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EARLY HEAD START IMPACTS ON PARENTAL STRESS AND HARSH PARENTING ATTITUDES AMONG RURAL FAMILIES
Catherine Ayoub and Barbara Alexander Pan
Harvard Graduate School of Education
In addition to examining key child outcome measures, the Early Head Start (EHS) evaluation study has sought to examine impacts on parenting knowledge, attitudes, and behavior. Early Head Start programs such as Early Education Services in Windham County, VT, see parenting as a critical pathway in influencing the development of infants and toddlers. To supplement national findings and to inform practice at the local level, researchers at the Harvard Graduate School of Education gathered longitudinal data at the VT site that provide a closer look at parenting stress and parenting attitudes. This effort was motivated by the belief that goal setting for families with young children in programs like EHS can be enhanced by a greater awareness of the range of parent-related needs and how those needs may change over time as infants and toddlers mature. This study, then, was designed to examine parenting stressors and child rearing attitudes, as well as emotional issues such as parental depression, anxiety, and rigidity, that may influence the quality of parenting for children in rural families such as those living in VT.
Method
The sample for this study consisted of 141 parents at the VT site1 . All of the primary caregivers were mothers. More than half of these rural families, like many of their urban counterparts, consist of single female heads of household. Most mothers were between 20 and 29 years old at enrollment in the study; the youngest was 17 years old and the oldest 41. The majority of the mothers enrolled in the study just after the birth of their first child. In contrast to families in some urban sites, the vast majority of families in the VT sample are white native English speakers. Families in the comparison group received services typical for this community. The state of Vermont has been one of the most progressive in the promotion of services for young children. For example, most children in the state receive some form of home visitation during the first year of life. Childcare services are more readily available and more comprehensively funded by the state than in many other states (Vermont Agency of Human Services, 2001). Consequently, many of the services offered by EHS were available to mothers in the comparison group, though components were not coordinated and were not provided continuously over time as they were for program families served by Early Education Services.
The goal of this study was to examine parenting stress and parenting attitudes over time. Parenting stress was measured by the Parenting Stress Index-Short Form (PSI; Abidin, 1995), the short version of a well validated instrument that yields measures of parental distress, parent-child relationship, and the parent’s perception of the child’s functioning, as well as a measure of total parenting stress. Harsh parenting attitudes were measured using the Child Abuse Potential Inventory (CAP; Milner, 1986), a 120-item questionnaire that provides an indication of the potential for harsh or abusive parenting, as well as more specific indices of distress, rigidity, and unhappiness. Both the PSI and the CAP are self-report measures. Each was administered on four occasions: at baseline (i.e., enrollment in the study) and at child ages 14, 24, and 36 months.
In this report, we first present descriptive baseline data for the sample as a whole. Next we compare observed levels of parenting stress and harsh parenting attitudes at successive points in time for the program and comparison groups. Finally, based on individual growth modeling, we examine group differences in rate of change in parenting stress and harsh parenting attitudes over time.
Results
Baseline. Wide variation was observed in both parenting stress and parenting attitudes at the time of enrollment. Based on the PSI, mothers in this sample found parenting more stressful than the average parent in the general population. However, sample mothers’ perceptions of parenting stress varied from a low total parenting stress score (7(th) percentile), indicating no stress in the parenting role, to a high total stress score (98(th) percentile), in which stress was the norm in almost every domain of parenting. Based on clinically validated cut-off values established by the authors of PSI, parents were considered to be at “high levels” of stress if their total parenting stress score was above the 85(th) percentile. In this sample, responses of over a fourth of the mothers (28 percent) indicated high levels of parenting stress.
Maternal responses to the CAP questionnaire also showed wide variation in mothers’ parenting values and beliefs and emotional health. Maternal responses varied from the 1(st) to the 99(th) percentile in terms of predicted potential for harsh parenting practices (i.e., acting in a physically abusive way toward their children). Using the clinical cut-off of the 95(th) percentile as an indicator of high risk parenting (Milner, 1986), over a fourth (26 percent) of the mothers in our sample expressed potentially harsh, abusive values and beliefs about their children. With respect to the mother’s emotional well-being, problems most frequently identified as influencing the potential for harsh parenting and child abuse included emotional health indicators of unhappiness/depression (reported by 26 percent of the mothers) and emotional distress (reported by 22 percent of the mothers). In contrast, many mothers saw their relationships with their infants and toddlers as positive (95 percent). One fifth of the mothers felt that their lives were relatively stress-free in terms of their parenting (PSI 19 percent) and emotional health (CAP 21 percent). These indices speak to the strengths, as well as the risks, of most families at baseline.
Change over time for each group. We next asked whether there were changes in parenting stress, harsh parenting attitudes, and emotional mental health in the mothers over time. Changes in the level of total parenting stress, in parental distress (subscale of the PSI) and in harsh parenting attitudes were observed for the sample as a whole across time. The level of parenting stress fell for both groups across time, with the highest stress usually reported during the child’s infancy (see Table 1). The change over time was most striking for parenting distress. These findings support the notion that infancy is a relatively stressful period of adjustment and reaffirm the importance of intervention with families as early as possible in the lives of young children.
