A national examination of poverty and interactive caregiving practices among parents of young children

Interactive caregiving practices can be protective for the development of the brain in early childhood, particularly for children experiencing poverty. There has been limited research examining the prevalence of interactive caregiving practices in early childhood at the population level across the U.S. The purpose of this study was to describe the prevalence of three interactive caregiver activities: (1) reading, (2) telling stories/singing songs, and (3) eating a meal together, using the 2017–2018 National Survey of Children’s Health, among a sample of children age five and younger, and to examine the relationship between these interactive caregiving practices across income levels and by selected potentially confounding household characteristics. Children living in families with incomes below the federal poverty level had lower odds of being read to every day compared to children living in families with incomes at 400% or more above the federal poverty level (aOR 0.70; 95% CI 0.53–0.92). Children living in families within incomes at 100–199% of the federal poverty level had lower odds of being sung to and told stories to every day than children living in families with incomes at 400% or above the federal poverty level (aOR 0.62; 95% CI 0.50–0.78).These findings have long-term implications for children, as interactive caregiving practices are known to improve cognitive activities such as language development, which is associated with educational attainment into adulthood. Finding ways to increase the adoption of interactive caregiving practices may be one way to mitigate disparities in education, especially among families experiencing poverty.