It is well established in the human developmental and family literature that parenting has an important impact on the development of children and adolescents. The mechanisms through which
parenting influences child development, however, are less clear. The role of genetic influences, via the parents or via the child, were first considered in the early 1980s (Rowe, 1981, 1983), but it took nearly 10 years for researchers to realize the relevance and importance of such influences (e. g., Plomin & Bergeman, 1991). There is now a sizable literature on the roles of genetic and environmental influences on parenting across the lifespan (see reviews in Towers et al., 2001; McGuire, 2003; Ulbricht, & Neiderhiser, in press), with findings indicating that both genetic and environmental influences are important for explaining individual differences in parenting. Despite this significant advance in our understanding of the roles of genes and environment in influencing child and adolescent development, few studies have attempted to explicate the mechanisms involved in genetic and environmental influences on parenting. In this chapter, we will first provide a brief overview of studies examining genetic influences on parenting and on genotype-environment
correlation (rGE; correlation between genes and environment). We then focus more specifically on factors that can explain genetic influences on parenting (e.g., temperament and personality in parents and in children). We then focus on further advancing our understanding of the mechanisms of environmental influences on parenting. We conclude by considering how advances in our understanding of the mechanisms underlying genetic and environmental influences on parenting can be applied.