Resilience and the course of daily parenting stress in families of young children with intellectual disabilities

Resilience and the course of daily parenting stress infamilies of young children with intellectual disabilitiesjir_1220 981..997

E. D. Gerstein,1 K.A. Crnic,1 J. Blacher2 & B. L. Baker3

1 Arizona State University, Department of Psychology,Tempe, Arizona, USA2 University of California, Graduate School of Education, Riverside, California, USA3 University of California, Department of Psychology, Los Angeles, California, USA

Abstract

Background Parenting stresses have consistentlybeen found to be higher in parents of children withintellectual disabilities (ID); yet, some families areable to be resilient and thrive in the face of thesechallenges. Despite the considerable research onstress in families of ID, there is still little knownabout the stability and compensatory factors associ-ated with everyday parenting stresses.Methods Trajectories of daily parenting stress werestudied for both mothers and fathers of childrenwith ID across child ages 36–60 months, as werespecific familial risk and resilience factors that affectthese trajectories, including psychological well-beingof each parent, marital adjustment and positiveparent–child relationships.Results Mothers’ daily parenting stress significantlyincreased over time, while fathers’ daily parentingstress remained more constant. Decreases inmothers’ daily parenting stress trajectory were asso-ciated with both mother and father’s well-being andperceived marital adjustment, as well as a positivefather–child relationship. However, decreases infathers’ daily parenting stress trajectory were onlyaffected by mother’s well-being and both parents’perceived marital adjustment.

Conclusions Parenting stress processes are notshared entirely across the preschool period inparents of children with ID. Although individualparent characteristics and high-quality dyadic rela-tionships contribute to emerging resilience inparents of children with ID, parents also affect eachothers’ more resilient adaptations in ways that havenot been previously considered.

Keywords fathers, intellectual disability, mothers,parenting stress, resilience

Introduction

Historically, a child’s diagnosis of an intellectualdisability (ID) was considered a traumatic experi-ence for families (Wolfensberger & Menolascino1970; Blacher et al. 2002). Subsequent to the diag-nosis, parents were thought to take a more negativeview towards their child, and face increased stresswith regard to their upbringing and future (Kanner1953). A wealth of research continues to suggestthat families of children with ID face increasedstressors (Blacher et al. 2005). Indeed, levels ofstress have been found to be higher in parents ofchildren with ID than in their typically developingcounterparts (Hauser-Cram et al. 2001), perhapsdue to frequent comorbid behaviour problems(Baker et al. 2003). Despite these greater stresses, itis apparent that certain parents and families are

Correspondence: Ms Emily D. Gerstein, Arizona State University,Psychology, 950 S. McAllister Ave, Box 871104, Tempe, Arizona85287-1104, USA (e-mail: [email protected]).

Journal of Intellectual Disability Research doi: 10.1111/j.1365-2788.2009.01220.x

volume 53 part 12 pp 981–997 december 2009981

© 2009 The Authors. Journal Compilation © 2009 Blackwell Publishing Ltd

well adapted and appear resilient in the face of thechallenges apparent. But given the diversity inadaptations seen in families of children with ID,there is a need to identify those factors and pro-cesses that lead to more resilient outcomes whileother parents become increasingly stressed overtime.

It has been previously suggested that family adap-tation may be based on the interplay of experiencedstress, available coping resources, and ecologicalcontexts in which the individual family mustoperate (Crnic et al. 1983). Other conceptualisationshave focused more directly on factors that may leadto the perceived stress in families of children withID, suggesting that child characteristics, socialsupport, personal and family system resources, andother life stressors may play an important role(Heiman 2002; Perry 2005; Blacher & Baker 2007;Pottie & Ingram 2008). With notables exceptions(e.g. Hauser-Cram et al. 2001), few longitudinalstudies exist that explore the complex developmen-tal processes detailing risk and resilience in familiesof children with ID. Thus, the overall aim of thecurrent study is to examine the trajectories of dailyparenting stress in families of children with ID, andexplore specific risk and compensatory factors thatlead to more resilient patterns in these parents.

