Parental Goals: Determinants, Purpose, and Process

Abstract

Two studies were conducted to understand better parental goals’ determinants, purpose, and process. Although it has been known that parental goals play an important role in parenting, due to limited research topics and restrictive research designs which don’t allow us to hear parents’ perspectives and experiences, a comprehensive understanding of parental goals has been lacking. Study 1 examined parental goals, parents’ perceptions of determinants of parental goals, and the role of parental goals. The findings suggest that parents identified goals for themselves that included becoming the type of parents they wished to be. These findings need further investigation as these goals are highly likely to play an important role in informing other kinds of parental goals (such as short and long-term goals for the child). They highlight the role that goals may play in the adult’s role definition and identity that come with parenting. They also indicate how goals function as tools that guide the direction and focus of parent behavior. Finally, the voices of parents reveal the factors influencing parental goals mimic the three domains of Belsky’s multi-determinants of parenting model, characteristics of the parent, child, and social context. Informed by the study 1 findings on parents' proactiveness in the parental pursuit process and adopting a model on proactive motivational goal process used in the business discipline, study 2 built a proactive parental goal pursuit process and examined the mediation effect of parental goal-pursuit on the relationship between three motivational states (can do, reason to, and energized to) and supportive parenting and the moderation effect of the goal-related social support. Findings demonstrate the importance of parental goal pursuit is as a factor that connects the three proactive motivational states: parental competence, independent motivation, and positive emotion about their goals with supportive parenting. In other words, by heightening the proactive motivational states, parents are more likely to dedicatedly pursue their goals; this will impact supportive parenting and possibly influence positive child outcomes. Also, the results demonstrate the important role of goal-related social support that strengthens the relationship between parental competence and parental goal-pursuit. The implications and future directions are discussed.