2-005 - Risk and resilience in African American parenting of young children

Session Type: Paper Symposium

Integrative Statement

Theory and research on African American families demonstrate important, culturally specific distinctions related to parenting and family processes, though there is a lack of empirical evidence exploring both risks and resiliencies in parenting within African American families (Roopnarine & Hossain, 2013). This lack of evidence is connected to a lack of cultural competence among researchers and clinicians, and, as a result, the Society for Research in Child Development (SRCD), the American Psychological Association, and the National Institutes of Health identify increased knowledge in this areas as critical (Cabrera, Beeghly, & Eisenberg, 2012; Ronzio, Guagliardo, & Persaud, 2006). The papers in this symposium respond to this gap. The samples represented across papers are ethnoracially homogenous as described but represent multiple urban areas and both low-income as well as middle-class African American parents. This paper symposium responds well to the SRCD Biennial Meeting emphasis in poverty, inequality, and developmental science. Paper 1 applies the superwoman construct to positive parenting and describes its influence on expressions of joy among toddlers within an impoverished African American sample of families; paper 2 discusses discrepancies in reports of African American children’s problem behaviors and describes the role that emotion regulation plays in improving agreement in co-parental reports; paper 3 describes the important role that maternal social support and children’s secure attachment play in building resilience for young African American families across socioeconomic and psychosocial profiles. Our discussant, Iheoma Iruka, is a well-regarded expert in African American parenting and child development.

Sub Unit

• Parenting & Parent-Child Relationships

Chair

• Erika Bocknek, Wayne State University

Discussant

• Iheoma U. Iruka, University of Nebraska Buffett Early Childhood Institute

Individual Presentations

• Finding the Superwoman: Parenting Strengths of Urban African American Mothers - Presenting Author: Patricia Richardson, Wayne State University; Iheoma U. Iruka, University of Nebraska Buffett Early Childhood Institute; Lucy McGoron, Merrill Palmer Skillman Institute; Hasti Raveau, Wayne State University; Erika Bocknek, Wayne State University

• Co-Parental Discrepancy of Toddler Behavior Problems in an African American Sample - Presenting Author: Hasti Raveau, Wayne State University; Rita Casey, Wayne State University; Carolyn Joy Dayton, Wayne State University; Katherine Rosenblum, Univeristy of Michigan

• Predictors of Mother-Preschooler Interaction Quality in an Economically Diverse African American Sample - Presenting Author: Marjorie Beeghly, Wayne State University; Jessica Lee Irwin, Wayne State University; Edward Tronick, University of Massachusetts Boston; Mahya Rahimian Mashhadi, Wayne State University; Jordan L Boeve, Department of Psychology, Wayne State University