Chapters authored
Parental Self-efficacy in Promoting Children Care and Parenting Quality By Loredana Benedetto and Massimo Ingrassia
Parental self-efficacy (PSE) emerges as a crucial variable into exploring variability in parenting quality. After introducing the link between PSE and parental competence, the role of PSE on parenting quality, its multiple influences, and transactional effects connected to contextual or cultural variables are discussed. The chapter addresses some key issues: (a) the levels of PSE measurement (i.e., domain- or task-specific approach), their interrelationship and magnitude as mutual predictors (study 1); (b) infant-caring, parent’s adjustment, and PSE development in the transition to parenthood (study 2); (c) parenting difficult children and the role of PSE as a “buffer” variable moderating the effects of negative child’s characteristics on parenting skills; and (d) PSE beliefs in family context, the relationships with other family measures (marital self-efficacy and stress), and their associations with children’s adjustments (study 3). Finally, in the study 4, PSE is presented as an outcome variable in a parent training. In all summarized studies, a special attention was devoted to father’s PSE as a specific factor affecting childrearing and parent’s well-being. As Bandura says, PSE is not a personality trait, but a learnable set of beliefs producing positive effects on parenting quality. Suggestions for family-based interventions enhancing PSE are discussed.
Part of the book: Parenting
Digital Parenting: Raising and Protecting Children in Media World By Loredana Benedetto and Massimo Ingrassia
Digital media have quickly changed ways in which parents and children communicate, enjoy themselves, acquire information, and solve problems daily (both in ordinary and exceptional circumstances such as COVID-19 home confinement). Very young children are regular users of smartphones and tablet, so their early digital engagement poses new challenges to parent-child relationships and parental role. First, the chapter introduces the “digital parenting” construct, moving through the literature from “traditional” parenting styles to more recent studies on “parental mediation,” that is, the different behaviors parents adopt to regulate children’s engagement with the Internet and digital media. Second, the chapter reviews empirical researches on different parental mediation practices (active or restrictive behaviors) and how they are adjusted according to the child’s characteristics (age, digital competences, etc.) or parent’s media competence and beliefs. Finally, from a bidirectional perspective of parent-child relationships, the chapter discusses the role of youths’ social involvement, communication, self-disclosure, and digital skills on parent’s beliefs and practices. Implications for parent education and prevention of risks for early and excessive exposure to digital technologies are discussed.
Part of the book: Parenting
Adolescents Suspended in the Space-Time: Problematic Use of Smartphone between Dissociative Symptoms and Flow Experiences By Massimo Ingrassia, Gioele Cedro, Sharon Puccio and Loredana Benedetto
Based on current digital culture, this chapter aims to provide an updated view of dissociative experiences as no-psychopathological symptoms of flow experiences. It has been hypothesized that prolonged exposures to smartphone screens could be a predictor of altered states of consciousness (flow) and that sometimes these prolonged exposures could degenerate into dissociative phenomena. Participants were 643 high school students aged between 13 and 23 years (M = 16.08; SD = 1.79). They were asked to answer four self-report questionnaires about the habits of smartphone usage, the perception of problematic smartphone use, and the assessment of dissociative symptoms and experiences (e.g., bizarre sensory experiences, absorption and imaginative involvement [AII], depersonalization and derealization). Gender differences emerged both in smartphone usage habits and some dissociative scales. Two gender-specific stepwise linear regressions showed that problematic smartphone use is one of the stronger predictors of dissociative symptoms. Results support the idea that in an adolescents’ community sample prolonged exposition to smartphone screens plays a role in the manifestation of dissociative symptoms. This is closely connected with experiences of AII, which could reinforce the use of devices contributing significantly to establishing a causal circularity between smartphone prolonged usage and AII phenomena.
Part of the book: Adolescences
Coping Strategies and Meta-Worry in Adolescents’ Adjustment during COVID-19 Pandemic By Loredana Benedetto, Ilenia Schipilliti and Massimo Ingrassia
With the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, several limitations and stressful changes have been introduced in adolescent’s daily life. Particularly, Italian teenagers were the first among western populations to experience fears of infection, home confinement, and social restrictions due to a long lockdown period (10 weeks). This study explores the role of coping strategies (task-oriented, emotion-oriented, and avoidance coping) and meta-beliefs about worry as vulnerability factors associated with adolescents’ anxiety. A community sample of adolescents (N = 284, aged 16–18 y.o.) answered questionnaires assessing anxiety symptoms (RCMAS-2), meta-cognitive beliefs and processes about worry (MCQ-C), and coping strategies (CISS). Results show that 37% of participants report clinically elevated anxiety. Emotion-centered coping predicted higher anxiety, whereas task-centered coping resulted associated with decreased anxiety. Cognitive monitoring about their own worry contributes, but to a lesser extent, to higher levels of anxiety. The implications for the intervention are discussed, especially the need to enhance the coping skills of adolescents and mitigate the stress of the COVID-19 pandemic, which could last for a long time.
Part of the book: Adolescences
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