ECPN poster contestant: Mediating Effect of Parenting on the Relation Between Family Composition and Adolescents’ Problem Behaviors

Introduction: Past research has shown that adolescents in different family compositions receive varying levels of parenting practices that have been linked to problem behaviors. What is less clear is the extent to which differences in parenting practices may account for the relation between family composition and problem behavior. This study tested the mediating role of parenting practices (i.e., discipline effectiveness, discipline avoidance, monitoring and involvement, and supervision) on the relation between family composition and adolescents’ problem behaviors, including total aggression, physical aggression, drug use, and delinquent behaviors.

Methods: Analyses were conducted on data from a large project that evaluated a universal and a targeted intervention. Data were collected at the beginning and end of sixth grade and the end of the seventh and eighth grade from 255 students in eight middle schools in an urban school district where the majority of participants were African-American. Students were identified by teachers as having high levels of aggression and influence. Data were obtained from caregivers on family composition and parenting practices, and from adolescents on their frequency of problem behaviors.

Results: Adolescents in single-parent households were compared with those from two-parent, stepparent, and no parent families. Bootstrapping analyses examined the indirect effect of family composition on adolescents’ problem behavior via parenting practices. This model, conducted with 5,000 bootstraps, estimated an indirect effect of -.03 (95% c.i. = -.069 to -.004), indicating that discipline effectiveness mediated the effect of living in a two-parent household versus a single-parent household on adolescents’ total aggression. Similar results were found for physical aggression, drug use, and other delinquent behaviors. Significant indirect effects were not found for the other parenting subscales (i.e., discipline avoidance, monitoring and involvement, supervision), or for comparisons with other family compositions (i.e., stepparent, no parent families).

Conclusions: The findings suggest that parents in two-parent families compared with single-parent families report higher levels of effective discipline, which in turn predicts lower levels of adolescent total aggression, physical aggression, drug use, and other delinquent behavior. Similar to some previous findings, parents in stepparent families did not differ from single-parent families on adolescents’ problem behaviors. These findings highlight the need for intervention efforts geared towards improving the use of effective discipline practices for parents and exploring other factors that may contribute to ineffective discipline in single-parent families.