The Impact of Parenting Style on Children's Behavior - Research Paper Example

Impact of Parenting Style on Children’s Behavior Abstract There is a rich literature on the impact of parenting style on children’s behavior. However, there is a lack of evidence-based research on the effect of court-ordered parent training program on the parenting style of biological and foster parents, and consequently on children’s behavior. This study will attempt to fill this gap. A program evaluation approach will be used in assessing the developed parenting training program and then a time series design to determine the differential effect of untrained and trained parenting style on children’s behavior. The sample will be composed of purposively chosen biological and foster parents, and their children. The participants will be repeatedly exposed to a single parent training program and then program outcomes will be thoroughly documented. Statement of the Problem It is broadly recognized that parenting styles are patterned on childhood experience and that constructive and unconstructive family experiences have a direct effect on the perspectives and practices parents will use in raising their own children (Frick, Barry & Kamphaus, 2009). Although we acknowledge the impact of parenting styles on children’s behavior, it is still the adult responsibility that has been given the least attention in the educational system of the United States (Rathus, 2007). Hence, every parent requires training and assistance suitable to the concerns or problems they confront during their parenting life. Yet, biological parents and other people who have already maltreated their children, or people who are taking care of children who have been neglected or physically abused, require rigorous training and support in parenting, as well as discipline, issues. Most abusive parents do not have the essential understanding and experience to raise their children in a constructive manner. Furthermore, majority of these parents are ineffective in providing effectual and consistent discipline, which consequently leads to children who exhibit more discipline issues (Frick et al., 2009). Parent training and support can assume different forms depending on the family’s need at any specific point in time (Merrell, 2002).This study will investigate the impact of parenting style on children’s behavior through a quasi-experimental design. This study will specifically conduct a time series design in comparing the effect of court-ordered parenting classes on the parenting style of both biological and foster parents, and consequently on the behavior of their children. Review of Related Literature This section will review two original related research studies, namely, (1) Jeremy Jewell and colleagues’ The Differential Impact of Mothers’ and Fathers’ Discipline on Preschool Children’s Home and Classroom Behavior and (2) Philip Fisher and associates’ Parental Monitoring of Children’s Behavior: Variation across Stepmother, Stepfather, and Two-parent Biological Families. The first article examined the relationship between the discipline styles of mothers and fathers with externalizing children’s behavior in the home and school. The participants in the study are the parents and teachers of preschool children. The researchers also included families with two parents. The three discipline styles of Baumrind, (1) authoritarian, (2) authoritative, and (3) permissive were assessed using the Self Report Measure of Family Functioning for Children Revised (SRMFF-C-R). Manifested behavior in school and home was assessed utilizing the Behavior Assessment System for Children (BASC). According to the multiple regression analyses father’s permissiveness and mother’s authoritarian discipline were correlated to manifested behaviors in school and home. The connection between the disagreement of parents on tolerant discipline and manifested behaviors in the home came close to significance, whereas parent’s disagreement on discipline was not predictive of manifested behaviors in the classroom. These results suggest a differential correlation between parent discipline styles and the growth of manifested behaviors in children. This study is distinctive in a number of ways. Primarily, the subjects were preschool children, which is a deviation from the existing studies’ more usual adolescent or middle childhood emphasis. Also, both fathers and mothers gave information about their discipline styles. This is contrary to the more usual dependence on mother reported information solely, as highlighted by others. And lastly, reports of the manifested behaviors of children were gathered in the perspective of both the school and home. Investigations in this area have repeatedly discovered that children’s behavior is somewhat different between the settings of school and home, requiring the type of research applied in the study. Hence, the study’s data present a more inclusive depiction of children’s behavioral performance across diverse settings. Based on the existing