Family involvement for children with disruptive behaviors: The role of parenting stress and motivational beliefs

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Abstract

Children with disruptive behaviors are at risk for adverse outcomes. Family involvement is a significant predictor of positive child behavior outcomes; however, little research has investigated parent psychological variables that influence family involvement for children with disruptive behaviors. This study investigated the role of parental motivational beliefs (i.e., role construction and efficacy) as a potential mechanism by which parenting stress impacts family involvement for families of children with disruptive behaviors. Results indicated that parent role construction mediated the relation between parenting stress and all aspects of family involvement examined (i.e., home-based involvement, school-based involvement, and home–school communication). Parent efficacy mediated the relation between parenting stress and home-based involvement only. Parents of children with disruptive behaviors reporting stress may experience negative beliefs about their role and efficacy to support their child's education, which may thereby negatively influence their actual involvement. Therefore, parent motivational beliefs may serve as an important point for intervention to support involvement of families of children with disruptive behavior.

Section snippets

Conceptual model

Given that family involvement at home and school is the outward manifestation of parents' behaviors in support of their child's education, it is important to understand the mechanisms by which parenting factors have their effect on involvement. Numerous parent and family characteristics have previously been identified that contribute to family involvement. Previous research has investigated the influence of parental education, number of children living in the home, child gender (Manz, Fantuzzo,

Family involvement

For this study, family involvement is conceptualized along three dimensions: home-based involvement, school-based involvement, and home–school communication (Epstein, 1995, Fantuzzo et al., 2000). Home-based involvement includes educational activities in which family members actively participate in support of a child's learning at home (Fantuzzo et al., 2000, Hoover-Dempsey and Sandler, 1997). Examples of such activities include helping with homework and creating a space for learning

Purpose and research question

Children with disruptive behaviors are at risk for a number of adverse outcomes across academic, behavioral, and social-emotional domains. Whereas family involvement is a critical component for children's positive educational outcomes, limited research has investigated parents' psychological factors that contribute to family involvement among children with disruptive behaviors. The current study focuses on parents' affective factors (i.e., stress) and motivational factors (i.e., role

Participants and setting

Participants were 207 parents and children in kindergarten through 3rd grades in 82 classrooms in 21 public and parochial schools in a moderately-sized Midwestern city and surrounding communities. Participating parents' ages ranged from 23 to 58, with a mean age of 34.5 years. Eighty-nine percent of participating parents were female, and 11% were male. Eighty-six percent of participating parents characterized themselves as White, 5% as African American, 4% as Latino, 2% as American Indian/Alaska

Results

First, given that two to three children and their parents were drawn from the same classroom, we examined whether or not a nesting structure needs to be taken into account in the analyses. Specifically, we examined intraclass correlations (ICC) and design effect estimates associated with the outcome variables (see Peugh, 2010). The ICCs were .05, 0, and 0 for home-based involvement, school-based involvement, and home–school communication, respectively. In other words, a small amount of variance

Discussion

The purpose of this study was to investigate the role of parental motivational beliefs (i.e., role construction and efficacy) as a potential mechanism by which parenting stress impacts family involvement for families of children with disruptive behaviors. Results indicated that parent role construction mediated the relation between parenting stress and the three dimensions of family involvement, whereas parent efficacy mediated the relation between parenting stress and home-based involvement

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    This research is supported by a grant awarded to Drs. Susan Sheridan and Todd Glover by the U.S. Department of Education, Institute of Educational Sciences (Grant #R305F050284). The opinions expressed herein are those of the investigators and do not reflect the funding agency. We are appreciative of the cooperation of the administrators, teachers, parents, and students who participated in this study, as their involvement in research is the cornerstone to uncovering important educational findings.

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