Journal of Family Psychology 2015, Vol. 29, No. 1, 20-28
© 2014 American Psychological Association 0893-3200/15/$ 12.00 http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/fam0000047
Parenting Stress and Children’s Problem Behavior in China: The Mediating Role of Parental Psychological Aggression Li Liu and Meifang Wang Shandong Normal University This study examined the mediating effect of parents’ psychological aggression in the relationship between parenting stress and children’s internalizing (anxiety/depression, withdrawal) and externalizing (aggression, delinquency) problem behaviors 1 year later. Using a sample of 311 intact 2-parent Chinese families with preschoolers, findings revealed that maternal parenting stress had direct effects on children’s internalizing and externalizing problem behavior and indirect effects through maternal psy chological aggression. However, neither direct nor indirect effects of fathers’ parenting stress on children’s internalizing and externalizing problem behavior were found. The findings highlight the importance of simultaneously studying the effects of both mothers’ and fathers’ parenting on their children within a family systems framework. Keywords: children, externalizing problem behavior, internalizing problem behavior, parenting stress, psychological aggression
Bocks & Hughes, 2008). For example, Huth-Bocks and Hughes (2008) found that parenting stress had a strong direct effect on mother-reported child problem behavior and children’s selfreported depressive symptoms. Similarly, Deater-Deckard and Scarr (1996) analyzed data from 589 American families with young children and also found that parents’ parenting stress were significantly associated with children’s emotional and hyperactive misbehavior. Despite such progress, most research in this area is cross-sectional; little is known about the predictive relationship between parenting stress and child problem behavior. Evidence providing support for the predictive relationship would be impor tant in the development of early prevention and intervention pro grams for preschoolers. Therefore, the present study will focus on the predictive relationship between parental parenting stress and children’s internalizing (anxiety/depression and withdrawal) and externalizing (aggression and delinquency) problem behaviors. Both Belsky’s (1984) parenting-process model and Abidin’s (1992) parenting stress model postulate that parents’ psychological stress reactions (e.g., parenting stress) may lead to increases in poor parenting behaviors. Poor parenting behavior, in turn, has negative effects on children’s behavior (Vissing, Straus, Gelles, & Harrop, 1991; Miller-Perrin, Perrin, & Kocur, 2009; Xing & Wang, 2013; Xing, Wang, Zhang, He, & Zhang, 2011). Based on these two theoretical models and previous empirical research, Deater-Deckard (1998) offered hypotheses about the relationships between parenting stress, parenting behavior, and child adjust ment. Specifically, he argued that poor parenting behavior would mediate the link between parenting stress and child adjustment. However, research examining the mediating role of poor parenting in the relationship between parenting stress and children’s problem behavior is still scarce. The few studies examining the mediating role of poor parenting behavior have been conducted in Western settings and have shown inconsistent results. For example, DeaterDeckard and Scarr (1996) found that parents who were more stressed reported using more authoritarian, power-assertive disci-
Numerous studies have demonstrated that children with problem behavior in the preschool years are at higher risk for subsequent adjustment problems (Heller, Baker, Henker, & Hinshaw, 1996; Timmermans, van Lier, & Koot, 2008). To prevent and intervene on children’s problem behavior, researchers have tried to identify factors related to children’s behavior problems (Cmic, Gaze, & Hoffman, 2005). Some research has shown that for young children just entering preschool, problem behavior is likely heavily depen dent on family context factors, such as parenting stress, parenting behavior, parental psychological functioning, and marital quality (Anthony et al., 2005; Benzies, Harrison, & Magill-Evans, 2004; Hughes & Huth-Bocks, 2007). Parenting stress and parenting behavior are two major family context factors associated with children’s problem behavior. Parenting stress has been defined as a specific kind of stress, perceived by the parent and emanating from the demands of being a parent; as a construct it consists of multiple components, includ ing characteristics of the child, parent, and context (Abidin, 1992; Reitman, Currier, & Stickle, 2002; Webster-Stratton, 1990). Re search has demonstrated that parents often experience high levels of stress related to raising their children, especially when their children are in preschool (Anthony et al., 2005; Cmic et al., 2005), and such parenting stress is associated with children’s problem behavior (Crnic et al., 2005; Deater-Deckard & Scarr, 1996; Huth-
This article was published Online First December 1, 2014. Li Liu and Meifang Wang, Department of Psychology, Shandong Nor mal University. This research was supported by Key Subject Funds of Shandong Prov ince, P. R. China (2011-2015). We are grateful to all the children, parents, and teachers who participated or contributed to this project. Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Meifang Wang, Department of Psychology, Shandong Normal University, No. 88 East Wenhua Road, Jinan, 250014, P. R. China. E-mail: meifangw@ hotmail.com 20
PARENTING STRESS AND PROBLEM BEHAVIOR
pline strategies, which were related to child misbehavior. How ever, several recent studies in this area have failed to find support for the mediation in Western samples (Anthony et al., 2005; Cmic et al., 2005; Huth-Bocks & Hughes, 2008). It should be noted that prior research on the mediating role of poor parenting behavior in the relationship between parenting stress and child problem behavior has primarily focused on paren tal laxness, overreactivity, and physical aggression (DeaterDeckard & Scarr, 1996; Guajardo, Snyder, & Petersen, 2009; Huth-Bocks & Hughes, 2008). Little is known, however, about the mediating role of the more commonly used forms of parental harsh discipline, such as psychological aggression. Psychological ag gression is defined as the use of verbal and symbolic acts with the intention of causing the child to experience psychological pain or fear (Straus, Hamby, Finkelhor, Moore, & Runyan, 1998), which was the most common form of parental harsh discipline in both Western and Chinese societies (Straus et al., 1998; Wang & Liu, 2014). There are two reasons