Children’s Dysregulated Representations Mediate Ineffective Parenting Practices and Effortful Control in Lower Income Families

Abstract

Objective:

Rooted in attachment theory, we tested the degree to which children’s dysregulated representations mediate linkages between ineffective parenting and children’s effortful control in a sample of lower income families.

Background:

Children in lower income households are at greater risk for difficulties with effortful control. Although ineffective parenting practices may influence children’s development of effortful control, there is limited knowledge related to the mechanisms underlying this association. According to attachment theory, it is possible that children who experience ineffective parenting practices have more dysregulated representations, which may then be linked with poorly regulated behavior.

Method:

This cross-sectional study included 40 preschool-age children enrolled in Head Start and their mothers. Ineffective parenting practices were operationalized using mothers’ self-reported parenting styles and observed parenting behaviors; children’s dysregulated representations and effortful control were measured during a series of observed laboratory tasks. Structural equation modeling was used to test pathways between measured variables.

Results:

The relation between ineffective parenting practices and children’s effortful control was not directly related; however, structural equation modeling indicated a significant indirect effect through children’s dysregulated representations. Children whose mothers were more ineffective in their parenting had more dysregulated representations. In turn, more dysregulated representations were related to poorer effortful control.

Conclusion:

Children who experience ineffective parenting practices may be less likely to internalize reliable expectations regarding their environment’s structure and order. Poorly stabilized perceptions may inhibit adaptive social and behavioral functioning.

Implications:

These findings inform intervention efforts aimed toward enhancing parenting practices to improve children’s representations and effortful control behaviors.

Research linking parenting quality with child socioemotional outcomes is extensive, yet far less is known about potential processes that explain these relations for low-income children living in households with limited resources. Children growing up in low-income households are at a greater risk for socioemotional challenges, particularly difficulties with regulatory skills (Raver, 2004) and behavior problems (Huaqing Qi & Kaiser, 2003). Moreover, rates of authoritarian and permissive parenting styles, which are less effective than authoritative styles (Baumrind, 1971), are more prevalent for parents with fewer financial resources (Dornbusch et al., 1987). Because mediation or moderation mechanisms more fully inform clinical practice and intervention efforts (Rose et al., 2004), understanding why or how ineffective parenting practices and negative child outcomes are related in low-income households may be informative in prevention and intervention practices.

Numerous systems theories argue that to better understand individual differences in children’s behavior and functioning, we need to consider the various systems in which children are embedded. For instance, attachment theory (Ainsworth et al., 1978), works to explain how children’s environments might influence their attachment security and internal representations of the social world (Johnson et al., 2007). Children who experience more sensitively attuned caregiving develop more positive representations about themselves and their environment. In contrast, children who experience less sensitive caregiving develop more negative (Johnson et al., 2007) or dysregulated representations (Martoccio et al., 2016) that others are not reliable sources of comfort. The present study examined the degree to which children’s internal representations might mediate the link between parenting behaviors and children’s effortful control, an important skill that develops during the preschool period and reflects social competence (Dennis et al., 2007).

Effortful Control

Effortful control is one of the most fundamental sets of skills to emerge in early childhood (Kochanska et al., 2000; Rothbart et al., 2003). As a component of regulation, effortful control is, in part, an index of early life temperament (Rothbart et al., 2003). Specifically, effortful control is the ability to purposefully suppress a dominant mental, motor, or emotional response in order to achieve a goal related to a non-dominant response (Eisenberg & Spinrad, 2004; Gagne, 2017; Rothbart et al., 2003). It is important to note that effortful control consists of both inhibitory (resisting dominant urges) as well as excitatory (carrying out an activity or sustaining an urge) behaviors (Kochanska et al., 1997).

As an early developing regulatory capacity, effortful control allows individuals to function more efficiently in their environment (Derryberry & Rothbart, 1997; Kochanska et al., 1997; Rothbaum et al., 1982). Because children have little ability to control their emotions and behaviors at birth, parents have a considerable influence on the growth and shaping of these regulatory skills (Spinrad et al., 2007). In a sample of middle-income families, for example, children whose mothers used more positive behaviors showed higher levels of effortful control, particularly if those children had been rated higher in temperamental exuberance (Cipriano & Stifter, 2010). Less well understood, however, are mechanisms linking parenting and effortful control in low-income families. Parents in low-income environments may experience higher levels of stress and demands themselves, increasing the contextual risk factors to which children are also exposed (see Lengua et al., 2007). According to Conger and colleagues (2002), economic pressure negatively affects parents’ emotional states and subsequent parenting behaviors, which in turn negatively affect children’s adjustment. Thus, children reared in a low-income environment may face difficulties with effortful control (Li-Grining, 2007), due in part to exposure to increased stresses on the systems that manage how children allocate attention, behavior, and emotions (Evans, 2003). Thus, in this study, we propose that children’s dysregulated internal representations, perhaps resulting from ineffective caregiving strategies, relates to poorer effortful control.

