Publication Date

1-11-2021

Document Type

Article

Organizational Units

College of Arts Humanities and Social Sciences, Psychology

Keywords

Early childhood, Hypothalamic–pituitary–adrenal (HPA) axis, Parenting, Poverty, Stress

Abstract

Experiencing poverty increases vulnerability for dysregulated hypothalamic–pituitary–adrenal (HPA) axis functioning and compromises long-term health. Positive parenting buffers children from HPA axis reactivity, yet this has primarily been documented among families not experiencing poverty. We tested the theorized power of positive parenting in 124 parent–child dyads recruited from Early Head Start (Mage = 25.21 months) by examining child cortisol trajectories using five samples collected across a standardized stress paradigm. Piecewise latent growth models revealed that positive parenting buffered children's stress responses when controlling for time of day, last stress task completed, and demographics. Positive parenting also interacted with income such that positive parenting was especially protective for cortisol reactivity in families experiencing greater poverty. Findings suggest that positive parenting behaviors are important for protecting children in families experiencing low income from heightened or prolonged physiologic stress reactivity to an acute stressor.

Copyright Date

1-11-2021

Copyright Statement / License for Reuse

Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

Publication Statement

Copyright is held by the authors. User is responsible for all copyright compliance. This article was originally published by Cambridge University Press as:

Brown, S. M., Schlueter, L. J., Hurwich-Reiss, E., Dmitrieva, J., Miles, E., & Watamura, S. E. (2021). Parental buffering in the context of poverty: positive parenting behaviors differentiate young children's stress reactivity profiles. Development and Psychopathology 32(Special Issue 5), 1778-1787. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0954579420001224

Rights Holder

Samantha M. Brown, Lisa J. Schlueter, Eliana Hurwich-Reiss, Julia Dmitrieva, Elly Miles, Sarah Enos Watamura

Provenance

Received from author

File Format

application/pdf

Language

English (eng)

Extent

10 pgs

File Size

529 KB

Publication Title

Development and Psychopathology

Volume

32(Special Issue 5)

First Page

1779

Last Page

1787

ISSN

1469-2198

PubMed ID

33427174

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