for expecting parental psychological aggression to mediate the relationship between parenting stress and child problem behavior in Chinese societies. First, given some unique Chinese social and cultural approaches to parenting, it has been speculated that parental parenting stress is more likely to lead to psychological aggression in Chinese families. Specifically, the implementation of the one-child policy since 1979 may result in very high parental expectations for the family’s sole child (Wong, Chen, Goggins, Tang, & Leung, 2009), which, in mm, may create high parenting stress among Chinese parents. Furthermore, paren tal psychological aggression is highly accepted in traditional Chi nese societies because Chinese parents and children tend to per ceive psychological aggression as an indication of involvement, concern, and love; as the Chinese proverb goes, “Beating and scolding is the emblem of love” (Chao, 1994; Simons, Wu, Lin, Gordon, & Conger, 2000). Thus, under conditions of high stress, Chinese parents may be more likely to adopt psychological ag gression to motivate their children to achieve high academic, social, and moral goals. A recent study with Chinese samples indicated that psychological aggression is the most prevalent form of parental harsh discipline in China: Approximately 80.34% of Chinese mothers and 74.94% of Chinese fathers reported psycho logical aggression toward their children in the previous year (Wang & Liu, 2014). Second, several previous studies conducted in Western cultures have shown that parental psychological aggression may lead to more child problem behaviors. For example, Vissing, Straus, Gelles, and Harrop (1991) found that children who experienced parental psychological aggression exhibited higher levels of ag gression and delinquency. Miller-Perrin and colleagues (2009) also found that parental psychological aggression was a significant predictor of children’s anxiety and depression symptoms. How ever, according to Lansford and Dodge (2008) and Larzelere (2000), the outcomes of parental harsh discipline most likely depend on its normative acceptance in particular subcultures. In the context of high cultural acceptance of parental psychological aggression, Chinese children who experience such discipline may perceive it as normative parenting rather than rejection, and thus may not display more behavior problems than the children who do not experience such discipline. That is, parental psychological aggression might have less impact on Chinese children’ behavior problems. Nevertheless, two studies in Chinese samples have
21
confirmed that parents’ psychological aggression was related to children’s problem behavior including anxiety and depression (Chen, 2005; Jin, 2013), suggesting that even in the context of high cultural acceptance, children who experience parental psycholog ical aggression tend to exhibit higher levels of problem behavior. Based on the above analyses, we expected that parental psycho logical aggression would play a mediating role between parenting stress and child problem behavior in China. The main aim of the current study is to explore this issue. It should also be noted that previous research investigating parents’ stress and behavior and child’s problem behavior has predominantly included only mothers or has reported combined data from mothers and fathers (Anthony et al., 2005; Cmic et al., 2005; Guajardo et al., 2009; Huth-Bocks & Hughes, 2008). Given that mothers are the primary caregiver for their young children in Chinese society, maternal behavior may exert a greater influence on children’s behavior than paternal behavior. However, there are reasons to expect that paternal behavior is also important for child development. In recent decades, China has undergone considerable social and economic changes, and increasing numbers of women have entered the workforce and fathers have become more actively engaged in their children’s lives (Chuang & Su, 2008). Thus, fathers acting as coparents rather than helpers may play as impor tant a role as mothers in their children’s development. Hence, it is necessary to consider both mothers’ and fathers’ parenting stress and behavior as independent predictors of children’s problem behavior and to establish the relative importance of mothers and fathers in determining young children’s adjustment in China. In fact, some recent research has explored the relationship between both mothers’ and fathers’ parenting and young children’s problem behavior, but the results of these studies have been inconsistent. For example, Chang, Schwartz, Dodge, and McBrideChang (2003) found that both maternal and paternal parenting behavior have effects on young children’s outcome. In contrast to the findings of Chang et al. (2003); Aunola and Nurmi (2005) found that maternal but not paternal parenting behavior influenced young children’s problem behavior. One possible reason for this inconsistency may be that the sample of fathers in the study of Aunola and Nurmi (2005) may be too small to detect significant effects of fathers’ parenting (Aunola & Nurmi, 2005). The incon sistency between these previous findings suggests that additional research is needed to address the relationships in a large sample of mothers and fathers. Moreover, the abovementioned research sep arately examined the relationship between mothers’ and fathers’ parenting and children’s problem behavior and did not simultane ously examine the effects of mothers’ and fathers’ behaviors in the same model. Given the interrelations between mother-child rela tionship and father-child relationship within the same family, we collected data from a large sample of mothers and fathers with preschool children and expanded on previous research regarding parent and child behavior by simultaneously examining both moth ers and fathers within a family systems framework (Cox & Paley, 2003). More specifically, we examined the mediating effects of both mothers’ and fathers’ psychological aggression on the rela tionships between their parenting stress and their children’s prob lem behaviors in the same model. To summarize, the current study collected data from a longitu dinal sample of Chinese mothers and fathers with preschool chil dren and examined the hypothesis that both mothers’ and fathers’
LIU AND WANG
22
psychological aggression serves as a mediator in the relationship between parenting stress and children’s internalizing and external izing problem behaviors. We anticipated that both mothers’ and fathers’ parenting stress would be associated with children’s in ternalizing and externalizing problem behaviors one year later, and that parents’ psychological aggression would mediate these asso ciations.
