To Örebro University

In this study, we examined parental self-efficacy (PSE) in light of Bandura's distinction between efficacy expectations and outcome expectations, and their links to parenting practices. We used a sample of 968 parents of children aged 11 to 18 years and examined the factor structure of items measuring PSE and parents' outcome expectations, as well as the links between these two cognitive aspects and parenting practices. The results suggested that PSE and our measure of parents' outcome expectations constituted two distinct factors and were not part of the same overall factor. Additionally, the analyses showed that PSE might be seen as a unidimensional construct with multidimensional aspects and was more strongly linked to parenting practices than were parents' outcome expectations. In general, this study offers a comprehensive model of two different parental cognitive mechanisms as antecedents of parenting behaviors in different developmental periods.

Children involved in mutually hostile interactions at home are at risk of experiencing adjustment problems in other everyday life contexts. However, little is known about whether the pattern of mutual hostility at home is reproduced by high-conflict youths in other interpersonal contexts. In this study, we examined whether adolescents involved in mutually hostile interactions with their parents encounter similar mutually hostile interactions in other interpersonal contexts. We used a longitudinal design, following mid-adolescents over 1 year (N = 2,009, 51 % boys, Mage = 14.06, SD = 0.73). The adolescents were 7th and 8th grade students in a mid-sized town in Sweden. The results showed that the youths involved in mutual hostility at home were more likely to be involved in mutual hostility at school and in their free-time. A longitudinal relationship between mutual hostility at home and mutual hostility in other contexts was confirmed. Being involved in mutually hostile interactions at home at Time 1 increased adolescents’ likelihood of getting involved in mutually hostile interactions with peers at school and in free-time at Time 2. Overall, the results point to the important role played by experiencing mutual hostility at home in maladaptive behaviors across everyday settings.

Mutual hostility in a particular everyday context occurs when adolescents are hostile to others in this context and these others are also hostile to the adolescents. Previous studies showed that being involved in mutual hostility at home (coercive cycles, Patterson, 1986) or in school (bully-victims, Schwartz, 2000) was linked to youths’ poor social adjustment both at home and in school. Involvement in mutually hostile interactions across contexts has been understudied. In a previous study (Trifan & Stattin, in press), we examined youths who both exposed others and were exposed by others to aggression in three different environments: home, school, and free-time. We showed that youths involved in mutually hostile interactions at home were more likely to get involved in mutually hostile interactions with peers one year later. Moreover, youths involved in mutually hostile interactions in at least one context tended to start and to remain higher on impulsivity, delinquency, anger dysregulation, and depression, compared to other youths (Trifan & Stattin, in press). Given the negative consequences that involvement in mutual hostility has on youths’ adjustment, and the role of home in its generalization, the question is whether there are protective factors against youths’ involvement in mutually hostile interactions. The literature on youths’ adjustment places parental warmth and parental attachment as protective factors against a series of negative outcomes (see McKee et al., 2007; Rubin et al., 2004). In our study, we applied both a person oriented approach (Latent Profile Analysis (LPA), Lazarsfeld & Henry, 1968), and a variable oriented approach (cross-lagged models) to explore whether parental warmth and attachment reduce youths’ likelihood of involvement in mutual hostility across contexts.

We used all available 7^th and 8^th graders (N=2009, 51% males, Mage=14.06, SD=0.73) from a four-year cohort-sequential study conducted in a mid-size Swedish town, and followed them over one year. Using LPA, we tested whether parental warmth and parental attachment increased youths’ probability to belong to a low or no hostility, rather than to a mutual hostility group in each of the three contexts, at both time points. Results showed that having warm and safe-base parents increased youths’ likelihood for belonging to a low hostility group, rather than to a mutual hostility group (see Table 1). These findings were valid for all three contexts, and for both time points. Using a variable-oriented approach, we explored whether parental warmth and attachment attenuated the effect of being involved in mutual hostility at home on being involved in mutual hostility in other settings. Results showed that both parental warmth and attachment were linked to less involvement in mutual hostility at home one year later (see Table 2). However, taking into account the effect of warmth and attachment on involvement in mutual hostility did not reduce the effect of home mutual hostility on mutual hostility in peer contexts, nor did it moderate it. Overall, having a warm, supportive relationship with parents made youths less likely to belong to mutual hostility groups across contexts, but had little influence on the generalization of mutual hostility.    

