Family Processes Among Early Head Start Families: Testing the Role of Parental Self-Efficacy in the Family Stress Model

The Family Stress Model (FSM) provides a framework for how economic pressure can impact family processes and outcomes, including parent\u27s mental health, parenting, and child problem behaviors. Although the FSM has been widely replicated, samples disproportionately impacted by poverty including early childhood samples and in particular Latino families with young children, have been largely excluded from the FSM research. Therefore, among a sample of ethnically diverse Early Head Start children (N=148) and among a subsample of Latino children (n=100), the current study evaluated a modified FSM to understand the direct and indirect pathways among economic pressure, parental depression, parenting self-efficacy, the parent-child relationship, and child problem behaviors. Results showed that the modified FSM including parenting self-efficacy was successfully replicated within the full early childhood sample; however, specific hypothesized pathways were not replicated among Latinos. Further analyses illuminated how pathways identified in the full sample were replicated among more but not among less acculturated Latino parents. Implications for future FSM research with Latino families as well as for parent-focused interventions are discussed

The effects of economic and sociocultural stressors on the well-being of children of Latino immigrants living in poverty.

This paper explored whether preschooler's physical (body mass index and salivary cortisol levels) and psychological (internalizing/externalizing behaviors) well-being were predicted by economic hardship as has been previously documented, and further whether parental immigration-related stress and/or acculturation level moderated this relationship in low-income Latino families

Parental Buffering in the Context of Poverty: Positive Parenting Behaviors Differentiate Young Children\u27s Stress Reactivity Profiles

Experiencing poverty increases vulnerability for dysregulated hypothalamic–pituitary–adrenal (HPA) axis functioning and compromises long-term health. Positive parenting buffers children from HPA axis reactivity, yet this has primarily been documented among families not experiencing poverty. We tested the theorized power of positive parenting in 124 parent–child dyads recruited from Early Head Start (Mage = 25.21 months) by examining child cortisol trajectories using five samples collected across a standardized stress paradigm. Piecewise latent growth models revealed that positive parenting buffered children\u27s stress responses when controlling for time of day, last stress task completed, and demographics. Positive parenting also interacted with income such that positive parenting was especially protective for cortisol reactivity in families experiencing greater poverty. Findings suggest that positive parenting behaviors are important for protecting children in families experiencing low income from heightened or prolonged physiologic stress reactivity to an acute stressor

Beyond Income: Expanding our Empirical Toolkit to Better Predict Caregiver Well-Being

Objectives Despite growing concern that income alone does not capture how low-income families are managing financially, it continues to be one of the most commonly used indicators of socioeconomic status and is routinely used as a qualifying factor for government assistance programs. Income can be difficult to measure accurately and alone may not be the best predictor of caregiver well-being, in particular among ethnically diverse families. A more nuanced understanding may be critical for identifying families in need of services and supporting success after enrollment in need-based programming. Thus, the current study investigated the relationship between traditional (low income, low education, unemployment), and less traditional (economic pressure, economic hardship, perceived social status, crowding) socioeconomic indicators and caregiver well-being (caregiver depressive symptoms, anxiety, dysfunction in the parent-child relationship) using data from a multisite study. Methods Participants were 978 racially/ethnically diverse caregivers (97% female) of young children enrolled in Early Head Start programming from six sites across the United States. Results Exploratory factor analyses resulted in a three-factor model, capturing demographic risk, resource strain, and perceived social status. The Resource Strain factor was most strongly associated with greater caregiver depressive and anxiety symptoms, and dysfunction in the parent-child relationship. Further, hierarchical regression models revealed up to a four-fold increase in variance explained when adding economic strain along with traditional variables to models predicting caregiver well-being. Conclusions Results support the need to supplement traditional economic measurement when supporting families experiencing low income and for measuring poverty among ethnically diverse families

Exploring the Role of Ethnic Identity in Family Functioning among Low-income Parents

The majority of research on ethnic identity (EI) has highlighted its role in mitigating risks associated with racial discrimination; however, discrimination is only one of many stressors that ethnic minority individuals face. The current study examined the relationships between EI, emotional distress, and the parent–child relationship among ethnically diverse, low‐income parents. Results indicated significant associations between EI and emotional distress, and EI and the parent–child relationship for African American parents, but not for their Latino or European American counterparts. Furthermore, when examined separately by gender, stronger EI buffered the impact of economic hardship on emotional distress for African American fathers. The current study provides preliminary evidence that EI plays an important role in the lives of ethnically diverse parents who are facing economic hardship. Methods for embracing and fostering EI may be valuable to incorporate into therapeutic services and strength‐based intervention programming, especially when serving low‐income African American individuals

The effects of economic and sociocultural stressors on the well-being of children of Latino immigrants living in poverty.

OBJECTIVES: This paper explored whether preschooler's physical (body mass index and salivary cortisol levels) and psychological (internalizing/externalizing behaviors) well-being were predicted by economic hardship as has been previously documented, and further whether parental immigration-related stress and/or acculturation level moderated this relationship in low-income Latino families. METHODS: The sample for the current study included 71 children of Latino immigrants (M = 4.46 yrs, SD = .62). Parents completed questionnaires assessing immigration-related stress, acculturation level, economic hardship and child internalizing and externalizing behaviors. Child's BMI was also calculated from height and weight. Salivary cortisol samples were collected mid-morning and mid-afternoon at home on non-child care days. Salivary cortisol values were averaged and log transformed. RESULTS: Children's salivary cortisol was predicted by an interaction between economic hardship and acculturation, with lower cortisol values except when children were protected by both lower acculturation and lower economic hardship. Both internalizing and externalizing behaviors were predicted by an interaction between economic hardship and immigration-related stress, with highest behaviors among children whose parents reported high levels of both economic hardship and immigration-related stress. CONCLUSIONS: The effects of economic hardship on the well-being of young children of Latino immigrants may depend on concurrent experiences of sociocultural stress, with detrimental effects emerging for these outcomes only when economic hardship and sociocultural stressors are high

Unlocking the Black Box: A Multilevel Analysis of Preadolescent Children’s Coping

This random assignment experimental study examined the intersection of children’s coping and physiologic stress reactivity and recovery patterns in a sample of preadolescent boys and girls. A sample of 82 fourth-grade and fifth-grade (Mage = 10.59 years old) child–parent dyads participated in the present study. Children participated in the Trier Social Stress Test and were randomly assigned to one of two post–Trier Social Stress Test experimental coping conditions—behavioral distraction or cognitive avoidance. Children’s characteristic ways of coping were examined as moderators of the effect of experimental coping condition on cortisol reactivity and recovery patterns. Multilevel modeling analyses indicated that children’s characteristic coping and experimental coping condition interacted to predict differential cortisol recovery patterns. Children who characteristically engaged in primary control engagement coping strategies were able to more quickly down-regulate salivary cortisol when primed to distract themselves than when primed to avoid, and vice versa. The opposite pattern was true for characteristic disengagement coping in the context of coping condition, suggesting that regulatory fit between children’s characteristic ways of coping and cues from their coping environment may lead to more and less adaptive physiologic recovery profiles. This study provides some of the first evidence that coping “gets under the skin” and that children’s characteristic ways of coping may constrain or enhance a child’s ability to make use of environmental coping resources