Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-hc48f Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-26T08:02:03.243Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Relations between child self-control, maternal relational frustration, and teacher–child conflict: a longitudinal study with children from dual-earner families

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 November 2020

Tiago Ferreira Open the ORCID record for Tiago Ferreira [Opens in a new window] ,
Joana Cadima ,
Marisa Matias ,
Teresa Leal  and
Paula Mena Matos
Tiago Ferreira*
Affiliation:
Faculty of Psychology and Education Sciences, Center for Psychology at University of Porto, Porto, Portugal
Joana Cadima
Affiliation:
Faculty of Psychology and Education Sciences, Center for Psychology at University of Porto, Porto, Portugal
Marisa Matias
Affiliation:
Faculty of Psychology and Education Sciences, Center for Psychology at University of Porto, Porto, Portugal
Teresa Leal
Affiliation:
Faculty of Psychology and Education Sciences, Center for Psychology at University of Porto, Porto, Portugal
Paula Mena Matos
Affiliation:
Faculty of Psychology and Education Sciences, Center for Psychology at University of Porto, Porto, Portugal
*
Author for Correspondence: Tiago Ferreira, Faculty of Psychology and Education Sciences, University of Porto, Rua Alfredo Allen 4200-135 Porto, Portugal. Email: tiagodsferreira@gmail.com
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

This longitudinal study follows children from dual-earner families in 4 time-points, covering the early childhood period. We examined the influence of work–family conflict (WFC) on maternal relational frustration (RF) towards the child, and investigated the reciprocal relations among maternal RF, children's self-control (SC), and teacher–child (TC) conflict over time. Participants were 214 children (97 girls; M age = 4.00 years), their mothers, and teachers. Mothers reported their own WFC and RF, whereas teachers reported child SC and T-C conflict. Results from a cross-lagged panel model indicated the experience of WFC positively predicted maternal RF. Maternal RF and T-C conflict were negatively related to the child later SC abilities. Conversely, children who displayed SC difficulties were more likely to experience later maternal RF and T-C conflict. There was evidence supporting the bidirectional effects of child SC and T-C conflict across time. Moreover, maternal RF and T-C conflict were indirectly linked, via child SC. The findings are consistent with a transactional view of development, stressing the importance of contextual factors to the quality of caregiving relationships and highlighting the complex and reciprocal relations between child regulatory competence and the quality of relationships with distinct caregivers.

Keywords

child self-controlmaternal work–family conflictmaternal relational frustrationteacher–child conflict
Type
Regular Article
Information
Development and Psychopathology , Volume 34 , Issue 1 , February 2022 , pp. 183 - 196
Check for updates
Copyright
© The Author(s), 2020. Published by Cambridge University Press

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Barnett, M., Shanahan, L., Deng, M., Haskett, M., & Cox, M. (2010). Independent and interactive contributions of parenting behaviors and beliefs in the prediction of early childhood behavior problems. Parenting: Science and Practice, 10, 43–59. doi:10.1080/15295190903014604CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Berry, D. (2012). Inhibitory control and teacher-child conflict: Reciprocal associations across the elementary-school years. Journal of Applied Developmental Psychology, 33, 66–76. doi:10.1016/j.appdev.2011.10.002CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Berry, D., & Willoughby, M. (2017). On the practical interpretability of cross-lagged panel models: Rethinking a developmental workhorse. Child Development, 88, 1186–1206. doi:10.1111/cdev.12660CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Bianconcini, S., & Bollen, K. (2018). The latent variable-autoregressive latent trajectory model: A general framework for longitudinal data analysis. Structural Equation Modeling: A Multidisciplinary Journal, 25, 791–808. doi:10.1080/10705511.2018.1426467CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Blandon, A., Calkins, S., Grimm, K., Keane, S., & O'Brien, M. (2011). Testing a developmental cascade model of emotional and social competence and early peer acceptance. Development and Psychopathology, 22, 737–748. doi:10.1017/S0954579410000428CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bollen, K., & Curran, P. (2004). Autoregressive latent trajectory (ALT) models: A synthesis of two traditions. Sociological Methods & Research, 32, 336–383. doi:10.1177/0049124103260222CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bowlby, J. (1988). A secure base: Parent-child attachment and healthy human development. New York, NY: Basic Books.Google Scholar
