Capturing Parenting as a Multidimensional and Dynamic Construct with a Person-Oriented Approach

Abstract

Although parenting is one of the most commonly studied predictors of child problem behavior, few studies have examined parenting as a multidimensional and dynamic construct. This study investigated different patterns of developmental trajectories of two parenting dimensions (harsh discipline [HD] and parental warmth [PW]) with a person-oriented approach, and examined the associations between different parenting patterns and child externalizing problems and callous-unemotional traits. Data were drawn from the combined high-risk control and normative sample (n = 753) of the Fast Track Project. Parent-reported HD and observer-reported PW from kindergarten to Grade 2 were fit to growth mixture models. Two subgroups were identified for HD (low decreasing, 83.0%; high stable, 17.0%) and PW (high increasing, 78.7%; low increasing, 21.3%). The majority of parents (67.0%) demonstrated the low decreasing HD and high increasing PW pattern, while the prevalence of the high stable HD and low increasing PW pattern was the lowest (6.8%). Parenting satisfaction, parental depression, family socioeconomic status, and neighborhood safety predicted group memberships jointly defined by the two dimensions. Children from the high stable HD and low increasing PW pattern showed the highest levels of externalizing problems in Grades 4 and 5. Children from the low decreasing HD and low increasing PW pattern showed the highest levels of callous-unemotional traits in Grade 7. These findings demonstrate the utility and significance of a person-oriented approach to measuring parenting as a multidimensional and dynamic construct, and reveal the interplay between HD and PW in terms of their influences on child developmental outcomes.

The Family Stress Model as it Applies to Custodial Grandfamilies: A Cross Validation

“…It might also be true that parents of children with low levels of behavior problems who report high parenting self-efficacy, but use lax parenting practices may do so because they recognize that well-behaved children respond best to a parenting approach that involves minimal direction or cajoling (Neger 2015). As a whole, these findings reinforce the recent view that “parenting dimensions are not expressed alone but interact with other dimensions in a complex and transactional system” (Zheng, Pasalich, Oberth, McMahon, & Pinderhughes; 2017, p. 282).…”

For Better or for Worse? Positive and Negative Parental Influences on Young Children's Executive Function

“…The results of this study indicate that including multiple direct observational measures of parenting is labor well spent, in that our findings confirm a multifaceted model of parenting (Zheng et al., ). First, separate measures of parental behavior (i.e., positive/negative and cognitive/affective) show distinct patterns of association with children's EF.…”

“…Supporting a differentiated view of parental behavior (e.g., Carr & Pike, ; Hughes & Ensor, ; Zheng, Pasalich, Oberth, McMahon, & Pinderhughes, ), our results showed that parental behaviors can be measured along distinct cognitive and affective dimensions. For instance, the correlation matrix shows that negative parent–child interaction was inversely related to parental talk (MLU).…”

“…Although the impact of child behavior on parenting was included in our rating of scaffolding, a recent cross-lagged longitudinal study suggests that there may be bidirectional associations between EF and parental behavior (Blair et al, 2014). Whereas this finding underscores the importance of including parental measures at more than one time point (Zheng et al, 2016), it is worth stressing that our analyses controlled for stability in children's EF such that any observed relations indicate potential developmental influence on EF (Menard, 2002) and despite their concurrent measurement, our findings highlight the relative independence of parental and child EF scores. The timing and format of measurement of parental behaviors might also account for the weak and nonsignificant correlations between different aspects of parental behavior.…”

Introduction to the Special Series: Current Directions for Measuring Parenting Constructs to Inform Prevention Science

“…The third paper by Zheng, Pasalich, Oberth, McMahon, and Pinderhughes (in press) describes a person-oriented approach to measuring parenting, intended to capture the multidimensional and dynamic nature of parenting. The authors describe the use of growth mixture modeling to characterize patterns of harsh discipline and parental warmth over time.…”