literature on this subject, these hypotheses were formulated. First, higher levels of authoritarian and permissive discipline style and lower levels of authoritative discipline would determine more externalizing difficulties at school and in the home as revealed by teachers and parents. Second, disagreement of parents on discipline would determine higher externalizing difficulties at school and in the home. Findings from the study indicate a direct relationship between parental discipline and externalizing behaviors of children in both school and home. Particularly, it seems that a parental discipline pattern, in which fathers are permissive and mothers are authoritarian, is linked to enhanced externalizing behaviors in preschool children. Hence, the first hypothesis is partly confirmed by these findings. Findings concerning the correlation between parent’s disagreement on discipline and the behavior of children only partly verified the second hypothesis. In particular, parent divergence on the Laissez-faire Discipline Style was indicative of externalizing difficulties, while this correlation was not established in the other two styles of discipline. This study is relevant in the present study because the relationship between parenting styles and children’s behavior is also affected by the discipline environment and the growth of externalizing difficulties in early childhood. Moreover, taking into account the discipline environment where in disruptive behaviors in early childhood build up may help in the progress of interventions for vulnerable groups in the future. In the second article, Philip Fisher and colleagues (2003) studied parental monitoring across two-parent biological families, stepfather, and stepmother in children. They measured whether the components of parental monitoring vary across types of family by studying whether similar consistency exists in stepfather, in stepmother, and in two-parent biological families for levels of monitoring. They also examined whether there are disparities in the degree of monitoring given across different types of family by applying a construct scale signifying father-, mother-, teacher-, and researcher-reported monitoring. They predicted to find disparities in the components of monitoring across different family types, with the consistent marker of monitoring in stepfather and stepmother families emerging more identical to one another than monitoring markers of two-parent biological families. Based on earlier studies, the researchers also predicted that two-parent biological families would exhibit higher scores of monitoring than either type of stepfamily. They hypothesized that there would be higher resemblance in the pattern of monitoring between stepfather parents and stepmother parents that between biological parents and either type of stepfamily. Specifically, they predicted that the consistent markers of monitoring for stepfather and stepmother families may be dissimilar than those for biological families. If this had been the case, the researchers’ internal consistency analyses of the monitoring instruments would have generated ranges for the biological parents with components that were removed for stepmother and stepfather parents due to insufficient item-total relationships. In contrast to these hypotheses, they discovered inter-item relationship across all family types. Their analyses of the monitoring scale across the three family types were in agreement with their hypotheses. They discovered higher monitoring scales in biological parents than in stepfather parents when differences in demography were controlled. This outcome remained valid when only those biological families with durations of relationship similar to parents in stepfather and stepmother families were studied, indicating that the outcome does not stem only from the length of time spent by the parents together. Surprisingly, biological parents with longer durations of relationship showed lower monitoring than biological parents with shorter durations of relationship. Earlier investigations with adolescents have proposed that stepfamilies may have inferior monitoring abilities than biological families. The findings of this study expand this area to middle childhood. This study is relevant to the present study for several reasons. This research has presented initial substantiation that stepfather, stepmother, and biological families slightly vary in their idea of monitoring, suggesting that intervention attempts do not have to deal with various components of monitoring across different types of family. Nevertheless, the findings indicate that stepfather families deserve a greater level of attention with regard to avoidance and intervention; this type of family seems to sustain lower monitoring levels than biological families. Therefore, this present study may help to explain whether these findings emerged from substantive disparities between family types or from possible confounding factors. Research Questions and Hypotheses The main objective of