Brock, L., & Curby, T. (2014). Emotional support consistency and teacher-child relationships forecast social competence and problem behaviors in prekindergarten and kindergarten. Early Education & Development, 25, 661–680. doi:10.1080/10409289.2014.866020CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bronfenbrenner, U., & Morris, P. (2006). The bioecological model of human development. In Damon, W. & Lerner, R. (Eds.), Handbook of child psychology. Theoretical models of human development (Vol. 1, pp. 793–828). Hoboken, New Jersey: John Wiley & Sons.Google Scholar
Calkins, S., & Ashley, H. (2007). Caregivers influences on emerging emotion regulation: Biological and environmental transactions in early development. In Gross, J. (Ed.), Handbook of emotion regulation (pp. 229–248). New York, NY: Guilford Press.Google Scholar
Carlson, D., Kacmar, K., & Williams, L. (2000). Construction and initial validation of a multidimensional measure of work-family conflict. Journal of Vocational Behavior, 56, 249–276. doi:10.1006/jvbe.1999.1713CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cheung, G., & Rensvold, R. (2002). Evaluating goodness-of-fit indexes for testing measurement invariance. Structural Equation Modeling: A Multidisciplinary Journal, 9, 233–255. doi:10.1207/S15328007SEM0902CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Choe, D., Olson, S., & Sameroff, A. (2013). Effects of early maternal distress and parenting on the development of children's self-regulation and externalizing behavior. Development and Psychopathology, 25, 437–453. doi:10.1017/S0954579412001162CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Cicchetti, D., & Toth, S. (1997). Transactional ecological systems in developmental psychopathology. In Luthar, S., Burack, J., Cicchetti, D. & Weisz, J. (Eds.), Developmental psychopathology: Perspectives on adjustment, risk, and disorder (pp. 317–349). New York, NY: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Coffman, D., & Maccallum, R. (2005). Using parcels to convert path analysis models into latent variable models. Multivariate Behavioral Research, 40, 235–259.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Collins, L., Schafer, J., & Kam, C. (2001). A comparison of inclusive and restrictive strategies in modern missing data procedures. Psychological Methods, 6, 330–351.doi:10.1037//1082-989X.6.4.330CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Cooklin, A., Westrupp, E., Strazdins, L., Giallo, R., Martin, A., & Nicholson, J. (2015). Mothers’ work-family conflict and enrichment: Associations with parenting quality and couple relationship. Child: Care, Health and Development, 41, 266–277. doi:10.1111/cch.12137CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Denham, S., Blair, K., DeMulder, E., Levitas, J., Sawyer, K., Auerbach-Major, S., & Queenan, P. (2003). Preschool emotional competence: Pathway to social competence? Child Development, 74, 238–256.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Denham, S., Workman, E., Cole, P., Weissbrod, C., Kendziora, K., & Zahn-Waxler, C. (2000). Prediction of externalizing behavior problems from early to middle childhood: The role of parental socialization and emotion expression. Development and Psychopathology, 12, 23–45. doi:10.1017/S0954579400001024CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Dong, Y., & Peng, C. (2013). Principled missing data methods for researchers. SpringerPlus, 2, 1–17. doi:10.1186/2193-1801-2-222CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Eisenberg, N., Taylor, Z., Widaman, K., & Spinrad, T. (2015). Externalizing symptoms, effortful control, and intrusive parenting: A test of bidirectional longitudinal relations during early childhood. Development and Psychopathology, 27, 953–968. doi:10.1017/S0954579415000620CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
European Commission/EACEA/Eurydice/Eurostat. (2014). Key Data on Early Childhood Education and Care in Europe. Eurydice and Eurostat Report. Luxembourg: Publications Office of the European Union.Google Scholar
