Abstract
This study investigates the role of maternal parenting and subjective theories for associations between environmental risk and children’s behavior regulation combining a qualitative and quantitative approach. Mothers of 113 primary school children (M = 10.06, SD = 0.86) in Germany completed questionnaires on parenting, environmental risk, and their child’s behavior regulation. To test for associations, we applied hierarchical regression models. Further, we conducted nine focus groups in settings of high and low environmental risk and used thematic analysis. Maternal warmth showed positive associations with children’s behavior regulation. Restrictive maternal control and children’s behavior regulation were related negatively. The negative association between environmental risk and children’s behavior regulation was partly explained by restrictive maternal control. When maternal warmth was added into the model on environmental risk, restrictive maternal control, and children’s behavior regulation, both maternal parenting practices lost its significant associations with children’s behavior regulation. Qualitative findings gave insights into parents’ subjective theories, suggesting adverse peer effects as possible explanation for the relation between environmental risk and children’s behavior regulation. The results are discussed in terms of their contribution to theoretical considerations on behavior regulation development in different environmental risk settings.
Highlights
Several favorable developmental outcomes including better academic performance (McClelland and Cameron, 2011), physical health, social status, financial wealth (Moffitt et al, 2013), and social competencies (Blake et al, 2015) have been linked to a high motivation and ability of behavior regulation
In the questionnaire part of this study, we examined the role of maternal parenting for the association between environmental risk and children’s behavior regulation
In a second single step model with children’s age (β = 0.10, p = 0.28) and children’s gender (β = −0.10, p = 0.27) as control variables and restrictive maternal control (β = −0.24, p = 0.01) as predictor for children’s behavior regulation, we found a significant negative association between restrictive maternal control and children’s behavior regulation (F(3,109) = 3.16, p < 0.05, adjusted R2 = 0.06)
Summary
Several favorable developmental outcomes including better academic performance (McClelland and Cameron, 2011), physical health, social status, financial wealth (Moffitt et al, 2013), and social competencies (Blake et al, 2015) have been linked to a high motivation and ability of behavior regulation. Underlying mechanisms of the association between environmental risk and children’s behavior regulation remain unknown. The present mixed-method study examines associations between environmental risk, parenting practices (maternal warmth; restrictive maternal control), and children’s behavior regulation. We seek to complement and evaluate quantitative questionnaire data with qualitative focus groups findings to better understand parents’ subjective theories regarding children’s development of behavior regulation and their parenting in different environmental risk settings. Parental subjective theories include implicit beliefs and assumptions about the development of children (Trommsdorff et al, 2012) and fill the developmental niche between sociocultural values and ideas about childhood development and individual parental behavior (Harkness and Super, 2002)
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