Daily parenting stress

Stress has long been identified as an importantdeterminant of family functioning and family rela-tionships. Although many facets of stress have beenassociated with parenting and child development,including life stress (Crnic et al. 2005) and financialstrain (Conger et al. 1992), stress specific to parent-ing is a particularly salient issue for families. Parent-ing stress has been conceptualised from multipleperspectives, but often targets the everyday chal-lenges and demands of caregiving (Crnic & Low2002). Deater-Deckard (2005) has suggested thatsuch daily parenting stresses play a critically impor-tant role in the development of parenting andsubsequently, in children’s psychological and devel-opmental well-being.

Considerable attention has been paid to theincreased stress levels of families raising a child withID (Crnic et al. 1983; Orr et al. 1993; Baker et al.1997, 2003, Fidler et al. 2000). Beyond the stress of

the diagnosis and adjustment, families experienceincreased caregiving demands (Crnic et al. 1983),additional financial strain (Gunn & Berry 1987;Parish et al. 2004) and attitudes of professionalsand schools in their reaction to the child (Blacher &Hatton 2007). Across this literature, stress has beenexamined in terms of major life change (Sarasonet al. 1978), stresses specifically associated withhaving a child with ID (Friedrich et al. 1983) andthe impact on the family as a result of having achild with ID (Donenberg & Baker 1993). But theexperience of stress varies as a function of indi-vidual appraisal, and differences exist both betweenand within families. In general, there is amplereason to expect that stress may affect mothers andfathers differently (Crnic & Booth 1991; Creasey &Reese 1996; McDonald & Almeida 2004), andHerring et al. (2006) found that on average, fathersof children with ID report less stress than domothers, although findings on the effects of parentgender have proven complex (Gray 2003; Hastings2003). Although the research to date has beeninformative regarding family stress, few studies offamilies of children with ID have focused specifi-cally on the stress perceived by parents as result ofparenting. For these families, examining the every-day stressors and hassles associated with rearing achild with ID may be particularly salient (Crnic &Low 2002). Furthermore, although the evidence isclear that parents of children with ID face greaterlevels of parenting stress (Fidler et al. 2000; Hauser-Cram et al. 2001; Baker et al. 2002), little is knownabout stress over time, the trajectory of parents’stressful experience or the factors that may influ-ence these trajectories.

Factors affecting the experience ofdaily parenting stress

Within the developmental literature, parental resil-ience in the face of stressful experience has beenmuch discussed (Luthar 2007). Nonetheless, wehave only incremental knowledge of those factorsthat might predict parental and family response tostress. This is especially true in relation to familieswith a child with ID, and it is important to expli-cate those factors that play a compensatory role,and are associated with greater resilience in thesefamilies.

982Journal of Intellectual Disability Research volume 53 part 12 december 2009

E. D. Gerstein et al. • Resilience and daily parenting stress


It has been well argued that resilience is not atrait, nor should it be considered an adjective todescribe an individual (Luthar & Zelazo 2003); it ismore a process that involves contextual elements,the population of interest, the specific risk involved,the promotive factors and the outcomes (Fergus &Zimmerman 2005). Much of the work identifyingresilience processes has involved the study of eithercompensatory or protective processes. Models ofcompensatory process involve a direct effect ofsome promotive factor on an outcome; Fergus &Zimmerman (2005) define a compensatory modelof resilience to be one in which a ‘promotive factorcounteracts or operates in an opposite direction of arisk factor (p. 491)’. In contrast, models of protec-tive processes operate to moderate or reduce theeffects of a risk on some negative outcome (Lutharet al. 2000; Fergus & Zimmerman 2005).

A number of factors have been addressed in theliterature as potentially compensatory, from bothindividual and familial perspectives (Luthar 2003).Among this universe of potential compensatoryfactors, we contend that three may be particularlysalient and adaptive: parental psychological well-being or health, a supportive partner or intimaterelationship and a positive parent–child relationship.Parental well-being and supportive partnershipshave shown some merit as possible compensatoryfactors in previous research, although the presenceof an established positive parent–child relationshiphas to date rarely been considered as a predictor ofmore positive adaptations.

