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Associations Among Parental Stress, Child Competence, and School-Readiness: Findings from the PACE Study
Kathryn Soltis1, Tatiana M Davidson1, Angela Moreland1
1National Victims Research and Treatment Center, Medical University of South Carolina, Charleston, SC.
Insights
Parental stress negatively affects children's school readiness, but child competence can mediate this relationship. Parents' stress influences their perception of child competence and academic performance.
Area of Science:
- Child Development
- Developmental Psychology
- Family Studies
Background:
- Perceived parental stress is linked to negative child outcomes.
- Understanding factors influencing school readiness is crucial for at-risk preschoolers.
- The role of coping competence in this dynamic needs further exploration.
Purpose of the Study:
- To examine the relationships among perceived parental stress, coping competence, and school readiness.
- To investigate the mediating role of child competence in the stress-readiness link.
- To analyze these factors in a high-risk sample of African American and Caucasian parents.
Main Methods:
- Longitudinal latent variable modeling was employed.
- Data were collected from parents and teachers of preschool children (ages 3-6).
- Statistical controls included family income, parental education, and child's sex.
Main Results:
- Parent-reported child competence mediated the relationship between perceived parental stress and school readiness.
- Teacher-reported child competence did not show a significant mediating effect.
- Parental stress was associated with parents' perceptions of their child's competence.
Conclusions:
- Parental stress impacts children's school readiness, partly through parents' views of their child's competence.
- Interventions targeting parental stress may improve child competence and academic outcomes.
- Parental perceptions are key in understanding the link between stress and child functioning.
Abstract:
Perceived parental stress has been consistently shown to negatively impact child functioning and ability to cope with stressful situations. Utilizing data from the parenting our children to excellence program, the current study examined the relationships among perceived parenting stress, coping competence, and school readiness in a sample of African American and Caucasian parents of preschool children (age 3-6) considered at high risk for child physical abuse. We hypothesized that child competence would mediate the relation between perceived parental stress and children's school readiness. We tested a longitudinal latent variable model and found that parent-reported (but not teacher-reported) child competence mediated the relation between perceived parental stress and school readiness, controlling for family income, parent's education level, and child's sex. These results suggest that parents' perceived stress plays a role in both how they view their children's competence and how children perform academically.
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