Associations between child physical abuse potential, observed maternal parenting, and young children's emotion regulation: Is participation in Early Head Start protective?

Abstract

Clinicians working with Early Head Start (EHS) families consider family well‐being and positive parent–child relationships as foundational to school readiness. Understanding the links between risk factors and these dimensions of family engagement can inform clinical decision‐making, as risk assessments are used to tailoring program services. The current study examined the associations between high risk, or potential, for child physical abuse and both parenting quality and children's emotion regulation (ER) during toddlerhood; EHS participation was examined as a buffer. The sample included EHS‐eligible mothers of infants (N = 80) drawn from one site of the EHS Research and Evaluation Project. Associations were tested between mothers’ potential for child physical abuse, measured during infancy, and observed maternal sensitivity, positive regard, harshness, and children's ER skills at child ages 1 and 2 years. Results indicated that high potential for child physical abuse was associated with lower positive regard at age 1 and lower ER skills at age 2. EHS participation operated as a buffer on each of these associations. Implications for screening for child physical abuse potential and the constructs it represents in clinical settings as well as how EHS can promote family engagement are discussed.

Spanking and Corporal Punishment Parenting Practices and Child Development: A Systematic Review

“…Corporal punishment predicted low child inhibitory control in 3-to-5-year-old children (Yu et al, 2018). In addition, this practice during the children’s first year of age was associated with later detrimental developmental outcomes, such as low positive regard at 14 months of age and low emotional regulation at 2 years of age (Paschall et al, 2019); and low global executive function, working memory, and shifting attention at an average age of 5.8 years (Xing, Yin et al, 2019). Concerning the moderator effects, maternal corporal punishment at 4 years of age affected global executive function and working memory in children a year later, but only in children who showed low cortisol stress reactivity levels (Xing, Yin et al, 2019).…”

“…Maternal corporal punishment was significantly associated with other behaviors in children, such as poor overall functioning at school, home, and peer relationships (Briggs-Gowan et al, 2019), and poorer child pro-social behavior concurrently (Bevilacqua et al, 2021), and poor compliance behavior a year later (Seay at al., 2016). Regarding significant associations with child development, corporal punishment showed effects on low positive regard and emotional regulation (Paschall et al, 2019), inhibitory control in children (Yu et al, 2018), global executive function, working memory, and shifting attention, moderated by children’s low cortisol stress reactivity levels (Xing, Yin et al, 2019).…”

Relaciones Intrafamiliares Y Salud Mental en Adolescentes De Pelileo, Ecuador

“…La familia cumple un papel crucial en el desarrollo de las habilidades sociales de los adolescentes, los padres pueden ser una fuente valiosa de apoyo y aprendizaje temprano (Pérez et al, 2018). Por su parte, Paschall et al (2019) aluden a que las relaciones intrafamiliares expresan vínculos entre los integrantes de una familia, lo cual resulta fundamental para entender cómo los niños y adolescentes se desarrollan emocional y socialmente. El componente emocional y social puede afectar el estado de salud psicológica de loa adolescentes, se estima que entre un 80 % y 85 % de estos a escala planetaria crecen en función de las relaciones primarias, unas de las más duraderas en su desarrollo (Garcia et al, 2019).…”

Moderators and mediators of outcomes of parents with substance use problems: further evaluation of the Parents under Pressure programme

“…Eight potential family risk factors were used to derive a cumulative risk score, as cumulative risk models are robust predictors of child developmental outcome generally [ 23 ], child maltreatment recidivism [ 24 , 25 ] and outcome in families with maternal substance use [ 25 , 26 , 27 ]. Parental characteristics highlight both psychopathology [ 28 , 29 ], conceptualized as the transdiagnostic construct of emotional regulation in the current study [ 30 ], and substance use [ 31 ] as potential predictors.…”