The relationships between parenting stress, parenting behaviour and preschoolers' social competence and behaviour problems in the classroom

Factors Influencing Female Caregivers' Appraisals of Their Preschoolers' Behaviors

“…Parenting stress is defined as stress that occurs from a variety of sources (marital strain, sense of competency in parenting, and child-parent relationship problems) that can cause the caregiver to experience a stress response (Anthony et al, 2005;Benzies et al, 2004;Goldstein, Harvey, & Friedman-Weieneth, 2007;Hill, Stein, Keenan, & Wakschlag, 2006). High levels of parenting stress has been linked to harsher, less nurturing parenting styles, and more behavior problems in preschool age children (Goldstein et al, 2007).…”

“…It yielded a total parenting stress score and three subscale scores (Parental Distress, Parent-Child Dysfunctional Interaction, and Difficult Child) each derived from 12 questions (Anthony et al, 2005). Parental Distress reflected the female caregiver"s perceptions of her childrearing competence, conflict in her relationship with her spouse/partner, perceived social support, and stress from the restrictions of caring for a child (Anthony et al, 2005).…”

“…The Parent-Child Dysfunctional Interaction reflected the amount of positive feelings a female caregiver receives from the interactions she has with the child and the degree to which the child meets her expectations (Anthony et al, 2005). The Difficult Child subscale reflected the female caregiver"s view of the child"s temperament, defiance, and overall demanding characteristics the child possesses (Anthony et al, 2005).…”

“…The Difficult Child subscale reflected the female caregiver"s view of the child"s temperament, defiance, and overall demanding characteristics the child possesses (Anthony et al, 2005). Possible range of scores on the total form was from 36 to 180 and on each of the subscales, scores could range from 12 to 60 (Reitman et al, 2002).…”

“…The PSI-SF was designed to be administered in less than 10 minutes, was written on the 5 th grade reading level and was designed for use on caregivers of children under the age of 12 (Anthony et al, 2005). The instrument was able to discriminate between caregivers with a history of child abuse from caregivers with no history of abuse and did correlate with parent reports of child behaviors one year after initial testing (Haskett et al, 2006 …”