Maternal control and children's internalizing and externalizing symptoms in the context of neighbourhood safety: moderating and mediating models

While there are strong associations between parenting and children's well-being, it is important to understand these relations in different home environments. This study examined relations of two parenting dimensions previously examined as parental control, controllingness and structure, and ch...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Journal of family studies 2022-10, Vol.28 (4), p.1543-1565
Main Authors: Levitt, Madeline R., Grolnick, Wendy S., Raftery-Helmer, Jacquelyn N.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Child welfare
Childrearing practices
Children
Children & youth
externalizing symptoms
Hostility
Hypotheses
internalizing symptoms
Mediation
Mental depression
Mothers
Neighborhoods
neighbourhood safety
Parenting
Parents & parenting
Safety
Safety measures
Social aspects
Well being
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Summary:While there are strong associations between parenting and children's well-being, it is important to understand these relations in different home environments. This study examined relations of two parenting dimensions previously examined as parental control, controllingness and structure, and child symptomatology with regard to neighbourhood safety. It explored the dangerous neighbourhood hypothesis, suggesting that parents should exert more control in less safe and less control in safer contexts, and a neighbourhood stress hypothesis in which less safe neighbourhoods undermine adaptive parenting and increase child symptomatology. 213 mothers and their sixthgrade children (Mean age = 11 years) participated. Mothers completed questionnaires measuring neighbourhood safety and children's internalizing and externalizing symptoms, and children completed measures of maternal controllingness and structure provision, and their own internalizing and externalizing symptoms. Maternal controllingness was associated with more and maternal structure with fewer child symptoms. Controllingness was associated with greater child-reported depression in less but not more safe neighbourhoods. Mediation analyses suggested that lower neighbourhood safety was associated with more controllingness which was associated with children's reports of depression and hostility. Results did not support the dangerous neighbourhood hypothesis, but suggest that less safe neighbourhoods may challenge mothers' abilities to parent in a way that prevents symptomatology in children.
ISSN:1322-9400
1839-3543
DOI:10.1080/13229400.2020.1845779