Poster #145 - Indirect Effects of Parental Physical Discipline on Child Literacy Through Child Externalizing and Internalizing Problems

• In Event: 1-005 - Poster Session 01
  In Poster Session: PS 01 Section - Parenting & Parent-Child Relationships

Integrative Statement

Physical discipline is often administered by parents to attain immediate compliance from their child (Gershoff, 2002). However physical discipline been shown to adversely impact child socioemotional (McLoyd & Smith, 2002) and academic development (Gershoff, et al., 2016). These domains of child development are important to investigate as the development of problem behaviors (i.e., externalizing and internalizing) and academic deficits may persist into adulthood, placing children at increased risk for developing adult antisocial and psychiatric disorders (Choe, Olson, & Sameroff, 2013), and increasing the likelihood of attaining lower income and poorer health status in adulthood (Van der Ende, et al., 2016). Although prior research has addressed the influences of parenting behaviors on both child problem behaviors and literacy skills concurrently (Gershoff, et al., 2016), and the associations between socioemotional and academic development (Van der Ende, et al., 2016), no known research has tested a process-oriented model. Therefore, we tested a developmental cascade model in which child externalizing and internalizing problems mediate the relationship between parental physical discipline and child literacy development.
Data for the present study were derived from the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study-Kindergarten Cohort, 1998-1999 (ECLS-K), which involves seven waves of child, parent, and teacher data (i.e., T1: Kindergarten fall, T2: Kindergarten spring, T3: 1st grade fall, T4: 1st grade spring, T5: 3rd grade spring, T6: 5th grade spring, T7: 8th grade spring). The data include a nationally representative cohort of 21,260 children (55% White/non-Hispanic, 18% Hispanic, 15% Black/non-Hispanic, 6% Asian, 2% Native American/Alaska Native). The selected sample of 15,500 participants only included children who were identified as not having a disability. Specifically, we utilize teacher reports of internalizing and externalizing symptoms at 4 time-points (T2, T4, T5, T6), IRT scaled scores of literacy skill at 6 time-points (T2, T3, T4, T5, T6, T7), and parent report of physical discipline (i.e., frequency of spanking child in last week, if parent would spank or hit child in response to child hitting them) at T2.
Piecewise latent growth curve modeling was used to determine whether child problem behaviors mediated the relationship between parental physical discipline and child literacy (in 8th grade and trajectories). Results suggested that parents’ physical discipline during Kindergarten predicted more externalizing and internalizing symptoms 1 year later, and lower literacy skills in 8th grade (See Figure). Additionally, we found early externalizing and internalizing problem behaviors (at T4) mediated the relationship between parents’ physical discipline and trajectories of child literacy from grades 1-8 (See Figure). Overall, our findings suggest that parents’ physical discipline administered during their child’s kindergarten year may have cascading detrimental impacts on child literacy development through problem behaviors. Given these findings, it may be particularly useful to disseminate information to parents regarding the negative consequences of using physical discipline and encourage the use of non-coercive discipline. Furthermore, given the inextricable link between socioemotional and academic functioning, educators and policy-makers may benefit from implementing programs which target the holistic child.

Authors

• Dianna Tran, University of Notre Dame
  Presenting Author

• Julie Braungart-Rieker, University of Notre Dame
  Non-Presenting Author