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Effects of Grandmother Childcare Involvement, Supportiveness, and Acceptance on Latina Adolescent Mother-Child Dyadic Synchrony

Silberman, Stephanie G
http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=kent1469737222

Abstract Details

2016, PHD, Kent State University, College of Arts and Sciences / Department of Psychological Sciences.
Adolescent mothers are at risk for poor parenting adjustment and their children are at risk for behavior and learning problems. These young mothers’ own mothers (the children’s grandmothers), are a key presence in their lives, but the contribution of grandmother childcare involvement to mother-child interactions is mixed in the literature. Research is needed to better understand the conditions under which grandmother involvement in childcare can be beneficial for mother-child interactional styles like dyadic synchrony, which is characterized by mutual engagement, reciprocity, and warmth. Recent findings suggest that the quality of the mother-grandmother relationship is one of the factors that may determine whether grandmother childcare is beneficial for parenting adjustment. The current study investigated mother-grandmother relationship quality as well as other conditions (e.g., grandmother coresidency with mother, mother nativity status, child gender) that may foster higher levels of dyadic synchrony in a sample of primarily Puerto Rican young mothers (N= 160; Mage=19.5 years) and their toddlers (Mage=18.2 months). Descriptive information on dyadic synchrony measures in this sample, including mutual positive affect, dyadic reciprocity, and a dyadic synchrony composite, is presented. Hierarchical linear regressions examined grandmother coresidency, mother nativity, and child gender as demographic and contextual factors that may qualify how grandmother childcare relates to dyadic synchrony. Findings indicated that higher levels of grandmother childcare involvement related to displays of more dyadic reciprocity for mother-daughter dyads but not mother-son dyads. For the main research question, grandmother supportiveness and acceptance did not moderate the association between grandmother childcare involvement and dyadic synchrony, even after taking into account child and maternal characteristics. However, group differences by gender remained significant, above and beyond grandmother supportiveness and acceptance and grandmother coresidency with mother. Additionally, child age and maternal depression had significant main effects on mutual positive affect. Mothers and their younger toddlers and mothers who reported lower levels of depressive symptoms were more likely to demonstrate mutual positive affect than mothers with older toddlers and mothers who reported higher levels of depressive symptoms. These findings emphasize the importance of assessing multiple contexts when exploring the association between mother-grandmother relationship and mother-child interactions, while also taking into account grandmother, mother, and child individual and developmental characteristics.
Josefina Grau, PhD (Committee Chair)
Beth Wildman, PhD (Committee Member)
Manfred van Dulmen, PhD (Committee Member)
Susan Roxburgh, PhD (Committee Member)
Carla Goar, PhD (Committee Member)
128 p.
Developmental Psychology; Minority and Ethnic Groups; Psychology
adolescent mothers; Latina; maternal behavior; dyadic synchrony; mother-child interactions, grandmother support, intergenerational transmission;

Recommended Citations

Citations

  • Silberman, S. G. (2016). Effects of Grandmother Childcare Involvement, Supportiveness, and Acceptance on Latina Adolescent Mother-Child Dyadic Synchrony [Doctoral dissertation, Kent State University]. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=kent1469737222

    APA Style (7th edition)

  • Silberman, Stephanie. Effects of Grandmother Childcare Involvement, Supportiveness, and Acceptance on Latina Adolescent Mother-Child Dyadic Synchrony. 2016. Kent State University, Doctoral dissertation. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center, http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=kent1469737222.

    MLA Style (8th edition)

  • Silberman, Stephanie. "Effects of Grandmother Childcare Involvement, Supportiveness, and Acceptance on Latina Adolescent Mother-Child Dyadic Synchrony." Doctoral dissertation, Kent State University, 2016. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=kent1469737222

    Chicago Manual of Style (17th edition)

kent1469737222
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© 2016, some rights reserved.Creative Commons License Effects of Grandmother Childcare Involvement, Supportiveness, and Acceptance on Latina Adolescent Mother-Child Dyadic Synchrony by Stephanie G Silberman is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License. Based on a work at etd.ohiolink.edu.
This open access ETD is published by Kent State University and OhioLINK.