Method Participants and Procedure The data for the current study was collected during two assess ments 1 year apart (Time 1 and Time 2) as part of an ongoing longitudinal study. Father-mother dyads with at least one child between the ages of 3 and 5 years were recruited from two public kindergartens in a northern Chinese city. Parents were asked to participate in a longitudinal study of family education and child development when they ferried their children to and from school. At each assessment, consent forms were completed by all mothers and fathers who were willing to participate in the research. After obtaining parental informed consent, two packets (one for the mother and one for the father) containing the parental question naires were sent home with the participating children. Mothers and fathers were asked to complete the self-report questionnaires sep arately at home and return them through the school. The Institu tional Review Board of Shandong Normal University approved all study procedures. At Time 1 (T1; winter 2011), a total of 379 father-mother dyads with at least one child between the ages of 3 and 5 years were recruited. Eighteen father-mother dyads refused to participate, mostly due to time constraints. All the parents who consented returned packets. The sample for the current study therefore in cluded 361 father-mother dyads with children (1S4 boys, 177 girls; M age = 4.00 years, SD = .54). Ninety-four percent of the children were only children. Ages of mothers and fathers ranged from 25 to 45 years (M — 32.47, SD = 3.20) and 27 to 52 years (M = 34.69, SD = 3.75), respectively. Educational accomplish ment of mothers and fathers, respectively, was as follows: 2% and 1% had completed middle school education or less, 24% and 16% were high school graduates, and 74% and 83% were college graduates. In terms of employment, 29% of the mothers and 20% of the fathers were employed in working-class jobs (e.g., factory workers), whereas 71% of the mothers and 80% of the fathers held a professional, managerial, or technical position (e.g., teachers, doctors, civil servants). The sample was mostly a middle-class sample. At Time 2 (T2; winter 2012), 50 father-mother dyads withdrew from the study and were excluded from the final data set, which resulted in a final sample of 311 father-mother dyads with children (157 boys, 154 girls; M age = 5.00 years, SD = .55). The response rate for this wave was 86.15%. Ninety-five percent of the children were only children. Mothers and fathers ranged in age from 26 to 46 years (M = 33.36, SD = 3.07) and 28 to 53 years (M = 35.65, SD = 3.72), respectively. Parents who were assessed at both time points were compared to those assessed at T1 only on T1 demo graphics, parenting stress, psychological aggression, and child problem behavior. No statistically significant differences between
these two groups of mothers and fathers were found on any T1 variables.
Measures Parenting stress (Tl). The 36-item Chinese version of Par enting Stress Index-Short Form (PSI-SF; Abidin, 1995; Yeh, Chen, Li, & Chuang, 2001) was used to assess mothers’ and fathers’ subjective sense of stress related to their child and their parenting role. The PSI-SF has three subscales: parental distress (distress parents feel about their parenting role such as impaired sense of parenting competence and lack of social support, e.g., “I feel trapped by my responsibilities as a parent”), parent-child dysfunctional interaction (stress related to experiences of interac tions with the child, e.g., “My child rarely does things for me that make me feel good”), and difficult child (child characteristics that make him/her easy or difficult to manage such as negative tem perament, e.g., “My child seems to cry or fuss more than most children”). Mothers and fathers were asked to indicate the extent (1 = strongly disagree to 5 = strongly agree) to which they agreed with negative statements about their parenting experience sepa rately. Chinese versions of this scale were available and demon strated adequate reliability and validity (Yeh et al., 2001). The Cronbach’s alpha coefficients for the parenting stress total and subscales ranged from .81 to .91 for mothers’ reports and .82 to .91 for fathers’ reports in the current study. Psychological aggression (Tl). Psychological aggression was assessed via a Chinese version of the Parent-Child Conflict Tactics Scales (CTSPC; Leung, Wong, Chen, & Tang, 2008; Straus et al., 1998). The 22-item CTSPC includes nonviolent discipline (4 items), psychological aggression (5 items), and phys ical assault (13 items). Psychological aggression scale (e.g., “shouted, yelled, or screamed at”) was the primary focus in the current study. Mothers and fathers reported how often they imple mented specific behaviors with their children in the previous year separately on the following scale: never (0); once (1); twice (2); 3 to 5 times (4); 6 to 10 times (8); 11 to 20 times (15); more than 20 times (25). The maternal and paternal psychological aggression variables were created by summing the frequency scores of the subscale items. Previous research with Chinese samples has demonstrated ade quate internal reliability of this scale (Leung et al., 2008; Wong et al., 2009; Xing & Wang, 2013; Xing et al., 2011). In the present study, the Cronbach’s alpha coefficients for maternal and paternal psychological aggression were .60 and .62, respectively. Although not particularly high, these alpha coefficients are in agreement with those reported in other large-scale studies using the psycho logical aggression subscale of the CTSPC (Straus & Field, 2003; Straus et al., 1998). Child problem behavior (Tl and T2). Child internalizing and externalizing behavior problems were assessed using maternal and paternal reports on the Child Behavior Checklist (CBCL, Achenbach & Rescorla, 2000), a well-known and extensively validated measure. Both mothers and fathers rated whether each item (e.g., “I get into many fights”) was not true, somewhat or sometimes true, or very true or often true (scored as 0, 1, or 2, respectively) of their children. Items were summed to create two broad band factor scores for internalizing (anxious/depressed and withdrawn) and externalizing (aggressive behavior and delinquent