Parental well-being

Research has consistently shown associationsbetween parental symptomatology and everydayparenting hassles (Crnic & Low 2002) and alsobeen indicated as a predictor of parenting stress(Chang & Fine 2007; Williford et al. 2007). Forparents of children with ID, psychological distressmay be a particularly important risk factor andwell-being a compensatory one. Parents of childrenwith ID report high levels of symptomatology(Emerson et al. 2004; Feldman et al. 2007), oftenhigher than parents of typically developing children(Olsson & Hwang 2001; Herring et al. 2006).Although symptomatology and well-being are notidentical constructs, absence of symptomatology has

previously been used as a proxy for well-being inresearch on families of children with ID (Bakeret al. 2005; Eisenhower et al. 2005; Kersh et al.2006). As parents of children with ID are at greaterrisk for increased symtomatology, the absence ofsuch distress may be considered resilient and acharacteristic of well-being in these families (Fergus& Zimmerman 2005). Thus, the parents with betterwell-being and who can maintain a more positivemental health status may be better able to bettercope with stressful demands of caregiving.

Marital quality

The resilience literature has suggested that having asupportive person in one’s life is an importantfactor in resilience (Luthar 2007), and otherresearch has found that a high-quality marriage maybe compensatory for families with psychologicaldistress (Davies & Cummings 2006). Recentresearch has found that having a good relationshipwith an intimate partner is associated withdecreases in parenting stress (Mulsow et al. 2002),while single parenthood predicts greater levels ofparenting stress (Williford et al. 2007). For couplesof children with ID, a meta-analysis revealed thatthere is a small but significant decrease in maritalsatisfaction (Risdal & Singer 2004). However,greater marital quality in these couples has also pre-dicted lower parenting stress, even after consideringthe influence of socioeconomic status, child charac-teristics and other measures of social support(Kersh et al. 2006). A supportive partner likelyshares the burden of caregiving better, perhapscompensating for the generally high levels ofparenting stress in these families.

Parent–child relationship quality

Although not often considered a moderator or aprotective factor, the quality of the parent–childrelationship may also be an important compensa-tory predictor of daily parenting stress. Parent–child relationships in families of children with IDtend to be more directive, although this directive-ness does not indicate that these parents are lessaffectionate, positive or warm (Marfo 1990; Roachet al. 1998). In fact, research tends to suggest thatthe role of parent–child relationships operate simi-larly for typically developing children and children




with ID (Guralnick et al. 2007). Further, a positiveparent–child relationship has consistently beenshown to be associated with positive child out-comes in typically developing children as well aschildren with ID (Mink et al. 1983; Hauser-Cramet al. 1999; Spiker et al. 2002). Although parentinghassles have been associated with decreases in thequality of family relationships (Crnic & Greenberg1990), transactional influences of the parent–childrelationship on daily parenting stresses is less well-known. Such processes are conceptually importantto stress and family adaptation (Crnic et al. 1983),wherein a positive parent–child relationship mayfacilitate better functioning across a range ofpossible adaptive outcomes, including lowerstress.

Cross-parent risk

The true complexity of families suggests that influ-ences are likely to be much more complicated thanthe pervasive within-parent models suggest. Indeed,aspects of fathers’ functioning may well affectmothers’ daily stress, and in turn, aspects ofmothers’ functioning may affect fathers’ experienceof stress. Such crossover effects have been exam-ined in the family-work literature to inconclusivefindings (Perry-Jenkins et al. 2000). Crouter et al.(1999) found that when the husband feels greaterstress at work, the wife experiences greater symp-toms of depression. However, the wife’s pressure atwork did not result in significant increases insymptomatology for the husband. Other studieshave also found mixed support for crossover effectsstress literature (Wortman et al. 1991; Stewart &Barling 1996). In families with a child with ID,prior research has indicated some support forcross-parent effects in that parental stress wasaffected by the opposite partner’s symptomatology,particularly for fathers (Hastings 2003; Hastingset al. 2005). Still, very little is still known as tohow crossover effects affect the experience of dailyparenting stresses in populations in which stressesare known to be more frequent. The extent towhich there may be crossover predictions ofparenting stress, and the degree to which certainpredictors may be more salient for one parentmerit much further attention in developing modelsof family stress experience.

