Psychosocial Attributes and Life Experiences of Disadvantaged Minority Mothers: Age and Ethnic Variations

This study examined age and ethnic differences in psychosocial factors among hispanic (n = 210) and black (n = 73) low-income mothers within 2 days after delivery. The sample included 45 black and 99 hispanic adolescents (less than 19 years) and 139 adult controls (greater than or equal to 20 years) giving birth on the service ward at a large metropolitan hospital, excluding mothers and infants with high parity or adverse perinatal conditions. Multivariate and univariate analyses, with parity covaried, revealed age effects including earlier menarche, more school grade retention, and more perceived social support among teens. No age differences were found in child-rearing attitudes, self-esteem, or depressive symptoms. Black mothers reported more social support, higher self-esteem, and less strict child-rearing attitudes than hispanics. Analyses within the hispanic sample revealed Dominican/Puerto Rican group differences in measures of family structure and child-rearing attitudes, but only small differences in social support. Ethnocultural differences between blacks and hispanics and between the two hispanic subgroups are considered in relation to the process of acculturation.     

The relation of family and partner support to the adjustment of adolescent mothers

The influence of teenage mothers' perceptions of family and partner social support on their postpartum adjustment was examined in this study. A structured interview with teenage mothers was conducted prenatally and a follow-up assessment was done when their children were 8 months of age. Both partner and family support were related to greater satisfaction with life, but each was associated in a different way with parenting and concerns about daily living. The results indicate the importance of distinguishing between specific sources of social support and different aspects of adjustment to teen parenthood.     

Linking Extreme Marital Discord, Child Rearing, and Child Behavior Problems: Evidence from Battered Women

Relations between marital discord, parental behavior, and child behavior were investigated in a sample of 37 battered women and 37 comparison mothers and their children, aged 2-8 years. It was hypothesized that violent fathers would be more irritable but less involved, battered women more stressed and inconsistent in discipline, and both parents would reportedly use fewer positive and more negative child-rearing responses than comparison families. Based on maternal self-reports and mother-child observations, the only robust self-report difference between the groups of mothers were the level of stress and reports of inconsistency in parenting; in contrast, all of the expected differences were found between the mothers' reports of the 2 groups of fathers. Group effects on child behavior problems were also found. Children from violent families were reported to have more internalizing behavior problems, more difficult temperaments, and to be more aggressive than the comparison children. In the violent families, maternal stress and paternal irritability were the 2 significant predictors of child behavior problems, whereas in the comparison families only maternal stress was a reliable predictor.     

Testing equivalence of mediating models of income, parenting, and school readiness for white, black, and Hispanic children in a national sample

This paper examines complex models of the associations between family income, material hardship, parenting, and school readiness among White, Black, and Hispanic 6-year-olds, using the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study-Kindergarten Cohort (ECLS-K). It is critical to test the universality of such complex models, particularly given their implications for intervention, prevention, and public policy. Therefore this study asks: Do measures and models of low income and early school readiness indicators fit differently or similarly for White, Black, and Hispanic children? Measurement equivalence of material hardship, parent stress, parenting behaviors, child cognitive skills, and child social competence is first tested. Model equivalence is then tested by examining whether category membership in a race/ethnic group moderates associations between predictors and young children's school readiness.     

Predicting the child-rearing practices of mothers sexually abused in childhood.

OBJECTIVE: Although empirical investigations have established a relationship between childhood sexual abuse and numerous long-term consequences, surprisingly little research has addressed the possible effects of childhood victimization on the later child-rearing practices of adult survivors. The present study examined hypothesized predictors of three parenting styles among adult survivors of sexual abuse as compared with adult children of alcoholic parents. METHOD: Forty-five clinical outpatients completed a questionnaire battery assessing experiences of childhood abuse, current economic and social resources, and parenting attitudes and practices. The child-rearing practices of participants were compared with those reported by a community sample of 717 mothers. Additional analyses examined the extent to which sexual abuse and its adult sequelae predicted the parenting behaviors reported by the present sample. RESULTS: Both sexual abuse survivors and children of alcoholics reported significantly higher rates of permissive parenting practices than mothers in the community sample. Multiple regression analyses further revealed unique relationships between sexual abuse and parenting, over and above the variance explained by physical abuse, current socioeconomic status, and the experience of growing up in an alcoholic home. Mothers' sexual abuse severity, social support satisfaction, and dysfunctional parenting attitudes moderated several of these relationships. CONCLUSIONS: The present findings suggest that sexual abuse and its adult sequelae may have negative consequences for the parenting practices of survivors, particularly for survivors' ability to provide their children with appropriate structure, consistent discipline, and clear behavioral expectations. Implications for the psychosocial development of survivors' children are discussed.     