this study is to address this question: what is the impact of parenting style on children’s behavior? Specifically, this study will try to address this particular research question: What is the differential impact of untrained and trained parenting style of foster and biological parents on children’s behavior? Based on current literature, this study hypothesizes that untrained parenting style negatively affects children’s behavior, whereas parenting styles of foster and biological parents who completed court-ordered parenting classes positively affects their children’s behavior. This study also hypothesizes that intervention would progress in due course in the target areas, such as child externalizing issues, parenting, and foster care, but that parents and their children in the program would exhibit more progress. It is the objective of this study to examine the effect of parenting style on children’s behavior from the points of view of biological and foster parents and their children. The study will examine the children’s adjustments and response to untrained and trained parenting styles; and its effect on their social, educational, and psychological security. The findings will fill a gap in the literature and present future biological and foster families with essential knowledge that will allow them to make appropriate and enlightened decisions related to parenting or foster care and to understand the effect that such a responsibility may have on the family. Although court-ordered parenting classes in several states deal with impact of parenting style on biological and foster family and their children, there is a lack or deficiency in literature regarding the adequacy and regularity of such training programs nationwide (Frick et al., 2009) and the extent that it deals with or involves children. Proposed Methodology The research approach that will be used in this study is program evaluation. The researcher chooses this approach because program evaluation, if performed correctly allows generalizations to be formulated about large populations on account of much smaller samples. Provided with a set of relevant variables, it can help determine the causality of the effect of specified factors on project outcomes (Heppner, Bruce & Kiviligian, 2008). Also, theoretically, they permit other researches to confirm the initial results by separately repeating the analysis (O’Reilly & Sheldon, 2005). However, the present study specifically will perform an interrupted time series design to collect data at diverse situations over time prior and after a parenting training program to determine whether the training has an impact significantly greater than the original trend. Participants The sample will be composed of purposively selected 50 parents, or 25 biological and foster pairs, of abused children between the ages 5 and 8, which are the ages commonly overlooked in the literature. Demographic differences will be discounted in this study, such as level of education and socioeconomic status. Other family and individual backgrounds will also be disregarded in this study, such as drug and alcohol abuse, domestic violence, criminal background, mental health diagnosis, and unsuccessful attendance to court-mandated parenting classes. Biological and foster parents, at the time of enrollment, were entitled to take part in the study if the child qualifies in the following research criteria: (1) Residence in a foster home. A foster home is described as a family type residence where the care of a biological or a foster child is given by an experienced nonrelative or relative foster parents who are managed by a social worker or caseworker hired by an official agency (Rathus, 2007). (2) Aim of family reintegration. Children with the Child Protective Services (CPS) authorized objective of family reintegration and whose biological parent lived at a recognized address in the city are the only ones entitled to participate. This study will not include children with developmental disabilities, such as cerebral palsy, or a documented report of sexual maltreatment because they need expert interventions. (3) Documented history of child abuse. Based on official categories provided by CPS, this study will classify children on the basis of the abuse they experienced, such as neglect, physical abuse, and others. The Maltreatment Classification Systems will be employed to categorize types of child abuse on account of available information in the certified CPS documents (O’Reilly & Sheldon, 2005). Measures/Instrumentation/Materials The primary constructs that will be used in this study are parenting styles, children’s behavior, and foster care. The independent variable of this study is parenting style while the dependent variable is the disruptive behaviors that affect overall functioning. All measures of these variables will be given to foster and biological parents, prior and after the court-mandated training program for parents. This study will use The Parenting Practices Interview, which is a self-report