Examining the Relations Between Parenting Stress, Harsh Parenting Practices, and Children’s Internalizing and Externalizing Symptoms

This study examines: relations between maternal parenting stress in infancy and preschool-aged children’s internalizing and externalizing symptoms; whether verbal and physical harsh parenting practices mediate these relations; and whether these relations are moderated by child gender. Research links maternal parenting stress to harsh parenting, which is a risk factor for children’s internalizing and externalizing symptoms. But limited research has examined how maternal stress in infancy affects preschool-aged children’s outcomes, or how verbal and physical harsh parenting practices independently affect these outcomes. The study data came from the Future of Families although verbal and physical harsh parenting practices serve as a mediator generally, there is an nonsignificant relation between physical harsh parenting in toddlerhood and externalizing symptoms in preschool-aged children; and preschool-aged children’s outcomes were not moderated by child gender.