Parental depression, parenting and family adjustment, and child effortful control: Explaining externalizing behaviors for preschool children

Gartstein, Maria A.; Fagot, Beverly I.

doi:10.1016/s0193-3973(03)00043-1

Cited by 120 publications

(117 citation statements)

References 81 publications

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“…Similarly with previous literature, higher parental support is increasing academic achievement, while higher levels of monitoring are reducing children's depression and behavioral problems (e.g., Conger et al 2000;Gartstein and Fagot 2003).…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 63%

Parental Migration and Children’s Outcomes in Romania

Robila

2010

J Child Fam Stud

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Although Eastern European migration has increased greatly, the research on its impact on children and families has been limited. In this study I examined the impact of parental economic migration on children psychosocial and academic outcomes in Romania, one of largest Eastern European migrant sending country. Surveys were conducted with 382 children in 5-8th grades. A conceptual model of the impact of parental migration, economic pressure, social support, parenting and children's outcomes was examined using structural equation modeling. The results indicate that higher economic pressure was associated with higher desire for migration, lower parenting quality and higher child psychological distress. Higher satisfaction with migration was associated with higher quality of parenting, higher child psychosocial functioning and academic achievement. Recommendations for programs and policies targeted to immigrant families are provided.

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Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 63%

Parental Migration and Children’s Outcomes in Romania

Robila

2010

J Child Fam Stud

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“…Although parental perspectives are an important indication of child adjustment, future research should include multiple assessments to guard against potential reporting biases and expand to include teacher ratings and observations of children in different contexts (e.g., at home, with peers, in school). Future research should also explore additional factors, such as quality of parenting and peer relationships, which may interact with EC to predict developmental outcomes (Gartstein & Fagot, 2003). Finally, sample characteristics (ethnic diversity, risk status, low IQ) addressed a gap in the literature but limited the generalizability of findings.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Effortful Control, Social Competence, and Adjustment Problems in Children at Risk for Psychopathology

Dennis

Brotman

Huang

et al. 2007

Journal of Clinical Child & Adolescent Psychology

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This study explored the factor structure and developmental trajectory of effortful control (EC), its relations with child adjustment, and the moderating role of age and gender in 75 4-to 6-year-old children at risk for psychopathology. Confirmatory factor analyses revealed two subcomponents of effortful control: Suppress=Initiate (the ability to inhibit a dominant response while initiating a new response) and Motor Control (inhibiting fine and gross motor activity). EC performance improved with age, and both subcomponents were associated with greater social competence at all ages. Associations with internalizing problems were moderated by child age such that greater EC was linked to fewer problems at age 4 but did not relate to problems at ages 5 or 6.The growing ability to voluntarily inhibit a dominant response to initiate a subdominant response, or effortful control (EC), is a hallmark of early childhood development (Kochanska, Murray, & Harlan, 2000;Rothbart & Bates, 1998;Rothbart & Rueda, 2005). High EC is associated with enhanced emotional and social competence (Bjorklund & Kipp, 1996;Derryberry & Rothbart, 1997;Eisenberg et al., 2003;Kochanska, Murray, & Coy, 1997;Kopp, 1982Kopp, , 1989 and with reduced internalizing and externalizing problems (Eisenberg, Gershoff, et al., 2001;Eisenberg et al., 2004;Eisenberg et al., 2003). Despite documented links between EC and child adjustment, relatively little is known about these associations in children at risk for psychopathology. In addition, although EC is multifaceted, involving a number of behavioral and neurobiological systems (Kindlon, Mezzacappa, & Earls, 1995;Murray & Kochanska, 2002;Nigg, 2000;Olson, Schilling, & Bates, 1999), most studies examine EC as a unitary construct. Consequently, there is a limited empirical basis on which to explore the developmental consequences of subcomponents of EC. Effortful Control and SubcomponentsEC is among the early-developing individual differences that fall into the category of temperamental regulation (Derryberry & Rothbart, 1997;Eisenberg, Sadovsky, et al., 2005;Eisenberg, Zhou, et al., 2005;Posner & Rothbart, 2000). In contrast to temperamental reactivity or affective arousal, regulation refers to voluntary control of behavior and attention and serves to modulate emotional reactivity. Although most studies document coherence among measures of effortful control, EC comprises potentially dissociable domains of inhibitory control, attentional control, modulation of motor activity, and delay of gratification, all of which may have unique implications for adjustment (Kindlon et al., 1995;Mezzacappa, Kindlon, Saul, & Earls, 1998;Nigg, Goldsmith, & Sachek, 2004;Olson et al., 1999;Rothbart & Rueda, 2005).Kochanska and colleagues Kochanska, Murray, Jacques, Koening, & Vandegeest, 1996) have made notable progress in facilitating research on EC by developing a comprehensive behavioral assessment battery, the Effortful Control (EC) Battery. It assesses the suppression of dominant responses in the motor, vocal, and cognitive d...

