Parenting Under Stress: Examining The Protective Role Of Parenting Self-Efficacy In A High-Risk Environment
Research has demonstrated that risk factors such as poverty, neighborhoods that are lacking in resources and high in danger, and experiences with racism can compromise a parent’s ability to engage in parenting behavior that results in the most favorable child outcomes. It has also demonstrated that African American mothers are much more likely to face these risk factors. While research has demonstrated the protective effect of parenting self-efficacy against poverty’s influence on parenting behaviors, it has not examined whether or not parenting self-efficacy serves as a buffer against other risk factors. As such, it is the purpose of this study to investigate the ability of parenting self-efficacy to buffer the effects of negative neighborhood characteristics and race-related stress on parenting behaviors that have been shown to be universally beneficial for positive child development. This study examined the survey responses of 97 African American mothers living in the Mississippi Delta. As hypothesized, findings revealed that mothers who were less socially connected and involved in their neighborhood also engaged in less authoritative parenting practices. A significant relationship between the other risk factors and authoritative parenting was not found. While a positive association between parenting self-efficacy and authoritative parenting was found, parenting self-efficacy was not found to be a significant predictor of authoritative parenting. In addition, parenting self-efficacy was not found to moderate the relationship between any of the risk factors and authoritative parenting. It is important to note that due to missing data, the sample size of this study was small for many analyses; therefore, there may not have been sufficient power to detect hypothesized effects.
Neighborhood Characteristics, Parenting, Poverty, Race-Related Stress, Psychology
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