Family and cultural processes linking family instability to Mexican American adolescent adjustment.

Abstract

Despite the rapidly growing Mexican American population, no studies to date have attempted to explain the underlying relations between family instability and Mexican American children's development. Using a diverse sample of 740 Mexican American adolescents (49% female; 5th grade M age = 10.4; 7th grade M age = 12.8) and their mothers, we prospectively examined the relations between family instability and adolescent academic outcomes and mental health in the 7th grade. The model fit the data well and results indicated that family instability between 5th and 7th grade was related to increased 7th grade mother-adolescent conflict and in turn, mother-adolescent conflict was related to decreased school attachment and to increased externalizing and internalizing symptoms in the 7th grade. Results also indicated that 7th grade mother-adolescent conflict mediated the relations between family instability and 7th grade academic outcomes and mental health. Further, we explored adolescent familism values as a moderator and found that adolescent familism values served as a protective factor in the relation between mother-adolescent conflict and grades. Implications for future research and intervention strategies are discussed.

Do Changes to Family Structure Affect Child and Family Outcomes? A Systematic Review of the Instability Hypothesis

“…Neither parent–child relationship quality nor material disadvantage show evidence of mediating the (nonsignificant) link between parental separation and adult partnership status. There were no significant differences in the mediation by gender in Vargas et al () or Zito and De Coster (). This suggests that the stress mediation pathway is similar for boys and girls.…”

“…Parent–child talk alone mediated the link between transitions and science and social studies performance (Sun & Li, ). Three studies found mediation for some of the transitions or some of the outcomes but not all (Bachman et al, ; Sun & Li, ; Vargas, Roosa, Knight, & O'Donnell, ). The overwhelming majority of the studies with family functioning and parenting mediating variables, however, found no evidence that these variables were mediators during adolescence (Bachman et al, ; Krohn, Penly Hall, & Lizotte, ; Langenkamp & Frisco, ; Schroeder et al, ; Shaff et al, ; Walper et al, ; Zito, ; Zito & De Coster, ).…”

A Systematic Review of the Relationship between Familism and Mental Health Outcomes in Latino Population

“…There have been studies showing that familism moderates the relationship between risk factors (i.e., parent adolescent conflict) and outcome (i.e., internalizing symptoms), while others show contradicting evidence (Vargas et al, 2013). One study by Smokowski and colleagues in 2009 supports familism as a protective cultural factor against internalizing symptoms, noting that higher familism is related to lower internalizing symptoms (Smokowski et al, 2010).…”

Family Structure, Transitions and Psychiatric Disorders Among Puerto Rican Children

“…Many have not used a representative sample or have only focused on toddlerhood (Bachman et al 2012; Capaldi and Patterson 1991; Cavanagh and Huston 2006, 2008; Martinez and Forgatch 2002). Most studies assessed children’s well-being in general, or the presence of symptoms, without determining the impact of such symptoms on children’s lives, which is accomplished when the focus is on the diagnosis of psychiatric disorders, rather than only on symptoms (Bachman et al 2012; Goodnight et al 2013; Nepomnyaschy and Teitler 2013; Vargas et al 2013). In addition, internalizing problems, such as anxiety and depression, which usually start in childhood and have long-term impact later in life, are remarkably less studied than externalizing behaviors or behavioral problems.…”