tool employed to evaluate practices, beliefs, and discipline outlooks founded on the Oregon Social Learning Center’s Parenting Discipline Questionnaire (LIFT) (Dyer, 2006). This study will use the four discipline scores: (1) positive discipline, consists of entries such as giving a reward, a hug, or praising; (2) appropriate discipline, consists of entries such as talking about the problem, employing time-out, giving additional chores, and encouraging the child to solve the problem; (3) clear expectations concerning family practices, behavior, and chores; and (4) harsh discipline comprised entries such as beating, threatening to punish, shouting, or expressing anger (Dyer, 2006). The Behavioral Assessment System for Children (BASC) will be employed to evaluate child performance. The BASC is a regulated caregiver account of child psychological performance. The BASC is a broadly utilized checklist of child behavior problem on which a sizeable body of literature on reliability and validity has been published. Internal consistency and test-retest reliability are good (O’Reilly & Sheldon, 2005). Procedures Foster and biological parents will sign a written informed consent. The training program will be implemented by two independent groups, intervention and evaluation, so that those evaluating program outcomes will be unaware of group assignment. Biological parents, at their choice, were interviewed at the agency or in their home. On the other hand, foster parents were interviewed in their residences. Analysis of Data The primary analyses will consist of randomized subjects whose scales of outcomes will be measured through general linear model analyses of covariance (ANCOVAs) prior to and after court-mandated training programs for parents. Baseline ratings for each dependent instrument will be applied as the covariate in these analyses (Dyer, 2006). This study will also analyze the primary effects of the training program and interaction outcomes. Discussion Threat to Study Validity Seven threats to internal validity have been identified: level of education, socioeconomic status, drug and alcohol abuse, domestic violence, criminal background, mental health diagnosis, and unsuccessful attendance to court-mandated parenting classes. These variables become a threat because these are external to the participants and take place by virtue of the passage of time. And these threats can work when psychological or biological alterations take place within participants and these alterations may explain partly or generally the impacts that will be identified in the study. In terms of external validity, a dependent variable/s may be influenced by participants’ earlier testing experience or pretest. Scores in the posttests may be either deflated or inflated as a result of the act of determining the impact of the independent variable on the dependent variable. Study outcome generalizations may be true in circumstances where a pretest and posttest were given. Also, where participants will be subjected to repeated exposures to the same training program, it is practically not possible to determine the collective impact of continual exposures. Identifying the need to enhance child security in foster homes, this study will deal with the gap in the literature by implementing an effective parent training program for children with the objective of family reintegration or returning home. This study would hopefully contribute in the improvement of service integration by implementing a combined parent training program to address the specific need of families with children in foster homes. Appendix A BASC-2 TRS/PRS Content Scales Available on AppApp AAppendix B P Parenting Practices Interview (PPI) LIFT Parenting Practices Interview This questionnaire was adapted from the Oregon Social Learning Center’s (OSLC) discipline questionnaire and revised for young children. The LIFT can be administered as an interview or used as a self-report questionnaire completed by the child’s primary caregiver. It takes approximately 15 minutes to complete. The following scoring information is based on a sample of 318 Head Start mothers, but we have used the instrument with parents of children aged 3-8 with similar results. Internal consistency for PPI (LIFT) Summary Scales: --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Standardized PPI (LIFT) Summary Scales Alpha Coefficient PPI Harsh Discipline .75 PPI Harsh for Age .78 PPI Inconsistent Discipline .62 PPI Appropriate DIscipline .82 PPI Positive Parenting .72 PPI Clear Expectations .62 PPI Monitoring .64 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Computing PPI Summary Scales Before computing summary scales, all items were converted to 7-point scales so that all the items in each scale had the same range of values. Items with 5-point scales (4a to 4e, 14a to 14c) were recorded as (1=1)(2=2)(3=4)(4=6)(5=7). Items with 8-point scales (12 & 13) were recorded as (1=1)(2=2)(3=3)(4,5=4)(6=5)(7=6)(8=7). For items 8a & 8b, the value of 8 (not with my child in last 