Kin Social Undermining, Adjustment and Family Relations Among Low-Income African American Mothers and Adolescents: Moderating Effects of Kin Social Support

Abstract

Moderating effects of kin social support on the association of kin undermining with mothers’ and adolescents’ adjustment and mothers’ parenting were assessed among 200 African American mothers. Kinship social support was positively associated with mother’s optimism and negatively associated with their depressive symptoms. Kin support was negatively associated with mother’s report of adolescent’s externalizing problems. In the area of parenting, kin support was positively linked to mother’s emotional support and acceptance. In comparison, kin undermining was negatively associated with mother’s optimism and positively linked depressive symptoms. Kin undermining was also positively associated with mother’s report of adolescent’s internalizing and externalizing problems. Kin undermining was negatively associated with mother’s acceptance and positively associated with mother/adolescent communication problems. Moderating effects of kin social support revealed that the positive association of kin undermining with adolescent externalizing was less apparent as mothers reported higher compared to lower kin social support. Also, the positive association of kin undermining with mother/adolescent communication problems was less apparent as mothers reported higher compared to lower levels of kin support. The findings were discussed in terms of the need for more research on how families manage the beneficial and detrimental aspects of their social networks.