PARENTING STRESS AND PROBLEM BEHAVIOR behavior) problems. In the current sample, coefficient alphas for the total scale, aggression subscale, delinquency subscale, anxious/ depressed subscale, and withdrawn subscale at T1 were .83, .75, .43, .58, and .65 for mother reports and .86, .80, .41, .54, and .67 for father reports, respectively, and at T2 were .88, .81, .59, .57, and .68 for mother reports and .85, .81, .41, .51, and .69 for father reports, respectively. Despite the relatively low reliability of some subscales, the CBCL has been used successfully with Chinese preschool-age children and has demonstrated adequate reliability and validity (Tan, Camras, Deng, Zhang, & Lu, 2012; Wu et al., 2012). Moreover, according to Campbell and Fiske (1959), correlations between subscales on theoretical grounds contribute to evidence of construct validity. In the present study, on theoretical grounds we hypothesized that child aggression would have a significant cor relation with delinquency because both are externalizing problem behavior, and that child anxiety/depression would have a signifi cant correlation with withdrawal because both are internalizing problem behaviors. As expected, there were significant correla tions between child aggression and delinquency, and anxiety/ depression and withdrawal (for mother report, ranged from .48 to .60, ps < .001; for father report, range from .52 to .62, ps < .001) at the two assessments, suggesting that CBCL had construct va lidity within this group. Demographic characteristics (Tl). Demographic informa tion was collected from both the fathers and the mothers. The information collected included children’s gender and age, parent’s gender and age, the number of children in the home, family composition (single parent family/nuclear family/reconstituted family/extended family), and parental/matemal education and cur rent occupation. Data analyses. Statistical analyses were performed using SPSS 15.0 and AMOS 7.0. Prior to conducting analyses, we examined all data for completeness. Missing values were estimated in SPSS using the estimated means procedure given that the percent of respondents with missing items in the present study is only 0.90% (Sawilowsky, 2007). Data analyses proceeded in two
23
stages. First, descriptive statistics and correlations were computed for all variables. Second, structural equation models were created to examine mediated relationships among parenting stress at T l, psychological aggression at T l, and child internalizing and exter nalizing behavior problems at T2, after controlling for child inter nalizing and externalizing behavior problems at T l. MacKinnon, Lockwood, and Williams (2004) recommended using the biascorrected bootstrap method to test the significance of mediating effects, which is especially appropriate for nonnormal data and has the most statistical power. Thus, bias-corrected bootstrap method was performed to evaluate the significance of the mediated paths in the current study, because preliminary tests suggested that there was some departure from the multivariate normality assumption. The estimated models were evaluated using a range of fit indices, including the y?ldf ratio, for which ratios of less than 2.5 or 3 indicate a good model fit, the comparative fit index (CFI), for which values above .90 reflect a good fit, and the root-meansquare error of approximation (RMSEA) for which values of less than .05 represent a good fit, and values of .05 to .08 indicate an acceptable fit (Kline, 2005; MacCallum, Browne, & Sugawara, 1996).
Results Preliminary Analysis Table 1 presents descriptive statistics for mother- and fatherreported parenting stress, psychological aggression, and child in ternalizing and externalizing problem behavior. As shown in Table 1, mothers scored significantly higher than fathers on parental distress, while fathers reported a higher level of parent-child dysfunctional interaction. Correlations among the main study vari ables are presented in Table 2. As shown in Table 2, with some exceptions, the correlations among indicators of each latent vari able were significant and in the expected direction.
Table 1 Descriptive Statistics fo r the Main Study Variables fo r Mothers and Fathers Mothers Variables Parenting stress PD PCDI DC Psychological aggression Child problem behavior Aggression (Tl) Delinquency (Tl) Anxiety/depression (Tl) Withdrawal (Tl) Aggression (T2) Delinquency (T2) Anxiety/depression (T2) Withdrawal (T2)
Fathers
M
SD
M
SD
t
Cohen’s d
31.71 23.39 25.79 12.57
6.54 5.46 6.59 13.47
30.19 24.58 26.59 10.79
6.66 5.70 7.05 12.83
2.87** -2.67** -1.47 1.69
.23 -.21 -.12 .14
5.11 1.96 2.04 1.06 4.23 1.85 1.91 .91
3.54 1.36 1.86 1.54 3.53 1.57 1.84 1.43
5.41 1.99 2.18 1.15 4.37 1.70 1.90 .89
3.96 1.36 1.88 1.63 3.55 1.32 1.68 1.43
-.98 -.26 -.98 -.71 -.49 1.23 .10 .14
-.08 -.02 -.07 -.06 -.04 .10 .01 .01
Note. PD - parental distress; PCDI = parent-child dysfunctional interaction; DC = difficult child, t Values are for group differences between mothers and fathers; Cohen’s d is the effect size for group differences **p < -01.