Ferreira, T., Cadima, J., Matias, M., Vieira, J. M., Leal, T., Verschueren, K., & Matos, P. M. (2018). Trajectories of parental engagement in early childhood among dual-earner families: Effects on child self-control. Developmental Psychology, 54, 731–743. doi:10.1037/dev0000458CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Gagne, J. (2017). Self-control in childhood: A synthesis of perspectives and focus on early development. Child Development Perspectives, 11, 127–132. doi:10.1111/cdep.12223CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Garner, P., & Mahatmya, D. (2015). Affective social competence and teacher-child relationship quality: Race/ethnicity and family income level as moderators. Social Development, 24, 678–697. doi:10.1111/sode.12114CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gottfried, A., Gottfried, A., & Bathurst, K. (2002). Maternal and dual-earner employment status and parenting. In Bornstein, M. (Ed.), Handbook of parenting (Volume 2): Biology and ecology of parenting (pp. 207–228). Mahwah, New Jersey: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.Google Scholar
Gresham, F., & Elliont, S. (1990). Social skills rating system manual. Circle Pines, MN: American Guidance Service.Google Scholar
Hamre, B., & Pianta, R. (2001). Early teacher-child relationships and the trajectory of children's school outcomes through eighth grade. Child Development, 72, 625–638. doi:10.1111/1467-8624.00301CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Hu, L., & Bentler, P. (1999). Cutoff criteria for fit indexes in covariance structure analysis: Conventional criteria versus new alternatives. Structural Equation Modeling: A Multidisciplinary Journal, 6, 1–55. doi:10.1080/10705519909540118CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Instituto Nacional de Estatística. (2011). Censos 2011. [2011 Portuguese National Census]. Retrieved March 26, 2014, from http://censos.ine.pt/xportal/xmain?xpid=CENSOS&xpgid=censos2011_apresentacaoGoogle Scholar
Jamshidian, M., & Jalal, S. (2010). Tests of homoscedasticity, normality, and missing completely at random for incomplete multivariate data. Psychometrika, 75, 649–674. doi:10.1007/s11336-010-9175-3.TestsCrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Jöreskog, K. (1970). Estimation and testing of simplex models. British Journal of Mathematical and Statistical Psychology, 23, 121–145. doi:10.1111/j.2044-8317.1970.tb00439.xCrossRefGoogle Scholar
Jorgensen, T., Pornprasertmanit, S., Schoemann, A., & Rosseel, Y. (2018). semTools: Useful tools for structural equation modeling. R package version 0.5-1. Retrieved from https://cran.r-project.org/package=semToolsGoogle Scholar
Kamphaus, R., & Reynolds, C. (2006). Parenting relationship questionnaire. Minneapolis: NCS Pearson.Google Scholar
Karreman, A., Van Tuijl, C., Van Aken, M., & Deković, M. (2009). Predicting young children's externalizing problems: Interactions among effortful control, parenting, and child gender. Merrill-Palmer Quarterly, 55, 111–134.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kopp, C. (1982). Antecedents of self-regulation: A developmental perspective. Developmental Psychology, 18, 199–214. doi:10.1037/0012-1649.18.2.199CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lerner, R. (2006). Developmental science, developmental systems, and contemporary theories of human development. In Lerner, R. (Ed.), Theoretical models of human development (Vol. 1) Handbook of child psychology (6th ed., pp. 1–17). Hoboken, NJ: Wiley.Google Scholar
Little, R. (1988). A test of missing completely at random for multivariate data with missing values. Journal of the American Statistical Association, 83, 1198–1202.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mackinnon, D., Lockwood, C., & Williams, J. (2004). Confidence limits for the indirect effect: Distribution of the product and resampling methods. Multivariate Behavioral Research, 39, 1–24. doi:10.1207/s15327906mbr3901CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Main, M., Kaplan, N., & Cassidy, J. (1985). Security in infancy, childhood, and adulthood: A move to the level of representation. Monographs of the Society for Research in Child Development, 50, 66–104. doi:10.2307/3333827CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Matias, M., Ferreira, T., Vieira, J. M., Cadima, J., Leal, T., & Matos, P. M. (2017). Work-family conflict, psychological availability and child emotion regulation: Spillover and crossover in dual-earner families. Personal Relationships, 24, 634–639. doi:10.1111/pere.12198CrossRefGoogle Scholar
