Loredana Benedetto

University of Messina

Loredana Benedetto, Ph.D., is a psychologist and Professor of Developmental and Educational Psychology at the Department of Clinical and Experimental Medicine, University of Messina, Italy. She teaches undergraduate and graduate courses in the areas of typical and atypical development, parent-child relationships, educational psychology, and family-based interventions. She has been a scientific consultant for projects supporting families of disabled children and interventions in pediatric palliative care. Her research interests focus on parenting assessment, self-efficacy and parental cognition, digital parenting and problematic use of the Internet in children, metacognition and childhood disorders, early intervention in autism and developmental disabilities, and behavioral parent training. She is the author or editor of several books, including Parenting: Empirical Advances and Intervention Resources (coedited with Massimo Ingrassia).

1books edited

3chapters authored

Latest work with IntechOpen by Loredana Benedetto

Through parenting, adults raise their children and introduce them into the belonging community. Parents are active determinants of their children’s well-being, but children themselves are too. The volume focuses on some relevant theoretical issues related to children’s and adolescent adjustments, adult maternal and paternal behaviors, and their self-efficacy beliefs and competence interacting with children’s characteristics. The volume also presents evidence-based treatments involving parents as key components of the intervention strategies for childhood internalizing/externalizing disorders. Parent behaviors produce changes and consequences in the child’s emotive-behavioral adjustment; thus, a modification of the parenting style may be an effective way to help children and to ameliorate the family climate. Practitioners interested in parenting will find in the updated studies here reviewed new suggestions for preventive family interventions.

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ParentingEmpirical Advances and Intervention ResourcesEdited by Loredana Benedetto

Parenting

Edited by Loredana Benedetto

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

Introductory Chapter: Parenting – Empirical Advances and Intervention Resources

By Loredana Benedetto and Massimo Ingrassia

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 - Studies by an Ecocultural and Transactional Perspective

Loredana Benedetto

Latest work with IntechOpen by Loredana Benedetto

Parenting

Chapters authored

Related collaborators

Sayyed Ali Samadi

Stelios Georgiou

Teresa Silva

Massimo Ingrassia

Maria Symeou

Pietro Muratori

Simona Scaini

Marcella Caputi