted as many parents found themselves spending more time at home. Most caregivers had...

Background The complex identity changes women have to go through to become mothers makes it a challenging transitional period. Especially, mothers who have experienced childhood adversity (ACEs) may be vulnerable to poor adjustment to motherhood. However, support from a partner, family and friends can act as a buffer to cope with this challenging t...

Objectives. Parental burnout is a relatively newly studied phenomena characterized by exhaustion in one’s parental role, emotional distance from children and low parental self-esteem. Parental Burnout Assessment (PBA) is the current gold-standard instrument for the measurement of parental burnout (PB). The aim of this study is to examine the psych...

Parental burnout (PB) is a pervasive phenomenon. Parenting is embedded in cultural values, and previous research has shown the role of individualism in PB. In this paper, we reanalyze previously collected data to identify profiles based on the four dimensions of PB, and explore whether these profiles vary across countries’ levels of collectivistic-...

Purpose The prevalence of parental burnout, a condition that has severe consequences for both parents and children, varies dramatically across countries and is highest in Western countries characterized by high individualism. Method In this study, we examined the mediators of the relationship between individualism measured at the country level and...

What is it to be “an ideal parent”? Does the answer differ across countries and social classes? To answer these questions in a way that minimizes bias and ethnocentrism, we used open-ended questions to explore ideal-parent beliefs among 8,357 mothers and 3,517 fathers from 37 countries. Leximancer Semantic Network Analysis was utilized to first det...

Embedded within family law proceedings and the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC, 1989) there is ambiguity surrounding the terms rights, participation, best interests, and capacity. Research furthering the rights of children is necessitated across academic literature and practice. Across research, literature and practice t...

Purpose The prevalence of parental burnout, a condition that has severe consequences for both parents and children, varies dramatically across countries and is highest in Western countries characterized by high individualism. Method In this study, we examined the mediators of the relationship between individualism measured at the country level and...

Background The Covid-19 pandemic has put an unprecedented pressure on families with children. How parents were affected by the first Covid-19 lockdown during the early postpartum period, an already challenging period for many, is unknown. Aim To investigate the associations between Covid-19 related stress, mental health, and insensitive parenting...

In Western countries, recent decades have witnessed a revolution toward gender equality. Inequalities have been greatly reduced in areas such as education or employment. Because inequalities lead to distress, this development has largely benefited women. One notable exception is the realm of parenting, which has remained rife with inequalities even...

Counter-intuitively, sociodemographic characteristics account for a small proportion of explained variance in parental burnout. The present study conducted during the Covid-19 pandemic asks whether (i) sociodemographic characteristics are more predictive of parental burnout than usual in a situation of lockdown, (ii) situational factors, that is, t...

Impact and Implications The results of this unique international study by the International Investigation of Parental Burnout – which includes Western and non-Western countries across the globe – point to the importance of considering parental burnout as a syndrome helping to meet specific Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Of all the potentiall...

The COVID-19 pandemic has impacted families’ lives around the world. The measures used to contain transmission have led to increased stress and put parents at increased risk for parental burnout (PB). The aim of the current study was to examine the association between COVID-related parental stress and PB, and to test whether emotion regulation (ER)...

Parenting is recognized as a complex and stressful activity, which in recent years has been linked to the potential development of parental burnout among mothers and fathers. With the spread of COVID-19 around the globe, not only have situations of health emergency and economic difficulty emerged, but also tremendous impacts on individual lives and...

High levels of stress in the parenting domain can lead to parental burnout, a condition that has severe consequences for both parents and children. It is not yet clear, however, whether parental burnout varies by culture, and if so, why it might do so. In this study, we examined the prevalence of parental burnout in 42 countries (17,409 parents; 71...

Research has indicated that the majority of infants and toddlers prefer prosocial to antisocial agents, but little research has examined interindividual differences in children's preference. This study examined whether 24-month-olds' (n = 107) sociomoral preference was associated with attachment security or empathy, assessed with the Attachment Q-S...

The purpose of this study was to validate the Parental Burnout Inventory (PBI) in a Dutch sample of working parents. The Dutch version of the PBI and questionnaires about work were administered to 627 working parents, with at least one child living at home. We investigated whether the tri-dimensional structure of the PBI held in a sample of male an...

In order to examine (1) the stability of the mother-child-bond and (2) associations between mother-child-bonding and aspects of maternalwell-being, pregnant women (N = 170) completed measures on wellbeing and mother-child-bonding at two antepartum and two postpartum time points. We found relatively weak associations between mother-child-bonding at...

