Better parenting may not be enough for some children

Poverty, unstable housing and a mother?s depression may counteract ?good? parenting.

By Scott Sleek
Monitor staff

At first, the researchers were encouraged. They were proving that one of society?s most extremely disadvantaged groups?poorly educated young mothers on welfare?could learn to become warm, effective nurturers to their children.

But then the investigators discovered something puzzling. Why didn?t the mothers? improved parenting translate into better cognitive and social development for their children? They finally concluded that even though the better parenting clearly benefited the children, such ecological stressors as poverty, unstable housing and their mothers? depression also affected the children?s development. The interdisciplinary team of researchers, coordinated by psychologists Martha Zaslow, PhD, and Carolyn Eldred, PhD, outlines its study of nearly 300 families in a new report, 'Parenting Behavior in a Sample of Young Mothers in Poverty: Results of the New Chance Observational Study.' The findings provide strong support for the view that while parenting is important to children?s development, so are influences from the children?s larger social context, Zaslow and Eldred say.

The results may mean that the New Chance parenting training was too brief for such a disadvantaged population and therefore needs to be intensified, they say.

But it also could mean that parental training is simply no stand-alone remedy for families beset by poverty, domestic violence and other adverse life circumstances, they add.

'Improvements in a single area?even an area as important as parenting?may be insufficient to overcome other, very negative factors in a family?s life,' the researchers write. 'Improved parenting can lead to better child outcomes, but only if other needs in a family?s life are also addressed, or if parenting improves more markedly.'

Origins of the study

The 290 women in the study represented a subset of 2,322 families that participated in the New Chance Demonstration Project, designed by Manpower Demonstration Research Corp. (MDRC), a nonprofit group that researches strategies for helping welfare recipients get and keep jobs. The overall New Chance program provided comprehensive services to teen mothers on welfare. It operated at 16 sites in 10 states, providing educational and vocational services, parenting instruction, health and social services and child care. The families involved in the New Chance evaluation were randomly assigned to either a program group or a control group.

The observational study coordinated by Zaslow and Eldred focused specifically on the program?s parent-training component, in which the mothers learned about children?s developmental stages, activities they could use to enhance their children?s cognitive skills and age-appropriate strategies for managing the children?s behavior. The team studied mothers ages 16 to 22 who had dropped out of school and who had a child ages 2 to 5 with whom they were to be observed interacting.

In addition to Zaslow, a researcher at Child Trends, and Eldred, an independent consultant for MDRC, the research team included psychologists Byron Egeland, PhD, of the University of Minnesota, Catherine Snow, PhD, of Harvard University, Robert Granger, EdD, of MDRC, and many of their colleagues.

A noteworthy aspect of the study was the use of labor-intensive behavioral observational measures, which have rarely been used in welfare-to-work research, Zaslow says. (Most involve data collected from surveys, public assistance records and unemployment insurance.)

The 290 mothers participating in the study agreed to be videotaped in their homes about 21 months after enrolling in New Chance. They were taped engaging in structured activities such as reading and talking about a picture book with the child or helping the youngster assemble wooden blocks to match a model.

The researchers also used survey data from the mothers, child-care providers and teachers and assessments of the children?s development. They compared the results with a control group of similar welfare mothers who didn?t go through the New Chance program.

They found that, compared with the controls, the mothers who received the parenting education:

? Became more emotionally supportive and warm toward their children.

? Provided better intellectual stimulation, such as reading with greater intonation and fluency to the children.

? Spent more time on specific parenting chores, such as dressing, feeding and bathing.

These improvements occurred despite the fact that the mothers entered the program with particularly limited parenting skills. They also lived with tremendous stress and instability. Many had no steady place to live, had a close family member with a serious drug problem or had suffered physical or emotional abuse. About half reported symptoms of depression.

Those adverse factors undercut the benefits the new parenting techniques had on the children. The New Chance children showed no difference from the control group children in the Bracken Basic Concepts Scale School Readiness Composite, a test that measures the children?s knowledge of colors, letters, numbers and shapes. And in standardized interviews, the New Chance mothers reported that their children showed fewer positive social behaviors compared with reports from mothers in the control group.

Glimmers of hope

The researchers are quick to point out that they?re not trying to negate parent-training programs. In fact, Eldred says the New Chance study may just be an indication that the mothers may have needed more training. A study featured in the October issue of APA?s Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology (Vol. 66, No. 5, p. 715?730) appears to back the notion that more training leads to better outcomes. University of Washington psychologist Carolyn Webster-Stratton, PhD, studied 426 families who had children attending Head Start?the program that helps disadvantaged and at-risk preschoolers improve their cognitive development and academic readiness. More than 290 of those parents were randomly assigned to a parent-training program, where they learned positive discipline strategies. The children of those parents appeared to be happier, more socially competent and less apt to act out than children whose parents didn?t receive the parenting instruction, Webster-Stratton reports. Most of the parents attended more than half of the prescribed training sessions.

In the New Chance study, however, the adolescents and young women spent an average of 17 hours in parenting education?as much as 20 percent less than the 32 to 46 hours specified in the program guidelines.

(Also, the typical Head Start population, while facing adverse conditions such as poverty and crime, lives under less severe circumstances than the New Chance population, Zaslow notes.)

The study shows that some families need more than just a bit of parenting education to improve their children?s academic and social performance. But it does show that even though the New Chance staff couldn?t change the children?s outcomes, they still were able to convince the young mothers to take parenting more seriously. And that could favorably affect the development of the children they bear in the future.

'Previous research says that overall outcomes are worse for teen dropout mothers compared with nondropouts,' says Zaslow. 'But even in such a disadvantaged sample, we demonstrated parenting progress. This may be a little glimmer of hope.'

'Parenting Behavior in a Sample of Young Mothers in Poverty' is available from MDRC by calling (212) 532-3200. An executive summary of the study is available on Child Trends? web site: www.childtrends.org.