Ineffective Parenting Practices

Ineffective parenting practices are defined as parenting styles and practices that are associated with maladaptive child outcomes (McKinney et al., 2016; Mokrova et al., 2010). Ineffective parenting focuses on the presence of negative attributes rather than the absence of positive attributes (Mokrova et al., 2010; Radziszewska et al., 1996); thus, ineffective parenting practices do not simply reflect lower efficacy but also the presence of specific negative parenting characteristics. Additionally, both styles and practices can reflect ineffective parenting behaviors because these two domains address somewhat different parental qualities. Parenting styles focus on the general patterns of responses based on parent demandingness and responsiveness, whereas parenting practices focus on the specific behaviors parents display during parent-child interactions (Darling & Steinberg, 1993; McKinney et al., 2016). As such, it is often the case that general response patterns (parenting styles) guide specific interactions (parenting practices) that occur between parent and child (Darling & Steinberg, 1993).

With respect to styles, there are two negative styles of parenting that can be represented by their imbalance of demandingness (parent-oriented) and responsiveness (child-oriented; Baumrind, 2013). Parents with an authoritarian style are often overly strict and controlling without regard of the child’s feelings, placing emphasis on demandingness and not enough emphasis on responsiveness. Parents with a permissive style take on a more hands-off approach with respect to structure and guidance, although they are supportive of the child’s concerns, thus placing emphasis on responsiveness but not enough emphasis on demandingness. Although results are mixed (e.g., some research suggests the efficacy of parenting styles may be culturally specific; Horning & Rouse, 2002; Sorkhabi & Mandara, 2013), there is a general consensus that having an optimal balance of demandingness and support (authoritative parenting) is the most effective form of parenting style for child outcomes (Hoffman, 2000; Kochanska et al., 2008; Larzelere et al., 2013; Xu et al., 2009). Further, some parents possess both authoritarian and permissive tendencies where responses toward children may be inconsistent across situational context (Dwairy, 2008). For example, when a child acts out, a parent may respond by letting the child do what he or she wants (permissiveness), while other times react with highly intense anger at the child (authoritarianism). Inconsistent parenting is particularly ineffective, relative to permissive-only or authoritarian-only styles, and can lead to poorer child effortful control and other conduct problems in young children (Baumrind, 1971; Eisenberg et al., 2009; Hoffman, 2000; Wootton et al., 1997).

In terms of measurement, parenting styles reflect general patterns of parenting and are often assessed based on parent-report so that parents can reflect on their general and established style of responding to their child (Darling & Steinberg, 1993). When assessing parenting practices, however, these behaviors can be observed on a moment-by-moment basis either through parents reporting of their reactions to specific child behaviors or through objective observation. Specific negative parenting practices include harsh tones, physical punishment, and negative comments such as invalidation and shaming of a child’s behaviors and expressions. For example, Morris and colleagues (2002) found that negative parenting behaviors, defined by hostility or psychological control, are related to difficulties with children’s effortful control and externalizing problems in early grade school. Hostile or controlling parenting behaviors may be indicative of or influenced by the broader climate of parenting styles. Studying both parenting styles and behaviors together allows for a more complete understanding of the socialization processes between parent and child (Darling & Steinberg, 1993).

Previous studies that have included both negative parenting styles and practices as characteristics of ineffective parenting have found ties to child outcomes. For instance, ineffective parenting practices were related to poor psychological adjustment in college-age students (McKinney et al., 2016) and conduct problems in children who exhibited callous and unemotional traits (Wootton et al., 1997). Although separate studies have demonstrated that inconsistent parenting styles or negative parenting practices are related to regulatory difficulties (Dwairy, 2008; Morris et al., 2002), there are no known studies that focus on the more global construct of ineffective parenting and effortful control during the preschool period, specifically. There is also no existing literature on the underlying mechanisms that may be responsible for explaining how ineffective parenting practices might predict poor effortful control. Hoffman (2000) argued that hostile and punitive environments facilitate arousal that impedes with effortful control development, but mechanisms with ineffective parenting practices specifically remain unexplored. One potential mediating factor that explains how ineffective parenting and effortful control are related is the manner in which children regulate their internal representations.

Dysregulated Representations

Dysregulated representations refer to children’s difficulties in organizing and managing expectations and schemas surrounding emotionally charged events (Martoccio et al., 2016). Rooted largely in attachment theory, children internalize their experiences with caregivers to create internal working models of their environment (Bowlby, 1969; Waters & Cummings, 2000). In infancy, children learn to depend on their parents for security if their parents provide the appropriate levels of responsiveness, warmth, and guidance. In these cases, infants extend what they learn through their parents (trust, security, consistency) to their broader social world (Bretherton & Munholland, 1999). However, if children are unable to depend on their parents as secure bases in early life, they can develop dysregulated expectations of safety and security in their environment (Bowlby, 1969; Waters & Cummings, 2000).