Background: Maternal postpartum distress is often construed as a marker of vulnerability to poor parenting. Less is known, however, about the impact of postpartum distress on parenting an infant born prematurely. The present study investigated whether high distress levels, which are particularly prevalent in mothers of preterm born infants, necess...

The role of mother–infant interaction quality is studied in the relation between prenatal maternal emotional symptoms and child behavioral problems. Healthy pregnant, Dutch women (N = 96, M = 31.6, SD = 3.3) were allocated to the “exposed group” (n = 46), consisting of mothers with high levels of prenatal feelings of anxiety and depression, or the...

Early executive functioning is an important predictor for future development of children’s cognitive skills and behavioral outcomes. Parenting behavior has proven to be a key environmental determinant of child executive functioning. However, the association of parental affect and cognitions directed to the child with child executive functioning has...

Aim: To compare levels of paediatric parenting stress in the fathers and mothers of young children with Type 1 diabetes and study the variation in this stress over time. Methods: One hundred and twelve parents (56 mothers and 56 fathers) of young children (0-7 years) with Type 1 diabetes participated in this study. They completed the Pediatric I...

The review summarizes the relevant literature regarding fear of childbirth. A substantial number of (pregnant) women are more or less afraid of childbirth and a significant minority; report a severe fear of childbirth. The focus will be on definition problems, its features, prevalence, assessment methods and measurements, determinants, consequences...

Conclusion: The results support the notion that diabetes does not only affect the child with T1DM: T1DM is a family disease, as parenting factors (like stress and parent-child interactions) are associated with important child outcomes. Therefore, it is important for health-care providers to not only focus on the child with T1DM, but also on the fa...

Objective: The present study examined whether early signs of maternal sensitivity can be detected during pregnancy by focusing on the maternal–fetal relationship and postnatal maternal sensitivity. Background: Earlier research has identified maternal sensitive behaviour as an important factor for the quality of the mother–infant relationship and th...

Parents' representations of their infants consist of parents' subjective experiences of how they perceive their infants. They provide important information about the quality of the parent-infant relationship and are closely related to parenting behavior and infant attachment. Previous studies have shown that parents' representations emerge during p...

In young children (0-7 years) with diabetes mellitus type 1 (T1DM), parents have full responsibility for the diabetesmanagement of their child. The tasks needed to achieve optimal blood glucose control may interfere with normal behavioral processes in childhood, which could negatively affect the parent-child interaction. Currently, there is no diab...

Research has shown that taking care of a child with type 1 diabetes (T1DM) can be stressful for parents and could have a negative effect on the parent-child interaction. It is currently unclear whether this leads to suboptimal HbA1c levels and decreased quality of life (QoL).

Background: The quality of early partner support and parenting influences later child social emotional functioning. We hypothesized that mothers with better quality of perceived postnatal partner support in infancy experience less parenting stress, which in turn results in better child self-regulatory functioning in toddlerhood. Method: Mothers (N...

SYNOPSIS: Objective. Relatively few studies have examined stability and/or change in the quality of parenting behaviors across the first years of a preterm infant’s life and how this course may differ from parents of term infants. Design. The present study examined the quality and stability of mother–infant and father–infant interaction across the...

Both prenatal and postnatal parental bonding (i.e., the affective tie from parent to child) have important effects on parental and child functioning. However, research on the continuity and correlates of parental bonding is lacking. Therefore, the goal of the present study was to examine the stability of bonding levels and to explore distinct bondi...

Objective: The present study examines the effect of infant crying on parental affect, state anxiety and parenting self-efficacy in an experimental setting. Background: Infant crying causes distress and feelings of incompetence in many parents. These frustrating parental feelings can lead to suboptimal caregiving behaviour or even child abuse. Studi...

OBJECTIVE : To examine the predictive value of parent, infant, and contextual factors related to preterm childbirth for later parenting behaviors. METHODS : Mothers (n = 217) and fathers (n = 204) of term, moderately preterm, and very preterm infants were interviewed 1 month postpartum using the Clinical Interview for Parents of high-risk infants (...

Objective: This study examined the effectiveness of hospital-based Video Interaction Guidance (VIG; Eliëns, 2010; Kennedy, Landor, & Todd, 2011) for mothers and fathers of infants born preterm (25-37 weeks of gestation). Method: VIG is a preventive video-feedback intervention to support the parent-infant relationship. One hundred fifty families...

