Caregiving as Coregulation: Psychobiological Processes and Child Functioning

Although considerable research has sought to understand the relations between parental behavior and a range of child developmental outcomes, much of this work has been conducted at a very broad level of analysis. Psychobiological theory and research point to the need for models of caregiving that offer greater specificity regarding processes that may be implicated in the effects of these relationships. Recent work on animals and some work on humans have focused more on the proximal mechanisms through which caregivers and infants affect one another. This chapter presents a model of the caregiver-child relationship that focuses on proximal processes operating within both caregiver and child. This model uses a self-regulatory framework to capture the levels of influence of the caregiver's behavior on the child's functioning. Next, I present an overview of physiological regulation and findings that support its role as foundational to more sophisticated emotional and behavioral regulation. Then, I provide evidence for the effects of caregiver behavior on physiological regulation. Finally, I offer general recommendations for future research that could illuminate how specific types of caregiver behavior influence multiple levels of child behavior.