LIU A N D W A N G
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© 2014 American Psychological Association 0893-3200/15/$ 12.00 http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/fam0000047
Parenting Stress and Children’s Problem Behavior in China: The Mediating Role of Parental Psychological Aggression Li Liu and Meifang Wang Shandong Normal University This study examined the mediating effect of parents’ psychological aggression in the relationship between parenting stress and children’s internalizing (anxiety/depression, withdrawal) and externalizing (aggression, delinquency) problem behaviors 1 year later. Using a sample of 311 intact 2-parent Chinese families with preschoolers, findings revealed that maternal parenting stress had direct effects on children’s internalizing and externalizing problem behavior and indirect effects through maternal psy chological aggression. However, neither direct nor indirect effects of fathers’ parenting stress on children’s internalizing and externalizing problem behavior were found. The findings highlight the importance of simultaneously studying the effects of both mothers’ and fathers’ parenting on their children within a family systems framework. Keywords: children, externalizing problem behavior, internalizing problem behavior, parenting stress, psychological aggression
Bocks & Hughes, 2008). For example, Huth-Bocks and Hughes (2008) found that parenting stress had a strong direct effect on mother-reported child problem behavior and children’s selfreported depressive symptoms. Similarly, Deater-Deckard and Scarr (1996) analyzed data from 589 American families with young children and also found that parents’ parenting stress were significantly associated with children’s emotional and hyperactive misbehavior. Despite such progress, most research in this area is cross-sectional; little is known about the predictive relationship between parenting stress and child problem behavior. Evidence providing support for the predictive relationship would be impor tant in the development of early prevention and intervention pro grams for preschoolers. Therefore, the present study will focus on the predictive relationship between parental parenting stress and children’s internalizing (anxiety/depression and withdrawal) and externalizing (aggression and delinquency) problem behaviors. Both Belsky’s (1984) parenting-process model and Abidin’s (1992) parenting stress model postulate that parents’ psychological stress reactions (e.g., parenting stress) may lead to increases in poor parenting behaviors. Poor parenting behavior, in turn, has negative effects on children’s behavior (Vissing, Straus, Gelles, & Harrop, 1991; Miller-Perrin, Perrin, & Kocur, 2009; Xing & Wang, 2013; Xing, Wang, Zhang, He, & Zhang, 2011). Based on these two theoretical models and previous empirical research, Deater-Deckard (1998) offered hypotheses about the relationships between parenting stress, parenting behavior, and child adjust ment. Specifically, he argued that poor parenting behavior would mediate the link between parenting stress and child adjustment. However, research examining the mediating role of poor parenting in the relationship between parenting stress and children’s problem behavior is still scarce. The few studies examining the mediating role of poor parenting behavior have been conducted in Western settings and have shown inconsistent results. For example, DeaterDeckard and Scarr (1996) found that parents who were more stressed reported using more authoritarian, power-assertive disci-
Numerous studies have demonstrated that children with problem behavior in the preschool years are at higher risk for subsequent adjustment problems (Heller, Baker, Henker, & Hinshaw, 1996; Timmermans, van Lier, & Koot, 2008). To prevent and intervene on children’s problem behavior, researchers have tried to identify factors related to children’s behavior problems (Cmic, Gaze, & Hoffman, 2005). Some research has shown that for young children just entering preschool, problem behavior is likely heavily depen dent on family context factors, such as parenting stress, parenting behavior, parental psychological functioning, and marital quality (Anthony et al., 2005; Benzies, Harrison, & Magill-Evans, 2004; Hughes & Huth-Bocks, 2007). Parenting stress and parenting behavior are two major family context factors associated with children’s problem behavior. Parenting stress has been defined as a specific kind of stress, perceived by the parent and emanating from the demands of being a parent; as a construct it consists of multiple components, includ ing characteristics of the child, parent, and context (Abidin, 1992; Reitman, Currier, & Stickle, 2002; Webster-Stratton, 1990). Re search has demonstrated that parents often experience high levels of stress related to raising their children, especially when their children are in preschool (Anthony et al., 2005; Cmic et al., 2005), and such parenting stress is associated with children’s problem behavior (Crnic et al., 2005; Deater-Deckard & Scarr, 1996; Huth-
This article was published Online First December 1, 2014. Li Liu and Meifang Wang, Department of Psychology, Shandong Nor mal University. This research was supported by Key Subject Funds of Shandong Prov ince, P. R. China (2011-2015). We are grateful to all the children, parents, and teachers who participated or contributed to this project. Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Meifang Wang, Department of Psychology, Shandong Normal University, No. 88 East Wenhua Road, Jinan, 250014, P. R. China. E-mail: meifangw@ hotmail.com 20
PARENTING STRESS AND PROBLEM BEHAVIOR
pline strategies, which were related to child misbehavior. How ever, several recent studies in this area have failed to find support for the mediation in Western samples (Anthony et al., 2005; Cmic et al., 2005; Huth-Bocks & Hughes, 2008). It should be noted that prior research on the mediating role of poor parenting behavior in the relationship between parenting stress and child problem behavior has primarily focused on paren tal laxness, overreactivity, and physical aggression (DeaterDeckard & Scarr, 1996; Guajardo, Snyder, & Petersen, 2009; Huth-Bocks & Hughes, 2008). Little is known, however, about the mediating role of the more commonly used forms of parental harsh discipline, such as psychological aggression. Psychological ag gression is defined as the use of verbal and symbolic acts with the intention of causing the child to experience psychological pain or fear (Straus, Hamby, Finkelhor, Moore, & Runyan, 1998), which was the most common form of parental harsh discipline in both Western and Chinese societies (Straus et al., 1998; Wang & Liu, 2014). There are two reasons for expecting