Parent immigration stress predicts youth externalizing behavior trajectories among Latino families in an emerging immigrant context.

Abstract

According to ecodevelopmental and social learning models, Latino immigrant parents experience considerable stress associated with the immigration process, and such immigration-related stress is theorized to influence behavioral outcomes among their youth. Using a three-year longitudinal design among 217 Latino immigrant families in western Oregon, we assessed whether parents' (94% mothers, Mage =36.2years) experience of immigration-related stress influenced the trajectory of their adolescents' (43% female, Mage = 13.4years) externalizing behaviors. Controlling for covariates (gender, acculturation, age at migration, and gender), results showed that youth exhibited a normative downward trajectory for externalizing behaviors, and parents' experience of immigration stress significantly and negatively predicted this trajectory. Findings suggest that parents' experience of immigration stress may disrupt a normative trajectory of declining externalizing behaviors among Latino immigrant adolescents.