Family Stress, Parenting Beliefs and Cognitive and Emotional Reactions Can Lead to Harsh Discipline

The study focused on how parents' socioeconomic (SES) status and ethnicity influenced their discipline practices. The role of parenting beliefs, family stress, parents' perception of the child's behavior and the parents' cognitive and emotional state were also examined. The study had 978 parents with both mothers and fathers (59% were mothers; 82% were European Americans; 16% were African Americans; 2%, other) with 585 kindergarten-aged children.

Parents were asked about their beliefs on the effectiveness of spanking and whether their child should be aggressive (defend him/herself by hitting or other physical contact) to resolve conflict with another child. The amount and level of stress was measured by a parent's marital status, number of children living with the parents, having an unplanned pregnancy, living in an unsafe neighborhood or having conflict in a romantic relationship. The parents were also asked if they felt positively or negatively towards their child and how well they could describe their child as an individual.

Finally, the parents were presented with multiple hypothetical vignettes involving children misbehaving to see how they would discipline their children, and how they would react emotionally or cognitively about this behavior.

Consistent with their hypothesis, the scientists found that low-income parents tended to endorse more harsh discipline responses, in part, because they held stronger beliefs about the value of spanking, and they experienced higher levels of stress. In turn, their higher levels of stress were associated with more negative perceptions of the child and more intense cognitive-emotional reactions. These findings suggest that SES differences in discipline responses were due to differences in parenting beliefs and to more intense cognitive-emotional reactions that are linked to higher levels of stress.

According to the scientists, when highly stressed parents respond to their children misbehavior, they assume that that their child intentionally misbehaved. Also, they worry about their child's future, and often do not see an alternative way to discipline their child.

The scientists suggest that interventions that train parents on self-monitoring of cognitions and affect, as well as problem solving about alternative discipline strategies, may make discipline decisions less reactive and harsh. However, severe SES stressors are not easily addressed with parenting training alone. Programs that reduce external stress on parents may help low income parents to reduce their intense cognitive and emotional reactions to misbehavior, and thus be more open to different discipline strategies.

People working with ACT in the community can gain insights from the article about the cognitive and emotional responses of parents affected by severe SES and other stress factors. Understanding such concerns as using harsh discipline because they worry about their child's future can help ACT professionals work more effectively with such populations. The suggestions from the findings relate very closely to the basic focus of ACT, which is to provide all parents with the knowledge and skills needed to reduce the risk of violence and aggressive behavior in their children. Such skills as anger management (self monitoring), conflict resolution, and positive discipline strategies are taught to parents to give them the tools to establish effective, reasonable discipline without violence.

View press release and original journal article, September 17, 2000, "Family stress, beliefs about parenting and cognitive and emotional reactions to children's misbehavior can lead to harsh discipline, says new study," http://www.apa.org/releases/familystress.html.