The present study

Given the increased focus on resilience in the litera-ture, as well as the relation between daily parentingstress and ID, this study addresses two major ques-tions for parents of ID. First, this study examinesthe trajectories of daily parenting stress for mothersand fathers of children with ID, considering boththe absolute and relative stability over time by iden-tifying growth curves for both parents. Second, thestudy addresses three specific risk and compensa-tory factors may affect these trajectories of dailyparenting stress: parental well-being, marital adjust-ment and a positive parent–child relationship. Eachfactor is explored for its effect on the daily parent-ing stresses of the same parent, as well as the cross-over effects on the opposite parent’s perception ofdaily parenting stress.

Methods

Participants

The participants were 115 families of 3-year-oldchildren with ID. Participants in the study werepart of a longitudinal study of families of both typi-cally developing children and children with ID whohad been recruited to participate from child ages 36

to 60 months. One-fourth of these families werefrom a rural/suburban community Central Pennsyl-vania and three-fourths were from Southern Cali-fornia. The children with ID were primarilyrecruited from community agencies serving familiesof children with ID. The selection criteria for thestudy were (1) child ages between 30 and 40

months; (2) a score on the Bayley Scales of InfantDevelopment II (BSID II; Bayley 1993 – see below)between 30 and 85; (3) child must be ambulatory;and (4) no diagnosis of autism.

The children in the study had an average MentalDevelopmental Index (MDI) score of 59.97, with astandard deviation of 12.71, and 66.1% of the chil-dren were male. On average, both parents com-pleted some college, and the median number ofyears of college for each parent was 14 years. Themedian income level for families was between$35 000 and $50 000. Overall, 58.3% of mothersidentified as Caucasian, while 57.4% of fathersidentified as Caucasian.




Overall, 23 subjects dropped out of the study by60 months. This is an attrition rate of 20% over 2

years. No differences between families who droppedout and those who remained were found among anystudy or demographic variables.

Procedures

Prior to the initial appointment, parents completeda telephone intake interview and received projectdescriptions and an informed consent procedure.At the initial appointment, two trained researchassistants visited the family and obtained demo-graphic information and administered the BSID IIto assess the developmental level of the child. Atthe time of the initial assessment, both the motherand father were given a booklet of questionnairesto complete, which were returned by mail.Measures of psychological well-being andmarital adjustment were included in thesebooklets.

Naturalistic home observations were alsoconducted every 6 months from child ages 36 to60 months. These home observations werescheduled at times when the entire family wouldbe present, which most often occurred in the earlyevening. At the beginning of each visit, bothparents rated their daily parenting hassles (seebelow). Once the hassles scale was completed, theobservational sessions began. Families were askedto behave as they normally would, and observersattempted to stay in the background but followedthe child as a central observational focus of thehome-based interactions. The observers collectedinformation over discrete periods of coding, witheach period lasting 10 min. Following a 10-minobservational episode, a 5-min period ratingperiod ensued in which the observers ratedvarious codes of parent, child and dyadic behav-iour. All observers were trained by watching video-taped home observation and attending live homeobservations with an experienced observer/coderuntil reliability was established. Trainingreliability criteria were set as a minimum of 70%exact agreement and 95% agreement within onescale point of the criterion coder. To maintainreliability within and across sites, reliabilitybetween coders was maintained at kappa = 0.6 orhigher.

Measures

Developmental level

Developmental level was determined by using theBSID-II (Bayley 1993); a widely used measure ofmental and motor development for child ages 1–42

months. It was administered in the home with themother present. Only the MDI of the BSID-II wasgiven. The MDI is normed with a mean of 100 anda standard deviation of 15. Bayley (1993) hasreported high test–retest reliability with the MDI(r = 0.91).