Previous theoretical and empirical findings suggested that coercive behaviors in the family tend to be stable over time, and lead to adolescents’ poor social adjustment at school (see Patterson, 1986).  Existing research offers partial and indirect evidence on the generalizability of mutual hostility from home to other settings, and how this generalizability is linked to youths’ adjustment patterns over time. In a previous study (Trifan & Stattin, in press), we showed the existence of naturally occurring configurations of youths who both expose others and are exposed by others to aggression in three different environments: home, school, and free time. We showed that youths involved in mutual hostility at one time-point tend to be the same ones involved in mutual hostility one year later, across environments. The youths involved in mutual hostility had higher levels of impulsivity, delinquency, anger dysregulation, depression, and lower self-esteem compared to youths not involved in any hostility. The question is whether youths involved in mutual hostility have a different development of these adjustment features over time compared to youths with no mutual hostility. We focused on youths involved in mutual hostility at home. We used a longitudinal design, following 7^th grade adolescents from a mid-town in Sweden annually over three years (N = 1289, 621 males and 668 females, Mage = 13.85, SD = 0.75). Using a latent growth modeling (LGM) method (Duncan, Duncan, & Strycker, 2013), we tested whether being involved in mutual hostility at home at Time 1 influenced the changes in impulsivity, delinquency, depression, anger dysregulation and self-esteem over three years of the study. In all our analyses we controlled for gender. In the first step, we tested whether the youths’ features changed over time, and then included exposure to the mutual hostility as the predictor of the change processes. First, results showed that youths involved in mutual hostility at home indeed started with higher initial levels of impulsivity, delinquency, and anger dysregulation compared to youths not involved in any hostility. At the same time, they had lower initial levels of self-esteem and higher levels of depression. Results also showed that being involved in mutually hostile interactions at home at Time 1 was associated with higher increases over time in impulsivity, delinquency and dysregulation, and with higher decreases in self-esteem. Thus, being involved in mutual hostility at home is linked to an over time pattern of both poor psychological and behavioral adjustment.

One of the central issues in parenting research is what children transfer from the family to other contexts. In most families, children learn to respect others and live harmoniously, and this is what they take with them. In some families, however, interactions are not harmonious, but are characterized by mutual hostility. Extreme examples are the coercive cycles described by Patterson (1982), the associations between parents’ low perceived power and their proneness to use harshness when faced with a difficult child (Bugental, et al., 1999), and the intimate connection in abusing families between overt opposition in children and parents’ readiness for using severe punishment, rather than reasoning (Trickett & Kuczynski, 1986). Some research focused on the influence of these kinds of parent-child interactions on children’s behavior toward others at school and in other contexts, but little is known about the possible connections between mutually hostile parent-child interactions and mutually hostile interactions in other settings. Do these interaction patterns get transferred from the home to other settings, and if so, how should this be explained? In this study we examined whether adolescents involved in mutually hostile interactions with their parents encounter similar mutual hostility interactions in other contexts. We used a longitudinal design, following mid- adolescents over one year (N = 1289, 621 males and 668 females, Mage = 13.85, SD = 0.75). They were 7^th grade students in a mid-sized town in Sweden. The results showed that adolescents involved in mutual hostility at home tended to be the same ones who were involved in mutual hostility at school and in their free time.  This relationship between mutual hostility interactions at home and mutual hostility interactions in other contexts was also confirmed longitudinally.  Being involved in reciprocated conflicts at home at Time 1 increased adolescents’ likelihood to get involved in mutually hostile interactions with peers and with teachers at Time 2.  The opposite was also true: being involved in mutual hostility with peers at school and in the free-time increased youths’ likelihood to be involved in mutual hostility at home. The influence of home on other settings in the transmission of mutual hostility remained significant even when we took into account the influence of adolescents’ impulsivity and anger dysregulation.  Overall, the results point at the important role mutual hostility at home has on the generalization of maladaptive behaviors across everyday settings, but that, in adolescence, the reciprocal is also valid. 

This study examined changes in authoritarian parenting practices and family roles in Sweden over the last 50 years. Data came from 3 cohorts (1958, 1981, and 2011) of young to middle-age adults living in a suburb of Stockholm who answered questions about how they were raised (N₁₉₅₈ = 385, N₁₉₈₁ = 207, N₂₀₁₁ = 457). The results showed a dramatic decrease in parents' directive control. Also, over time, parents increasingly allowed children to express anger toward them. Parents' roles changed from stereotyped versions of fathers as decision makers and mothers as caregivers to both parents sharing decisions and garnering respect from children. Overall, the results suggest that authoritarian parenting practices have declined dramatically and moved toward more egalitarian family environments. Virtually all these changes in parental practices and parental roles happened between the last 2 cohorts.