Despite the knowledge that fathers uniquely contribute to the development of their infants, relatively few studies have focused on the father-infant relationship during early infancy. In the present longitudinal study we included 189 fathers and examined whether their early attachment representations of the infant predicted future quality of father...

Background In young children with type 1 diabetes mellitus (T1DM), parents have complete responsibility for the diabetes-management. In toddlers and (pre)schoolers, the tasks needed to achieve optimal blood glucose control may interfere with normal developmental processes and could negatively affect the quality of parent–child interaction. Several...

This prospective study examined whether or not a mother's representations of her infant were more often disrupted after premature childbirth. Furthermore, the study examined if different components of maternal interactive behavior mediated the relation between maternal disrupted representations and infant attachment. The participants were mothers o...

Objective: Research on parental attachment representations after preterm birth is limited and inconclusive. The present study is the first in which maternal and paternal attachment representations after term, moderately and very preterm birth are compared. In addition, special attention was directed toward disrupted attachment representations. Me...

Some parents fail to develop strong emotional bonds with their newborn infants. As the quality of the parent–infant relationship contributes to the infant’s development, it is of great importance to identify protective and risk factors that facilitate or impede the development of the parent–infant bond. The present study examined both infant-relate...

Studies investigating fathers' roles in child development have focused on a range of different aspects. However, few studies have focused on the early father-infant relationship, which already emerges before the child is born. The aim of this study is to examine the concordance of fathers' representations of their children during the transition to...

Background: Maternal fetal attachment has been found to be an important predictor for the developing relationship between mother and child. During the last decades, research on determinants of maternal fetal attachment has yielded inconclusive and even contradictory results. Until now, a process model in which multiple determinants of maternal feta...

Parents experience a lot of positive and negative feelings and emotions after birth. The main purpose of this study was to compare perceptions and experiences of mothers and fathers with term, moderately and very preterm infants. We included 202 infants with both parents, divided into three groups: 1) term infants (≥ 37 weeks' gestation), 2) modera...

Preterm birth places infants at increased risk for adverse developmental outcomes, with self- and affect regulation problems among the most important impairments. However, few studies have empirically examined maternal interpretation of infant affect in mothers of pre- and term infants. The current study examines how negative affect of mothers of p...

Positive attachment experiences during infancy are linked to positive developmental outcomes of children later in life. The parent–infant relationship does not start upon the birth of the child, but already evolves during pregnancy. In this exploratory study, fathers’ experiences during pregnancy are investigated, focusing on their relationship wit...

Over the past decades, attachment research has predominantly focused on the attachment relationship that infants develop with their parents or that adults had with their own parents. Far less is known about the development of feelings of attachment in parents towards their children. The present study examined a) whether a simple non-verbal (i.e., p...

Our first objective was to compare the health-related quality of life (HRQoL) of children with type 1 diabetes mellitus (8-12 years) with that of a healthy reference group, and to compare glycated hemoglobin (A1C) values of these children to recommended guidelines. Our second objective was to examine how goal disturbance and coping behaviour were r...

Research has shown that the early parent-infant relationship is of critical importance for children's developmental outcomes. While the effect of different settings on mother-infant interactive behavior is well studied, only few researchers systematically examined the effect of situational variables on mother-infant interaction. In the present stud...

Introduction: Children with type 1 diabetes mellitus (T1DM) have to deal with a complex and demanding daily treatment regime which can have a negative impact on the quality of life (QoL) of these patients. The objective of the present study is to review studies that have compared generic quality of life of children and adolescents with T1DM with t...

The development of an affectionate parent-infant bond is essential for a newborn infant's survival and development. However, from evolutionary theory it can be derived that parental bonding is not an automatic process, but dependent on infants' cues to reproductive potential and parents' access to resources. The purpose of the present study was to...

Abstract Background Studies have consistently found a high incidence of neonatal medical problems, premature births and low birth weights in abused and neglected children. One of the explanations proposed for the relation between neonatal problems and adverse parenting is a possible delay or disturbance in the bonding process between the parent and...

Background While the importance of the infant-parent relationship from the child’s perspective is acknowledged worldwide, there is still a lack of knowledge about predictors and long-term benefits or consequences of the quality of parent-infant relationships from the parent’s perspective. The purpose of this prospective study is to investigate the...