Beliefs and Achievement: A Study of Black, White, and Hispanic Children

School achievement among black, white, and Hispanic elementary school children was investigated, and efforts were made to study the beliefs about academic achievement of the children and their mothers. A total of approximately 3,000 first, third, and fifth graders enrolled in 20 schools in the Chicago metropolitan area were given achievement tests in mathematics and reading. Black and Hispanic children performed at a significantly lower level than white children, but at fifth grade ethnic differences in mathematics scores were no longer significant when mothers' education was statistically controlled. This was not the case in reading, where differences were found after controlling for the effects of mothers' education. Interviews with subsamples of approximately 1,000 mothers and children revealed greater emphasis on and concern about education among minority families than among white families. Black and Hispanic children and mothers evaluated the children and their academic abilities highly; they were positive about education and held high expectations about the children's future prospects for education. Mothers of minority children and teachers in minority schools believed more strongly than white mothers and teachers in the value of homework, competency testing, and a longer school day as means of improving children's education.     

Kinship Support and Maternal and Adolescent Well-Being in Economically Disadvantaged African-American Families

This study tested a conceptual model developed to explain the link between kinship support and the psychological well-being of economically disadvantaged African-American adolescents. The relation of kinship support with maternal and adolescent well-being and mothers' child-rearing practices was assessed in 51 African-American families whose incomes placed them at or below the poverty threshold. Findings revealed that kinship social support to mothers/female guardians was positively associated with adolescent psychological well-being, maternal well-being, and more adequate maternal parenting practices (acceptance, firm control and monitoring of behavior, autonomy granting). Maternal well-being and more adequate maternal parenting practices were positively related to adolescent well-being. Evidence of the mediational role of maternal well-being and parenting practices was revealed. When the effects of maternal well-being and maternal parenting practices were controlled, significant relations between kinship support and adolescent well-being were no longer apparent.     

Parental socialization, vagal regulation, and preschoolers' anxious difficulties: direct mothers and moderated fathers

Parental supportiveness and protective overcontrol and preschoolers' parasympathetic regulation were examined as predictors of temperamental inhibition, social wariness, and internalizing problems. Lower baseline vagal tone and weaker vagal suppression were expected to mark poorer dispositional self-regulatory capacity, leaving children more susceptible to the influence of parental socialization. Less supportive mothers had preschoolers with more internalizing problems. One interaction between baseline vagal tone and maternal protective overcontrol, predicting social wariness, conformed to the moderation hypothesis. Conversely, vagal suppression moderated several links between paternal socialization and children's anxious difficulties in the expected pattern. There were more links between mothers' self-reported parenting and child outcomes than were noted for direct observations of maternal behavior, whereas the opposite tended to be true for fathers.     

Self-evaluation, social reinforcement, and academic achievement of black and white schoolchildren.

Black and white male schoolchildren covertly evaluated their own performance at a verbal task administered by black and white male experimenters. It was hypothesized that academically successful children would be predisposed to appraise themselves favorably, whereas relatively unsuccessful pupils would be biased toward self-criticism. The covert self-evaluations were assumed to represent at internalization of early experiences of predominantly positive or negative social reinforcement from adult socializing agents. The predicition for self-criticism was upheld in the white experimenter condition but not in the black experimenter condition. Relationships consistent with the theory were found between subjects' self-appraisals and their retrospective reports of positive and negative reinforcements received from parents and teachers in various typical situations. These relationships were more evident for black subjects than for white subjects. The extent to which children's self-praise and self-criticism mediated affect was assessed by means of a color conditioning technique. Contrary to predicition, possibly due to the easy nature of the experimental task.     

