THE ASSOCIATION OF MATERNAL EMOTION AND COGNITIVE CONTROL CAPACITIES TO PARENTING AND CHILD WELL-BEING
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Date
2014-01-03
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Johns Hopkins University
Abstract
Background
Parenting forms the foundation for lifelong health. Most parents are deeply invested in seeing their children succeed, but despite these intentions, many parents struggle to engage in effective parenting strategies. Parental emotion and cognitive control capacities (ECCCs) help to explain this gap between the desire to parent well and actual behaviors.
Methods
For aim 1 of this dissertation, a conceptual framework on maternal ECCC and parenting was developed based on a comprehensive literature review. In aim 2, data from 152 mothers and their children ages 3-7 years were analyzed to assess maternal ECCC and its association with parenting and child behaviors, with maternal social cognitions included as potential mediators. Aim 3 includes data from a five-year longitudinal study of 478 mothers and their adolescent children. This study addresses how family processes mediate the associations between maternal self-reported emotion regulation and parenting and child behaviors. Aims 2 and 3 were analyzed using Structural Equation Modeling in Mplus Version 7.
Results
Maternal ECCC is related to warm, sensitive parenting and inversely related to harsh, reactive parenting. Stress, poor nutrition, substance abuse, and fatigue can impair one’s ECCC. In Aim 2, maternal emotion control was inversely associated with harsh parenting; higher maternal executive functioning was associated with observed positive parenting. Maternal social cognitions mediated the relationship between maternal ECCC and child behaviors. Maternal executive functioning moderated the association between maternal social cognitions and parenting behaviors. In Aim 3, maternal emotional reactivity was predictive of verbal-punitive and indulgent parenting. Maternal emotional distancing was inversely predictive of maternal warmth and regulation parenting through the mediators of family functioning and family monitoring.
Conclusions
Maternal ECCCs help a mom to engage in effective parenting. Mom’s emotion regulation is particularly important for reducing harsh, reactive parenting and child aggression. Parenting and early childhood programs are most likely to be successful if they help moms to develop strategies that reduce stress, fatigue, and other factors known to impair ECCC. Programs that work with multiple family members to strengthen healthy family processes are especially important for families where the mom has low ECCC.
Advisor: Anne Riley, PhD
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Keywords
parenting, executive functioning