Intensity of Parenting Stress, Child Negative Emotionality, and the Interaction of Parent's Self-Regulation Skills

Background: Parenting a child with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is often associated with high levels of parenting stress (Steijn, Oerlemans, Aken, Buitelaar, & Rommelse, 2013). Research suggests children’s individual characteristics, specifically negative emotionality, also affect parenting stress (Pesonen et al., 2008; Tomanik, Harris & Hawkins, 2004). Additionally, maternal self-regulation has been established as a contributing factor to parenting stress (Bridgett, Burt, Laake, & Oddi, 2013; Evans & Wachs, 2011).

Objectives: Consistent with previous research, we propose self-regulation skills of negative emotions may serve to moderate the effects of children’s negative emotionality on parental stress regardless of developmental status.

Methods: Our preliminary sample included 61 children (ages 3:1 to 6:11) and their parents.  Thirty-eight children (45% female) were typically developing; 23 children with ASD (17% female). Intensity of parenting stress was measured using the parent-reported Parenting Events Questionnaire (Crnic & Greenberg, 1990), which assesses the frequency and intensity of parenting stress. Negative emotionality was measured by parent ratings of their child’s emotional intensity using items adapted from Larsen and Diener’s Affective Intensity Measure (1987). Parents’ self-regulation skills were coded from audiotaped responses to the Meta-Emotion Interview (MEI; Katz & Gottman, 1986).

Results: Hierarchical regression analysis was utilized to examine the influence of status and negative emotionality (NE) in children with ASD and TD and parent’s self-regulation skills (SR) on parenting stress. In our preliminary research, we found that that neither diagnostic status, child NE nor the interaction between status and child NE significantly predicted intensity ratings for parenting stress (t = .537, p = .594; t=.057, p = .295; F(1,56)F= 0.691, p= .409, respectively). However parent SR was a significant predictor of parenting stress intensity (t =-2.933, p = .005). In the current study we investigated whether the relation between child NE and stress intensity was moderated by parents’ self-regulation. Diagnostic status, parent self-regulation, and child negative emotionality were entered in the first step and predicted significant variance, ΔR² = .16, F(3, 57) = 3.70, p = .017. The interaction between child negative emotionality and parent self-regulation skills entered in the second step, accounted for significant variance in parenting stress intensity, ΔR² = .23, F(1, 56) = 4.618, p= .036. As can be seen (see Figure 1), parents’ strong SR skills appeared to buffer them from high stress intensity even when their child was high in NE.  In contrast, the stress of parents with lower SR skills was strongly linked to their child’s NE.   

Conclusions: Our findings suggest that parenting stress may be related to child characteristics and parent resources. Specifically, our study suggests that parent self-regulation strategies of negative emotions moderate the relation between negative emotionality and parental stress. Furthermore, the findings are significant for children with ASD and TD providing promising evidence for the role of parental self-regulatory techniques for reducing parental stress, especially the intensity of stress.  Future research should investigate the different types of parental regulation techniques used with children with ASD and TD to reduce parental stress.