Breaking Down the Coercive Cycle: How Parent and Child Risk Factors Influence Real-Time Variability in Parental Responses to Child Misbehavior

Abstract

Objective Parent-child coercive cycles have been associated with both rigidity and inconsistency in parenting behavior. To explain these mixed findings, we examined real-time variability in maternal responses to children's off-task behavior to determine whether this common trigger of the coercive cycle (responding to child misbehavior) is associated with rigidity or inconsistency in parenting. We also examined the effects of risk factors for coercion (maternal hostility, maternal depressive symptoms, child externalizing problems, and dyadic negativity) on patterns of parenting. Design Mother-child dyads (N = 96; M child age = 41 months) completed a difficult puzzle task, and observations were coded continuously for parent (e.g., directive, teaching) and child behavior (e.g., on-task, off-task). Results Multilevel continuous-time survival analyses revealed that parenting behavior is less variable when children are off-task. However, when risk factors are higher, a different profile emerges. Combined maternal and child risk is associated with markedly lower variability in parenting behavior overall (i.e., rigidity) paired with shifts towards higher variability specifically when children are off-task (i.e., inconsistency). Dyadic negativity (i.e., episodes when children are off-task and parents engage in negative behavior) are also associated with higher parenting variability. Conclusions Risk factors confer rigidity in parenting overall, but in moments when higher-risk parents must respond to child misbehavior, their parenting becomes more variable, suggesting inconsistency and ineffectiveness. This context-dependent shift in parenting behavior may help explain prior mixed findings and offer new directions for family interventions designed to reduce coercive processes.

The Family as Recipient and Provider of Home Care: A Primary Care Perspective

“…The secondary approach is addressed to families if risk factors such as poverty, low education, substance abuse, mental health issues, family conflict or violence, social isolation, neighbourhood disadvantage and violence are present. The purpose of intervention is to encourage positive interaction between parent and children and to break down the coercive cycle [63].…”

Parent‐child coregulation of parasympathetic processes varies by social context and risk for psychopathology

“…Regulatory responses are elicited due to pressure on the system to change (Cole, Martin, & Dennis, 2004). Correspondingly, a regulatory response at the dyadic level may be prompted by tasks involving external or internal pressure on the dyad, for example, pressure to complete a dyadic goal (Lunkenheimer, Lichtwarck-Aschoff, Hollenstein, Kemp, & Granic, 2016). For instance, when parents and children need to complete a task with a dyadic goal in a certain way or in a certain period of time (e.g., getting ready for school each day), these tasks may evoke stronger physiological responses than unstructured dyadic situations such as free play.…”

Exploring Processes in Day‐to‐Day Parent–Adolescent Conflict and Angry Mood: Evidence for Circular Causality

“…Researchers taking a dynamic systems perspective have modeled moment-to-moment (i.e., microlevel) dynamics in conflict (Hollenstein, 2012(Hollenstein, , 2015Lougheed & Hollenstein, 2016). This work has provided the "real-time" data from which conflict processes, such as coercion, have been dissected and evaluated (Eddy, Leve, & Fagot, 2001;Lunkenheimer, Lichtwarck-Aschoff, Hollenstein, Kemp, & Granic, 2016). Other observational work examining conflict length, conflict termination, and behavior after conflict termination offers insight into the nuances of resolution and repair processes in disagreements (Granic, O'Hara, Pepler, & Lewis, 2007;Hollenstein, Lichtwarck-Aschoff, & Potworowski, 2013).…”