A Risk and Resilience Model of Parenting Stress, Family Resources, Neighborhood Support, and Harsh Punishment

• In Event: 2-080 - Trajectories of Parenting Stress and Self-Efficacy Across Early Childhood: Links to Parent and Child Behavior

Integrative Statement

A central role of the family system is protection. Thus, child maltreatment is an indicator of poor family functioning (Masten & Monn, 2015). Research has identified risk factors that predict maltreatment (e.g., young maternal age; inadequate financial resources; single parenthood; Brown, Cohen, Johnson, & Salzinger, 1998). The effects of risk on family outcomes can be ameliorated or exacerbated depending on appraisals and coping patterns (e.g., stress regulation), access to resources (i.e., income, education), and social support (e.g., neighborhood cohesiveness). These domains reflect an ecological model, and are often treated as static traits in studies of risk and resilience. From a dynamic systems perspective, however, functioning in one domain can influence functioning in other domains. Therefore, changes in stress or resources may be associated with changes in harsh physical and psychological punishment. Models of change typically explore effects on child functioning (e.g., Duncan, Morris, & Rodriques, 2011; Magnuson, Sexton, Davis-Kean, & Huston, 2009), less so on family functioning as is explored in the present study.

Participants included 3529 families from the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Study with medical records data. We identified three groups based on the number of risks present at birth: 0-1 (Low Risk), 2-3 (Moderate Risk), and 4 or more (High Risk). Frequency of harsh physical and psychological punishment was measured by the Parent-Child Conflict Tactics Scale (Straus, Hamby, Finkelhor, Moore, & Runyan, 1998) at child ages 3, 5, and 9. Frequency of harsh punishment was discretized into 10 ordinal categories. A growth mixture model with three known classes (i.e., low, moderate, and high risk) was estimated to compare the intercept, slope, variances, and covariances across classes. A conditional model was estimated with latent change in parenting stress (Parenting Stress Inventory; Abidin, 1995), income-to-poverty ratios, and education between age 1 and age 3; and the neighborhood environment were included as predictors of class-specific intercepts. Child gender and parent racial/ethnic group were entered as covariates.

For the Low Risk group, latent changes in parenting stress (p=.03), the neighborhood environment (p<.001), and racial/ethnic group (p=.04) significantly predicted the harsh physical and psychological punishment intercept. In the Moderate Risk group, only child gender (p=.002) and racial/ethnic group (p<.001) were significant predictors of the intercept. In the High Risk group, changes in parenting stress (p=.01) and racial/ethnic group (p<.001) were significant predictors of the intercept.

Thus, risk moderates the effects of stress, resources, and the neighborhood environment on harsh punishment. Even among low-risk families, increases in parenting stress are associated with more frequent harsh punishment. Change in parenting stress is a stronger predictor than change in income or education. Total cumulative risk did not predict more punishment in the High Risk group despite a range from 4 to 14. The results suggest that methods to reduce parenting stress and improve parent-child interactions (e.g., home visiting, parenting classes, access to child care) should be directed to families across the risk spectrum, not only those at highest risk. Future studies should explore whether effective methods to reduce parenting stress differ across risk levels.

Authors

• Sarah Prendergast, Colorado State University
  Presenting Author

• David MacPhee, Colorado State University
  Non-Presenting Author