This review provides an overview of results that have been obtained in studies using the Working Model of the Child Interview (WMCI). The WMCI is a structured interview that assesses parents' internal working models of the relationship with their young children. From the current infant mental health perspective, evaluating the quality of parents' r...

The aim of this meta-analysis was to provide an up-to-date review of the literature to enhance our understanding of how chronic health conditions (CHCs) affect siblings, both positively and negatively. PsycINFO and Medline were systematically searched. Inclusion criteria were as follows: (a) peer-reviewed, empirical research report; (b) sample n ≥...

In young children with type 1 diabetes mellitus (T1DM) parents have full responsibility for the diabetes-management of their child (e.g. blood glucose monitoring, and administering insulin). Behavioral tasks in childhood, such as developing autonomy, and oppositional behavior (e.g. refusing food) may interfere with the diabetes-management to achiev...

For very preterm infants the mother-infant relationship may be compromised. Maternal attachment representations 18 (corrected) months after very preterm birth and the effect of the post-discharge Infant Behavioral Assessment and Intervention Program (IBAIP) were studied. The IBAIP is designed to assist parents to support and enhance their infant's...

An earlier study showed that negative parent-child interactions elicit cortisol increases in 5-year-old children (Smeekens et al., 2007a). In the present study, we examined whether an "imaginary" parent-child interaction situation, in which the child used a parent and child doll to complete a set of more or less stressful story beginnings, also eli...

Associations between prenatal maternal emotional complaints and child behavioral and cognitive problems have been reported, with different relations for boys and girls. Fetal programming hypotheses underline these associations and state that the early development of the HPA-axis of the children may have been affected. In the present study, differen...

The predictive value of different infant attachment measures was examined in a community-based sample of 111 healthy children (59 boys, 52 girls). Two procedures to assess infant attachment, the Attachment Q-Set (applied on a relatively short observation period) and a shortened version of the Strange Situation Procedure (SSSP), were applied to the...

Sex differences are found in animal studies concerning the relationship between prenatal maternal stress and outcome of the offspring. Most human studies in this field have not addressed sex differences, although differences between boys and girls may elucidate the biochemical as well as psychological processes involved. Associations between prenat...

In a sample of 107 five-year-olds, cluster analysis was used to identify groups of children with similar profiles of competence and adaptation. A comprehensive set of child characteristics was included in the analysis, together covering the most important aspects of five-year-olds’ development and functioning. Three groups of children emerged, whic...

Sethre-Hofstad et al. [2002, Psychoneuroendocrinology 27:731-747] found that behaviorally well-attuned or sensitive parents showed better physiological attunement with their 2- to 4-year-old toddlers' adrenocortical responses to a potentially challenging task than less sensitive parents. In the present study we aimed to replicate this finding in a...

This study with five-year-olds is the first to examine whether low-quality interactions with parents elicit physiological stress in children beyond toddlerhood, as evident from elevated cortisol levels in their saliva. It was hypothesised that particularly children with low levels of ego-resiliency -a personality construct reflecting the capacity t...

In a community sample of 116 children, assessments of parent-child interaction, parent-child attachment, and various parental, child, and contextual characteristics at 15 and 28 months and at age 5 were used to predict externalizing behavior at age 5, as rated by parents and teachers. Hierarchical multiple regression analysis and path analysis yiel...

In a sample of 129 Dutch 15-month-old infants, attachment security was assessed both with the Attachment Q-Set (AQS; Waters, 1995) and with a short version of Ainsworth, Blehar, Waters, and Wall's (1978) Strange Situation (SSS). Infants classified as secure using the SSS had significantly higher AQS scores than insecure and disorganized infants in...

In a sample of eighty-five 15-month-old infants, salivary cortisol was obtained prior to and following a potentially stressful episode in which the child was confronted with a stranger and with a frightening robot. Infant characteristics such as anger proneness, cognitive competence, and attachment security were expected to be related to cortisol r...

The quality of attachment of 127 Dutch 15-month-old infants to their primary caregivers was assessed using an abbreviated version of Ainsworth's Strange Situation. In addition, infant-parent interaction was observed during a 12-minute series of instructional tasks both at home and in a lab setting. Infants were rated for 1) negativity, 2) avoidance...

A set of hypotheses derived from Belsky's process model of the determinants of parenting was tested in a sample of 129 Dutch parents with their 15-month-old infants. Parental ego-resiliency and education, partner support, and infant social fearfulness were found to explain significant and unique portions of variance in the observed quality of paren...