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Parenting Efficacy and the Early School Adjustment of Poor and Near-Poor Black Children

University of California, Los Angeles, ajacks{at}ucla.edu

Jeong-Kyun Choi

University of California, Los Angeles

Peter M. Bentler

University of California, Los Angeles

This short-term longitudinal study investigates whether maternal educational attainment, maternal employment status, and family income affect African American children’s behavioral and cognitive functioning over time through their impacts on mothers’ psychological functioning and parenting efficacy in a sample of 100 poor and near-poor single Black mothers and their 3- and 4-year-old focal children. Results indicate that education, working status, and earnings display statistically significant, negative, indirect relations with behavior problems and, with the exception of earnings, statistically significant, positive, indirect relationships with teacher-rated adaptive language skills over time. Findings suggest further that parenting efficacy may mediate the link between poor and near-poor single Black mothers’ depressive symptoms and their preschoolers’ subsequent school adjustment. Implications of these findings for policy and program interventions are discussed.

Key Words: parenting efficacy • maternal depressive symptoms • low-wage employment • single mothers • child behavior problems • child adaptive language skills

This version was published on October 1, 2009

Journal of Family Issues, Vol. 30, No. 10, 1339-1355 (2009)
DOI: 10.1177/0192513X09334603


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