Because children develop expectations of their environment and felt security from repeated interactions with their caregivers (Schore, 2000); it is possible to empirically measure children’s representations by asking children questions about their home life (Grych et al., 2002; Macfie et al., 2007; Macfie & Swan, 2009; Toth et al., 2000; Schechter et al., 2007; Schermerhorn et al., 2008). Storytelling techniques are designed to increase the validity of children’s reflections on their environment by allowing children to place themselves in the mindset of the dolls in the story and complete the story in a manner consistent with their own memories and experiences (Bretherton et al., 1990; Toth et al., 2000). For preschool- and school-age children, these measures are more comprehensive and reliable than questionnaires or interviews (Robinson, 2007). The MacArthur Story Stem Battery (MSSB; Bretherton & Oppenheim, 2003) is a frequently used measure to understand children’s internal representations of themselves and their environment. The MSSB presents children with a series of emotionally charged vignettes or story stems that children complete with figures who represent family members. Children with more regulated representations have clearer and more appropriate stories when depicting or acting out their family life with the figures. Their stories, explanations, and behaviors regarding the home environment remain consistent and coherent. For children with dysregulated representations, however, atypical, aggressive, and unexpected dialogue and actions are observed. These children do not follow an appropriately formed schema for the context for which they are prompted (Cummings et al., 2004; Martoccio et al., 2016; Schechter et al., 2007).

Within the attachment theory framework, parenting influences children’s felt security and, in turn, how children represent their social world. If parent-child interactions are ineffective, children may have difficulty feeling secure and forming a well-regulated understanding of their social world. Ultimately, the relation between ineffective parenting practices and dysregulated representations could further lead to children having difficulty regulating their behaviors. Indeed, research has indicated that ineffective parenting practices are linked with both dysregulated representations (Martoccio et al., 2016) and regulatory challenges (Hindman & Morrison, 2012; Morris et al., 2002; Pears et al., 2015). Schore (2000) took this one step further and claimed that attachment itself is a regulatory mechanism; attachment involves regulating incoming sensory information while simultaneously regulating interpretational and behavioral output (Bretherton & Munholland, 1999; Sher-Censor et al., 2018). Thus, dysregulated representations may be a particularly salient mechanism explaining connections between ineffective parenting practices and poor effortful control in children.

Current Study

We examine the degree to which children’s dysregulated representations mediate the relation between ineffective parenting practices and effortful control in young children from a low-income background. Based in an attachment framework, we aim to go beyond simply identifying predictors and outcomes and seek to understand how and why predictors and outcomes are linked through underlying process-oriented mechanisms connecting parenting and child outcomes (Cummings et al., 2002). To our knowledge, this is the first study to examine parenting and dysregulation in relation to effortful control in preschool and serves as a necessary step toward understanding how children’s experience of parenting relate to their internal representations and, ultimately, their regulatory behaviors in a low-income sample. We expected that children with mothers who use more ineffective parenting practices would exhibit more dysregulated representations and, in turn, lower effortful control than children who experience less ineffective parenting.

Method

Participants

Forty preschool-age children (50% male) and their mothers were recruited during a Midwestern city’s (population approximately 100,000) Head Start annual school registration fair to participate in a study examining healthy lifestyles, such as eating behaviors, socioemotional functioning, and physical activity. Data from the current study focused on measures specific to parenting, children’s representations, and effortful control. Child age ranged from 3 to 6 years old (M = 5.32, SD = .76). This was a racially diverse sample, with children reported as 45% African American, 27.5% Caucasian, 25% Hispanic, and 2.5% “other” for race or ethnicity. Most mothers were single (57.5%), with less than half of participants being married or in a relationship (42.5%). The total family income for most participants was under $30,000 per year (74.4%), with approximately one quarter of participants earning a total family income of more than $30,000 per year (25.6%). Almost half of the mothers (47.5%) had obtained at least some higher education, 32.5% had earned their GED or high school degree, and 15% did not earn a GED or complete high school. All mothers were compensated with a total of $80, $40 for questionnaires completed at home and $40 for the lab visit.

