Self-Efficacy and Social Support Are Linked to Changes in Parenting during Early Adolescence

Introduction: Parenting is an important protective factor against a host of negative youth outcomes.  More studies are needed that investigate predictors of positive parenting, especially during early adolescence, a time of high risk for negative youth outcomes. Prior studies on young children have found that parents’ sense of self-efficacy and their social support may both be important for parenting.  Yet, little is known about their unique and interactive influence on parenting behaviors during early adolescence. This study aimed to inform the development of preventive interventions by investigating whether parents’ self-efficacy and social support predicted changes in parents’ parenting during the transition to adolescence. 

Method: Longitudinal data were obtained from 647 American mothers and fathers of rural early adolescents who participated in the PROSPER prevention trial.  OLS regression was used where self-efficacy and social support at Wave 1 (Fall Grade 6) predicted parenting at Wave 2 (Spring Grade 6). First, efficacy and social support were entered simultaneously into the regression model to assess their unique influence on parenting. Next, an interaction term (social support x efficacy) was included in our models. Measures of parenting included parent and youth reports of consistent discipline, standard setting, and the parent-child affective relationship (positive and negative affective quality). Control variables included Wave 1 levels of parenting, demographics (parent education, dual biological marital status, and youth gender) and intervention condition.

Result: Among mothers, greater self-efficacy was associated with more consistent discipline and standard setting and greater social support was associated with more positive and less negative parent-child affective relationships. Among fathers, higher social support was associated with more consistent discipline and greater standard setting. Paternal self-efficacy and social support were not significantly associated with any indicators of the father-child affective-relationship. The interaction between social support and efficacy was nonsignificant.

Conclusions: Self-efficacy and social support have associations with different aspects of parenting and differ between mothers and fathers. Interventions that target parents’ self-efficacy may have important implications for parental discipline and standard setting especially among mothers, and henceforth, may have positive effects on youth risky behavior.  Further, interventions to improve parenting during early adolescence may need to include components on how to build and access social support networks to help parents in their parenting role during the transition to adolescence.  Specifically, this might have positive consequences for mothers’ emotional relationship with their children and fathers’ discipline-related parenting practices.