Parental Arrest and Child Behavior: Differential Role of Executive Functioning among Racial Subgroups

This study examines relations among parental arrest, child executive functioning (EF), and problem behaviors among youth who participated in the baseline assessment of the Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development (ABCD) study (N = 11,875). Participants ranged in age from 9 to 10 (M = 9.91) years, and approximately half were girls (47.9%). Results of regression analyses that controlled for sociodemographic risk factors indicated that children who experienced parental arrest exhibited more internalizing and externalizing behaviors than comparison youth, particularly when their mother vs. father had been arrested. Results of analyses that were disaggregated by child race further revealed that EF appeared to play a differential role among White (n = 5851) and Black (n = 1451) children. Among White children, EF was associated with fewer internalizing and externalizing behaviors regardless of whether or not a parent had been arrested. Among Black children, low levels of EF were associated with more internalizing behaviors in the context of parental arrest vs. no arrest, but high levels of EF did not appear to confer benefits. EF was not significantly related to externalizing behaviors among Black children. Taken together, results suggest that parental arrests have adverse implications for child well-being that warrant continued theoretical and empirical attention. Findings also suggest that, although EF may be broadly beneficial among White children, there appear to be constraints on the extent to which high EF benefits Black children, a finding that is discussed through the lens of racial stratification and that has important implications for future theory, research, and practice.