Daily parenting stress

Daily parenting stress (or parenting hassles) wasassessed with the parenting daily hassles (PDH)measure (Crnic & Greenberg 1990). As noted, eachparent independently completed the hasslesmeasure at the beginning of each home observation.The PDH consists of 20 specific items related tochild behaviours and parenting tasks that can betrying or challenging for parents. Using 5-pointscales for each item, the parent was asked to rateboth how often the hassle occurred and how muchof a hassle the item was perceived to be. Examplesof items include being whined at or being com-plained to, difficulty getting privacy, sibling fightingrequires a referee and having to change plansbecause of unplanned child need. Two summaryscores were created: the frequency of parentinghassles and the perceived intensity of those hassles.The intensity score is an index of appraised stress-fulness by the parent, whereas the frequency reflectsonly the presence of stressors. Prior research hasindicated that individual cognitive appraisal of sig-nificant events as stressful is the primary factor thatpredicts the impact of a stressor (Lazarus et al.1985). Thus, the perceived intensity of hassles ateach year was used in the study. Adequate reliabilityand validity for this measured has been previouslyreported (Crnic & Greenberg 1990).

Parental well-being

Well-being was measured using the SymptomChecklist-35 (SCL; Derogatis 1993), a widely usedmeasured of symptomatology and parent well-being. The SCL-35 is a short-form of the SCL-90




and the Brief Symptom Inventory. Adequate reli-ability for this measure (Cronbach’s alpha = 0.84)has been previously reported (Cicirelli 2000).Higher scores on the SCL-35 reflect more psycho-logical symptoms, and lower scores are indicative ofgreater well-being.

Marital adjustment

Marital adjustment was measured with the DyadicAdjustment Scale (DAS; Spanier 1976, 1979). Aswith the SCL, each parent separately completed theDAS at 36 months and returned the booklet viamail. The DAS has four sub-scales: affection, cohe-sion, conflict and satisfaction. The total summaryscore of marital adjustment for each parent wasused for analysis. Adequate reliability for thismeasure (Cronbach’s alpha = 0.96) has been pre-viously reported (Spanier 1976).

Parent–child interaction

Data for positive parent–child interactions wereobtained using the Parent Child Interaction RatingScale (PCIRS; Belsky et al. 1995). Although thePCIRS includes categories of individual parent andchild behavioural qualities, only ratings of dyadicquality were of interest in this study. Further, giventhe focus on resilience and compensatory factors,our specific focus was on indices of parent–childpleasure in interaction. As described above, theratings of dyadic parent–child pleasure were madeafter each of six 10-min observational codingperiods. Dyadic pleasure was rated on a scale of 1

(low) to 5 (high), and was defined as the extent ofmutual enjoyment evidenced by both the parentand child across the interaction episode. Dyadicpleasure scores were obtained for both parents andaveraged across all coding periods. As reportedearlier, reliability was maintained at kappa = 0.6 orabove. Only those parent–child dyadic pleasureratings obtained at 36 months were used in thisstudy.

Data analytic plan

Latent growth structural equation modelling usingMplus version 4.1 (Muthén & Muthén 2005) wereused to test the hypotheses regarding PDH overtime and risk and resilience factors that may predict

daily parenting stress trajectories. Singer & Willett(2003) suggest that growth modelling is better ableto capitalise on the richness of longitudinal datathan are other methods because it can more accu-rately measure and model rates of change. Growthmodelling allows for examination of both the trajec-tory of parenting stress as well as the level of stressat any particular timepoint. Recently, Burchinalet al. (2006) argued that latent growth curves arepreferable to univariate and multivariate repeatedmeasures because latent growth curves are able toassess measurement error in the predictors as wellas the slope.

In this study, growth models were estimated sepa-rately for mothers’ and fathers’ PDH, because ofpotential multicolinearity among variables. Lineargrowth models estimate two latent factors, one rep-resenting the level of PDH at a given timepoint (i.e.the intercept) and one representing the change inPDH over time (i.e. the slope) (Duncan et al.1999). Analyses used the self-reported PDH scoreat child ages 36, 48 and 60 months (see Fig. 1 foranalysis model). In all analyses, the intercept wasset so that time was centred at 60 months.

