Study: Positive parenting may help with impact of child stress

(NewsNation) — A recent study suggests positive parenting practices may help buffer children from the negative impacts of stress.

The research published in June by PNAS Nexus discovered that youth-reported positive parenting, like expressions of warmth and support, helped shield children against the association between childhood stress and decreased hippocampal volume, a part of the brain important for learning and memory.

To achieve their findings, researchers analyzed behavioral and neuroimaging data from 482 minors between the age of 10 and 17.

“Our work identifies positive parenting as a resilience factor buffering youth against the deleterious impact of stressful childhood experiences on problem behaviors and brain development,” an abstract of the study says. “These findings underscore the importance of centering youth perspectives of stress and parenting practices to better understand neurobiology, mechanisms of resilience, and psychological well-being.”

The study says stress in childhood and adolescence can compromise a person’s mental health and well-being. It suggests childhood stress may sometimes change brain development and alter components like behavior and emotional processing, but positive parenting may help with emotions and cognitive control.

According to Mental Health First, one in five youth will experience a mental health challenge at some point in their life, and about 17 million youth under the age of 18 have or have had a psychiatric disorder. Every year more than 7% of kids have a mental health visit.