Caregiver Incarceration and Childhood Adaptation

Session Type: Paper Symposium

Abstract

This symposium presents three new investigations of caregiver incarceration effects on children’s educational and socioemotional adaptation. Together, they highlight the need for more nuanced investigations of parental incarceration beyond main effects to clarify whether, when, and why parental incarceration may compromise childhood adaptation. Paper One documented negative associations between parental incarceration and school readiness among preschool-aged children, but also noted the influence of other contextual factors (e.g., special healthcare needs status) on these associations. In Paper Two, childhood experiences of paternal incarceration (up to age 6) predicted significant declines in children’s academic achievement from ages 8-10 via declines in maternal supportive parenting from ages 6-8, and this indirect path was particularly pronounced for daughters versus sons. Paper Three evaluated indirect pathways by which experiences of maternal incarceration prior to a child’s birth influence young children’s social-emotional development via mothers’ mental health problems. Joined by an expert on research and practice focused on high-risk families, including those affected by parental incarceration, this symposium offers a comprehensive understanding of specific developmental pathways among parental, paternal, and maternal incarceration and childhood adaptation. Using rigorous analytic designs while controlling for important covariates, these papers demonstrate that caregiver incarceration is not a de facto cause for negative childhood outcomes. Rather, it instantiates multiple, problematic and non-problematic pathways, both of which can be modified (e.g., supporting healthcare quality and access, teaching sensitive parenting skills) in the service of promoting positive educational and socioemotional outcomes for children affected by incarceration.

Sub Unit

• Family Context & Processes

Chair

• Jessie Bridgewater, University of California - Riverside

Discussant

• Julie A. Poehlmann-Tynan, University of Wisconsin - Madison

Individual Presentations

• Parental Incarceration and School Readiness among Preschool-age Children in the United States - Presenting Author: Marvin So, University of Minnesota - Twin Cities; Non-Presenting Author: Leslie Salas-Hernández, Emory University Rollins School of Public Health; Non-Presenting Author: Laurel Davis, University of Minnesota; Non-Presenting Author: Rebecca J Shlafer, University of Minnesota - Twin Cities

• Paternal Incarceration and Children’s Academic Achievement: The Role of Caregiver Parenting Quality - Presenting Author: Jessie Bridgewater, University of California - Riverside; Non-Presenting Author: Tuppett M. Yates, University of California - Riverside

• Direct and Indirect Effects of Maternal Incarceration on Child Social-Emotional Development - Presenting Author: Lixia Zhang, University of Northern Iowa; Non-Presenting Author: Joshua Mersky, University of Wisconsin - Milwaukee; Non-Presenting Author: ChienTi Plummer Lee, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee; Non-Presenting Author: Meredith Head, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee