Abstract
This study aimed to advance our understanding of 5-year-olds’ behavioral difficulties by modeling and testing both mediational protective and risk pathways simultaneously. Drawing on two national samples from different Western European countries—the United Kingdom (13,053) and Germany (2,022), the proposed model considered observed sensitive parental interactive behaviors and tested child vocabulary as protective pathways connecting parental education with children’s behavioral outcomes; the risk pathways focused on negative parental disciplinary practices linking (low) parental education, parental distress, and children’s difficult temperament to children’s behavioral difficulties. Further, the tested model controlled for families’ income as well as children’s sex and formal child care attendance. Children with comparatively higher educated parents experienced more sensitive interactive behavior, had more advanced vocabulary, and exhibited fewer behavioral difficulties. Children with a comparatively higher level of difficult temperament or with parents who suffered from distress tended to experience more negative disciplinary behavior and exhibited more behavioral difficulties. Additionally, children’s vocabulary skills served as a mechanism mediating the association between parental education and children’s behavioral difficulties. Overall, we found similar patterns of results across the United Kingdom and Germany with both protective and risk pathways contributing simultaneously to children’s behavioral development. The findings suggest that promoting parents’ sensitive interactive behaviors, favorable disciplinary practices, and child’s vocabulary skills have potential for preventing early behavioral difficulties.
Highlights
Behavioral difficulties are a series of age-inappropriate behaviors such as inattention–hyperactivity or conduct problems
Given the importance of parenting behavior in socialization processes in early childhood (Ainsworth, 1979), this study investigated the effects of two different forms of parenting behaviors as mediating protective and risk pathways—that is, how sensitive parent–child interactions and negative disciplinary practices differentially affect children’s behavioral outcomes
To enhance our understanding of this protective mechanism, we examined a protective pathway linking parental education and children’s behavioral difficulties via an effect of sensitive parental interactive behavior on children’s behavioral outcomes (Pathway a)
Summary
Behavioral difficulties are a series of age-inappropriate behaviors such as inattention–hyperactivity or conduct problems. They often persist throughout elementary school and into adolescence and adulthood (Duncan and Magnuson, 2011). Previous research suggests that without intervention, early behavioral difficulties can become a crystallized pattern of behavior (e.g., Eron, 1994), increase academic problems such as school dropout, and influence later academic achievement (Rabiner et al, 2016). Previous studies focused mainly on dysfunctional pathways (i.e., risk factors as mediating pathways) to behavioral difficulties (e.g., Conger et al, 2000; Gard et al, 2020). Protective pathways (i.e., protective factors as mediating pathways) that may hinder the development of behavioral difficulties are still understudied and cannot be viewed exclusively as an absence of risk factors. Which pathways are more pronounced when risk and protective factors are considered simultaneously remains an open question, because both channels are likely to occur together in this developmental process (Gore and Eckenrode, 1996)
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