Building a Predictive Model of Social-Emotional Adjustment: Exploring the Relationship between Parenting Self-Efficacy, Parenting Behaviour and Psychological Distress in Mothers of Young Children in Ireland.

Sabrina Coyle,Leora De Flumere,Kiran M Sarma,Catherine Maguire

doi:10.3390/ijerph18062861

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to generate greater understanding of social-emotional difficulties in infants and toddlers in an Irish context. This study compared rates of reported social-emotional difficulties in young children in clinical and non-clinical samples and probed a predictive model of social-emotional adjustment. Data were collected from a cross-sectional sample of 72 mothers of young children aged between 12 and 48 months. Mothers were recruited from waiting lists for child Early Intervention services (clinical sample) and community mother-toddler groups (non-clinical sample). Mothers completed a questionnaire battery which assessed parenting self-efficacy, parenting behaviour, psychological distress and child social-emotional adjustment. The results indicated that 55.5% of young children in the clinical sample and 15% in the non-clinical sample had significant social-emotional problems. Similarly, 55.5% of young children in the clinical sample and 30% in the non-clinical sample had significant delays in the acquisition of social-emotional competencies. Two hierarchical multiple regressions were carried out with social-emotional problems and social-emotional competencies as the respective criterion variables. Clinical or non-clinical group membership, parenting satisfaction and maternal psychological distress were found to be significant predictors of child social-emotional problems in a model which explained 59% of the variance. Task-specific self-efficacy was the only significant predictor of child social-emotional competencies in a model which explained 21% of the variance. The significant rates of social-emotional problems in young children in the current study and the potential negative impact on child health and wellbeing, suggest that the early assessment of social-emotional adjustment should be incorporated into routine clinical assessment for young children. For services to effectively meet the needs of children with social-emotional difficulties and their families, consideration of maternal factors is also necessary.

Highlights

The developmental tasks of infancy and toddlerhood include the development of self-regulation and the beginning of peer relationships
Understanding predictors of social-emotional difficulties in infants and toddlers which are amenable to change through intervention, may help to inform the development of effective interventions for young children experiencing and those at risk of developing social-emotional difficulties
The current study aimed to address the gap in the research literature to date by exploring rates of social-emotional adjustment difficulties in young children and associated maternal variables within an Irish context

Summary

Introduction

The developmental tasks of infancy and toddlerhood include the development of self-regulation and the beginning of peer relationships. Research has demonstrated that selfregulatory capacities in infants and toddlers are significantly related to the development of social competence. Early emerging individual differences in social competence are relatively stable [1,2] and are linked to subsequent adjustment in later childhood [3]. While limited data are available, international literature [4,5,6,7,8,9,10,11] to date has demonstrated that there is a high prevalence of social-emotional difficulties in infants and toddlers with prevalence estimates for 2 and 3 year old children ranging between 7%. Deficits in social-emotional functioning have been identified as a significant risk factor for persistent difficulties in children and.

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