Parenting in the Context of Childhood Trauma: Self-Efficacy as a Mediator between Attributions and Parenting Competence

Given the well documented relationship between childhood trauma and the regulation of stress and emotion, it is likely that childhood trauma also will have important implications for parenting. As a result, the current study aimed to understand the relationships among mothers’ attributions, self-efficacy, and parenting competence within the context of childhood trauma experiences. In particular, mothers’ self-efficacy was examined as a mediator in the relationship between attributions and parenting competence. The sample was divided into low and high trauma subsamples. Mediation analyses indicated that, for mothers in the low childhood trauma subsample, the model was not supported. In contrast, among mothers in the high childhood trauma subsample, the model was supported. Additionally, hierarchical regression analyses revealed that self-efficacy was a strong unique predictor for young children’s internalizing and externalizing problems in mothers from the low childhood trauma subsample. In contrast, the examined variables worked more collectively in the prediction of young children’s internalizing and externalizing problems for mothers in the high childhood trauma subsample. These findings suggested that mothers’ understanding of their young children’s problems and their own parenting were related differently when the context of childhood trauma experiences was considered and may be important to target in parenting interventions.