Community Violence, Interpartner Conflict, Parenting, and Social Support as Predictors of the Social Competence of African American Preschool Children

Abstract

Adopting an ecological framework, this study examines the role of community violence exposure, interpartner conflict, positive parenting, and informal social support in predicting the social skills and behavior problems of low-income African American preschoolers. Participants were 184 African American mothers and female caregivers of Head Start children who completed study measures in a structured interview. Regression analyses revealed that greater community violence exposure predicted more internalizing and externalizing child behavior problems and lower levels of self-control and cooperation. Greater interpartner conflict predicted more internalizing problems. Positive parenting was predictive of fewer internalizing and externalizing problems and higher levels of child self-control and cooperation. Greater informal social support predicted higher levels of all four child social skills, including self-control, cooperation, assertion, and responsibility. Positive parenting and informal social support failed to moderate the relationships between community violence exposure and interpartner conflict and child outcomes. Implications of the findings for intervention and future research are discussed.

Parenting Practices as Mediators of the Effect of Mothers' Community Violence Exposure on Young Children's Aggressive Behavior

“…Mothers who have been exposed to such violence are more likely to engage in higher levels of psychologically and physically aggressive parenting than are mothers without exposure, and aggressive parenting in turn increases child aggression. These findings corroborate the claim that parents are brokers of outside social contexts for young children who have little exposure to such contexts (Kohen et al, 2008;oravecz et al, 2008). The results also are consistent with theories and previous evidence that parents' violence exposure, often treated as a component of adverse community contexts or stressful life event scales, can impair parenting and child socioemotional development (Eamon, 2002;Kohen et al;Linares et al, 2001;oravecz et al).…”

“…Mothers' violence exposure as either a negative life event or a component shaping their images of disorganized social contexts can exert an impact on parenting (Kotchick et al, 2005;Linares et al, 2001;oravecz et al, 2008;Pinderhughes et al, 2001). For example, in a sample of parents living in poor neighborhoods, Pinderhughes et al found that perceptions of the prevalence of muggings, burglaries, assaults, and selling and using drugs in neighborhoods decreased parental warmth and parenting consistency.…”

Parent predictors of changes in child behavior problems

“…Different studies have focused on different aspects of social support, and findings have been mixed. Although some researchers have found that higher levels of social support were related to fewer child behavior problems (Dodge et al, 1994; Leadbeater & Bishop, 1994), others have found no relationship (Oravecz, Koblinsky, & Randolph, 2008). Most of these studies have been cross-sectional and focused on European American or African American families.…”

Disentangling the Associations Between Contextual Stress, Sensitive Parenting, and Children's Social Development

“…With reduced variability in the sensitivity construct, concordance in rank order between sensitive parenting and social skills may be more difficult to detect. In contrast, Oravecz, Koblinsky, and Randolph () reported a statistically significant association between sensitive parenting and children's social skills, but they also relied on parent report for all measures and cannot rule out the possibility of shared method variance partially accounting for their reported statistical associations.…”