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“…Thus, the effects of effortful control on externalizing seemed to overlap with the effects of parenting or anger/frustration. A few researchers have found unique effects of effortful control on toddlers' and preschoolers' behavior problems controlling for parenting (Eisenberg, Zhou, et al, 2005;Gartstein & Fagot, 2003;Olson et al, 2005), although Lengua and Kovacs (2005) failed to find unique effect of self-regulation on children's behavior problems controlling for parenting and other temperament dimensions. It is possible that as children age, parenting and effortful control or effortful control and anger become increasingly correlated, making it more difficult to identify their unique relations to externalizing problems.…”

Section: The Prospective and Unique Relations Of Parenting Styles Andmentioning

confidence: 99%

Relations of Parenting and Temperament to Chinese Children’s Experience of Negative Life Events, Coping Efficacy, and Externalizing Problems

et al. 2008

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The relations of parenting and temperament (effortful control and anger/frustration) to children's externalizing problems were examined in a 3.8-year longitudinal study of 425 native Chinese children (6 -9 years) from Beijing. Children's experience of negative life events and coping efficacy were examined as mediators in the parenting and temperament-externalizing relations. Parents reported on their own parenting. Parents and teachers rated temperament. Children reported on negative life events and coping efficacy. Parents, teachers, children, or peers rated children's externalizing problems. Authoritative and authoritarian parenting and anger/frustration uniquely predicted externalizing problems. The relation between authoritarian parenting and externalizing was mediated by children's coping efficacy and negative school events. The results suggest there is some crosscultural universality in the developmental pathways for externalizing problems.The development of externalizing problems (i.e., aggression and rule-breaking/delinquent behaviors; Achenbach, 2001) has been related to both parenting and child temperament (Dodge, Coie, & Lynam, 2006). Due to the frequent covariation between parenting and temperament (Sanson & Rothbart, 1995), it is important to study their unique relations to externalizing problems. Moreover, relatively little is known regarding the processes underlying the relations of parenting and temperament to externalizing problems. We addressed these questions by examining the prospective and unique relations of authoritative and authoritarian parenting and temperamental effortful control and anger/frustration to school-age children's externalizing problems in urban China. We further tested whether children's experience of negative life events (NLEs) and coping efficacy (CE) partly mediated the parenting-and NIH Public Access Author ManuscriptChild Dev. Author manuscript; available in PMC 2009 October 15. Published in final edited form as:Child Dev. 2008 ; 79(3): 493-513. doi:10.1111/j.1467-8624.2008.01139.x. NIH-PA Author ManuscriptNIH-PA Author Manuscript NIH-PA Author Manuscript temperament-externalizing relations. This study provided a unique opportunity to examine the cross-cultural generalizability of developmental theories on externalizing problems. Unique Relations of Parenting and Temperament to Chinese Children's Externalizing Problems ParentingIn their coercive social learning theory, Patterson and colleagues (Patterson, 1982;Reid, Patterson, & Snyder, 2002) hypothesized that coercive and punitive parenting plays a key role in training children's externalizing behaviors. The coercive training process often begins with the parent's aversive intrusion into the child's activities (e.g., scolding or punishing the child for an undesirable behavior), followed by the child's negative reactions (e.g., yelling and complaining) and negative reinforcement of this aversive behavior by parental withdrawal of demands. The theory was supported by longitudinal studies revealing a positive r...

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Parental depression, parenting and family adjustment, and child effortful control: Explaining externalizing behaviors for preschool children

Cited by 120 publications

References 81 publications

Parental Migration and Children’s Outcomes in Romania

Parental Migration and Children’s Outcomes in Romania

Effortful Control, Social Competence, and Adjustment Problems in Children at Risk for Psychopathology

Relations of Parenting and Temperament to Chinese Children’s Experience of Negative Life Events, Coping Efficacy, and Externalizing Problems

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