Procedure

The study took place in two parts: (a) an observational laboratory visit with mother and child and (b) a home visit approximately 1 week later for a semistructured interview about family behaviors and the home environment. Parenting behaviors and all child measures for current project were collected during the laboratory visit and the demographic interview and parenting styles questionnaire were collected during the home visit. Both visits lasted approximately 90-minutes each. During the video-recorded lab visit, mothers and children first took part in a dyadic interaction where they were instructed to use the provided toys and play with their children for 5 minutes. An experimenter then knocked on the door to initiate a 3-minute “clean-up” period. After this introductory task, mothers left the experimenter and children in the room so that the children could complete five effortful control tasks (Snack Delay, Build a Tower, Day/Night, Simon Says, and Wrapped Gift; Geseradt et al., 1994; Kochanska et al., 2000) and the MSSB (Bretherton & Oppenheim, 2003) to assess children’s dysregulated representations.

Measures

Effortful control.

Children’s effortful control was assessed using five video-recorded laboratory tasks; Snack Delay, Build a Tower, Day/Night, Simon Says, and Wrapped Gift (Gerstadt et al., 1994; Kochanska et al., 2000). Following Hill-Soderlund and Braungart-Rieker (2008) and Braungart-Rieker et al. (2014), scores from each effortful control task (described below) were z-transformed and combined to create an overall effortful control score for each child. Higher scores of the composite variable represented better effortful control.

Snack Delay.

During the snack delay (Kochanska et al., 2000), children participated in two trials of resisting urges to eat a snack of their choice (M&Ms or Skittles) until the experimenter indicated it was okay to eat by ringing a bell. The first trial lasted 30 seconds, and the second trial lasted 2 minutes. Effortful control during the snack delay was scored by coding the child’s ability to wait to touch or eat the snack. Scoring for the snack delay is as follows: child immediately ate the snack (1), child demonstrated signs of temptation (2; i.e., touching the snack), and child waited the entire trial to eat the snack (3). Higher scores reflect higher effortful control.

Build a Tower.

For the tower task (Kochanska et al., 2000), children and the experimenter built a tower by taking turns stacking 20 blocks over two (untimed) trials. Experimenters instructed children how to take turns and then wait for their own turn. This task was coded to reflect whether children properly followed directions of taking turns and verbally expressing whose turn it was: did not build tower (0); built the tower without allowing participation of experimenter (1); followed the directions without verbal expression of turn (2); and completed task accurately, taking turns with experimenter and signaling the experimenter to take her turn (3).

Day/Night.

For this task (Gerstadt et al., 1994), children were presented with a series of 16 cards that either had a sun or a moon and stars on them. They were instructed to respond with the word “night” when they saw a card with a sun on it and to respond with the world “day” when they saw a card with a moon and stars on it. Values assigned for each item (i.e., card) depended on whether the child was able to inhibit his or her dominant response and correctly identify the card (2), the child initially said the wrong word but corrected himself or herself (1), or the child said the wrong word and made no attempt to correct the mistake (0). Scores were averaged across the 16 items. Higher scores reflect higher effortful control.

Simon Says.

During Simon Says, children were presented with a series of 40 prompts and instructed to only follow directions if the prompts state “Simon Says” at the beginning of the sentence (Kochanska et al., 2000). The experimenter did not correct the child if the child did not follow the directions. For each “Simon Says” command, the child’s response was quantified by how the child responded to the prompt: the child did not correctly respond to the prompt (0; independent of whether the experimenter said “Simon Says” or not), the child initially responded incorrectly but then corrected him or herself (1), or the child correctly completed the prompt (2). Similar to the Day/Night task, the 40 scores were averaged and higher average scores reflected greater control over the child’s dominant response, and therefore higher effortful control.

Wrapped Gift.

Finally, for the Wrapped Gift task, experimenters turned away from the child and started wrapping a gift. Halfway through the wrapping, the experimenter tells the child that she forgot a bow and has to leave the room to get one. Children were asked to sit at the table and remain there while the experimenter left the room to get a bow for a partially wrapped gift (Kochanska et al., 2000). Wrapped Gift scoring was similar to Snack Delay in that labels were assigned if the child immediately took the gift (0), the child put his or her hand in the bag (1), the child opened the bag to peek (2), the child touched the bag without looking inside (3), or the child waited the entire trial to touch or peek at the gift (4).

Coding and Reliability.

An experienced (pre-doctoral student) coder trained two upper-level undergraduate student coders on the effortful control battery. Coders scored tasks independently only after they achieved interrater reliabilities ≥.80 with the experienced coder. Scoring reliability was also calculated on 25% of the videos not used for training purposes. Average intraclass correlation across tasks was alpha = .995 (range: alpha = .983–1.0).

Ineffective Parenting Practices.

An ineffective parenting practices score was calculated using an observational measure for negative parenting and scores derived from a mother-reported parenting questionnaire assessing authoritarian and permissive parenting styles (McKinney et al., 2016). Scores were z-transformed and combined into one overall “ineffective parenting” composite.

Negative Parenting During Mother-Child Interaction.

