Child centeredness refers to the extent to which parents are involved with their child. We utilized two similar measures to assess parents’ child centeredness in this study. The first measure, Child Centeredness 1, assessed the extent to which parents reported expressing warmth toward their child. The second measure, Child Centeredness 2, focused more on parents’ reports of spending time with their child.
As the figure demonstrates, there was no significant difference in parents’ reported warmth toward their child. However, parents who internationally adopted a female child tended to report higher levels of time spent together than parents who internationally adopted a male child.
When parents’ warmth toward and time spent with their child were tested based on the age of adoption, parents who internationally adopted a child older than three years old consistently reported lower levels, compared to parents who internationally adopted a child younger than one year old or between one and three years old.