Mothers' parenting cognitions in cultures of origin, acculturating cultures, and cultures of destination

Japanese and South American immigrant mothers' parenting cognitions (attributions and self-perceptions) were compared with mothers from their country of origin (Japan and Argentina, respectively) and European American mothers in the United States. Participants were 231 mothers of 20-month-old children. Generally, South American immigrant mothers' parenting cognitions more closely resembled those of mothers in the United States, whereas Japanese immigrant mothers' cognitions tended to be similar to those of Japanese mothers or intermediate between Japanese and U.S. mothers. This study provides insight into the nature of parenting cognitions generally and those of immigrant mothers specifically and therefore the parenting climate in which immigrant children are reared.     

Accentuating the Negative: Views of Preschool Staff about Mothers in Japan

Japanese mothers are frequently portrayed in the American research literature as providing socialization experiences that complement—rather than replicate—the goals and strategies of the preschool. The present study expands upon this small empirical base, and challenges the assumption that there is widespread agreement within Japan concerning the appropriate roles of teacher and parent in educating and socializing young children. Staff members from 27 Japanese preschools were interviewed concerning their perspectives on the role of mother, their attitudes about the effectiveness of mothers' child-rearing strategies and their views about the home-school relationship. Qualitative analyses revealed that most directors and teachers believed that mothers should prioritize spending time with their children over other activities and should provide firm guidance regarding social behavior. They did not view cognitive stimulation as an important part of the maternal role. Few staff members felt that mothers were discharging these responsibilities in an adequate manner. Mothers were widely viewed as either overly permissive, overly protective, or detached and uninvolved. Additionally, many staff members thought mothers placed too much emphasis on structured academic learning. Staff attributed these limitations to a number of factors, including the small size of modem families, conflicting advice by professionals, isolation caused by apartment dwelling, and the incursion of such Western values as materialism, feminism and individualism. Staff views about parent involvement varied depending on the general philosophy of the preschool. These findings illustrate that concepts underlying the notion of “quality” depend on local cultural models in a particular society, as well as structural features of early childhood organizations.     

Interactive Effects Between Maternal Parenting and Negative Emotionality on Social Functioning Among Very Young Chinese Children

Research Findings: This study examined how child negative emotionality interacted with mothers’ self-reported parenting in predicting different aspects of social functioning among very young Chinese children. A total of 109 Chinese nursery children in Hong Kong participated with their parents. Maternal supportive and aversive parenting practices were reported by mothers, and child negative emotionality and social functioning were reported by both mothers and fathers. The results revealed interaction effects between child negative emotionality and mothers’ self-reported parenting on children’s internalizing problems, externalizing problems, and social-emotional skill deficiency. Specifically, children with high negative emotionality were more susceptible to the negative effects of aversive parenting (i.e., showing more internalizing and externalizing problems when exposed to aversive parenting) than their peers with low negative emotionality. Negative emotionality also placed young children at risk for social-emotional skill deficiency, especially when they received less support from their mothers compared to their peers. Practice or Policy: Special attention should be paid to the social functioning of Chinese children with higher levels of negative emotionality, because these children are more vulnerable to poor-quality parenting at a very young age.     

Caring Behavior in Children of Clinically Depressed and Well Mothers

Young children's sensitivity and responsiveness to mothers' needs were investigated under conditions of high and low parenting risk (depressed and nondepressed mothers, SADS-L). Child characteristics of gender, affect, and impulse control problems and the mother-child attachment relationship were examined as they related to children's caring actions. Children's caring behavior was observed in an experimental situation in which their mothers simulated sadness and in a naturalistic setting. Attachment alone and child's problems alone were not predictors, and maternal diagnosis alone was not a strong predictor. Girls were significantly more caring than boys. Severe maternal depression was necessary to bring out high levels of responding in boys. Highest frequencies of caring were from children with severely depressed mothers, problems of affect regulation, and secure attachment. The importance of recognizing interacting influences and diverse underlying processes in the development of children's caring behavior is discussed.     