As there was attrition in the study that was notaccounted for by any demographic or study vari-ables, models were estimated using maximum likeli-hood estimation with full information maximumlikelihood. This method has been shown to properlyaccount for missing data well under these circum-stances (Enders & Bandalos 2001).

Predictors of PDH were all measured at 36

months and centred at their mean value. Analysescontrolled for maternal education in models of

PDH60

Slope

1

1 1 -2 -1

0

PDH36 PDH48

Intercept

Figure 1 Analysis model of parenting daily hassles (PDH) growthcurve.




mothers’ PDH, and controlled for paternal educa-tion in models of fathers’ PDH. Four models wererun for each parent; one for parent symptoms, twofor marital adjustment and one for parent–childrelationship. Two models of marital adjustment wererun because of the high correlation betweenmother-reported marital adjustment and father-reported marital adjustment (r = 0.684). Theparent–child relationship factors indicated someskewness, so in analyses involving parent–child rela-tionship, estimation was made using the Satorra-Bentler method (ML Robust; Satorra & Bentler1994). This method gives more accurate parameterestimates, but its chi-square needs to be recalcu-lated using a correction factor to account for skew.Reported chi-squares in these analyses use the cor-rected chi-square statistic.

Results

Descriptives

Descriptive statistics are reported for all variables inthe model (see Table 1). Reliability was sufficientfor all scales used, ranging from Cronbach’sa = 0.822 to a = 0.908 (see Table 1). Paired-samplet-tests were used to calculate differences in themeans of all variables for both parents, and resultsindicated that mothers reported significantly higherlevels of PDH than did fathers at 48 and 60

months, respectively, t(80) = 3.366, P = 0.001,t(72) = 3.462, P < 0.001. A table of intercorrelations

is presented between mother and father reports ofthe PDH and all other variables (see Table 2). Cor-relations indicate strong associations within parentPDH across time, while moderate correlations ofPDH across time were found between mothers andfathers. Although two cumulative composites of allrisk factors for mothers and fathers were planned,the low correlations among variables suggested thatsuch composites would not have adequate reliability(i.e. indices of maternal well-being and mother–child relationship were uncorrelated).

Growth models of parenting daily hassles

With respect to the general model shown in Fig. 1,the model for mothers’ PDH over time hadadequate fit, c2(1) = 2.750, P = ns, CFI = 0.990,RMSEA = 0.127, SRMR = 0.030. The meanintercept and slope were significantly differentfrom zero. The intercept at 60 months wasB = 50.343(SE = 1.395), P < 0.001 and the slope wasB = 1.185(SE = 0.527), P = 0.012. Although theintercept had significant variance (s2 = 164.921,P < 0.001), the variance of the slope was nonsigifi-cant (s2 = 4.123, P < ns). Figure 2 represents thelatent growth of mothers’ and fathers’ parentinghassles over time, as well as the plotted means.

The model for fathers’ PDH initially resulted inan improper solution (negative variance estimate).To solve this problem, the variance of slope was setto zero and the covariance between slope and inter-cept was set to zero. The resulting model for

Table 1 Descriptive statistics

Mothers Fathers

T-testMean SD Range Alpha Mean SD Range Alpha

PDH at 36 months 47.42 14.679 69 0.905 44.64 12.310 58 0.877 1.945†

PDH at 48 months 50.21 14.458 65 0.907 43.41 12.796 64 0.877 3.366**PDH at 60 months 49.87 13.999 70 0.880 45.05 13.655 55 0.908 3.462**SCL at 36 months 24.31 18.461 92 0.839 17.15 15.876 85 0.854 3.381**DAS at 36 months 107.26 24.162 118 0.9 110.25 19.377 99 0.822 -1.047P–C pleasure at 36 months 1.55 0.648 3.50 – 1.62 0.681 3.17 – -0.432Education 14.34 2.402 10 – 13.97 2.725 14 – 1.577