Mothers’ behaviors were rated during a 5-minute free-play task. During the task, trained coders scored the mother’s behaviors across multiple domains: proportion of harsh and or negative tones (e.g., “Pick up that toy!”), grabbing and or snatching toy out of child’s hand, punitive language or shaming child (e.g., “That’s a baby toy”). Independent coding by two coders began after each coder was reliable with an experienced coder with an interrater reliability of .80 or greater across the behaviors. Interrater reliability ranged from .90 to .99 on 20% of the videos that were not used for training. A composite score was calculated by combining scores for each domain into one negative parenting composite. Negative parenting occurred at a relatively low rate, resulting in a high positive skew. To better approximate normally distributed data, we took the square root of the ineffective parenting practices variable to use in further analyses.

Parenting Styles.

Mothers completed the 32-item Parenting Styles and Dimensions Questionnaire (PSDQ; Robinson et al., 2001). The PDSQ assesses authoritative, authoritarian, and permissive parenting. To measure ineffective parenting practices, we used the latter two scales. Sample items from the authoritarian scale included “I used threats as punishment with little or no justification” and from the permissiveness scale included “I give into my child when the child causes a commotion about something.” Mothers rated their behaviors on a Likert scale ranging from never (1) to always (5). Scores for each parenting domain were calculated. For this study, we use two scales which reflect more adverse parenting: authoritarian and permissive, with Cronbach’s alphas for each scale equal to .70 and .81, respectively.

Dysregulated Representations

We used the MSSB (Bretherton & Oppenheim, 2003) to assess the implicit understandings of the world children possess when questioned on hypothetical situations of family life. To begin the MSSB, the experimenter first questioned the child on relevant family members to produce appropriate dolls for the story stems moving forward. The child then named the dolls and played with them to finish story stems the experimenter provided. For example, in one story, the experimenter told the child that he or she spilled juice during a family meal. The child was then asked to complete the story, using the dolls to illustrate family behaviors. Child responses to the eight story stems (birthday, spilled juice, family dog, hot cookies, lost keys, departure, reunion, climbing the rock, and family fun) reflect the child’s view of his or her own place within the family and relationships with caregivers. The first and the last story stems were positive scenarios designed to ease the child in and out of the measure. The remaining six scenarios touch on stressful situations that may be difficult for the child, such as interparental conflict, loss of a pet, injury, and separation from parents.

Coding and Reliability.

Video recordings of the MSSB were coded for children’s dysregulated representations. Dysregulated representation scores reflected the child’s dysregulated responses to conflict and other situational factors in the home (adapted from Cummings et al., 2004). Indications of dysregulated representations were characterized by aggressive behaviors including yelling (e.g., yelling at parents, including yelling at them to stop), being physically aggressive (e.g., kicking, hitting, biting, or spitting at another person, throwing something, cursing, or calling names; all behaviors may be hurtful to another person), misbehaving (e.g., doing things that are not allowed, fighting with another child, throwing a tantrum), and or hurting self (i.e., physically harming self, for example, by biting or scratching self, or hitting head). Scores for each story stem were assigned a value on a 4-point Likert scale for reflecting no indications of dysregulated representations (0), showing hints of dysregulated representations (1), displaying some behaviors characteristic of dysregulated representations (2), or exhibiting extreme indications of child dysregulated representations (3). Interrater reliability across two coders on 20% (8) of the videos was α = .94 (range = .81–1.00). An average externalizing score across the eight story stems was computed, with Cronbach’s alphas assessing internal consistency across all stems, α = .87.

Results

Descriptive Statistics

Means, standard deviations, and correlations for all variables are presented in Table 1. Correlations between study variables indicate several patterns. First, children showed less effortful control when mothers exhibited more negative parenting during the play task, as well as when mothers rated themselves higher in authoritarian parenting; effortful control was not significantly correlated with permissive parenting. Second, self-reported authoritarian parenting, permissive parenting, and observational ratings of negative parenting during play were all positively correlated with each other. Third, children who were more dysregulated in describing their family environment exhibited less effortful control.

Table 1.

Means, Standard Deviations, and Correlations Between Parenting and Child Measures

Measure	1	2	3	4	5	Mean (SD)
1. Effortful control	—					−0.06 (.70)
2. Dysregulated representations	−.62**	—				0.33 (.67)
3. Authoritarianism	−.37**	.31	—			1.88 (.45)
4. Permissiveness	−.29	.32	.69**	—		2.41 (.96)
5. Negative parenting during play	−.42*	.25	.50**	.50**	—	0.10 (.01)

Note. N = 40; means for negative parenting during play use a square root transformation.

^*p < .050.

^**p < .010.

