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. 2025 Jun 6;15(6):786.
doi: 10.3390/bs15060786.

Examining the Relationships Between Parenting Practices, Children's Temperament, and Academic and Behavioural Outcomes in Lower-Income Families

Calpanaa Jegatheeswaran  1 , Samantha Burns  1 , Michal Perlman  1
Affiliations

Examining the Relationships Between Parenting Practices, Children's Temperament, and Academic and Behavioural Outcomes in Lower-Income Families

Calpanaa Jegatheeswaran et al. Behav Sci (Basel). .

Abstract

Maternal childrearing practices play a prominent role in a child's developmental outcomes. Difficult child temperament, specifically, negative emotionality, impacts parenting practices. The present study contributes to the existing literature by investigating the mediating role of parenting practices on associations between children's temperament and academic and behavioural outcomes in a low-income and ethnically diverse sample. The present study consists of a sample of 163 families. The average age of the children was 32.40 months (SD = 2.61 months). The average age of the mothers was 34.35 years (SD = 5.32 years). Structural equation modelling examined the relationship between children's temperament, parenting practices, and child outcomes. A two-step procedure was conducted to test this model: confirmatory factor analysis followed by latent path analysis. The results show that children's temperament was significantly and positively associated with mothers' hostile parenting and children's conduct problems. Hostile parenting was positively associated with children's conduct problems. While overprotective parenting was negatively associated with children's receptive vocabulary scores, maternal responsivity was positively associated with better receptive vocabulary in children. Finally, hostile parenting was found to play a significant and positive mediating role in children's conduct behaviour. Maternal practices are associated with outcomes in children with negative emotionality, underscoring the need for tailored interventions in diverse, low-income families.

Keywords: child outcomes; low-income; parenting; structural equation modelling; temperament.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare no conflicts of interest.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Structural path model with standardized estimates (standard errors in parentheses). The covariates (i.e., child- and parental-level variables) are not shown in the figure for clarity. Information regarding the relationships between covariates and constructs can be seen in Table 2. * p < 0.05, ** p < 0.01, *** p < 0.001.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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