Abstract
Investigations on the bidirectional relationships between parenting stress and child behavior problems are important to inform intervention strategies; however, prior research has provided inconsistent findings. Using a national sample of multi-stressed single-mother families from the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing study, the present study examined the bidirectional relationships between maternal parenting stress and children’s behavioral problems spanning from early childhood through adolescence at the child’s ages 3, 5, 9, and 15. Reciprocal transactions were found between parenting stress and behavior problems in early childhood between the ages 3 and 5. From age 5 to age 15, our findings also suggest that children’s behavior problems at an earlier time point predict mothers’ parenting stress at a later time point. Unexpectedly, the lagged effects of parenting stress on child behavior problems in school ages were not significant in our sampled data. Early childhood interventions should address mitigating both parenting stress and their toddlers’ behavior problems. During middle childhood and adolescence, interventions to directly address children’s behavior problems are critical both to the well-being of mothers and to assist in the reduction in levels of behavior problems.
摘要
对养育子女的压力和儿童行为问题之间的双向关系的调查，对提供干预策略很重要；然而，以前的研究提供了不一致的结果。本研究使用来自脆弱家庭和儿童健康研究的多压力单亲母亲家庭的全国性样本，研究了母亲养育压力和儿童行为问题之间的双向关系，时间跨度从儿童早期到青少年期的3、5、9和15岁。在3至5岁的儿童早期，父母的压力和行为问题之间存在相互影响。从5岁到15岁，我们的发现还表明，儿童在早期的行为问题可以预测母亲在后期的养育压力。意外的是，在我们的抽样数据中，养育压力对学龄儿童行为问题的滞后影响并不显著。儿童早期的干预措施应该同时解决减轻父母的压力和幼儿的行为问题。在儿童中期和青少年时期，直接解决儿童行为问题的干预措施对母亲的幸福和协助降低行为问题的水平都是至关重要的。