McBride, B., Schoppe, S., & Rane, T. (2002). Child characteristics, parenting stress, and parental involvement: Fathers versus mothers. Journal of Marriage and Family, doi:10.1111/j.1741-3737.2002.00998.xCrossRefGoogle Scholar
McLoyd, V., Toyokawa, T., & Kaplan, R. (2008). Work demands, work-family conflict, and child adjustment in African American families: The mediating role of family routines. Journal of Family Issues, 29, 1247–1267. doi:10.1177/0192513X08320189CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mund, M., & Nestler, S. (2019). Beyond the cross-lagged panel model: Next-generation statistical tools for analyzing interdependencies across the life course. Advances in Life Course Research, 41, 1–11. doi:10.1016/j.alcr.2018.10.002CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Myers, S., & Morris, A. (2009). Examining associations between effortful control and teacher-child relationships in relation to head start children's socioemotional adjustment. Early Education & Development, 20, 756–774. doi:10.1080/10409280802571244CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Newsom, J. (2015). Longitudinal structural equation modeling: A comprehensive introduction. New York, NY: Routledge.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Olson, S., & Lunkenheimer, E. (2009). Expanding concepts of self-regulation to social relationships: Transactional processes in the development of early behavioral adjustment. In Sameroff, A. (Ed.), The transactional model of development: How children and contexts shape each other (pp. 55–76). Washington, DC: American Psychological Association. doi:10.1037/11877-004CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Olson, S., & Sameroff, A. (2009). Biopsychosocial regulatory processes in the development of childhood behavioral problems. Cambridge, MA: Cambridge University Press. doi:10.1007/s13398-014-0173-7.2CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pianta, R. (2001). Student-teacher relationship scale: Professional manual. Odessa: Psychological Assessment Resources.Google Scholar
Pianta, R., Hamre, B., & Stuhlman, M. (2003). Relationships between teachers and children. In Reynolds, W. & Miller, G. (Eds.), Handbook of psychology (Vol. 7): Educational psychology (pp. 199–234). Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons.Google Scholar
Preacher, K., & Selig, J. (2012). Advantages of Monte Carlo confidence intervals for indirect effects. Communication Methods and Measures, 6, 77–98. doi:10.1080/19312458.2012.679848CrossRefGoogle Scholar
R Core Team. (2018). R: A language and environment for statistical computing. Vienna, Austria: R Foundation for Statistical Computing. Retrieved from https://www.r-project.org/Google Scholar
Rindskopf, D. (1984). Using phantom and imaginary latent variables to parameterize constraints in linear structural models. Psychometrika, 49, 37–47. doi:10.1007/BF02294204CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rosseel, Y. (2012). lavaan: An R package for structural equation modeling. Journal of Statistical Software, 48, 1–36.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rothbart, M., & Bates, J. (2006). Temperament. In Eisenberg, N., Damon, W. & Lerner, R. (Eds.), Handbook of child psychology: Vol. 3, Social, emotional, and personality development (6th ed., pp. 99–166). Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons Inc.Google Scholar
Rudasill, K. (2011). Child temperament, teacher-child interactions, and teacher-child relationships: A longitudinal investigation from first to third grade. Early Childhood Research Quarterly, 26, 147–156. doi:10.1016/j.ecresq.2010.07.002CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rudasill, K., & Rimm-Kaufman, S. (2009). Teacher-child relationship quality: The roles of child temperament and teacher-child interactions. Early Childhood Research Quarterly, 24, 107–120. doi:10.1016/j.ecresq.2008.12.003CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sameroff, A., & Chandler, M. (1975). Reproductive risk and the continuum of caretaking casualty. In Horowitz, F., Hetherington, M., Scarr-Salapatek, S. & Siegal, G. (Eds.), Review of child development research (Vol. 4, pp. 187–244). Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Sameroff, A., & MacKenzie, M. (2003). A quarter-century of the transactional model: How have things changed? Zero to Three, 24, 14–22.Google Scholar
