Effects of Parenting Stress and Controlling Parenting Attitudes on Problem Behaviors of Preschool Children: Latent Growth Model Analysis

Abstract

This study was conducted to examine the longitudinal effects of parenting stress and parental control attitudes on problem behaviors in preschool children, using a latent growth model. Participants were 1,724 pairs of parents and 1,724 preschool children who had completed the panel survey on Korean children (5(th)~7(th) survey panels). An analysis of the multivariate latent growth model of parenting stress, parental control attitudes, and children's problem behaviors suggested that the parents' intercepts for parenting stress influenced their intercepts for parental control attitudes (father: β=.21, p<.001; mother: β=.55, p<.001). In addition, the slopes for fathers' parenting stress was the only aspect that affected the slopes for mothers' parental control attitudes (β=.77, p<.001). Moreover, both the intercepts and slopes of parenting stress and parental control attitudes significantly affected the children's problem behaviors. This study is significant as it provides longitudinal evidence of the impact of parenting stress and parental control attitudes on children's problem behaviors. The findings suggest that accurately assessing changes in parenting stress and parental control attitudes and developing intervention programs to reduce them will be effective in reducing problem behaviors in children.