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EARLY HEAD START PARTICIPATION AND MOTHERS' PERCEPTIONS OF PARENTING ROLE COMPETENCE

Michaela Farber, Shavaun Wall, and Harriet Liebow
The Catholic University of America

The United Cerebral Palsy Early Head Start site is located in a suburban Northern Virginia strip mall, about one-half hour south of Washington, DC. To enhance child development in families struggling with poverty, Early Head Start provides individualized child care and parent role and family development services in a comprehensive framework congruent with the resources and values of the local community. In collaboration with this site, researchers at the Catholic University of America investigated mothers' perceptions of their parenting role competence as a way to understand the relationship between families' Early Head Start participation and parent role development when their child is 24 months old.

As a person's view of his or her own competence is tied to the ability to act, so is a mother's perception of parenting role competence conceptualized as underpinning the ability to rear a child. The literature attests that parents' views of parenting role competence impact their childrearing (Walsh 1998) and may have long-term consequences for child development (Kumpfer and Alvarado 1995). Specifically, the project hypothesized (1) that mothers' perceptions of their parenting role competence at 24 months may differ significantly between families enrolled in Early Head Start and the control group; and (2) that this difference may be influenced by mothers' birth status (being U.S.-born or immigrant), age, education, English-speaking adequacy, employment, and resilience as well as by mothers' reporting about family income and adequacy of family resources. Mothers' perception of parenting role competence at 24 months was measured by a single 5-point scaled question about what kind of a parent she thought she was (a very good, better-than-average, average, less-than-average, or poor parent).

Of the 149 families who applied for services, 75 were randomly assigned to the Early Head Start program and 74 to the control group. Of this total, 52 Early Head Start and 52 control group families had children 24 months old and were included in this investigation. The program and comparison families shared similar demographics (Table 1) except for slight variation in birth status. That is, the Early Head Start group contained slightly more immigrant families than the control group (X 2 3.86, df 1, p .03, Phi .16).

In comparing mothers' parenting role competence when their child turned 24 months, chi-squared analysis revealed that Early Head Start mothers modestly but significantly differed from comparison mothers (104; X2 8.0, df 3, p .05, Phi .28). Specifically, 87 percent of Early Head Start mothers perceived their role competence as that of a better-than-average parent, 13 percent as that of an average parent. By contrast, 63 percent of comparison mothers perceived their role competence as that of a better-than-average parent, 37 percent as that of an average to below-average parent.

In preparation for exploring the interactive effects of selected baseline variables (mothers' birth status, age, education, English-speaking adequacy, employment, and resilience; and family income and adequacy of family resources) together with the targeted main effect of Early Head Start participation on mothers' perceived parenting role competence, bivariate correlational analyses were conducted. These analyses yielded two significant, albeit weak, relationships between mothers' parenting role competence and mothers' baseline birth status (r .18, p .07) and employment (r .19, p .05). Inclusion of these two correlates with Early Head Start participation in stepwise multiple regression analysis (MRA) revealed that Early Head Start participation is the most important contributor (Beta -.27, t -2.8, p .006) to the prediction of mothers' 24-month parenting role competence (N 104, F 7.86, df 103, p .006), and accounts for 7 percent of the variance (R2 .07).

In conclusion, this investigation demonstrated a mild positive relationship between mothers' participation in Early Head Start and their perceptions of parenting role competence. This finding represents one aspect of parent role development in the beginning process of assessing Early Head Start impact on family development at 24 months. The findings did not support the hypothesis that mothers' parenting role competence is influenced by the eight baseline variables under consideration. Future research, however, might expand the study of parenting role competence to include the interactive effect of mothers' resilience, resources, and general competence along with the main effect of Early Head Start participation.

References

Kumpfer, K. and R. Alvarado. Strengthening families to prevent drug use in multi-ethnic youth. In G. Botvin, S. Schinke, and M. Orlandi (Eds.), Drug Abuse Prevention with Multi-Ethnic Youth, pp. 253-292, Newbury Park, CA: Sage Publications, 1995.

Walsh, F. Strengthening Family Resilience. New York: The Guilford Press, 1998.

TABLE 1
DEMOGRAPHIC PROFILE OF 149 FAMILIES APPLYING FOR EARLY HEAD START SERVICES
Mother's Age Mean 25 years, SD 5.5
Father's Age Mean 28 years, SD 6.5
Child's Age Mean 9 months, SD .18, range: mother's pregnancy, 1 ½ years
Child's Gender Male 57.7 percent, female 42.3 percent
Number of Children 1 child, 34.2 percent; 2 children, 35 percent,
3 children, 22 percent; 4 to 5 children, 8.8 percent
Child Lives with Two parents and/or relatives, 65.3 percent;
Single parent, 20.4 percent;
Single parent and relatives, 4.2 percent
Mother's Heritage Hispanic, 35.6 percent; African American/Caribbean, 32.9 percent;
Caucasian, 22.8 percent; American Indian, 5.4 percent;
Asian, 3.4 percent
Mother's Education Less than High School, 32.2 percent; High School, 36.9 percent;
Some College, 26.8 percent; College and beyond, 4.0 percent
Mother's English Adequate, 65.1 percent; Somewhat adequate, 8.1 percent;
Inadequate, 26.8 percent
Immigrant's Mother's
Length of Residence in U.S. 		< 5 years, 45.7 percent; 6 to 10 years, 32.3 percent;
11 to 30 years, 22.0 percent
Mother's Employment Unemployed, 71.8 percent; Employed, 28.2 percent
Father's Employment Unemployed, 11.0 percent; Employed, 89.0 percent
Family Income Mean $12,952.00, SD $5,438.73
Formal Support Services No services used, 12.8 percent; 1 to 2 services used, 64.4 percent;
3 or more services used, 22.8 percent
Adequacy of Resources Adequate, 30.2 percent; somewhat adequate, 61.1 percent;
Inadequate, 8.7 percent


 

 

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