Attributions and Attitudes of Mothers and Fathers in Sweden

OBJECTIVE: The present study examined mean level similarities and differences as well as correlations between mothers' and fathers' attributions regarding successes and failures in caregiving situations and progressive versus authoritarian attitudes. DESIGN: Interviews were conducted with both mothers and fathers in 77 Swedish families. RESULTS: Fathers reported higher adult-controlled failure and child-controlled failure attributions than did mothers; these differences remained significant after controlling for parents' age, education, and possible social desirability bias. Significant positive correlations were found for mothers' and fathers' progressive attitudes, authoritarian attitudes, and modernity of attitudes after controlling for parents' age, education, and possible social desirability bias. CONCLUSIONS: We conclude that in Sweden fathers are more likely to attribute failures in caregiving situations both to themselves and to children than are mothers and that there is moderate concordance between fathers and mothers within the same family in progressive and authoritarian parenting attitudes.     

Do maternal concerns at delivery predict parenting stress during infancy?

OBJECTIVE: In a previous study, we found that new mothers could and would express concerns about their parenting, including concerns about maltreatment and poor care. In this study, we examine the utility of early maternal concerns for predicting parenting stress in the first year. Parenting stress is important because it has been shown to be related to maltreatment and poor parent-child relationships. METHOD: A sample of 246 mothers were interviewed shortly after delivery in a publicly funded hospital about their parenting concerns, and 93% were reinterviewed in their homes about their parenting when the infants were 6 to 12 months old. Standardized measures with demonstrated psychometric properties were employed, including a measure of parenting stress due to the demands of the parenting role, characteristics of the child that make him or her difficult to care for, and stress due to difficult interactions. RESULTS: Multiple regression results indicate that both mothers concerns at delivery and sociodemographic variables are significant predictors of all three types of parenting stress in infancy. Maternal concerns were more powerful than sociodemographics in predicting stress related to the demands of parenting, while sociodemographics were more powerful for the prediction of stress related to difficult child characteristics and difficult mother-infant interaction. CONCLUSIONS: These findings suggest that knowledge of new mothers' parenting concerns might be useful for predicting parenting problems, as well as for engaging mothers' in and enhancing the effectiveness of parenting services.     

Social support and parenting in poor,dangerous neighborhoods

This study investigated how stressful environmental conditions influence the relation between mothers' social support and parenting strategies, utilizing interview data from a sample of 262 poor, African American single mothers and their seventh- and eighth-grade children, as well as objective data about respondents' neighborhoods. In general, the results indicated that neighborhood conditions moderate the relation between social support and parenting behaviors. Specifically, as neighborhood conditions worsened, the positive relation between emotional support and mothers' nurturant parenting was weakened. In a similar fashion, the negative relation between instrumental social support and punishment was stronger in better neighborhoods. As the surrounding environments became poorer and more dangerous, the relation between greater instrumental support and a lower reliance on punishment was weakened. Thus, on the whole, hierarchical regression analyses indicated that the positive influences of social support on parenting behavior were strained and attenuated in poorer, high-crime environments.     

Young African-American Multigenerational Families in Poverty: Quality of Mothering and Grandmothering

Parenting practices (problem-solving and disciplinary styles) in a sample of 99 young, low-income, African-American multigenerational families were examined, using home-based observations of grandmothers and young mothers (mean age at first birth; 18.3; range = 13.3 to 25.5), interacting separately with 3-year-old children. A risk and resilience approach was applied in studying African-American families' behavior in harsh social contexts, and included a consideration of the role of kin, shared child rearing between mothers and grandmothers, coresidence, and adolescent parenthood. Mothers and grandmothers did not differ in the mean level of the quality of their parenting practices. Similarly, few significant correlations in parenting quality across generations were evident, and these primarily involved negative dimensions of parenting between younger childbearers and grandmothers. No main effect of mothers' age at first birth on mothers' parenting was found. In contrast, there was a main effect of grandmother coresidence on both mothers' and grandmothers' parenting, which was negative. Moreover, the interaction between coresidence and mothers' age at first birth indicated that multigenerational families most likely to provide positive parenting were those where older mothers did not reside with the grandmother. Yet, in families with very young mothers, coresiding grandmothers showed higher quality of parenting than did non-coresiding grandmothers.     

