Trajectories of Maternal Supportiveness and Child Outcomes in African American, Hispanic, and European American Families

• In Event: Poster Session 10
  In Poster Session: PS 10 Topic - Parenting & Parent-Child Relationships

Abstract

Maternal supportiveness, the encouragement from mother to child exhibited through sensitivity, stimulation, positivity, and responsivity, is of demonstrated importance toward child outcomes (McCarty et al., 2005). In the transition from infancy to early childhood, maternal supportiveness has longitudinally predicted fewer internalizing and externalizing behaviors (van der Voort et al., 2014), with emotion regulation noted as a significant mediating mechanism (Suh & Kang, 2020). However, most longitudinal analyses of maternal supportiveness and child outcomes do not consider that mothers may vary in their trajectories of supportiveness across toddlerhood. By assuming maternal supportiveness is stable, understanding the true impact of a predictor is limited (Laursen & Hoff, 2006). Therefore, the present study investigated whether there are multiple trajectories (classes) of maternal supportiveness across toddlerhood, whether maternal supportiveness class uniquely predicts outcomes in middle childhood mediated through early childhood emotion regulation, and whether these relations hold across racial/ethnic groups in a low-income sample. We predicted three to four classes of maternal supportiveness would emerge with high or increasing supportiveness predictive of better emotion regulation and fewer negative outcomes than children of mothers with low or decreasing supportiveness. We did not make predictions on comparisons of race/ethnicity because previous findings have been inconsistent.

To address our objectives, 2,977 low-income mother-child dyads from the Early Head Start Research and Evaluation Project dataset were evaluated. Maternal supportiveness was measured at three time points (14, 24, and 36 months) during a semi-structured play task, which was coded for maternal sensitivity, cognitive stimulation, and positive regard (ICCs ≥ .84; α ≥ .82). Emotion regulation was measured at 36 months; children’s negative affect, frustration, and ability to change tasks were coded during a behavioral development assessment (α = .90). Finally, children’s self-reported perceptions of internalizing (α = .77) and externalizing (α = .79) symptoms were assessed during fifth grade.

Our hypotheses were partially supported. Growth mixture modeling revealed four classes of maternal supportiveness fit the data best (BLRT -2LL = 15.93, p < .01): high and stable (mean intercept: 4.80*; mean slope: -.00) moderate and increasing (mean intercept: 3.50; mean slope: .38*), moderate and decreasing (mean intercept: 4.17*; mean slope: -.35*), and low and stable (mean intercept: 2.77*; mean slope: .00; Note: *p < .05). Class membership uniquely predicted child outcomes mediated through emotion regulation. Children whose mothers were high and stable in supportiveness showed the best emotion regulation and the least negative outcomes. Those whose mothers were more moderate in supportiveness showed better emotion regulation and more protection from negative outcomes when compared to those whose mothers were low in supportiveness (Figure 1). Multigroup moderation analyses across the racial/ethnic groups revealed that the model was robust across African American, Hispanic, and European American families (Table 1). Therefore, the findings elucidate protective patterns of maternal supportiveness that buffer at-risk children from negative outcomes, which can inform prevention/intervention programs.

Authors

• Amanda L Nowak, University of Notre Dame
  Presenting Author

• Deborah J. Laible, Lehigh University
  Non-Presenting Author

• Sarah L Pierotti, Pennsylvania State University, DuBois
  Non-Presenting Author

• Mary B Eberly Lewis, Oakland University
  Non-Presenting Author

• Erin Karahuta
  Non-Presenting Author

• Gustavo Carlo, University of California, Irvine
  Non-Presenting Author