Impact of Community Violence on Parenting Behaviors and Children’s Outcomes

Abstract

Children's development is not only a product of parent-child interactions, but it is also a product of the interplay between environments and individuals (Bronfenbrenner, 1979). While parents may be one of the greatest influences on children's development (Westbrook & Harden, 2010), communities may provide risk or protective factors that contribute to not only children's development (Myers & Taylor, 1998), but also to parents' abilities to engage in effective parenting (Westbrook & Harden, 2010). Urban communities plagued with community violence may negatively impact parents, the family environment (Jenkins, 2002), and children (Aisenberg & Herrenkohl, 2008; Westbrook & Harden, 2010).The present study will use the ecological risk and resiliency theory as framework to explore the impact of proximal (i.e., parental psychological well-being) and distal (parental community violence exposure) risk factors on parenting behaviors, which were in turn hypothesized to influence children's social emotional competence. Data from a survey administered to families within Washington, DC Head Start programs were used to conduct analyses.THEORETICAL AND CONCEPTUAL FOUNDATIONSEcological Risk and Resilience TheoryThis study assumes that children's environments greatly influence their development. The basis of this assumption relies on ecological theory that explores the impact of the environment on individuals behaviors (Bronfenbrenner, 1979). Bronfenbrenner insisted that it is not enough to understand the specific related to development, but science must also illuminate how environments may sustain, enhance, or impair the operation of these processes (p. 845). In short, ecological perspective considers how the individual develops in interaction with the immediate social environment and how aspects of the larger social context affect what goes on in the individuals' immediate settings (Harrison et al., 1990, p. 347).Three ecological systems foster children's development: (a) the macrosystem, which includes the larger society's political and cultural values and is most distal; (b) exosystem, which is the middle most context that includes the community in which the child lives; and (c) microsystem, which is most proximal and includes the family, school environment, and peer relationships (Overstreet & Mazza, 2003). The ecological risk and resilience framework extends beyond the original ecological theory to assert that each context has risk and protective factors that contributes to individuals' development (Koblinsky, Kuvalanka, & Randolph, 2006). Risk factors increase the likelihood of negative outcomes while protective factors increase the likelihood of positive outcomes (Koblinsky, Kuvalanka, & Randolph, 2006). Research suggests exposure to community violence is a risk factor within the exosystem; moreover, exposure to community violence may also disturb the microsystem and directly impact children's development (Overstreet & Mazza, 2003). Therefore, this study will address the microsystem, the family, and the exosystem, the community, and their effect on parenting behaviors and children outcomes.Parenting Impacts Children's OutcomesThe research upholds that parents are influential in the development of children. Parents assist in children's development by providing a safe and nurturing environment (Iwaniec & Sneddon, 2002). One way in which parents influence child outcomes is through parental socialization, which describes how parents transmit attitudes, beliefs, values, and behaviors to their children (Eisenberg, Cumberland, & Spinrad, 1998). Parental socialization theories assume that parenting behaviors directly relate to the child's later behaviors within society (Feldman & Klein, 2003). The specific type of parental socialization that this study explores is parental socialization of emotions.Socialization of emotions is a specific form of parental socialization that includes what parents say, reward, and punish regarding children's emotional control and expressiveness. …