Links to Positive Parenting among African American and Hispanic American Low-Income Mothers Laura D. Pittman Psychology Department Northern Illinois University

Ethnicity and Parenting  Known link between parenting and child outcomes (Bornstein, 2002) For some parenting practices, ethnicity is a significant moderator in this relationship  Parenting also suggested as a mediator between more distal factors and child outcomes  Few have considered ethnicity as a moderator in the links between the distal factors and parenting  Furthermore, studies often focus on within group differences or have comparisons to Caucasian families

Context of Parenting  Parents living in poverty are: More likely to use more punitive parenting (McLoyd, 1990) And be less warm and supportive (Magnuson & Duncan, 2002) Less likely to stimulate children cognitively (Bradley et al, 2001)  Unclear what factors within this economic context influence parenting

Possible Distal Factors linked to Parenting  Psychological Distress/Health (e.g., McLoyd, 1990)  Financial Strain (e.g., Coley & Chase- Lansdale, 2000)  Neighborhood Problems (e.g., Furstenberg et al., 1999)  Collective Efficacy (Sampson, 1992)

Questions for this study  In this low-income sample, what factors are linked to positive parenting? Less parenting stress More cognitive stimulation Use of more family routines More authoritative parenting Less harsh parenting Less permissive parenting Less disengaged parenting  Are there differences by ethnicity in how these factors influence parenting?

Welfare, Children, and Families: A Three-City Study  2402 families completed interview (1999) Over 40,000 household screened for eligible families Children age 0-4 years or years 74% overall response rate Boston, Chicago, San Antonio 490 African American & Hispanic American families with 2- to 4- year-old children kept in these analyses  Procedure 2-hour interview of the maternal caregiver in family’s home using a computerized interview format  Obtained information on family background, mental health, economic condition, perceptions of the neighborhood and parenting

Mothers’ Parenting Measures  Parenting Practices - Raising Children Checklist (Shumow, et al., 1998) 20 items 4 Subscales derived: Authoritative, Harsh, Permissive & Disengaged Parenting  Cognitive Stimulation subscale from the HOME (Caldwell & Bradley, 1984)  Family Routines 6-items from Family Routines Inventory (Jensen et al., 1983)  Parenting Stress 7 items derived from similar measures in the New Hope Study & Panel Study of Income Dynamics (PSID)

Mothers’ Psychological Health  10-item Rosenberg Self Esteem Scale (Rosenberg, 1986)  Psychological Symptoms Brief Symptom Inventory–18 (Derogatis, 2000) Includes symptoms of anxiety, depression, & somatization

Family Economic Factors  Income-to-needs ratio Comparison of annual household income to poverty threshold for families of same size  Financial Strain Index (Coley & Chase-Lansdale, 2000) 6 items asking about how difficult it is to make ends meet in the household

Neighborhood measures  Neighborhood Problem Scale 11 items adapted from the Denver Youth Study and Chicago Youth Achievement Study (Eliot et al., 1996)  Collective Efficacy 9 items based on the Sampson’s Collective Efficacy Scale (Sampson et al 1997)

Background Characteristics (N = 490)  Mothers’ Age: years (SD = 8.43)  Children’s Age: 3.51 years (SD = 0.86)  42% African American; 58% Hispanic American  61% Single; 33% Married; 6% Cohabiting  Household Income-to-Needs Ratio =.81

Analysis Plan (1)T-test comparisons between African- American and Hispanic Americans on all variables (2)Linear Regressions predicting each of the parenting variables were run, first entering some demographics and then ethnicity (3)To the models in #2, the distal factors were added simultaneously to see what independently contributed to the prediction of parenting (4)Added interactions terms between ethnicity and each of the distal variables

T-tests  Hispanic Americans more likely to be married or cohabiting than African Americans  Hispanic Americans reported lower levels of self esteem  African Americans had higher levels of cognitive stimulation as well as more harsh parenting in their home compared to Hispanic Americans No differences in parenting remained after controlling for child’s age and gender and mothers’ marital status

Main effects: Psychological Health  Self-esteem positively linked to family routines, cognitive stimulation, and authoritative parenting, while being negatively linked with parenting stress and disengaged parenting  More psychological symptoms only linked to greater parenting stress

Main effects: Economic & Neighborhood Factors  Economic factors Higher family income was linked to more parenting stress Financial strain not linked to parenting  Neighborhood Greater neighborhood collective efficacy linked to use of more family routines More neighborhood problems linked to more parenting stress

Interaction between Maternal Self-esteem and Ethnicity predicting Authoritative Parenting

Interaction between Maternal Self-esteem and Ethnicity predicting Permissive Parenting

Interaction between Maternal Self-esteem and Ethnicity predicting Parenting Stress

Interaction between Maternal Psychological Symptoms and Ethnicity predicting Family Routines

Interaction between Maternal Psychological Symptoms and Ethnicity predicting Permissive Parenting

Interaction between Neighborhood Problems and Ethnicity predicting Harsh Parenting

Interaction between Neighborhood Collective Efficacy and Ethnicity predicting Harsh Parenting

Interaction between Neighborhood Collective Efficacy and Ethnicity predicting Cognitive Stimulation

Interaction between Income-to-Needs Ratio and Ethnicity predicting Family Routines

Summary  Maternal self-esteem important, but perhaps more true among African American  Maternal psychological symptoms less meaningful here.  Economic factors not significant in this homogenous sample  Neighborhood factors linked to parenting stress and family routines  Overall, interactions found significant effects for African American families, but not for Hispanic American families

Future directions  Limited by the cross-sectional nature of these analyses Onto longitudinal analyses  Consideration of other possible moderators in prediction of parenting Child gender Child temperament Marital status