2 days) was recorded to missing. Scales for selected items were then reversed (items noted with (R) in list below). Summary scales were computed as the average of the component items, so that the range of values for the summary scales is 1 to 7. How summary scales were derived Summary scales were initially defined theoretically. Exploratory factor analysis was also performed to examine empirically derived factors. Based on these results, the items that originally went into “harsh”, “inconsistent”, and “appropriate” were modified. A new scale “harsh for age” was formed (but this scale is not used in our analyses). Internal consistency analyses were then performed and the scales were further refined by deleting some items with very low item/total correlations with the scale. Items in PPI Summary Scales Harsh Discipline (high score = harsh) 1. PPI1B misbehavior: raise voice 2. PPI2B hit: raise voice 3. PPI3B refused: raise voice 4. PPI1D misbehavior: threaten punish 5. PPI2D hit: threaten punish 6. PPI3D refused: threaten punish 7. PPI1H misbehavior: spanking 8. PPI2H hit: spanking 9. PPI3H refused: spanking 10. PPI1I misbehavior: slap hit 11. PPI2I hit: slap hit 12. PPI3I refused: slap hit 13. PPI5E show anger 14. PPI5F say things don’t mean Harsh for Age (high score = harsh for age) 1. PPI1F misbehavior: ground 2. PPI2F hit: ground 3. PPI3F refused: ground 4. PPI1J misbehavior: extra chores 5. PPI2J hit: extra chores 6. PPI3J refused: extra chores 7. PPI4A get angry teach lesson (R) 8. PPI4B learn best unknown punishment (R) 9. PPI11E likely punish no bed Inconsistent Discipline (high score = inconsistent) 1. PPI5A give up trying 2. PPI5B actually discipline (R) 3. PPI5C get away things 4. PPI5D change mind punishment 5. PPI5G get around rules 6. PPI5H punishment depends mood Appropriate Discipline (hi score = appropriate) 1. PPI1C misbehavior: get child correct 2. PPI2C hit: get child correct 3. PPI3C refused: get child correct 4. PPI1E misbehavior: time out 5. PPI2E hit: time out 6. PPI3E refused: time out 7. PPI1G misbehavior: take privileges 8. PPI2G hit: take privileges 9. PPI3G refused: take privileges 10. PPI1K misbehavior: discuss problem 11. PPI2K hit: discuss problem 12. PPI3K refused: discuss problem 13. PPI11A likely praise chores 14. PPI11B likely punish no chores 15. PPI11C likely punish fights 16. PPI11D likely praise bed Positive Parenting (hi score = positive) 1. PPI6B praise compliment 2. PPI6C hug kiss pat 3. PPI6D buy something 4. PPI6E give extra privilege 5. PPI6F points starts chart 6. PPI7 often praise 7. PPI8A 2 days praise compliment 8. PPI8B 2 days give something extra 9. PPI9A reward bribery (R) 10. PPI9B should not have to reward (R) 11. PPI9C believe in rewards 12. PPI9D important praise 13. PPI9E hard to praise (R) 14. PPI9F demand rewards if praise (R) 15. PPI9G having trouble set reward Clear Expectations (hi score = clear expectations) 1. PPI10A clear rules chores 2. PPI10B clear rules fighting 3. PPI10C clear rules bed Monitoring (hi score = more monitoring) 1. PPI12 home hours without supervision (R) 2. PPI13 outside hours without supervision (R) 3. PPI14A time know where child is 4. PPI14B time know what child doing 5. PPI14C pct child friends know 6. PPI15A imp know where child is 7. PPI15B checking friends too anxious (R) 8. PPI15C free time learns responsibility (R) 9. PPI15D not supervised develop problems ---------------------------------------------------------- Items not included in any scale: PPI1A misbehavior: not do anything PPI2A hit: not do anything PPI3A refused: not do anything PPI4C discipline small problems PPI4D ok get away small misbehavior PPI4E consistent discipline imp PPI6A notice not do anything PPI6G not even notice Reference for this instrument: http://www.son.washington.edu/centers/parenting-clinic/documents/ppi2004.pdf References Dyer, C. (2006). Research in Psychology: A Practical Guide to Methods and Statistics. UK: Wiley-Blackwell. Fisher, P.A., Leve, L.D., O'Leary, C.C. & Leve, C. (2003). Parental Monitoringof Children's Behavior: Variation across Stepmother, Stepfather, and Two-parent Biological Families. Family Relations , 45+. Frick, P.J., Barry, C.T. & Kamphaus, R.W. . (2009). Clinical Assessment of Child and Adolescent Personality and Behavior. New York: Springer. Heppner, P.P., Bruce, E.W. & Kiviligian, D.M. . (2008). Research Design in Counseling. Belmont, CA: Thompson Brooks/Cole. Jewell, J.D., Krohn, E.J., Scott, V.G., Carlton, M. & Meinz, E. (2008). The Differential Impact of Mothers' and Fathers' Discipline on Preschool Children's Home and Classroom Behavior. North American Journal of Psychology , 173. Merrell, K. (2002). Behavioral, Social, and Emotional Assessment of Children and Adolescents. New York: Routledge. O'Reilly, D. & Sheldon, B. (2005). Conduct Disorder and Behavioral Parent Training: Research and Practice. New York: Jessica Kingsley. Rathus, S. (2007). Childhood and Adolescence: Voyages in Development. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth Publishing. Read More