Parenting in Poverty: Additive and Qualitative Effects of Risk

• In Event: Poster Session 08
  In Poster Session: PS 08 Topic - Parenting & Parent-Child Relationships

Abstract

Co-occurrence of risk exposure for families in poverty is common, but less is known about how these compounded experiences may influence parenting behavior. Researchers have traditionally used a cumulative risk index, or additive count of endorsed risk, to account for the effects of multiple risk experiences over exposure to a single risk factor. However, recent methodological advances allow for qualitative examination of unique constellations of risk, allowing researchers to characterize families by specific patterns of experience. Furthermore, research considering how such overall risk experience, either quantitative or qualitative, is associated with parenting behavior early in childhood is limited. To address this question, low-income mothers in the New Orleans area (n = 167) and their two-year-old children were visited at home and worked together on a difficult puzzle designed to elicit everyday parenting behavior. Mothers endorsed their experience of seven sociodemographic risks (e.g., living below the poverty line, single mother family, etc.) and four psychosocial risks (e.g., maternal depressive symptoms, perceived financial strain, etc.). Two unique cumulative risk indices were created from these 11 variables, tapping into sociodemographic and psychosocial distress risk, respectively. Regression analyses assessed the relation between the risk indices and positive (e.g., responsive or warm) and negative (e.g., intrusive or harsh) parenting behavior. Additionally, latent class analysis (LCA) examined subgroups of risk experience using the same 11 indicators. Regression analyses showed that positive parenting differed by both risk indices, in that more sociodemographic and more psychosocial distress experience was associated with less positive parenting. However, negative parenting was more common only in families indicating more psychosocial, but not sociodemographic, risk experience. Conversely, LCA suggested a four-class model, in which families were sorted into a relatively low-risk class, a sociodemographic-only risk class, a multiple (i.e., both psychosocial and sociodemographic) risk class, and an idiosyncratic class characterized by partnered young mothers living in crowded homes without psychosocial distress. Further, these class assignments predicted differences in parenting behavior, in that positive parenting was more common in families in the low-risk class than those in any of three high-risk classes. The LCA suggests that study families, most of whom lived at or below the poverty line, experience risk in qualitatively unique patterns, and that those mothers reporting the relatively lowest risk were more likely to engage in positive parenting. This concurs with the regression analyses, which suggest that mothers lowest in all risk endorsement used the most positive parenting. Surprisingly, mothers’ negative parenting was only predicted by higher psychosocial distress risk. The findings of the current study have dual implications for future research and intervention. First, families reporting more risk experiences, particularly psychosocial risk factors, may be best targeted for early parenting interventions that focus on giving mothers positive response options in place of more negative interactions with their children. Conversely, positive parenting intervention efforts, in which warmth and responsive behaviors are the focus, should be targeted to families living in economic hardship.

Authors

• Lauren Aaron, University of New Orleans
  Presenting Author

• Sarah Black, University of New Orleans
  Non-Presenting Author

• Laura Scaramella, University of Arizona
  Non-Presenting Author