Stability and change in patterns of parental social support and their relation to children's school adjustment

Abstract

A structured interview was used to explore the social support networks of the parents of 250 4- and 5-year-olds in Genoa. The parents of 60% of the participants were traced 2 years later, after the children had transferred from preschool to elementary school. During the second wave of data collection, the parents also completed an inventory of critical life events in their own lives over the preceding year. Teachers rated the children's adjustment at both data collection points. Major indices of parental social support (i.e., number of individuals in support network; proportions of marital partners, kin, and friends in support network; frequency of contact with supportive individuals; general satisfaction with social support) were found to be moderately stable over the 2-year period for both mothers and fathers. Both concurrent and previous measures of social support were associated with positive school adjustment for the children of mothers who reported the experience of a stressful life event. Parallel data for fathers revealed few significant findings, but this may have occurred because of limited statistical power.