parental psychological aggression to mediate the relationship between parenting stress and child problem behavior in Chinese societies. First, given some unique Chinese social and cultural approaches to parenting, it has been speculated that parental parenting stress is more likely to lead to psychological aggression in Chinese families. Specifically, the implementation of the one-child policy since 1979 may result in very high parental expectations for the family’s sole child (Wong, Chen, Goggins, Tang, & Leung, 2009), which, in mm, may create high parenting stress among Chinese parents. Furthermore, paren tal psychological aggression is highly accepted in traditional Chi nese societies because Chinese parents and children tend to per ceive psychological aggression as an indication of involvement, concern, and love; as the Chinese proverb goes, “Beating and scolding is the emblem of love” (Chao, 1994; Simons, Wu, Lin, Gordon, & Conger, 2000). Thus, under conditions of high stress, Chinese parents may be more likely to adopt psychological ag gression to motivate their children to achieve high academic, social, and moral goals. A recent study with Chinese samples indicated that psychological aggression is the most prevalent form of parental harsh discipline in China: Approximately 80.34% of Chinese mothers and 74.94% of Chinese fathers reported psycho logical aggression toward their children in the previous year (Wang & Liu, 2014). Second, several previous studies conducted in Western cultures have shown that parental psychological aggression may lead to more child problem behaviors. For example, Vissing, Straus, Gelles, and Harrop (1991) found that children who experienced parental psychological aggression exhibited higher levels of ag gression and delinquency. Miller-Perrin and colleagues (2009) also found that parental psychological aggression was a significant predictor of children’s anxiety and depression symptoms. How ever, according to Lansford and Dodge (2008) and Larzelere (2000), the outcomes of parental harsh discipline most likely depend on its normative acceptance in particular subcultures. In the context of high cultural acceptance of parental psychological aggression, Chinese children who experience such discipline may perceive it as normative parenting rather than rejection, and thus may not display more behavior problems than the children who do not experience such discipline. That is, parental psychological aggression might have less impact on Chinese children’ behavior problems. Nevertheless, two studies in Chinese samples have
21
confirmed that parents’ psychological aggression was related to children’s problem behavior including anxiety and depression (Chen, 2005; Jin, 2013), suggesting that even in the context of high cultural acceptance, children who experience parental psycholog ical aggression tend to exhibit higher levels of problem behavior. Based on the above analyses, we expected that parental psycho logical aggression would play a mediating role between parenting stress and child problem behavior in China. The main aim of the current study is to explore this issue. It should also be noted that previous research investigating parents’ stress and behavior and child’s problem behavior has predominantly included only mothers or has reported combined data from mothers and fathers (Anthony et al., 2005; Cmic et al., 2005; Guajardo et al., 2009; Huth-Bocks & Hughes, 2008). Given that mothers are the primary caregiver for their young children in Chinese society, maternal behavior may exert a greater influence on children’s behavior than paternal behavior. However, there are reasons to expect that paternal behavior is also important for child development. In recent decades, China has undergone considerable social and economic changes, and increasing numbers of women have entered the workforce and fathers have become more actively engaged in their children’s lives (Chuang & Su, 2008). Thus, fathers acting as coparents rather than helpers may play as impor tant a role as mothers in their children’s development. Hence, it is necessary to consider both mothers’ and fathers’ parenting stress and behavior as independent predictors of children’s problem behavior and to establish the relative importance of mothers and fathers in determining young children’s adjustment in China. In fact, some recent research has explored the relationship between both mothers’ and fathers’ parenting and young children’s problem behavior, but the results of these studies have been inconsistent. For example, Chang, Schwartz, Dodge, and McBrideChang (2003) found that both maternal and paternal parenting behavior have effects on young children’s outcome. In contrast to the findings of Chang et al. (2003); Aunola and Nurmi (2005) found that maternal but not paternal parenting behavior influenced young children’s problem behavior. One possible reason for this inconsistency may be that the sample of fathers in the study of Aunola and Nurmi (2005) may be too small to detect significant effects of fathers’ parenting (Aunola & Nurmi, 2005). The incon sistency between these previous findings suggests that additional research is needed to address the relationships in a large sample of mothers and fathers. Moreover, the abovementioned research sep arately examined the relationship between mothers’ and fathers’ parenting and children’s problem behavior and did not simultane ously examine the effects of mothers’ and fathers’ behaviors in the same model. Given the interrelations between mother-child rela tionship and father-child relationship within the same family, we collected data from a large sample of mothers and fathers with preschool children and expanded on previous research regarding parent and child behavior by simultaneously examining both moth ers and fathers within a family systems framework (Cox & Paley, 2003). More specifically, we examined the mediating effects of both mothers’ and fathers’ psychological aggression on the rela tionships between their parenting stress and their children’s prob lem behaviors in the same model. To summarize, the current study collected data from a longitu dinal sample of Chinese mothers and fathers with preschool chil dren and examined the hypothesis that both mothers’ and fathers’
LIU AND WANG
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psychological aggression serves as a mediator in the relationship between parenting stress and children’s internalizing and external izing problem behaviors. We anticipated that both mothers’ and fathers’ parenting stress would be associated with children’s in ternalizing and externalizing problem behaviors one year later, and that parents’ psychological aggression would mediate these asso ciations.
