Elsevier

Early Childhood Research Quarterly

Volume 41, 4th Quarter 2017, Pages 13-20
Early Childhood Research Quarterly

Bidirectional relations between intrusive caregiving among parents and teachers and children’s externalizing behavior problems

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ecresq.2017.05.004Get rights and content

Highlights

  • Bidirectional relations exist between intrusive caregiving and children’s behaviors.

  • Children served as the bridge between the family and school systems.

  • Teachers’ intrusive caregiving affected parents’ intrusiveness via influencing children’s externalizing behaviors.

  • These processes were stronger among non-White children than their White peer.

Abstract

Informed by the transactional and bioecological theories, this study examined the bidirectional relations between intrusive caregiving and children’s externalizing behaviors across the family and school systems during the early elementary school years. Using data from the NICHD Study of Early Child Care (N = 1364), these bidirectional associations were examined from 54 months of age through third grade. Both mothers’ and teachers’ intrusive caregiving behaviors contributed to the development of children’s externalizing behaviors in the first three years of elementary school, and children’s externalizing behaviors consistently predicted mothers’ intrusive caregiving behaviors. Children’s externalizing behaviors mediated the relation between teachers’ intrusiveness and mothers’ intrusive caregiving. These bidirectional associations did not vary across child gender, but tended to be stronger among non-White children than their White peers. These findings suggest that children’s own behaviors can serve as a key connection between the two core institutions of child development—the family and school systems.

Section snippets

Intrusive caregiving and child externalizing behaviors

Externalizing behavior problems are one of the most common and persistent forms of maladjustment among children (Campbell, 1995). Particularly during the first several years of school when increased demands for conformity and cooperation with others are required, children who exhibit externalizing behavior problems transition more poorly to school and are at heightened risk of performing poorly on multiple domains of school adjustment (Keenan, Shaw, Delliquadri, Giovannelli, & Walsh, 1998).

Children as the critical link in the home-School connections

Consistent with Bronfenbrenner’s bioecological model, development is “a function of forces emanating from multiple settings and from the relations among these settings” (Bronfenbrenner & Morris, 2006). Schools and families function as two important proximal settings that shape children’s development. The mesosystem comprises the important connection existing between these proximal settings. Child-driven effects may function as one of the key ways in which the family and school contexts are

Groups differences in these transactional effects: child gender and Race/Ethnicity

Informed by the bioecological (Bronfenbrenner & Morris, 2006) and developmental systems theory (Lerner, 2006), we also pay careful attention to the moderating roles of children’s own characteristics, including their gender and race/ethnicity, in order to provide a more nuanced understanding of the reciprocal relations between children and their developmental ecologies. First, boys have been consistently found to show more susceptibility to a number of detrimental effects of environmental

Hypotheses

With the above literature in mind, we evaluated four hypotheses. First, both mothers’ and teachers’ intrusive caregiving predicts children’s externalizing behaviors. Second, children’s externalizing behaviors predict increased levels of intrusive caregiving, but these associations would be stronger at home than in school. Third, the link between teachers’ intrusiveness and mothers’ intrusive parenting (and vice versa) would function through children’s externalizing behaviors. Finally, we expect

Participants

Instead of using clinical samples, we used a large multi-site longitudinal community sample of children and families, which allows us to consider the implications of normative behavior problems. Mothers and children in the current study were derived from the NICHD Study of Early Child Care. Families were recruited during 1990 and 1991 from hospitals across 10 sites in the U.S. (Little Rock, AR; Irvine, CA; Lawrence, KS; Boston, MA; Philadelphia, PA; Pittsburgh, PA; Charlottesville, VA:

Results

We first tested a single measurement model of children’s externalizing behavior at 54 months of age (λmother = 0.40, p < 0.001; λteacher = 0.72, p < 0.001), 1st grade (λmother = 0.47, p < 0.001; λteacher = 0.76, p < 0.001), and 3rd grade (λmother = 0.51, p < 0.001; λteacher = 0.76, p < 0.001), which demonstrated good fit: CFI = 0.997, RMSEA = 0.042, and x2 (df = 3) = 9.02, p = 0.029. Having established the measurement model, we proceeded to estimating the focal structural model (see Fig. 1) of the bidirectional relations

Discussion

Guided by both transactional and bioecological theories (Bronfenbrenner & Morris, 2006; Sameroff, 2000), this study considered the bidirectional relations between intrusive caregiving and children’s externalizing behaviors across the family and school systems during the elementary school years. The results from this study have three take home messages.

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    The authors acknowledge the support of grants from the National Natural Science Foundation of China for Young Scholar (31500904, PI: Ni Yan) and the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (R24 HD42849, PI: Mark Hayward; T32 HD007081-35, PI: Kelly Raley). Opinions reflect those of the authors and not necessarily the opinions of the funding agencies.

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