Mediation Model Linking Ineffective Parenting Practices to Effortful Control

We used structural equation modeling (SEM; Loehlin, 1998) to examine whether children’s dysregulated representations mediated the pathway from ineffective parenting practices to children’s effortful control. SEM is a widely accepted tool for examining relationships between multiple variables in one pathway model. In addition, we used maximum likelihood estimation (MLE; Enders, 2010), the most appropriate method with which to account for missing data. Further, studies suggest that biases produced from low sample sizes are mitigated when high reliability is present and simple models are tested, such that it is acceptable to use SEM despite a lower sample size (see Iacobucci, 2010). Before testing the SEM pathway model, we examined child age and gender as potential covariates with study variables; neither related to effortful control, ineffective parenting practices, or dysregulated representations.

SEM analysis using Mplus Version 7.0 (Muthén & Muthén, 1998–2012) allows us to test relations between each variable of interest simultaneously and to determine whether a direct pathway is perhaps better represented with a mediator. Our model included two manifest variables (dysregulated representations and effortful control) and an ineffective parenting practices latent variable, with significant loadings for ineffective parenting during play, self-reported authoritarianism, and self-reported permissiveness. Although our data is cross-sectional, mediation models are an appropriate form of analysis in the presence of strong theory (Baron & Kenny, 1986).

To test for mediation using SEM, we examined two nested models. In Model 1 (Figure 1), we constrained the pathways from parenting to dysregulation and dysregulation to effortful control to be equal to zero. This represents the simple direct effect from ineffective parenting to effortful control. In Model 2 (Figure 2), we freely estimated the same two pathways. This represents the potential mediating effect of children’s dysregulated representations. Because these data are nested, we can compare the model fit indices to determine which model fits the data better. MPlus provides both absolute and comparative goodness of fit statistics: the chi-square test of model fit (Loehlin, 1998), the comparative fit index (CFI; Bentler, 1990), the root mean square error of approximation (RMSEA; Hu & Bentler, 1999), and the Bayesian Information Criteria (BIC; Schwarz, 1978). The CFI and RMSEA are absolute fit indices. If the CFI is above .90 and the RMSEA is below .08, the data sufficiently fit the proposed model. For model comparisons, poorer fitting models have a higher BIC than better fitting models. The chi-square can be used for both absolute and comparative fit when models are nested. Model fit indices and path estimates for each model are in Table 2.

Figure 1.

Model 1: Relation Between Ineffective Parenting and Effortful Control With Standardized Estimates Constraining Mediational Effects to Be Zero.

Note. *p < .050. **p < .010. ***p < .001.

Figure 2.

Model 2: Mediation Effects of Dysregulated Representations Linking Ineffective Parenting to Effortful Control With Standardized Estimates.

Note. *p < .050. **p < .010. ***p < .001.

Table 2.

Path Estimates and Model Fit Indices Comparison of Model 1 and Model 2

	Model 1			Model 2
Path Estimates	Est.	SE	p	Est.	SE	p
Authoritarianism→ Ineffective Parenting	.86	.10	< .001	.85	.10	< .001
Permissiveness → Ineffective Parenting	.80	.10	< .001	.81	.10	< .001
Negative Parenting (Play) → Ineffective Parenting	.46	.15	.002	.45	.15	.002
Ineffective Parenting → Dysregulated Representations	=0.00	Na	Na	.38	.15	.013
Dysregulated Representations → Effortful Control	=0.00	Na	Na	−.53	.12	< .001
Ineffective Parenting → Effortful Control	−.43	.15	.004	−.23	.15	.128
Fit Statistics	Model 1			Model 2
χ2		22.07			3.31
df		6			4
p		.001			.507
BIC		497.13			485.75
rmsea		.26			.00
CFI		.69			1.00

Note: Na = Not applicable.

As shown in Table 2, Model 2 fit the data significantly better than Model 1. Results indicate that though there is a significant negative relation between ineffective parenting and effortful control (Model 1), when children’s dysregulated representations was included as a mediator (Model 2), this pathway was no longer significant, and the data fit the proposed model better. Thus, it is only through a pathway that includes children’s own views of their family that parenting influences effortful control.

Discussion

Effortful control is a developmental goal for young children as they are reaching an age where they are expected to behave in a socially appropriate manner without constant monitoring from their parents (Spinrad et al., 2007). Previous research has examined relations between parenting and effortful control, but direct mechanisms linking parenting and effortful control are less understood (e.g., Spinrad et al., 2007). Drawing from attachment theory, we tested a model in which children’s dysregulated representations mediated the association between ineffective parenting practices and children’s effortful control in a low-income sample. Attachment theory suggests that caregiving influences the way children view their world and how they interact with and react to their social environment (Bowlby, 1969; Schore, 2000). Results supported this model; ineffective parenting practices were related to children’s poorer effortful control through children’s dysregulated representations. These findings suggest that targeting consistent and effective parenting practices in interventions could promote children having more positive and regulated representations and enhanced effortful control skills.