PDH, parenting daily hassles; SCL, Symptom Checklist; DAS, Dyadic Adjustment Scale.Note: † P < 0.07, *P < 0.05, ** P < 0.001.




fathers’ PDH indicated good fit, c2(3) = 2.003,P = ns, CFI = 1.000, RMSEA = 0.000,SRMR = 0.056. The intercept was significantly dif-ferent from zero at 60 months, B = 45.155

(SE = 1.407), P < 0.001, and had significant vari-ance (s2 = 14.526, P < 0.001). However, the slopewas found to be nonsignficant, B = 0.361

(SE = 0.627), P = ns.

Prediction of parenting daily hasslesfrom well-being

Structural equation modelling was used to test theeffects of same parent and cross-parent well-beingon the intercept and slope of PDH. Recall that the

SCL provides an index of psychological symptoma-tology where high scores indicate more symptoms.Low scores on this measure are reflective of greaterwell-being. Same-parent education was also used asa covariate. For models examining fathers’ PDH,parameter estimates were only calculated for theintercept, given the lack of significant slope or slopevariance for fathers’ PDH.

For the model of well-being predicting thegrowth model of mothers’ PDH, the model indi-cated good fit, c2(4) = 3.867, P = ns, CFI = 1.00,RMSEA = 0.00, SRMR = 0.021, and the fit was sig-nificantly better than the nested model predictingparenting hassles alone. See Fig. 3 for specific find-ings. Results indicated that maternal symptomatol-ogy at 3 years was associated with a higher interceptof mothers’ PDH at 5 years (B = 0.454, SE = 0.073,P < 0.001), and that fathers’ symptomatology wasassociated with an increase in the slope of mothers’parenting hassles over time (B = 0.109, SE = 0.043,P < 0.05).

For the model examining fathers’ PDH as pre-dicted by well-being, the model had good fit,c2(9) = 5.455, P = ns, CFI = 1.00, RMSEA = 0.00,SRMR = 0.042, and the fit was significantly betterthan the nested model predicting parenting hasslesalone. Results indicated that mothers’ symptomatol-ogy at 3 years was positively associated with theintercept for fathers’ daily hassles, B = 0.205

(SE = 0.067), P < 0.001. All other effects of

Table 2 Correlation table of parenting daily hassles over time

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12

1. Mom PDH36 – 0.439** 0.731** 0.249* 0.744** 0.251* 0.607** 0.133 -0.390** -0.190 -0.111 0.0052. Dad PDH36 – 0.359** 0.566** 0.363** 0.686** 0.350** 0.201 -0.433** -0.414** 0.013 0.0343. Mom PDH48 – 0.268* 0.784** 0.303* 0.566** 0.191 -0.301* -0.235* -0.070 -0.0554. Dad PDH48 – 0.231* 0.610** 0.274* 0.242* -0.234* -0.355** -0.097 -0.0325. Mom PDH60 – 0.456** 0.601** 0.290* -0.255* -0.206 -0.057 -0.1016. Dad PDH60 – 0.442** 0.349* -0.229† -0.405** 0.086 0.0057. Mom SCL – 0.486** -0.374** -0.244* -0.093 0.0038. Dad SCL – -0.163 -0.163 -0.057 -0.0449. Mom DAS – 0.684** 0.156 0.13910. Dad DAS – 0.119 0.17811. Mom P–C pleasure – 0.521**12. Dad P–C pleasure –

PDH, parenting daily hassles; SCL, Symptom Checklist; DAS, Dyadic Adjustment Scale.Note: † P < 0.07; * P < 0.05; ** P < 0.001.

42

43

44

45

46

47

48

49

50

51

52

3 4 5Child Age

Dai

ly P

aren

tin

g H

as

sle

s Mom PDHTrajectoryDad PDHTrajectoryMom PDHmeansDad PDHMeans

Figure 2 Growth models of parenting daily hassles (PDH)over time.




well-being on fathers’ parenting hassles were non-significant. See Fig. 4 for specific findings.

