Distal and proximal parenting as alternative parenting strategies during infants’ early months of life: A cross-cultural study

By Heidi Keller, Joern Borke, T. Staufenbiel, Relindis Dzeaye Yovsi, M. Abels, Z. Papaligoura, Henning Jensen, Arnold Lohaus, Nandita Chaudhary, Wingshan Lo and 1 more. 2009

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Is the ideal mother a sensitive mother? Beliefs about early childhood parenting in mothers across the globe (2016, background): “In individualistic and autonomous cultures (generally found in urban Western areas), the individual is valued over the group, and parenting is geared towards fostering psychological independence and individual achievement, and is characterized by a distal parenting style and face-to-face contact rat”
Parenting Infants (2013, background): “Regarding autochthonous Italian mothers, the findings are consistent with what has been documented in other Western urban middle-class families, which is a preference for the distal behavioral style (Keller et al., 2009; Keller & Kärtner, 2013).”
Ethical Challenges of Parenting Interventions in Low- to Middle-Income Countries (2018, background): “Physical closeness provides regular and plentiful opportunities for children and caregivers to use touch, posture, gaze, gestures, facial expressions, and other nonverbal ways to communicate (Keller et al., 2009).”
Developing patterns of parenting in two cultural communities (2011, background): “…on body contact and stressing relatedness in the verbal conversations is associated with a proximal parenting style which is characteristic for rural, formally low-educated families where mothers are young when they have their first child and usually have more than one child (Keller et al., 2009).”