Method Participants and Procedure The data for the current study was collected during two assess ments 1 year apart (Time 1 and Time 2) as part of an ongoing longitudinal study. Father-mother dyads with at least one child between the ages of 3 and 5 years were recruited from two public kindergartens in a northern Chinese city. Parents were asked to participate in a longitudinal study of family education and child development when they ferried their children to and from school. At each assessment, consent forms were completed by all mothers and fathers who were willing to participate in the research. After obtaining parental informed consent, two packets (one for the mother and one for the father) containing the parental question naires were sent home with the participating children. Mothers and fathers were asked to complete the self-report questionnaires sep arately at home and return them through the school. The Institu tional Review Board of Shandong Normal University approved all study procedures. At Time 1 (T1; winter 2011), a total of 379 father-mother dyads with at least one child between the ages of 3 and 5 years were recruited. Eighteen father-mother dyads refused to participate, mostly due to time constraints. All the parents who consented returned packets. The sample for the current study therefore in cluded 361 father-mother dyads with children (1S4 boys, 177 girls; M age = 4.00 years, SD = .54). Ninety-four percent of the children were only children. Ages of mothers and fathers ranged from 25 to 45 years (M — 32.47, SD = 3.20) and 27 to 52 years (M = 34.69, SD = 3.75), respectively. Educational accomplish ment of mothers and fathers, respectively, was as follows: 2% and 1% had completed middle school education or less, 24% and 16% were high school graduates, and 74% and 83% were college graduates. In terms of employment, 29% of the mothers and 20% of the fathers were employed in working-class jobs (e.g., factory workers), whereas 71% of the mothers and 80% of the fathers held a professional, managerial, or technical position (e.g., teachers, doctors, civil servants). The sample was mostly a middle-class sample. At Time 2 (T2; winter 2012), 50 father-mother dyads withdrew from the study and were excluded from the final data set, which resulted in a final sample of 311 father-mother dyads with children (157 boys, 154 girls; M age = 5.00 years, SD = .55). The response rate for this wave was 86.15%. Ninety-five percent of the children were only children. Mothers and fathers ranged in age from 26 to 46 years (M = 33.36, SD = 3.07) and 28 to 53 years (M = 35.65, SD = 3.72), respectively. Parents who were assessed at both time points were compared to those assessed at T1 only on T1 demo graphics, parenting stress, psychological aggression, and child problem behavior. No statistically significant differences between
these two groups of mothers and fathers were found on any T1 variables.
Measures Parenting stress (Tl). The 36-item Chinese version of Par enting Stress Index-Short Form (PSI-SF; Abidin, 1995; Yeh, Chen, Li, & Chuang, 2001) was used to assess mothers’ and fathers’ subjective sense of stress related to their child and their parenting role. The PSI-SF has three subscales: parental distress (distress parents feel about their parenting role such as impaired sense of parenting competence and lack of social support, e.g., “I feel trapped by my responsibilities as a parent”), parent-child dysfunctional interaction (stress related to experiences of interac tions with the child, e.g., “My child rarely does things for me that make me feel good”), and difficult child (child characteristics that make him/her easy or difficult to manage such as negative tem perament, e.g., “My child seems to cry or fuss more than most children”). Mothers and fathers were asked to indicate the extent (1 = strongly disagree to 5 = strongly agree) to which they agreed with negative statements about their parenting experience sepa rately. Chinese versions of this scale were available and demon strated adequate reliability and validity (Yeh et al., 2001). The Cronbach’s alpha coefficients for the parenting stress total and subscales ranged from .81 to .91 for mothers’ reports and .82 to .91 for fathers’ reports in the current study. Psychological aggression (Tl). Psychological aggression was assessed via a Chinese version of the Parent-Child Conflict Tactics Scales (CTSPC; Leung, Wong, Chen, & Tang, 2008; Straus et al., 1998). The 22-item CTSPC includes nonviolent discipline (4 items), psychological aggression (5 items), and phys ical assault (13 items). Psychological aggression scale (e.g., “shouted, yelled, or screamed at”) was the primary focus in the current study. Mothers and fathers reported how often they imple mented specific behaviors with their children in the previous year separately on the following scale: never (0); once (1); twice (2); 3 to 5 times (4); 6 to 10 times (8); 11 to 20 times (15); more than 20 times (25). The maternal and paternal psychological aggression variables were created by summing the frequency scores of the subscale items. Previous research with Chinese samples has demonstrated ade quate internal reliability of this scale (Leung et al., 2008; Wong et al., 2009; Xing & Wang, 2013; Xing et al., 2011). In the present study, the Cronbach’s alpha coefficients for maternal and paternal psychological aggression were .60 and .62, respectively. Although not particularly high, these alpha coefficients are in agreement with those reported in other large-scale studies using the psycho logical aggression subscale of the CTSPC (Straus & Field, 2003; Straus et al., 1998). Child problem behavior (Tl and T2). Child internalizing and externalizing behavior problems were assessed using maternal and paternal reports on the Child Behavior Checklist (CBCL, Achenbach & Rescorla, 2000), a well-known and extensively validated measure. Both mothers and fathers rated whether each item (e.g., “I get into many fights”) was not true, somewhat or sometimes true, or very true or often true (scored as 0, 1, or 2, respectively) of their children. Items were summed to create two broad band factor scores for internalizing (anxious/depressed and withdrawn) and externalizing (aggressive behavior and delinquent
