Protective Parenting and Delinquency: The Protecting Strong African American Families Program

• In Event: Social Influences on Antisocial Attitudes and Behaviors

Abstract

Objective: Research suggests that protective parenting, such as parental monitoring and positive reinforcement, can reduce the risk of children's involvement in delinquency. However, few randomized, experimental studies are available to inform our understanding of this relationship, especially for rural Black Americans.
Method: Data were collected from 346 Black couples with an 11-year-old child living in disadvantaged neighborhoods in the rural South who were assigned randomly to the Protecting Strong African American Families (ProSAAF) intervention or a control condition. A trained Black facilitator visited the couple in their home for six consecutive weeks to conduct each two-hour intervention session. Protective parenting was measured by parents' and youths' reports. Youths self-reported their own delinquency. Hypotheses were tested using the causal mediation model and complier-average-causal effect modeling (CACE).
Results: Parents participating in ProSAAF significantly improved their use of protective parenting. Further, results from causal mediation analysis using the full sample and CACE using the sample attending 8 sessions, show that the intervention had a significant indirect effect on delinquency and that protective parenting mediated this effect.
Conclusions: The present results demonstrate the effectiveness of family-focused prevention in deterring delinquency among Black Americans who reside in resource-scarce communities through a shift in parenting practices.

Authors

• Man Kit Lei, University of Georgia

• Steven Beach, University of Georgia