استراتژی مراقب منفی و آسیب شناسی روانی در مناطق شهری، جوانان آفریقایی-آمریکایی

Objective: There were three aims: (1) assess the prevalence of reported exposure to negative caregiver strategies in a community-based African-American population, (2) examine the sources of variation in caregiver parenting strategies, including demographic variables and child characteristics, (3) investigate whether mental disorders in young adulthood may differ based on reported degree of exposure to negative strategies. Method: The participants were 1197 African-Americans involved in a 1999–2001 young adult follow-up (age M=19.6, SD=.6) of an evaluation of school-based interventions in the Baltimore, MD metropolitan area. Measures included teacher-report of child aggression in first grade, parent-report of demographic variables in first and sixth grade, and young adult self-report of symptomatology, suicidal behaviors, and childhood caregiver discipline strategies. Results: Fifty-four percent of the sample reported some use of physical discipline by caregivers. Lower family income and younger caregiver age, as well as teacher reports of child aggression, were related to reports of caregiver’s high use of negative strategies. In addition, young adults who reported a high rate of negative caregiver strategies had a significantly increased risk for psychopathology and were over twice as likely to have experienced a history of suicidal ideation than those reporting low exposure. Conclusions: The results demonstrate the importance of examining variation in this population, with the poorest and the youngest using negative parenting strategies more frequently. In addition, the present study replicated previous findings of the link between negative caregiver discipline strategies and psychopathology. This association appears robust across diverse populations. The implications for preventive interventions are discussed.

A significant number of children are exposed to parental maltreatment and harsh discipline strategies, which may lead to serious physical injury or death (Kotch, Chalmers, Fanslow, Marshall, & Langley, 1993; McClain, Sacks, Froehlke, & Ewigman, 1993; Wolfner & Gelles, 1993). In 1997, estimates based on data from 44 states indicated that approximately 984,000 children were victims of maltreatment and that about 1100 children died as a result of child abuse or neglect (US Department of Health and Human Services, 1997). In addition to causing physical injuries, harsh parenting practices have an important influence on children’s psychological health (e.g., Cicchetti & Carlson, 1989 and Cicchetti & Lynch, 1995). Thus, the use of harsh discipline strategies and, on the extreme end, child maltreatment is an important public health issue. Variation among African-American parents and factors associated with parenting practices Numerous studies have found socioeconomic status (SES) and ethnic differences in the use of physical punishment and harsher discipline strategies (Deater–Deckard, Dodge, Bates, & Pettit, 1996; Dodge, Pettit, & Bates, 1994; Luster, Rhoades, & Haas, 1989; McLoyd, 1990; Pinderhughes, Dodge, Bates, Pettit, & Zelli, 2000), and that African-American families are over-represented among substantiated cases of childhood maltreatment (Levine, Doueck, Freeman, & Compaan, 1996). However, not all African-American parents use harsh strategies and little is known about the prevalence of negative caregiver techniques in an African-American community. In addition, relatively little is known about variations in the use of such techniques within the African-American population (see Kelley, Power, & Wimbush, 1992). In general, there is an increasing awareness of the need for, and value of, exploring the rich degree of variation across families within a given ethnic population (McGroder, 2000 and Parke, 2000). Studying within-group variations is important because (a) comparisons between African-Americans and other ethnic groups imply that African-Americans are monolithic in their parenting and discipline styles, which is probably not the case and (b) it allows for examining the possibility that different risk factors may account for discipline strategies in different subgroups of African-Americans (McLoyd, 1998 and McLoyd, 1990; McLoyd, Jayaratne, Ceballo, & Borquez, 1994; McLoyd & Wilson, 1990 and Ogbu, 1981). Ultimately, knowledge gained from examining within-group variation can guide public health researchers and advocates in better targeting prevention and treatment programs for parents and offspring. Ogbu (1981) outlined a cultural-ecological perspective for the study of child rearing in families. He highlights that adults are responsible for the development of skills and instrumental competencies in children and that parenting strategies may differ between cultures based on the abilities deemed important. As an example, he discussed how physical punishment may be used by inner-city African-American parents to promote self-reliance, a mistrust of authority figures, and an ability to defend oneself from attacks, which may be skills deemed necessary to succeed in that culture. It is clear, however, that there exist variations in parenting techniques within each culture and that these differences need to be examined. Explanations for the occurrence of childhood maltreatment have focused on social-ecological and ecological-transactional models, in which factors associated with the environment and the individual (i.e., parent and child) interact in determining parents’ disciplinary behavior (Belsky, 1980, Belsky & Vondra, 1989 and Cicchetti & Toth, 1997; Cicchetti, Toth, & Maughan, 2000; Garbarino, 1976 and Gil, 1970). Among the most important are personal resources and level of maturity (Belsky, 1984). In particular, maternal age has been used as a marker for maturity and researchers have found that younger parents are likely to use more negative strategies and have less realistic expectations for child development (Field, Widmayer, Stringer, & Ignatoff, 1980; McGroder, 2000; Ragozin, Basham, Crnic, Greenberg, & Robinson, 1982). This may be because younger (i.e., adolescent) parents have less life experience on which to draw to guide their parenting techniques and because the demands of parenting interfere with the developmentally normal focus of youth on their relationships with peers and romantic partners (Kellam, Branch, Agrawal, & Ensminger, 1975; Kellam & Rebok, 1992). Research has also found that lower levels of education are related to more use of negative caregiver strategies (McGroder, 2000). One explanation may be that parents with less education have less exposure to literature on and discussion of alternative models of parenting or have less access to resources for distressed parents. In addition, certain child characteristics may lead to increased use of negative or harsh caregiver strategies. In particular, child aggression tends to evoke parental emotions and cognitions that are associated with negative parenting styles (Rubin & Mills, 1992; Rubin, Stewart, & Chen, 1995). According to Patterson’s (1979) description of a coercive cycle between caregiver and child, aggressive behaviors by the child elicit aversive reactions by the caregiver which then create greater levels of aggressiveness by the child. Some aggressive children may even train their caregivers to use harsh strategies by only responding to highly coercive forms of discipline (Patterson & Cobb, 1971). Considering the environment, many factors related to urban living are associated with increased stress, which in turn may lead to greater use of negative caregiver strategies. Stressed parents tend to use more ineffective, inconsistent punishment and rejection-oriented practices (Crnic & Greenberg, 1987, McLoyd et al., 1994, Patterson, 1982, Patterson, 1986 and Maccoby & Martin, 1983). Impoverished African-Americans are particularly likely to be exposed to stressful life conditions (Kessler & Neighbors, 1986, McLoyd, 1990 and Pinderhughes et al., 2000), which impact their emotional state, cognitions, and parenting (McLoyd, 1990 and Pinderhughes et al., 2000). For example, Lempers and colleagues (Lempers, Clark–Lempers, & Simons, 1989) found that economic hardship leads to changes in parental nurturance and to inconsistent parental discipline, which in turn relates to child distress, such as depression. Other researchers have shown that having many children (Fox, Platz, & Bentley, 1995), single parenthood (Fox et al., 1995), and income, poverty, or duration on welfare (McGroder, 2000) impact parenting styles. The impact of negative parenting strategies on later adult psychopathology In studies of young children and adolescents, the link between negative parenting and emergent psychopathology is strong (see Cicchetti & Lynch, 1995, Cicchetti & Rogosch, 1994 and Cicchetti & Toth, 2000). In addition, studies have shown an association between exposure to harsh or abusive childhood experiences and many negative young adult outcomes (see Malinosky-Rummell & Hansen, 1993 for a review), including psychopathology (Andrews, Valentine, & Valentine, 1995; Becker–Lausen, Sanders, & Chinsky, 1995; Brown, Cohen, Johnson, & Smailes, 1999; Duncan, Saunders, Kilpatrick, Hanson, & Resnick, 1996; Mullen, Martin, Anderson, Romans, & Herbison, 1996; Stein et al., 1996), suicidal ideation and behavior (Brown et al., 1999 and Fergusson & Lynskey, 1997; Kaplan, Pelcovitz, Salzinger, Mandel, & Weiner, 1997; Kaslow, Thompson, Brooks, & Twomey, 2000; Mullen et al., 1996 and Wagner, 1997), and substance abuse (Fergusson & Lynskey, 1997 and Mullen et al., 1996). Despite the large number of studies on the consequences of harsh physical punishment on young adult outcomes, a limited picture exists due to the samples and populations typically studied. Most of the existing work has used either clinical samples (e.g., Bryer, Nelson, Miller, & Krol, 1987; Stein et al., 1996) which have many drawbacks (see Fergusson & Lynskey, 1997; Ialongo, Kellam, & Poduska, 2000), community studies restricted to female and/or Caucasian populations (e.g., Andrews et al., 1995, Brown & Harris, 1993, Duncan et al., 1996, Fergusson & Lynskey, 1997 and Mullen et al., 1996), maltreated populations restricted in race (e.g., Herrenkohl, Egolf, & Herrenkohl, 1997), or undergraduate samples (e.g., Briere & Runtz, 1988). A few methodologically sound community studies have examined the associations of harsh or abusive parenting and psychopathology at long-term follow-ups using nationally representative samples or populations of youths other than African-Americans (Fergusson & Lynskey, 1997 and Flisher et al., 1997; Kessler, Davis, & Kendler, 1997). However, the findings cannot be generalized to any minority community. In particular, there is a lack of literature on the effects of harsh parenting strategies on mental health outcomes among African-Americans (Becker-Lausen et al., 1995).