Satorra, A., & Bentler, P. (2001). A scaled difference chi-square test statistic for moment structure analysis. Psychometrika, 66, 507–514.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Shaffer, A., Suveg, C., Thomassin, K., & Bradbury, L. (2012). Emotion socialization in the context of family risks: Links to child emotion regulation. Journal of Child and Family Studies, 21, 917–924. doi:10.1007/s10826-011-9551-3CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Smith, C., Calkins, S., Keane, S., Anastopoulos, A., & Shelton, T. (2004). Predicting stability and change in toddler behavior problems: Contributions of maternal behavior and child gender. Developmental Psychology, 40, 29–42. doi:10.1037/0012-1649.40.1.29CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Steinmetz, H., Schmidt, P., Tina-booh, A., Wieczorek, S., & Shalom, S. (2009). Testing measurement invariance using multigroup CFA: Differences between educational groups in human values measurement. Quality & Quantity, 43, 599–616. doi:10.1007/s11135-007-9143-xCrossRefGoogle Scholar
Tangney, J., Baumeister, R., & Boone, A. (2004). High self-control predicts good adjustment, less pathology, better grades, and interpersonal success. Journal of Personality, 72, 271–324. doi:10.1111/j.0022-3506.2004.00263.xCrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Thompson, R., & Meyer, S. (2014). Socialization of emotion and emotion regulation in the family. In Gross, J. (Ed.), Handbook of emotion regulation (2nd ed., pp. 173–185). New York: The Guilford Press.Google Scholar
Tofighi, D., & Mackinnon, D. P. (2016). Monte Carlo confidence intervals for complex functions of indirect effects. Structural Equation Modeling: A Multidisciplinary Journal, 23, 194–205. doi:10.1080/10705511.2015.1057284CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Vahedi, A., Krug, I., & Westrupp, E. M. (2019). Crossover of parents’ work-family conflict to family functioning and child mental health. Journal of Applied Developmental Psychology, 62, 38–49. doi:10.1016/j.appdev.2019.01.001CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Verschueren, K., & Koomen, H. (2012). Teacher-child relationships from an attachment perspective. Attachment & Human Development, 14, 205–211. doi:10.1080/14616734.2012.672260CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Vieira, J. M., Cadima, J., Leal, T., & Matos, P. M. (2013). Validation of a Portuguese version of the Parenting Relationship Questionnaire. Poster session presented at the meeting of the 16th European Conference on Developmental Psychology (ECDP). Lausanne, Switzerland.Google Scholar
Vieira, J. M., Lopez, F., & Matos, P. M. (2014). Further validation of work-family conflict and work-family enrichment scales among Portuguese working parents. Journal of Career Assessment, 22, 329–344. doi:10.1177/1069072713493987CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Vieira, J. M., Matias, M., Ferreira, T., Lopez, F., & Matos, P. M. (2016). Parents’ work-family experiences and children's problem behaviors: The mediating role of the parent-child relationship. Journal of Family Psychology, 30, 419–430. doi:10.1037/fam0000189CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Vieira, J. M., Matias, M., Lopez, F., & Matos, P. M. (2016). Relationships between work-family dynamics and parenting experiences: A dyadic analysis of dual-earner couples. Work & Stress, 30, 234–261. doi:10.1080/02678373.2016.1211772CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Volling, B., Kolak, A., & Blandon, A. (2009). Family subsystems and children's self-regulation. In Olson, S. & Sameroff, A. (Eds.), Biopsychosocial regulatory processes in the development of childhood behavioral problems (pp. 238–257). New York, NY: Cambridge University Press. doi:10.1017/CBO9780511575877.011CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Widaman, K., & Reise, S.. (1997). Exploring the measurement invariance of psychological instruments: Applications in the substance use domain. In Bryant, K. J., Windle, M., & West, S. G. (Eds.), The science of prevention: Methodological advances from alcohol and substance abuse research (pp. 281–324). Washington, DC: American Psychological Association. doi:10.1037/10222-009CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Widaman, K., & Thompson, J. (2003). On specifying the null model for incremental fit indices in structural equation modeling. Psychological Methods, 8, 16–37. doi:10.1037/1082-989X.8.1.16CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Wittig, S., & Rodriguez, C. (2019). Emerging behavior problems: Bidirectional relations between maternal and paternal parenting styles with infant temperament. Developmental Psychology, 55, 1199–1210.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed