ABSTRACT

While there are strong associations between parenting and children’s well-being, it is important to understand these relations in different home environments. This study examined relations of two parenting dimensions previously examined as parental control, controllingness and structure, and child symptomatology with regard to neighbourhood safety. It explored the dangerous neighbourhood hypothesis, suggesting that parents should exert more control in less safe and less control in safer contexts, and a neighbourhood stress hypothesis in which less safe neighbourhoods undermine adaptive parenting and increase child symptomatology. 213 mothers and their sixth-grade children (Mean age = 11 years) participated. Mothers completed questionnaires measuring neighbourhood safety and children’s internalizing and externalizing symptoms, and children completed measures of maternal controllingness and structure provision, and their own internalizing and externalizing symptoms. Maternal controllingness was associated with more and maternal structure with fewer child symptoms. Controllingness was associated with greater child-reported depression in less but not more safe neighbourhoods. Mediation analyses suggested that lower neighbourhood safety was associated with more controllingness which was associated with children’s reports of depression and hostility. Results did not support the dangerous neighbourhood hypothesis, but suggest that less safe neighbourhoods may challenge mothers’ abilities to parent in a way that prevents symptomatology in children.

摘要

虽然养育子女与孩子的幸福感之间存在密切关联，但了解不同家庭环境中的这些关系非常重要。这项研究检查了两个育儿维度的关系，这些维度以前被检查为父母控制、控制和结构，以及与邻里安全有关的儿童症状。它探讨了危险邻里假说，建议父母应该在不太安全的环境中施加更多的控制，在更安全的环境中施加更少的控制，以及邻里压力假说。其中不太安全的社区会破坏适应性育儿并增加儿童症状。213 名母亲和她们六年级的孩子（平均年龄 = 11 岁）参加。母亲完成了测量邻里安全和儿童内化和外化症状的问卷，儿童完成了母亲控制和结构提供的测量，以及他们自己的内化和外化症状。母亲控制与更多和母亲结构与更少的儿童症状有关。在更少但不是更安全的社区中，控制力与儿童报告的更大抑郁症有关。中介分析表明，较低的邻里安全性与更多的控制力有关，这与儿童报告的抑郁和敌意有关。