فشار والدین، مشکلات بهداشت روانی و شیوه های فرزندپروری: مطالعه طولی

Although poor parenting practices place youth living in under resourced communities at heightened risk for adjustment difficulties, less is known about what influences parenting practices in those communities. The present study examines prospective linkages between three latent constructs: parental strain, mental health problems and parenting practices. Parental victimization by community violence and life stressors were indicative of parental strain; depressive, anxious, and hostile symptoms were indicators of parental mental health; and parental knowledge of their child’s activities and child disclosure were indicators of parenting practices. Interviews were conducted annually for 3 waves with 316 female caregivers (92% African American) parenting youth in low-income inner-city communities. Structural equation modeling revealed that parental strain, assessed at Wave 1, predicted changes in mental health problems 1 year later, which in turn predicted parenting practices at Wave 3. These results suggest that parental strain can compromise a caregiver’s ability to parent effectively by impacting their mental health. Opportunities for intervention include helping caregivers process trauma and mental health problems associated with parental strain.

Parenting children in high-risk contexts is the common experience for millions of adults living in the United States (Ceballo, Kennedy, Bregman, & Epstein-Ngo, 2012). Living in high-risk contexts, such as neighborhoods with high levels of violence, noise, and crowding can take a toll on parenting practices, ranging from excessive and restrictive control of children’s activities (Weir, Etelson, & Brand, 2006) to various forms of mistreatment and abuse (Zhang & Anderson, 2010). These alterations in parenting and family processes, in turn, can impact youth adjustment (White & Roosa, 2012). Due to the significant effect parenting behavior has on children’s development (Furstenberg et al., 1999 and Sroufe et al., 2005), it is important to understand the pathways through which parents’ own experiences in hazardous neighborhoods impact their parenting practices. The present study examines prospective linkages between three latent constructs: parental strain, assessed through victimization by community violence and life stressors; parental mental health, assessed through depressive, anxious and hostile symptoms; and subsequent parenting practices assessed through parental knowledge of their child’s activities and child voluntary disclosure of activities (see Fig. 1). Full-size image (25 K)