Protective Factors and Toddlers’ Positive Social Development: Developing Resilience in the Context of Family Distress

• In Event: New Directions in Paternal Caregiving of Young Children

Abstract

Poverty has a detrimental impact on children’s development. What is less clear are the protective factors that reduce the negative effects of adversity and help to promote resiliency among children (Cabrera, et al., 2013; Masten & Reed, 2002; Vanderbilt-Adriance & Shaw, 2008). The current study addresses several issues in this literature: First, few longitudinal studies assessing resilience include both parents. The present longitudinal study samples low-income mothers and fathers and their children. Second, we investigate whether the benefits of certain protective factors differ by levels of family distress— an important question for intervention programs (Shaw et al. 2004). Third, we define resilience by low levels of behavior problems and high levels of social skills to test the idea that children performed adaptively across domains. Finally, this study evaluates the associations of protective factors in infancy on functioning during the toddler years (Yates et al. 2003). Early protective factors are particularly significant because interventions may be more effective earlier in childhood (e.g., Olds 2002).
Aims: We ask (1) are protective factors (i.e., nurturant parenting, parent relationship support, parent-child relationship quality, and parents’ optimism) at 9 months associated with toddlers’ social competence and problem behaviors at 21 months? (2) does family distress (i.e., economic stress, parents’ feelings of being overwhelmed, household chaos) moderate the association between these protective factors and social adjustment? We hypothesize that these protective factors would be associated with low levels of problem behaviors and high social skills in toddlerhood. Moreover, we expect that the association between protective factors and children’s social skills would be stronger at low levels of family distress than at high levels.
Method: Our sample includes 150 low-income, two-parent families participating in a literacy intervention. At 9 months, parents were interviewed about their feelings of optimism, the relationship support of their partner, and family distress. At 21 months, parents and children were observed during a 10-min play interaction task and coded for nurturant parenting (i.e., sensitivity, warmth, and animation) and parent-child relationship quality (i.e., dyadic synchrony). Mothers and fathers reported on toddlers’ child’s social competence skills via the Brief Infant Toddler Social Emotional Assessment.
Results: Preliminary correlations reveal that in terms of risk factors, paternal report of household chaos and maternal and paternal feelings of overloaded are negatively correlated with social skills and positively correlated with problem behaviors. In terms of protective factors, only maternal optimism is positively correlated with social skills and negatively with problem behaviors (Tables 1 and 2). We will conduct multiple regression analysis to estimate the main effects of protective factors on children’s social skills and the moderating effect of family distress in the association between protective factors and positive social adjustment.
Conclusions: This research extends literature on the association between protective factors and children’s social adjustment and the moderating effect that levels of risk have on this association by including fathers. Our findings have the potential to inform interventions targeted to low-income families.

Authors

• Avery Hennigar, University of Maryland - College Park
  Presenting Author

• Angelica Alonso, University of Maryland - College Park
  Non-Presenting Author

• S. Alexa McDorman, University of Maryland - College Park
  Non-Presenting Author

• Natasha J Cabrera, University of Maryland - College Park
  Non-Presenting Author