What is the Right Amount of Parenting Stress?: 5-Wave Study of Mother-youth Dyads Across the Transition to Adolescence

• In Event: 1-083 - A Basic and Applied Understanding of the Bidirectional Links Between Parents’ Emotions and Child Well-being

Integrative Statement

Longitudinal studies demonstrate that increases in parenting stress (PS) of mothers, relative to their average levels, predict subsequent increase in their child’s stress (Stone et al., 2016). However, it is unknown whether the impact on youth remains when PS increases within the parent’s low to average levels of PS. In this case, youth might interpret increase in PS as higher parental involvement and caring, which might actually reduce youth stress. This favorable reduction effect is likely to occur more strongly when the parent’s coping levels are high. Taking a developmental approach, this study focuses on the mother–youth relationship context across the transition to early adolescence, a sensitive time for increases in stress. We tested curvilinear associations between changes in maternal PS and youth’s perceived stress within and across five waves, each separated by 6 months. We also tested whether maternal global coping moderates these links.

The sample was comprised of 202 ethnically-diverse mother-youth dyads who participated in the Mothers and Their Children's Health (MATCH) study (Dunton et al., 2015). Eight- to 12-year-old youth (51% girls) and their mothers were recruited from Los Angeles-area schools and community centers. At each wave, mothers reported on PS using the Parental Stress Scale (Barry and Jones, 1995) and coping using the COPE (Carver et al., 1997). Youth reported on perceived stress using the Stress in Children Scale (Osika et al. 2007).

We conducted multi-level regression models in Mplus, to test the linear and curvilinear effects of changes in PS on youth stress within (i.e., concurrently) and across (i.e., prospectively) assessment waves. As presented in Table 1, PS had curvilinear effects on youth stress. Concurrently, (i.e., within the same 6-month interval), higher maternal PS predicted lower youth stress when PS was =< -.16 SD, but predicted a higher youth stress when PS was => +.64 SD. Similarly, prospectively (i.e., across 6-months), increases in maternal PS predicted decreases in youth stress when PS was =< +0.11 SD, but increases in youth stress when PS was => +1.03 SD, and non-significantly linked in between.

A cross-level interaction showed that mothers’ global coping (aggregated across assessment waves) alter the strength, but not the direction, of the association between PS and youth stress, within the same 6 months , b= -1.34, SE= .48, p= .005. For example, at high coping levels (+1 SD) increase in PS predicted decrease in youth stress when PS was =< -.11 SD. However, at low (-1 SD) coping levels, increase in PS predicted decrease in youth stress only when PS was =< -.67. Regions of significance for high, average and low mother coping displayed in Figure 2. Mother coping did not alter the link between PS and youth stress across 6-months, b= -.50, SE= .52, p= .34

Results indicate that both up and downward deviations from mother’s average PS levels may increase youth stress, and that optimal PS levels may depend on mothers’ global coping abilities. Parenting interventions should help parents to optimize and maintain their PS and to boost adaptive coping.

Authors

• Reout Arbel, University of Haifa
  Presenting Author

• Gayla Margolin, University of Southern California
  Non-Presenting Author

• Sydney G. O'Connor, University of Southern California
  Non-Presenting Author

• Tyler Mason, University of Southern California
  Non-Presenting Author

• Adam Leventhal, University of Southern California
  Non-Presenting Author

• Genevieve Dunton, University of Southern California
  Non-Presenting Author