Mother and Father Attributions for Child Misbehavior: Relations to Child Internalizing and Externalizing Problems

Abstract

Knowledge of how parents think about their children's misbehavior is important in understanding the behavioral and emotional problems of children. Relations between parent attributions for child misbehavior and child functioning were examined in a community sample of 163 two-parent families of 9-12 year-old boys and girls. Mother and father attributions were assessed along child-responsible and parent-causal dimensions. Both parent-and child-reported internalizing and externalizing problems were measured. Both mother and father childresponsible attributions predicted parent reports of both child internalizing and externalizing problems. For child self-reported functioning, mother parent-causal attributions negatively predicted child internalizing and externalizing problems, and father child-responsible attributions positively predicted child externalizing problems. The results highlight the importance of measuring different kinds of attributions by mothers and fathers, and of considering both parent and child views of child problems.

Understanding the role of parental attributions in parenting interventions

“…Impact of parenting attributions on child behaviour. There is a well-established relationship between parental attributions and child behavioural problems (Colalillo, Miller, & Johnston, 2015;Johnston, Hommersen, & Seipp, 2009). Previous studies have shown that parents of typically developing children, tend to see child behavioural problems as external, variable and uncontrollable (Butcher & Niec, 2017) leading to calmer parenting responses and less perceived blame on the child.…”

“…On the contrary, parents of children with high levels of conduct problems tend to have more negative parental attributions, seeing the misbehaviour as internal, stable and controllable (Coles et al, 2010;Sawrikar & Dadds, 2018) leading to higher use of dysfunctional parenting responses. Colalillo et al (2015) examined a community sample of mothers and fathers and found that children of mothers who attributed responsibility to the child's misbehaviour, presented high levels of child externalising problems. Also, both maternal and paternal attributions predicted child internalising problems.…”

“…Conversely, parents who interpret the tantrum differently, for instance attributing the tantrum to the fact that the child is in an overstimulating environment (external locus of control), while tired (not intentional) and who do not see this as typical behaviour (variable in time) might lead to a less reactive parenting responses. It is possible that modifying negative parental attributions have the potential to reduce dysfunctional/harsh parenting and improve child outcomes, thus an empirical examination of the role of negative parental attributions in the development and maintenance of harsh parenting is crucial (Colalillo et al, 2015).…”

“…An increasing number of studies have indicated that parental attributions play a significant role in parental functioning (Bugental & Happaney, 2002). For example, Colalillo et al (2015) found that mothers with high levels of negative attributions, had children with more externalizing problems, in comparison to mothers that did not have elevated rates of negative parental attributions. Behavioural parenting interventions are well-evaluated and effective approaches to changing parenting behaviour (Gavita & Joyce, 2008;Katzmann et al, 2017) however very little is known if participation in parenting interventions leads to changes in parental attributions.…”

“…We believe that there is one type of parenting cognition that is crucial to understand the effect of parenting interventions on parenting and child behaviour, and this key variable is parental attributions. Parental attributions can be simply defined as reasons that parents give to explain the causes of their child's behaviour (Colalillo et al, 2015). Over the years, various models have been proposed to describe parental attributions, but the dimensions most consistently used are locus of control and stability, as originally proposed by Weiner (1985).…”