The long-range objective is to identify parenting practices that place the preschool children of adolescent mothers at greater risk than children of adult mothers for behavior problems, difficulties with peers, and inadequate academic readiness.
The specific aims are to include Native Americans in research comparing adolescent and adult mothers and to answer two questions about the impact of mothers' mental health and developmental level on children's preschool adjustment. The two questions arose from a literature review revealing that maternal age may be a proxy variable not only for SES and other demographic variables, but also for maternal developmental level and affect: (1) What are the relationships between parenting knowledge and practices, on the one hand, and maternal age, demographic characteristics, developmental level, and affect, on the other hand? (2) What are the relationships between preschool outcomes (behavior problems, peer adjustment, and academic readiness) and maternal parenting practices, knowledge, and family climate; and are these relationships moderated by maternal age, demographic characteristics, developmental level and affect? To answer these questions at least 60 four-year-old children of adolescent mothers and 404-year-old children of adult mothers will be studied during their first year in rural Head Start Centers in Oklahoma (ethnic composition: 45% Native American, 35% White, and 20% Black). Half of the children will enter Head Start in 1995; half in 1996. Maternal developmental level will be assessed by measures of moral reasoning and psychosocial functioning; affect by three questionnaires assessing depression, anxiety, and hostility, as well as by ratings of, maternal affect from videotapes of a mother-child teaching task; parenting knowledge by a questionnaire. Maternal parenting practices will be assessed in a videotaped mother-child teaching task and by mothers' solutions-to computer-presented child-rearing problems. The computer-presented task also assesses family climate. Children's behavior problems will be assessed by teacher report. Children's peer adjustment will be assessed by teacher report and by children's self reports; academic readiness by teacher report, children's self reports, and the Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test. Data will be analyzed by standard and hierarchical multiple regression analyses.
| Hubbs-Tait, Laura; Culp, Anne McDonald; Culp, Rex E et al. (2002) Relation of maternal cognitive stimulation, emotional support, and intrusive behavior during Head Start to children's kindergarten cognitive abilities. Child Dev 73:110-31 |
