(PS8-A16) Determinants of Parenting for Families in Early Head Start

Introduction: Early Head Start (EHS) programs are a national preventive intervention for low-income families with infants and toddlers, often incorporating the parent-child relationship as a mechanism for promoting healthy development. Among parenting behaviors, parental sensitivity, in particular, is a focus of intervention due to its associations with language and cognitive development and fewer internalizing and externalizing behaviors (Bornstein & Manian, 2013). Thus, it is critical to examine how sensitivity is developed and maintained. Using cumulative risk models, it is likely that multiple parent, child, environmental, and sociodemographic risk factors intersect to influence parenting (Belsky, 1984; Sameroff, 2009). Three domains consistently linked to sensitivity are parenting stress, child behavior problems, and household chaos (Neece et al., 2012). The current study examines how these three domains may interact in their associations with maternal sensitivity during early childhood.

Methods: Data were drawn from a nationally representative longitudinal study of mother-child dyads (N=517) in EHS (Vogel & Boller, 2014). Parenting stress, behavior problems, household chaos, and relevant sociodemographics were measured at age 2 by maternal report (Abidin, 1995; Briggs-Gowan & Carter, 2006; Matheny et al., 1995). Maternal sensitivity was measured observationally at age 3 (Mathematica Policy Research, 2010). Analyses were conducted using a blocked linear regression, with child gender, single motherhood, teen motherhood, maternal education, and income-to-needs ratio as covariates, and multiple imputation and longitudinal weighting to adjust for attrition and representation. Two-and-three-way interaction terms were created, and significant interactions were probed (Preacher et al., 2006).

Results: A significant three-way interaction among parenting stress, behavior problems, and household chaos was found. Further analysis showed that at high (B(SE)=-0.077(0.010) p< .001) and very high (B(SE)=-0.113(0.014), p< .001) levels of household chaos, as parenting stress increased, maternal sensitivity decreased, but only for families experiencing low levels of behavior problems. Main effects indicated that fewer behaviors problems and less parenting stress were associated with greater maternal sensitivity.

Discussion: It is possible that as behavior problems increase, it is difficult for parents to ignore parenting cues, even in the context of higher household chaos. Families experiencing more child behavior problems may have been receiving further services through EHS or other means, leading to additional competencies in addressing other factors influencing parenting outcomes. As sensitivity is commonly targeted in child and family focused treatments like EHS, understanding its antecedents may help find additional points for prevention or intervention. For example, providing additional assistance in high chaos homes might be especially useful. Parenting stress, child behavior problems, and household chaos may have nuanced associations with sensitivity in combination with other child and family factors and could be important targets in EHS.