Children's Dysregulated Representations Mediate Ineffective Parenting Practices and Effortful Control in Lower Income Families

• Published date: 01 October 2020
• Author: Amanda L. Nowak,Julia M. Braungart‐Rieker,Elizabeth M. Planalp
• Date: 01 October 2020
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/fare.12463

A L. N  J M. B-R University of Notre Dame

E M. P University of Wisconsin-Madison

Children’s Dysregulated Representations Mediate

Ineffective Parenting Practices and Effortful Control

in Lower Income Families

Objective: Rooted in attachment theory, we

tested the degree to which children’s dysregu-

lated representations mediate linkages between

ineffective parenting and children’s effortful

control in a sample of lower income families.

Background: Children in lower income house-

holds are at greater risk for difculties with

effortful control. Although ineffective parenting

practices may inuence children’s development

of effortful control, there is limited knowledge

related to the mechanisms underlying this asso-

ciation. According to attachment theory, it is

possible that children who experience ineffec-

tive parenting practices have more dysregulated

representations, which may then be linked with

poorly regulated behavior.

Method: This cross-sectional study included

40 preschool-age children enrolled in Head

Start and their mothers. Ineffective parenting

practices were operationalized using mothers’

self-reported parenting styles and observed

parenting behaviors; children’s dysregulated

representations and effortful control were

measured during a series of observed laboratory

University of Notre Dame, 118 Haggar Hall, Notre Dame,

IN 46556-5636 (anowak2@nd.edu).

[Correction added on July 3, 2020 after rst online publica-

tion: Article title has been corrected.]

Key Words: at-risk childrenand families, child development,

early childhood, parent–child relationships.

tasks. Structural equation modeling was used to

test pathways between measured variables.

Results: The relation between ineffective par-

enting practices and children’s effortful con-

trol was not directly related;however, structural

equation modeling indicated a signicant indi-

rect effect through children’s dysregulated rep-

resentations. Childrenwhose mothers were more

ineffective in their parenting had more dysregu-

lated representations.In turn, more dysregulated

representations were related to poorer effortful

control.

Conclusion: Children who experience ineffec-

tive parenting practices may be less likely to

internalize reliable expectations regarding their

environment’s structure and order. Poorly stabi-

lized perceptions may inhibit adaptive social and

behavioral functioning.

Implications: These ndings inform interven-

tion efforts aimed toward enhancing parenting

practices to improve children’s representations

and effortful control behaviors.

Research linking parenting quality with child

socioemotional outcomes is extensive, yet far

less is known about potential processes that

explain these relations for low-income children

living in households with limited resources.

Children growing up in low-income households

are at a greater risk for socioemotional chal-

lenges, particularly difculties with regulatory

skills (Raver, 2004) and behavior problems

698 Family Relations 69 (October 2020): 698–713

DOI:10.1111/fare.12463

Ineffective Parenting and Effortful Control 699

(Huaqing Qi & Kaiser, 2003). Moreover, rates

of authoritarian and permissive parenting styles,

which are less effective than authoritative styles

(Baumrind, 1971), are more prevalent for par-

ents with fewer nancial resources (Dornbusch

et al., 1987). Because mediation or modera-

tion mechanisms more fully inform clinical

practice and intervention efforts (Rose et al.,

2004), understanding why or how ineffective

parenting practices and negative child outcomes

are related in low-income households may

be informative in prevention and intervention

practices.

Numerous systems theories argue that to bet-

ter understand individual differences in chil-

dren’s behavior and functioning, we need to

consider the various systems in which children

are embedded. For instance, attachment theory

(Ainsworth et al., 1978), works to explain how

children’s environments might inuence their

attachment security and internal representations

of the social world (Johnson et al., 2007). Chil-

dren who experience more sensitively attuned

caregiving develop more positive representa-

tions about themselves and their environment.

In contrast, children who experience less sen-

sitive caregiving develop more negative (John-

son et al., 2007) or dysregulated representa-

tions (Martoccio et al., 2016) that others are not

reliable sources of comfort. The present study

examined the degree to which children’sinternal

representations might mediate the link between

parenting behaviors and children’s effortfulcon-

trol, an important skill that develops during the

preschool period and reects social competence

(Dennis et al., 2007).

E C

Effortful control is one of the most fundamen-

tal sets of skills to emerge in early childhood

(Kochanska et al., 2000; Rothbart et al., 2003).

As a component of regulation, effortful con-

trol is, in part, an index of early life tempera-

ment (Rothbart et al., 2003). Specically, effort-

ful control is the ability to purposefully suppress

a dominant mental, motor, or emotional response

in order to achieve a goal related to a non-

dominant response (Eisenberg & Spinrad, 2004;

Gagne, 2017; Rothbart et al., 2003). It is impor-

tant to note that effortful control consists of both

inhibitory (resisting dominant urges) as well as

excitatory (carrying out an activity or sustaining

an urge) behaviors (Kochanska et al., 1997).

As an early developing regulatory capacity,

effortful control allows individuals to function

more efciently in their environment (Der-

ryberry & Rothbart, 1997; Kochanska et al.,

1997; Rothbaum et al., 1982). Because children

have little ability to control their emotions and

behaviors at birth, parents have a consider-

able inuence on the growth and shaping of

these regulatory skills (Spinrad et al., 2007).

In a sample of middle-income families, for

example, children whose mothers used more

positive behaviors showed higher levels of

effortful control, particularly if those children

had been rated higher in temperamental exu-

berance (Cipriano & Stifter, 2010). Less well

understood, however, are mechanisms linking

parenting and effortful control in low-income

families. Parents in low-income environments

may experience higher levels of stress and

demands themselves, increasing the contextual

risk factors to which children are also exposed

(see Lengua et al., 2007). According to Con-

ger and colleagues (2002), economic pressure

negatively affects parents’ emotional states and

subsequent parenting behaviors, which in turn

negatively affect children’s adjustment. Thus,

children reared in a low-income environment

may face difculties with effortful control

(Li-Grining, 2007), due in part to exposure to

increased stresses on the systems that manage

how children allocate attention, behavior, and

emotions (Evans, 2003). Thus, in this study, we

propose that children’s dysregulated internal

representations, perhaps resulting from inef-

fective caregiving strategies, relates to poorer

effortful control.

I P P

Ineffective parenting practices are dened as

parenting styles and practices that are associated

with maladaptive child outcomes (McKinney

et al., 2016; Mokrova et al., 2010). Ineffective

parenting focuses on the presence of negative

attributes rather than the absence of positive

attributes (Mokrova et al., 2010; Radziszewska

et al., 1996); thus, ineffective parenting prac-

tices do not simply reect lower efcacy but

also the presence of specic negative parent-

ing characteristics. Additionally, both styles

and practices can reect ineffective parenting

behaviors because these two domains address

somewhat different parental qualities. Parent-

ing styles focus on the general patterns of