Group differences in levels at each time point. There were no statistically significant differences in levels of total parenting stress, parenting distress subscale scores, harsh parenting attitudes, or in maternal mental health at baseline. However, by the time children were 14 months of age, statistically significant differences between the groups were evident, with parents in the program group showing lower levels of total parenting stress (t = 2.39, p = .01) and parental distress (t = 2.73, p = .007). At 24 months statistically significant group differences, again favoring the program group, were noted in total parenting stress (t = 3.2, p = .001), parental distress (t = 3.76, p = .0003) and in harsh parenting attitudes (t = 2.4, p = .01)2 . Although both groups on average showed a reduction in all of these risk factors over time, the program group had steeper and more sustainable declines across the four waves of data collection (see Table 1). At 36 months of age, program parents continued to demonstrate statistically lower levels of total parenting stress (t = 2.09, p = .03) and parental distress (t = 3.2, p = .001). In addition, they showed lower levels of maternal unhappiness/depression (t = 2.2, p = .03). By this point, there were no longer group differences in harsh parenting attitudes asmeasured by the CAP.
| Total Parenting Stress |
Parenting Distress Subscale |
Harsh Attitudes |
Parenting | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Baseline | ||||
| EHS Group | ||||
| Mean | 73 | 27 | 111 | |
| SD | 13 | 7 | 101 | |
| Comp Group | ||||
| Mean | 77 | 30 | 125 | |
| SD | 16 | 7 | 92 | |
| 14 Months | ||||
| EHS Group | ||||
| Mean | 66 | 26 | 97 | |
| SD | 15 | 8 | 85 | |
| Comp Group | ||||
| Mean | 74 | 30 | 107 | |
| SD | 21 | 10 | 88 | |
| 24 Months | ||||
| EHS Group | ||||
| Mean | 61 | 22 | 84 | |
| SD | 14 | 8 | 71 | |
| Comp Group | ||||
| Mean | 71 | 29 | 74 | |
| SD | 18 | 9 | 104 | |
| 36 Months | ||||
| EHS Group | ||||
| Mean | 65 | 22 | 74 | |
| SD | 16 | 8 | 76 | |
| Comp Group | ||||
| Mean | 74 | 28 | 98 | |
| SD | 23 | 11 | 79 | |
Group differences in rate of change over time. Analysis of rates of change over time offered further evidence of greater decrease in parenting stress and harsh parenting attitudes among parents enrolled in EHS, relative to parents in the comparison group. Specifically, parents in the program group showed greater rates of change (i.e., decline) in both total parenting stress (t = 2.02, p = .04) and in parental distress (t = 2.73, p = .007) than did parents in the comparison group.
Discussion
Mothers with young children living in poverty in rural America can benefit from EHS intervention even in a community where a number of other, albeit less coordinated, services are available to low-income families. Parenting stress appears to be highest during the child’s first year of life. Although reduction in parenting stress is observed among all parents as infants mature, the rate of reduction is accelerated among parents participating in EHS. Change is most notable in the parent’s own distress around parenting (rather than her perception of her child as a ‘difficult’ child). As with parenting stress, harsh parenting attitudes appear to diminish over time among parents in both the program and comparison groups. Nonetheless, intervention does appear to have a beneficial impact on harsh parenting attitudes, particularly around child age 2. It may be that this is a period of parenting development when issues around discipline are more salient and during which coordinated interventions for both parent and child may be most valuable.
Taken together, these results suggest that the coordinated child and family-focused services of EHS have the potential to change parenting attitudes and practices. The reduction of parenting stress and parents’ feelings of increased competence are important for framing positive parenting for the future. Among mothers of 2-year-olds, EHS also appears to reduce depression and unhappiness, two major impediments to positive parenting. Programs serving families like these must be able to assess each family’s needs in terms of risks and strengths and develop an intervention plan tailored to individual needs. The above findings point out the importance of targeting the reduction of parental distress and depression as critical goals for intervention during the child’s first three years of life.References
Abidin, R. (1995). Parenting Stress Index Professional Manual, third edition. Odessa, FL: Psychological Assessment Resources.
Berlin, L., Brooks-Gunn, J., & Aber, L. (2001). Promoting early childhood development through comprehensive community initiatives. Children’s Services, 4:1, 1-24.
Milner, J. (1986). The Child Abuse Potential Inventory: Manual. Webster, NC: Psytec.
Vermont Agency of Human services, Planning Division. (2001). 2000 Community Profiles. Waterbury, VT: Agency of Human Services
1Five of the participants from the original study sample only had baseline data and were excluded from all analyses.(back)
2Both scales measure the presence of negative factors in parenting. Therefore lower scores indicate a reduction in these negative factors.(back)
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