Predictors of Parenting Stress in a Diverse Sample of Parents of Early Adolescents in High-Risk Communities

Parents continue to be an important influence on the development of their adolescent children. However, parenting adolescents can be stressful, largely due to changes in the parent–child relationship as the child develops. Early adolescence (ages 10–15 years) is a particularly difficult period as closeness and time spent together decline (Larson, Richards, Moneta, Holmbeck, & Duckett, 1996). Parents of adolescents experience higher levels of depression and anxiety, less satisfaction with parenting and life in general, lower self-esteem, and a lower belief in their own competence than do parents of younger children (Dekovic, 1999). These factors contribute to rising levels of parental stress. In addition, parents who live in high-risk communities face substantial challenges in raising their teenaged children. These parents, who are raising their adolescents within a context of poverty, experience compounded stress (Gorman-Smith, Tolan, Henry, & Florsheim, 2000; Pinderhughes, Nix, Foster, & Jones, 2001). High levels of parenting stress are associated with negative parenting practices and insufficient monitoring and control (Crnic & Low, 2002), both of which are linked to increased risk of youth problem behaviors, such as substance abuse, violence, and sexual experimentation (Resnick et al., 1997). Identifying those child and parent characteristics or social contexts that are associated with the stress of parenting in high-risk environments would facilitate our understanding of how healthcare, social service, and education providers can prepare and support parents of adolescents to reduce the risk of deviant behavior. Data were taken from the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) Mentoring and Family Strengthening Prevention Initiative (Bellamy, Springer, Sale, & Espiritu, 2004), a program that included a large and diverse national sample of families with adolescent children living in communities that were considered at high risk of development of youth problem behaviors because of high levels of crime and poverty. The aim of the SAMHSA study was to determine the efficacy of various family-focused model programs on improving family relationships and reducing youth problem behaviors. The programs were found to be effective in improving family functioning as measured by family resilience, family cohesion, family conflict, and family attachment (Matthew, Wang, Bellamy, & Copeland, 2005). High levels of parenting stress are associated with negative parenting practices and insufficient monitoring and control (Crnic & Low, 2002) The aims of this study were to (a) determine the correlates of parenting stress and how parenting stress varies across parent, child, and contextual domains and (b) determine the relationship of parental stress with single parenting; parental health status; and two indicators of family atmosphere, cohesion and involvement, by testing three hypotheses: Single parents experience greater parenting stress than do those who parent with a partner; parents with poor health report greater parenting stress than do those in better health; and parents who report a less cohesive family atmosphere and less involved parenting will have higher parenting stress than will those reporting a more cohesive atmosphere and more involved parenting.