Early Life Adversity and Parenting Self-Efficacy: Examining the Mediating Role of Child Maltreatment and Adult Victimization

Introduction:  A growing body of literature has considered early life adversities and their long reaching impact on adult health. Despite this growing knowledge, effects of early adversities on parenting self-efficacy are relatively under-investigated, especially among an underserved population of incarcerated parents. Parenting efficacy is crucial to the healthy and positive socio-behavioral development of young children. It also reduces vulnerability of parents to stressful experiences that could weaken parenting capacities. This study examined the impact of early life adversity on parenting efficacy, the extent that experiences of child maltreatment and adult victimization mediated this relationship. We hypothesized that higher experiences of early life adversity is negatively associated with parenting self-efficacy, and significantly mediated by experiences of victimization in childhood and adulthood.

 Methods: We used data from the Parent Child Study (N=357), a randomized controlled trial of a parenting program designed for incarcerated parents nearing release and re-contact with their children. The sample is balanced by gender, with 41% racial/ethnic minority.  Path analysis was used to test hypothesized relationships, using Tucker-Lewis Index (TLI), Comparative Fit Index (CFI), and Root Mean Square Error of Approximation (RMSEA) to assess model fit. Measures include: early life adversity (family history of criminal behavior, substance abuse and poverty); child maltreatment (experiences of child abuse or neglect); adult victimization  (experiences of intimate partner violence and sexual assault); and parenting self-efficacy (measured by 8-item Likert scale).

Results:Multiple statistics indicated good fit of the model to the data (TLI=.94, RMSEA<.04, CFI=.96).  Results revealed direct effects of early adversities on parenting self-efficacy and on both mediator variables: child maltreatment and adult victimization. Results also supported hypothesized indirect effects of early adversities to parenting self-efficacy as mediated by child maltreatment and adult victimization.

Conclusions: These results highlight the long reaching influence of early life adversity on the parenting self-efficacy of incarcerated parents and the important mediating role of child maltreatment and adult victimization. Understanding parenting self-efficacy in the context of early life adversities and victimization has implications for trauma-informed preventive approaches, focusing particularly in ways to enhance parenting capacities in the context of potentially traumatic experiences. This is especially important for incarcerated parents who are disproportionately exposed to multiple risk factors towards victimization, and for their children, who are at elevated risk for poor socio-behavioral and mental health outcomes.