(PS8-B50) Predicting Avoidant Coping in Preadolescents: The Interactive Effects of Youth Temperament and Parental Limit Setting

Introduction: Avoidant coping, or efforts to avoid engagement with a stressor, has been identified as a significant predictor of psychopathology in youth (Compas et al., 2017; Schäfer et al., 2017). While greater reliance on avoidance may be associated with poorer mental health outcomes, the individual factors predictive of this vulnerability are not yet clear. Temperament, or differences in emotionality and regulatory styles (Rothbart, 1981), has been identified as a significant risk factor for avoidant coping. High fearfulness and frustration and low effortful control (EC) have been associated with greater avoidant coping (Lengua & Long, 2002). One potential protective factor against this vulnerability may be parenting. Parents support their children in the development of social and emotional abilities (Sheridan et al., 2010) and make up a key environmental context in which a child learns to manage stressors (Power, 2004). Parenting behaviors such as scaffolding and consistent limit setting (CLS) help to make a child’s environment more predictable and have been identified as protective against cumulative risk (Ruberry et al., 2017). However, we do not yet understand how parenting may moderate the relation between vulnerable temperaments and avoidance. This study aims to deepen understanding of how parenting may mitigate the associations of vulnerable temperament characteristics and avoidant coping.

Methods: This study follows a longitudinal sample (N = 214) across three years in preadolescence (9-12 years old). Using three latent growth curve models, we examined how observed ratings of parenting (i.e., scaffolding, CLS) at the first time point (T1) moderate the relations of child temperamental (1) fear, (2) frustration, and (3) EC with levels (intercept) and growth (slope) in child avoidant coping. Age and sex were included as covariates.

Results: Fit statistics indicated strong model fit. There were significant interactions of fearfulness (β = 0.59, p = 0.04), frustration (β = 0.47, p = 0.04), and EC (β = -0.63, p = 0.02) with CLS to predict levels of avoidant coping. Fearfulness and frustration were positively related to avoidance at higher levels of CLS, and children higher in fear and frustration showed higher avoidance regardless of CLS. At low levels of fear and frustration, high CLS was related to lower avoidance. Unexpectedly, high fear youth showed more avoidance when experiencing high CLS. EC was negatively related to avoidant coping for children experiencing high CLS. At higher levels of EC, children reported lower avoidance when parents were higher in CLS.

Conclusions: Our findings suggest a goodness-of-fit model, such that youth may benefit from limit setting matched to their temperament. While children low in fear and frustration and high in EC show a protective benefit from CLS, this effect does not extend to highly fearful youth. High CLS may overly buffer high fear youth from stressors and reduce opportunities to form new learning about their environments. These analyses have important implications for understanding how parenting can be protective for children at risk for psychopathology.