Poster #100 - The Impact of Neighborhood Risk on Children’s Social and Academic Outcomes: Exploring Parental Intrusiveness’ Role

• In Event: 2-163 - Poster Session 08
  In Poster Session: PS 08 Section - Family Context & Processes

Integrative Statement

Past research has demonstrated relations between disadvantageous neighborhood characteristics (e.g., poverty, crime) and later social (Vanderbilt-Adriance & Shaw, 2008) and academic outcomes (Lacourl & Tissington, 2011). However, less research has been dedicated to understanding why this relation exists. Evidence suggests that parental behaviors are impacted by neighborhood characteristics (Belsky & Jaffee, 2006) and a plethora of studies link different parenting behaviors (e.g., parental warmth) to various child outcomes (Davidov & Grusec, 2006). Because parenting occurs in the context of various factors including neighborhood poverty and residential stability (Pinderhughes, Nix, Foster, and Jones, 2004), we hypothesized that neighborhood risk may contribute to later child outcomes via parenting. Although some studies have examined parental warmth (e.g., Pinderhughes et al., 2001), negative parent-child interactions, specifically parental intrusiveness, have been explored less often. Parental intrusiveness encompasses parental behaviors that restrict or prohibit the developmentally appropriate autonomy and self-awareness of the child (Hudson, Comer, & Kendall, 2008). In contexts of neighborhood risk, these behaviors may be heightened as parents strive to control their child’s thoughts and activities.
The current study explored the mediating role of observed parental intrusiveness at age six between neighborhood risk at age five and academic achievement and relationship skills at age seven in a sample of 250 child/caregiver dyads (50% female children; 46% Latinx). Neighborhood risk was indicated by a composite of census and FBI statistics capturing total crime risk, low educational attainment risk (i.e., no high school diploma), and poverty risk. Parental intrusiveness was measured by independent raters who coded a series of parent-child interactions during four laboratory administered teaching tasks at age 6. At age 7, academic achievement was measured using the Woodcock Johnson IV Letter-Word subtest score and relationship skills were measured using teacher reports on the McArthur Health and Behavior Questionnaire (Boyce et al., 2002). All mediation analyses controlled for child race, sex, IQ, and family socioeconomic status.
Results revealed significant indirect pathways between neighborhood risk, parental intrusiveness, and both academic achievement and relationship skills. These findings suggest that increased neighborhood risk predicts increased parental intrusiveness, which, in turn, predicts poorer academic achievement and relationship skills. These results highlight the importance of further examining the role of parental intrusion and other related, negative parental behaviors, particularly in context of heightened neighborhood risk. Additional research is needed to understand why neighborhood risk contributes to increased intrusion. It may be that parents seek to control their child’s thoughts and activities in the interest of protection and safety. Alternately, these parenting practices may reflect the parent’s expression of autonomy and control in the context of a risky and disadvantaged community that might afford relatively few opportunities for the parent to exercise self-determination and autonomy. In addition to being empirically significant, these results are also clinically relevant in that parent-child interventions may benefit from specifically identifying and reducing parental intrusiveness, especially among families living in higher risk neighborhoods.

Authors

• Jessie M Bridgewater, University of California, Riverside
  Presenting Author

• Tuppett M Yates, University of California, Riverside
  Non-Presenting Author