Evidence-based parenting programs are effective methods of preventing problematic child behaviors and improving parents’ competencies and skills. However, there is a lack of understanding of the mechanisms that may explain how parents change when they participate in parenting programs (Sandler et al., 2011). In the current study, we aimed to address this limitation by examining the mechanisms that explain how parents’ harsh parenting practices are reduced following their participation in parent training programs. We focused on parenting stress and parental sense of competence as potential mechanisms of change (Sandler et al., 2011). We hypothesized that parents with low levels of parenting stress would display greater change in parental competence due to their participation in parent training programs, and in turn, their use of harsh parenting practices would decrease over time.  We also tested the alternative model where changes in parental stress may mediate the association between parents’ sense of competence, and in turn, changes in harsh parenting. 

We fitted parallel process growth models with 4 time points (i.e., pre-, post-test, 1-year, and 2-year follow up). The sample consisted of 635 parents who participated in four commonly used parent training programs in Sweden. Stattin et al. and Oloffsson et al. (in press) showed that all these programs demonstrated significant reductions in all parenting variables of interest in short, and long-term using a randomized controlled effectiveness trial.

First, we tested whether the participants of the parenting programs have all showed decreased parenting stress and harsh parenting, and increased parental sense of competence.  Latent growth models suggested that the parents significantly decreased in stress and harsh parenting, and increased in competence from pre-test to post-test, and relatively maintained these changes at both 1-year and 2-year follow-ups.  Then, we fitted the mediation model to test the proposed mechanisms of change (Cheong, et al., 2003).  We included child gender in all models as a covariate.  The hypothesized mediation model revealed acceptable model fit,  χ²(75)=438.03,  CFI=.91, RMSEA=0.08, SRMR=0.08. That is, parents with low levels of stress at baseline increased more in parental competence over time, and in turn, they decreased in harsh parenting practices (β_ind=0.51, p=.009).  The model held for all program types. In contrast, the model testing the alternative hypothesis did not reveal good fit.  Together, our findings suggested that changes in parents’ competence may explain why parents decrease in use of harsh parenting when they are involved in parent training programs.

Previous studies have shown that parents with difficult children decrease their perceived self-efficacy over time (Bugental et al., 1980; Glatz et al., 2011), increase their stress level (see Theule et al., 2010), and start using more negative practices (Patterson, 1982).  These processes were linked to further child difficult behaviour (Patterson, 1982). However, increasing parents’ self-efficacy and decreasing the level of parental stress may reduce their use of harsh practices (Dekovic et al., 2010).  Previous studies have suggested that offering a minimum support (e.g., workbooks, guides, manuals) helps parents increase their self-efficacy, reduce the use of harsh practices, and the level of problems experienced with their children (Sanders et al., 2000; Markie-Dadds & Sanders, 2006).  The small/clinical samples used in previous studies, and the manualized shape of the written self-help material leave unanswered the question on the effectiveness of a parenting book in enhancing parental practices and reducing child problems.  Starting from the limitations of previous research, we investigated whether an intervention based on a parenting book had similar effects in improving parental skills and reducing child problems as already validated face-to-face programs with similar theoretical background. 

Using an effectiveness approach, we compared a self-help book for parents based on a behavioural approach with two validated manual-based face-to-face programs with similar theoretical underpinning: Comet (Kling et al., 2010) and Incredible Years (Webster-Stratton & Hammond, 1990).  The sample consisted of 416 parents (M_age=37.78, SD=6.03) with children aged 3-12 years (M_age=7.41, SD=2.48, 61% boys), living in the south or middle of Sweden. We used parental reports on their child’s externalizing behaviour (e.g., ECBI, Eyberg & Pincus, 1999), and on their parental self-efficacy, (PSOC, Johnstone & Mash, 1989;), parental stress (CGSQ, Brennan et al., 1997), and negative parenting practices (e.g., PPI, Webster-Stratton et al., 2001).  We looked at the effects of the self-help intervention on parental skills and child problem behaviours both on short-time (12 weeks), and long-time (1-year after the post-test).  In all analyses we controlled for age.

The results showed improvements in both parental practices and child behaviour from pre-test to post-test for both interventions (self-help and face-to-face), and maintenance of these improvements from post-test to 1-year follow-up.  Both parent programs and book managed to increase parents’ self-efficacy, and to decrease their use of inept discipline, perceived child problems and parental stress.  The biggest changes were in parents’ increased self-efficacy, and in their decreased stress level, followed by the reductions in their use of harsh treatments.  However, the two parent programs managed to increase parental self-efficacy, and to decrease child problems and parents’ use of harsh discipline to a higher extent compared to the book, both on short-term, and on long-term.  Given that the changes in self-efficacy mediated between the initial level of parental stress and the changes in parental use of harsh practices, these results are not surprising.  Being less intense, a self-help book might not have the same effect on enhancing parents’ self-efficacy as face-to face programs.  Fewer changes in parent’s self-efficacy further translate into fewer changes in harsh practices.