Poster #140 - Early Childhood Predictors of Low-Income, School-Age Children’s Extracurricular Activity

• In Event: 1-061 - Poster Session 02
  In Poster Session: PS 02 Section - Parenting & Parent-Child Relationships

Integrative Statement

It is important to assess early childhood predictors of school-age extracurricular involvement, as such involvement has been associated with positive socioemotional outcomes in early adolescence (Metsäpelto et al., 2010). Unfortunately, research initiated in early childhood on predictors of school-age extracurricular participation is lacking. Research conducted with older children has found that higher family income and parental education at school-age have been associated with subsequent higher levels of children’s extracurricular involvement (Vella et al., 2014). In addition, lower levels of supportive parenting during adolescence have been associated with lower levels of later extracurricular involvement in low-income youth (Eisman et al., 2016).

Thus, the present study assesses parental income and education, and parenting during early childhood in relation to children’s involvement in extracurricular activities in middle childhood. As the study was conducted in the context of a randomized controlled trial to examine the effectiveness of a parenting intervention (Family Check-Up (FCU)), in addition to examining direct effects of socioeconomic and parents, we also examined direct and indirect effects of the FCU on children’s extracurricular activities. We expected that lower levels of maternal positive behavior support, lower maternal education, and lower family income in early childhood would independently predict less involvement in extracurricular activities in late childhood, and that families randomly assigned to the FCU would demonstrate higher involvement in extracurricular activities than those in the control group. Lastly, we expected that improvements in early supportive parenting would mediate direct associations between random assignment to the intervention and late childhood extracurricular activity.

Participants (n = 703) were from the Early Steps Multisite Study, recruited from WIC programs in and around Pittsburgh, PA, Eugene, OR, and Charlottesville, VA (Dishion et al., 2008). At age 2, participants were randomized to the FCU or WIC services as usual. The FCU was offered repeatedly through age 10.5 (8 occasions), and incorporates motivational interviewing and family management practices (Dishion & Stormshak, 2007). Predictors included observations of maternal parenting at ages 2 and 3 based on 55 minutes of coded interactions (Dishion et al., 2008), age 2 family income and maternal education, and intervention group status, with study site as a covariate. The outcome was caregiver-reported number of afterschool resources their child participated in at age 9.5 (Rosenthal & Vandell, 1996).

Structural equation modeling in Mplus was used to assess longitudinal relations between study variables (Figure 1). Children whose mothers completed at least high school (age 2) and exhibited higher levels of supportive parenting (age 3) were more involved in extracurricular activities (age 9.5). The FCU intervention was directly associated with later extracurricular involvement at a trend level, with a significant indirect effect on extracurricular involvement via improvements in positive maternal parenting between ages 2 and 3. Unexpectedly, age 2 family income was inversely related to extracurricular involvement at age 9.5. This study has important implications for future interventions for low-income children, as it suggests that a brief, family-based intervention may increase involvement in extracurricular activities in late childhood via improvements in early supportive parenting.

Authors

• Julia S. Feldman, University of Pittsburgh
  Presenting Author

• Yiyao Zhou, University of Pittsburgh
  Non-Presenting Author

• Chelsea Weaver Krug, University of Pittsburgh
  Non-Presenting Author

• Melvin N. Wilson, University of Virginia
  Non-Presenting Author

• Frances Gardner, Oxford University
  Non-Presenting Author

• Daniel S. Shaw, University of Pittsburgh
  Non-Presenting Author