Angry Kindergartners and How Their Parents Respond: Effects On Later Oppositional Defiant Behavior

Introduction: Several researchers have suggested we should identify environmental influences on change in temperament, that parental reactions to children’s expression of negative emotion likely is one, and children with high negative emotionality may be more susceptible to the influences of negative and positive parenting (e.g., Belsky). This study seeks support of the goodness-of-fit hypothesis.      Methods: The present analyses utilize data from parents of 222 children. A latent Anger factor was constructed from averaged mother and father responses on the Anger/Frustration temperament subscale of Rothbart’s CBQ (2001) when the child was five years of age. Mothers’ and fathers’ Sensitive response to anger and Harsh response to anger latent factors were created using self-reports on Magai’s (1996) Reward Anger scale and a combination of the Punish Anger and Minimize Anger scales, respectively, when the child was five years of age.  The latent Oppositional defiant behavior factor includes parental averages on Achenbach’s CBCL (2000) when the child was six and seven years of age. Our final four SEM models included four latent factors predicting the Oppositional factor: Anger, Sensitive, Harsh, and an interaction between Anger and one other factor. Only mothers’ or fathers’ response factors were included in a model, and only one interaction was included per model.  All models were estimated as multiple group analyses (boys and girls), but no differences were found.      Results: In all models, the angrier a child’s temperament, the more likely they would demonstrate oppositional defiant behaviors one to two years later. The only other significant predictor in the mothers’ models was Harsh response to anger: A harsh response increased the chance a child would act oppositional. In contrast, fathers’ hostile responses did not directly predict oppositional problems. Instead, the fathers’ models showed the more sensitively he responded, the less likely the child would act oppositional. In addition, both interactions in the fathers’ models were significant predictors. Children high on anger acted more oppositional if their father responded with high versus low harshness. Children low on anger acted much more oppositional if their fathers respond with low versus high harshness. Children high on anger acted more oppositional if their fathers responded with low versus high sensitivity.      Conclusions:  Interventions may benefit from teaching mothers to respond less harshly and fathers to respond more sensitively to their kindergartener’s expressions of anger. Tentative support of the goodness-of-fit hypothesis suggests fathers should respond harshly to children without angry temperaments, but avoid responding harshly to children with angry temperaments.