Do your children save the worst for you?

I recently saw a viral video on Instagram that claimed this “Kids are 800% worse when their mothers are in the room.” This reel was based on a fake news article published by Mom News Daily. This study was written as a satire (which means it’s kind of an onion article). The article claims that: “the study followed 500 families and measured neediness, loud crying, screaming screams, trying to slap, forgetting how to walk/using words and misbehaving” and “children at eight months old could play happily , but upon seeing their mother walk into a room, they were 99.9% more likely to start crying, release their bowels, and need her immediate attention.” The article continues: “0.1% was a visually impaired child, but once he heard his mother’s voice, he started throwing things and asked for a snack despite having just eaten.” The article ends with this suggestion from the purported researcher: “Dr. Leibowitz is working on a spray that masks the mother’s natural pheromones to provide some relief, but in the meantime, she recommends families invest in a bathroom with a functional lock.”

Of course, this study is bogus and a joke, but have you ever felt like it might be true? Do your kids seem to save their worst behaviors and moods for you? Unfortunately, there is no research on whether children save their worst behaviors for caregivers. But there is some research that suggests children save the worst moods for their primary caregivers.

A fascinating study looked at who children turn to in times of distress (and times of happiness) and why. The researchers examined the following questions:

• Are children more likely to interact with their primary parent (aka the parent who spends the most time with the child and provides the most care) or the parent with whom they are most closely attached?

• Are children more likely to seek out their mother or father?

• Do the child’s emotions determine which parent he is likely to seek out? Do they look for a different parent when they are upset than when they are happy?

Study details

To study these questions, the researchers looked at how often 2-year-olds initiated interactions with either their mother or father during everyday tasks and whether it depended on their emotions at the time. The researchers determined which parent was the primary caregiver by looking at both the time each parent spent with the child and the number of caregiving tasks (feeding, bathing, dressing, etc.) each parent did, and determined whether each pair the parent-child had a secure attachment (translation: the healthiest form of parent-child bonding in which the child feels safe and supported and uses the caregiver as a “secure base” from which to explore the world). The researchers controlled for gender because the majority of primary caregivers were mothers.

The conclusions of the study

1. Children are more likely to turn to their primary caregivers for comfort when they are upset: Researchers found that distressed children were more likely to interact with their primary caregiver (the parent who does most of the caregiving tasks and spends more time with the toddler). The more powerful the primary caregiver, the more likely young children will seek out that parent when they are distressed.

2. They are children not more likely to seek comfort from a parent to whom they are securely attached: It didn’t seem to matter whether the child had a secure attachment to the parent—toddlers were just as likely to seek comfort from a primary caregiver with a secure attachment as a primary caregiver with an insecure attachment.

3. Yetchildren recover more quickly when they are comforted by a parent with whom they have a secure attachment: The children in this study calmed down more quickly when they were reassured by a parent with whom they had a secure attachment. For example, young children with an insecure attachment might continue to complain or fuss, while a child with a secure attachment would be effectively soothed and return to engaging positively with their caregiver.

4. When children are happy, they are just as likely to interact with any caregiver: It doesn’t seem to matter if they are the primary caregiver, their mother versus their father, or a caregiver with whom they have a secure attachment.

5. Children tend to prefer their mothers during times of distress: Toddlers in this study also tended to look to their mother over their father when upset, regardless of attachment. This supports previous research suggesting that most children show preference for their mothers (who is usually the primary caregiver) over their fathers or childcare providers. In this study, mothers spent significantly more time with their toddlers than fathers, with mothers spending 38 hours each. week on average, the child and fathers spend an average of 8 hours a week. Mothers were also more likely to perform caregiving duties.

It is important to note that this study was limited in that it only studied traditional one-mother and one-father families and did not include any families with the father as the primary caregiver (although there were several families in which the mother and father appeared to share the role of primary caregiver).

Translation

If you are your child’s primary caregiver (meaning you spend the most time with him and are responsible for most caregiving activities for him), then your child is more likely to come to you in times of distress. This means that you may have more tantrums, whining, complaining, and bad moods than the non-primary parent or a child care provider or teacher may experience. This is probably not a reflection of how effective you are as a parent, but a reflection of your status as the primary parent. If your child does not turns to you in times of distress, it does not mean that your child is not attached to you, it may simply mean that your child is not in the habit of looking to you for comfort. Parent-child attachment is still very important, as securely attached children seem to calm down more quickly in the context of a securely attached parent-child relationship. So keep being a consistent and responsive parent because the long-term impact of a secure attachment is worth it.

Parenting Translator·Yahoo Creator

Dr. Cara Goodwin, PhD, is a licensed clinical psychologist and mother of four. She specializes in child development and has spent years researching child psychology and neuroscience and offers therapy for children of all ages and parent training. She is the founder of Parenting Translator, which translates recent scientific research into information that is useful, relevant, and accurate for parents and caregivers through an Instagram account, a newsletter on Substack, and a blog on Psychology Today. Dr. Goodwin is also a bestselling author of the children’s book, What to Do When You Feel Like Hitting.

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