Parenting and Effortful Control

According to attachment theory (Bowlby, 1969), when mothers provide warm, responsive, and regulated interactions, children develop internal perceptions that the world is a trustworthy and safe place, leading to the ability to appropriately respond to and engage with their environment (Bretherton & Munholland, 1999). When parents’ caregiving techniques are ineffective (i.e., negative and punitive behavior, as well as authoritarian and permissive qualities), children may be less likely to internalize that the world has a reliable structure to support their social and emotional development. Results from our study show that preschool-age children display signs of having dysregulated representations during emotionally charged scenarios when they experience more ineffective parenting; children who experience ineffective parenting do not perceive the child-caregiver dynamic as safe, secure, or dependable. This in turn relates to their regulatory functioning, such that they have difficulties with effortful control; that is, they are not as successful in suppressing their urges to achieve a more salient goal.

Ineffective parenting practices encompass negative (i.e., hostile and controlling approaches) parenting behaviors, engagement in inconsistent parenting styles in which parents show high levels of leniency, that is, permissive parenting, some of the time and at other times use overly critical practices marked by harsh rigidity, that is, authoritarian parenting some of the time (Baumrind, 1971, 2013; McKinney et al., 2016). Parents who are harsh or unpredictable in their own behaviors may model difficulties with regulation in their role as parents. That is, children may struggle with effortful control and self-regulation when they observe their parents struggling to regulate their emotions and behaviors (Carrère & Bowie, 2012). These findings are consistent with previous studies showing how inconsistent, negative parenting behaviors and styles are linked with developmental challenges (e.g., Dwairy 2008). Although we did not find a significant direct effect between ineffective parenting and children’s effortful control, we add to existing literature by demonstrating that ineffective maternal parenting relates to children’s lower effortful control through dysregulated representations for low-income families. In agreement with existing literature, it is likely that living with limited resources, for example, in a low-income environment, creates additional stresses that promote suboptimal parenting behaviors and styles and thus interfere with children’s regulatory outcomes (Conger et al., 2004; Raver et al., 2002).

Dysregulated Representations

Children’s dysregulated representations indicate less predictability and a poorer understanding of typical emotional and social expectations (Bretherton & Munholland, 1999; Martoccio et al., 2016). In this study, results indicated that when mothers used more ineffective parenting strategies, children displayed representations that reflected unpredictable expectations of their surrounding environment. It is possible that when children are subjected to parents who act harshly or inappropriately, they do not develop the secure base that would guide a more coherent understanding of their world. Instead, these children displayed aggressive storytelling that interfered with the ability to produce a structured schema of family life. As seen in this research, such children struggled with effortful control during laboratory tasks that required them to inhibit certain dominant responses. Furthermore, children’s dysregulated representations served as a mediator linking ineffective parenting and children’s effortful control. Our findings show that children’s dysregulated representations appear to operate via a mechanism through which ineffective parenting is associated with effortful control in young children, demonstrating the important role dysregulated representations play in explaining these relations.

In attachment theory (Bowlby 1969), children’s representations of their environment motivate emotional and social behaviors. When children’s internal representations are dysregulated, they form less coherent schemas from which to base regulatory behavior and have difficulty handling emotional contexts, addressing conflict, and creating socially appropriate responses (Bretherton & Munholland, 1999; Martoccio et al., 2016). Having a dysregulated understanding of the social world may be reflected in children’s misunderstanding of what consists of a socially acceptable effortful control behaviors (Schore, 2000). Each stage of this developmental system underlies children’s learning to regulate responses: incoming stimuli (e.g., ineffective parenting), sociocognitive perceptions (e.g., dysregulated representations), and behavioral outcomes (e.g., poor effortful control) is dependent on regulatory properties in accordance with attachment theory and serves to explain relevant mechanisms linking effortful control and ineffective parenting (Bretherton & Munholland, 1999; Martoccio et al., 2016; Schore, 2000).

Previous studies have found links between quality of parenting practices and children’s representations, as well as links between representations and child characteristics. Specifically, maternal depression and harsh parenting predicted dysregulated representations in children (Martoccio et al., 2016). More generally, negative internal representations (e.g., grim family expectations, predict internalizing problems; see Warren et al., 2000) and dysregulated representations (e.g., aggressive responses) predict externalizing problems in children (Laible et al., 2004). Because aggressive themes during story schemas are a key feature of dysregulated representations on the MSSB, dysregulated representations may predict regulatory difficulties beyond effortful control. We add to this literature by demonstrating that children’s representations (e.g., dysregulated representations) can be used to connect parenting behaviors with important developmental competencies.

