Child temperamental flexibility moderates the relation between positive parenting and adolescent adjustment☆

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.appdev.2015.12.006Get rights and content

Highlights

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    We explored positive parenting on youth low in flexibility in predicting symptoms.

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    Findings are largely consistent with the diathesis-stress model.

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    Youth lower in flexibility had more symptoms in low positive parenting contexts.

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    Youth lower in flexibility were more affected by context than flexible youth.

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    Intervention and policy implications are discussed.

Abstract

Temperamental flexibility and lower positive parenting are associated with internalizing and externalizing problems; however, youth varying in flexibility may be differentially affected by positive parenting in the prediction of symptoms. We examined whether children's flexibility moderated prospective relations between maternal and paternal positive parenting and youth internalizing and externalizing symptoms during adolescence. Participants (N = 775, 71% male) and their caregivers completed measures when youth were 10–12 and 12–14 years old. Father positive parenting interacted with child flexibility to predict father-reported internalizing and externalizing problems. Consistent with the diathesis-stress model, children lower in flexibility experienced greater symptoms than children higher in flexibility in lower positive parenting contexts. Among children lower in flexibility, lower paternal positive parenting was associated with greater internalizing and externalizing symptoms compared to higher paternal positive parenting. However, among youth higher in flexibility, symptom levels were similar regardless of whether youth experienced lower or higher paternal positive parenting.

Section snippets

Participants

The current study involves a sample recruited from the Center for Education and Drug Abuse Research. Recruitment and baseline assessments began when children were aged 10–12 years (Time 1) and a follow-up assessment occurred when children were 12–14 (Time 2). Sampling methods were designed to recruit youth at high and low risk for substance use disorder (SUD) on the basis of the presence or absence of a lifetime diagnosis of SUD or other psychiatric disorders in the biological father (Tarter &

Results

Bivariate correlations, means, standard deviations, and ns for the study variables are presented in Table 1. Father acceptance and child-centeredness were negatively correlated with father-reported and mother-reported internalizing and externalizing problems. Similarly, mother acceptance and child-centeredness were negatively related to father-reported and mother-reported internalizing and externalizing symptoms.

With regard to sex differences among study variables, fathers rated boys as having

Discussion

The present study extends previous research by examining internalizing and externalizing symptoms among children with different levels of the lower-order temperamental feature of flexibility when exposed to positive parenting. Moreover, the current study expands extant research on diathesis-stress and differential susceptibility by examining adjustment among youth lower in flexibility when exposed to positive parenting practices during the transition to adolescence. Results from the present

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    ☆

    This research was supported in part by NIDA grant P50 DA005605 awarded to Ralph E. Tarter. We thank all study participants, in addition to Drs. Ralph Tarter, Michael Vanyukov, Peter J. Marshall, Hongling Xie, and Mark Schmitz for their contributions to the conceptualization, execution, and analysis of the current project, as well as comments and suggestions in the preparation of this manuscript.

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