Attributions and Attitudes of Mothers and Fathers in Italy

OBJECTIVE: The present study examined mean level similarities and differences as well as correlations between mothers' and fathers' attributions regarding successes and failures in caregiving situations and progressive versus authoritarian attitudes. DESIGN: Interviews were conducted with both mothers and fathers in 177 Italian families from Rome and Naples. RESULTS: Fathers' attributions reflected higher perceived control over failure than did mothers' attributions, whereas mothers reported attitudes that were more progressive than did fathers. Only the difference in progressive attitudes remained significant after controlling for parents' age, education, and possible social desirability bias. Site differences emerged for four of the seven attributions and attitudes examined; three remained significant after controlling for parents' age, education, and possible social desirability bias. Medium effect sizes were found for concordance between parents in the same family for authoritarian attitudes and modernity of attitudes after controlling for parents' age, education, and possible social desirability bias. CONCLUSIONS: This work elucidates ways that parent gender and cultural context relate to attributions regarding parents' success and failure in caregiving situations and to progressive versus authoritarian parenting attitudes.     

Hospital-based primary prevention strategy in child abuse: a multi-level needs addressment

The purpose of this study was to evaluate a primary prevention effort in child maltreatment, the focus of which was a community-wide endeavor (i.e., subjects were not prescreened for risk potential). Specific components of the planned intervention addressed four causal levels of maltreatment: individual, family, community, and cultural factors. That assessment was intended to build strengths in those parenting areas which are predictive of abusive or neglectful outcomes. Target areas included knowledge of child development, child-rearing attitudes, mother-infant interaction patterns, and parenting skills. A posttest-only control group design was employed. The control postpartum mothers received traditional or routine hospital services; experimental mothers received special in-hospital and after-care services by trained student nurse volunteers. These volunteers functioned in a dual educative/supportive role. Experimental mothers reported more realistic expectations of behavior, embraced more democratic child-rearing principles, providing more verbal stimulation to their infants (reflecting an increased sensitivity), and displayed increased problem-solving abilities.     

Parental perceptions of neighborhood processes,stress, personal control,and risk for physical child abuse and neglect

ObjectiveThis study set out to examine whether mothers’ individual perceptions of their neighborhood social processes predict their risk for physical child abuse and neglect directly and/or indirectly via pathways involving parents’ reported stress and sense of personal control in the parenting role.MethodsIn-home and phone interview data were examined cross-sectionally from a national birth cohort sample of 3,356 mothers across 20 US cities when the index child was 3 years of age. Mothers’ perceptions of neighborhood social processes, parenting stress, and personal control were examined as predictors, and three subscales of the Parent-To-Child Conflict Tactics Scale (CTS-PC) were employed as proxies of physical child abuse and neglect risk. Structural equation modeling (SEM) was employed to test direct and indirect pathways (via parenting stress and control) from perceived neighborhood processes to proxy measures of physical child abuse and neglect. Multiple group SEM was conducted to test for differences across major ethnic groups: African American, Hispanic, and White.ResultsAlthough perceived negative neighborhood processes had only a mild direct role in predicting risk for physical child abuse, and no direct role on child neglect, these perceptions had a discernable indirect role in predicting risk via parenting stress and personal control pathways. Parenting stress exerted the clearest direct role on both physical abuse and neglect risk. This predictor model did not significantly differ across ethnic groups.ConclusionsAlthough neighborhood conditions may not play a clear directly observable role on physical child abuse and neglect risk, the indirect role they play underscores the importance of parents’ perceptions of their neighborhoods, and especially the role they play via parents’ reported stress and personal control.Practice implicationsSuch findings suggest that targeting parents’ sense of control and stress in relation to their immediate social environment holds particular potential to reduce physical child abuse and neglect risk. Addressing parents’ perceptions of their neighborhood challenges may serve to reduce parenting risk via improving parents’ felt control and stress.