Practical Implications

Results from the current study suggest that preventions and interventions designed to reduce mothers’ ineffective parenting skills would foster more coherent and positive internal representations in children, which in turn, would support children’s developing regulation skills (e.g., waiting to take turns). These findings as related to ineffective parenting practices may support approaches that strengthen mothers’ effective parenting. These effective practices, in which parenting attributes are associated with adaptive child outcomes, may hold promise as one means of promoting more regulated representations and, eventually, effortful control skills in children. Previous interventions aimed at increasing parents’ use of positive parenting practices and sensitive discipline have demonstrated success with respect to both parenting techniques and regulated behaviors in children (e.g., Van Zeijl et al., 2006). Success of these interventions are attributed the formation of healthy attachment; positive representations of the caregiving relationship cultivate more adaptive behavioral outcomes in children (Juffer et al., 2017). Therefore, by fostering a supportive and predictable parent-child dynamic, children may develop healthy representations of the world, which may help them regulate themselves in an adaptive manner. Further, past studies indicate that low-income parents and children in particular may face increased challenges with regard to parenting and effortful control, which has implications for later psychopathology (Conger et al., 2002; Eisenberg et al., 2009; Li-Grining, 2007). Although this study is a first step in a largely unexplored area, the importance of children’s internal representations as a mechanism through which parenting and the environment affects child behavioral outcomes has important implications for future work, particularly for those with strained economic resources.

Limitations and Future Directions

The present study has several limitations. First, although the cross-sectional nature of the study serves as an important first step in examining ineffective parenting, dysregulated representations, and effortful control, we are not able to disentangle the direction of effects. For example, when children exhibit less effortful control, their representations may become increasingly more dysregulated over time. However, a longitudinal design might better disentangle the processes linking parenting, children’s dysregulated representations, and effortful control. In addition, our study only represents a first step to establishing an avenue of research testing mechanisms between parenting and effortful control in low-income children. Specific conditions of living that tend to co-occur with limited financial resources, may play unique roles in the lives of families enrolled in Head Start. Because of the small sample and cross-sectional data, we could not test more complex models or include multiple covariates. Moreover, additional factors outside of ineffective parenting practices, such as chaos in the home (Dumas et al., 2005), the role of fathers (Karreman et al., 2008), helicopter parenting (Kiel & Maack, 2012), and childcare and school experiences (Silva et al., 2011), may contribute to children’s dysregulated representations and lower effortful control and should be examined in future work. In this research, observational measures were conducted in the lab to provide more control over the environment, and although we gave dyads time to adjust, it may be beneficial to observe families directly in their home setting. Finally, results are not necessarily generalizable to populations other than families with limited resources. As such, because we did not directly compare families with differing levels of income in the present study, the generalizations made regarding lower income families were based on previous research (e.g., Conger et al., 2002; Li-Grining, 2007; Raver, 2004). Moreover, we are not able to test whether variation in income is directly related to dysregulated representations or effortful control. However, these limitations highlight the need for more research with low-income families and with families that vary in income levels.

Early temperament has been implicated in the development of effortful control in children (Karreman et al., 2008; Kochanska & Knaack, 2003; Kochanska et al., 2000). Thus, future studies could include similar constructs in prediction of effortful control. Importantly, however, poor effortful control has been associated with heightened internalizing and externalizing behaviors (Eisenberg et al., 2009). Current research demonstrates the importance of regulation as related to developmental psychopathology (e.g., Laible et al., 2004). Future research aimed toward determining how the overall patterns we found influence the mental health of children as they develop would lead to important clinical implications that test the effectiveness of improving effortful control by shaping children’s representations.

One strength of our study was that we had a diverse sample with respect to race/ethnicity, allowing for a generalization across this domain. Although our sample size was not large enough to do multigroup comparisons, future studies could test whether different races/ethnicities follow the trends that we have found. If the links are stronger for a particular group, families in those groups may benefit more strongly from prevention and intervention resources. Lastly, it would be of value to examine the self-regulation skills the mothers possess as well. If a mother is suffering from poor regulatory abilities herself, she may be less effective in her interactions with her children (Carrère & Bowie, 2012).

Conclusions

Studies show that children with lower income backgrounds are susceptible to poor effortful control. Those who have poor effortful control are more likely to experience behavior problems as they develop (Eisenberg et al., 2009). Therefore, understanding the mechanisms through which poor effortful control arises remains vital for alleviating the challenges children at higher risk may face. Our results supported the hypothesis that children whose mothers engage in ineffective parenting are more likely to show poor effortful control skills. Moreover, the association between parenting and effortful control was facilitated through a mechanism that included children’s dysregulated representations. Programs should target mothers’ parenting skills with the goal of enhancing parents’ efficacy and consistency, which can influence important adaptive behaviors such as effortful control.