PARENTING STRESS AND PROBLEM BEHAVIOR behavior) problems. In the current sample, coefficient alphas for the total scale, aggression subscale, delinquency subscale, anxious/ depressed subscale, and withdrawn subscale at T1 were .83, .75, .43, .58, and .65 for mother reports and .86, .80, .41, .54, and .67 for father reports, respectively, and at T2 were .88, .81, .59, .57, and .68 for mother reports and .85, .81, .41, .51, and .69 for father reports, respectively. Despite the relatively low reliability of some subscales, the CBCL has been used successfully with Chinese preschool-age children and has demonstrated adequate reliability and validity (Tan, Camras, Deng, Zhang, & Lu, 2012; Wu et al., 2012). Moreover, according to Campbell and Fiske (1959), correlations between subscales on theoretical grounds contribute to evidence of construct validity. In the present study, on theoretical grounds we hypothesized that child aggression would have a significant cor relation with delinquency because both are externalizing problem behavior, and that child anxiety/depression would have a signifi cant correlation with withdrawal because both are internalizing problem behaviors. As expected, there were significant correla tions between child aggression and delinquency, and anxiety/ depression and withdrawal (for mother report, ranged from .48 to .60, ps < .001; for father report, range from .52 to .62, ps < .001) at the two assessments, suggesting that CBCL had construct va lidity within this group. Demographic characteristics (Tl). Demographic informa tion was collected from both the fathers and the mothers. The information collected included children’s gender and age, parent’s gender and age, the number of children in the home, family composition (single parent family/nuclear family/reconstituted family/extended family), and parental/matemal education and cur rent occupation. Data analyses. Statistical analyses were performed using SPSS 15.0 and AMOS 7.0. Prior to conducting analyses, we examined all data for completeness. Missing values were estimated in SPSS using the estimated means procedure given that the percent of respondents with missing items in the present study is only 0.90% (Sawilowsky, 2007). Data analyses proceeded in two
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stages. First, descriptive statistics and correlations were computed for all variables. Second, structural equation models were created to examine mediated relationships among parenting stress at T l, psychological aggression at T l, and child internalizing and exter nalizing behavior problems at T2, after controlling for child inter nalizing and externalizing behavior problems at T l. MacKinnon, Lockwood, and Williams (2004) recommended using the biascorrected bootstrap method to test the significance of mediating effects, which is especially appropriate for nonnormal data and has the most statistical power. Thus, bias-corrected bootstrap method was performed to evaluate the significance of the mediated paths in the current study, because preliminary tests suggested that there was some departure from the multivariate normality assumption. The estimated models were evaluated using a range of fit indices, including the y?ldf ratio, for which ratios of less than 2.5 or 3 indicate a good model fit, the comparative fit index (CFI), for which values above .90 reflect a good fit, and the root-meansquare error of approximation (RMSEA) for which values of less than .05 represent a good fit, and values of .05 to .08 indicate an acceptable fit (Kline, 2005; MacCallum, Browne, & Sugawara, 1996).
Results Preliminary Analysis Table 1 presents descriptive statistics for mother- and fatherreported parenting stress, psychological aggression, and child in ternalizing and externalizing problem behavior. As shown in Table 1, mothers scored significantly higher than fathers on parental distress, while fathers reported a higher level of parent-child dysfunctional interaction. Correlations among the main study vari ables are presented in Table 2. As shown in Table 2, with some exceptions, the correlations among indicators of each latent vari able were significant and in the expected direction.
Table 1 Descriptive Statistics fo r the Main Study Variables fo r Mothers and Fathers Mothers Variables Parenting stress PD PCDI DC Psychological aggression Child problem behavior Aggression (Tl) Delinquency (Tl) Anxiety/depression (Tl) Withdrawal (Tl) Aggression (T2) Delinquency (T2) Anxiety/depression (T2) Withdrawal (T2)
Fathers
M
SD
M
SD
t
Cohen’s d
31.71 23.39 25.79 12.57
6.54 5.46 6.59 13.47
30.19 24.58 26.59 10.79
6.66 5.70 7.05 12.83
2.87** -2.67** -1.47 1.69
.23 -.21 -.12 .14
5.11 1.96 2.04 1.06 4.23 1.85 1.91 .91
3.54 1.36 1.86 1.54 3.53 1.57 1.84 1.43
5.41 1.99 2.18 1.15 4.37 1.70 1.90 .89
3.96 1.36 1.88 1.63 3.55 1.32 1.68 1.43
-.98 -.26 -.98 -.71 -.49 1.23 .10 .14
-.08 -.02 -.07 -.06 -.04 .10 .01 .01
Note. PD - parental distress; PCDI = parent-child dysfunctional interaction; DC = difficult child, t Values are for group differences between mothers and fathers; Cohen’s d is the effect size for group differences **p < -01.
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