Prediction of parenting daily hassles frommarital adjustment

Four models assessing the effect of perceivedmarital adjustment on parenting hassles were run.For the model with mothers’ PDH as predicted bymother’s reported marital adjustment, the modelindicated good fit, c2(3) = 4.093, P = ns,CFI = 0.994, RMSEA = 0.056, SRMR = 0.027, andthe fit was better than the nested model predictingparenting hassles alone. Results indicated that

mother-reported marital adjustment at 36 monthswas negatively associated with the intercept ofmothers’ daily hassles, B = -0.153 (SE = 0.058),P < 0.01, but not significantly associated with theslope, B = 0.037 (SE = 0.022), P = ns. See Fig. 5 forspecific results. The model assessing mothers’ PDHas predicted by father’s reported marital adjustmentfound similar results in that adjustment was signifi-cantly negatively associated with the intercept(B = -0.159, SE = 0.077, P < 0.05), but not theslope (B = -0.003, SE = 0.030, P = ns) (see Fig. 6

for results). This model also indicated good fit,c2(3) = 4.453, P = ns, CFI = 0.992, RMSEA =0.065, SRMR = 0.022, and the fit was better than

Maternal Education

Mother SCL at 36 mos

Father SCL at 36 mos

Intercept Mom PDH

Slope Mom PDH

.454 (.073)***

-.062 (.032)†

-.017 (.096)

.109 (.043)*

.597 (.490)

.351 (.217)

9.058 (12.420)***

-8.296 (4.088)*

-3.960 (4.287)

Figure 3 Parental well-being as predictorof the growth of mothers’ parenting dailyhassles (PDH). Numbers representunstandardized path coefficients, andtheir associated standard errors.†P < 0.07, *P < 0.05, **P < 0.01,***P < 0.001. SCL, parental well-being.

Paternal Education

Father SCL at 36 mos

Mother SCL at 36 mos

Intercept Dad PDH

Slope Dad PDH

.092 (.078)

.205 (.067)**

.461 (.389)

146.252 (34.584)***

-3.890 (5.396)

-2.924 (4.751)

Figure 4 Parental well-being as predictorof the growth of fathers’ parenting dailyhassles (PDH). Numbers representunstandardized path coefficients, andtheir associated standard errors. Slopevariance was fixed to zero. Grey dashedlines indicate parameters fixed to 0.†P < 0.07, *P < 0.05, **P < 0.01,***P < 0.001. SCL, parental well-being.




the nested model predicting parenting hasslesalone.

The model examining fathers’ PDH as predictedby father-reported marital adjustment had good fitc2(7) = 6.192, P = ns, CFI = 1.00, RMSEA = 0.000,SRMR = 0.052 (see Fig. 7), and the fit was betterthan the nested model predicting parenting hasslesalone. Results indicated that father-reported maritaladjustment at 36 months was associated with alower intercept of fathering daily hassles, B = -0.235

(SE = 0.058), P < 0.001. The model examiningfathers’ PDH as predicted by mother-reportedmarital adjustment had a similar finding in thatmarital adjustment was associated with theintercept, B = -0.170 (SE = 0.046), P < 0.001.Specific model findings are presented in Fig. 8.However, this model had less than adequate fit,c2(7) = 15.472, P < 0.05, CFI = 0.913, RMSEA =0.108, SRMR = 0.079, although it was better than

the nested model predicting parenting hasslesalone.

Prediction of parenting daily hassles fromparent–child relationship

As noted previously, the Satorra-Bentler methodwas used adjust for skew present in the parent–childrelationship variables. For the model with mothers’PDH as predicted by parent–child relationship,the model had good fit, c2(4) = 6.251, P = ns,CFI = 0.994, RMSEA = 0.049, SRMR = 0.021.There was a significant negative effect of father–child pleasure on the slope for mothering dailyhassles, B = -1.919 (SE = 0.876), P < 0.05, such thata positive father–child relationship was associatedwith a less steep slope for mothering daily hassles(see Fig. 9). The fit for the model assessing the

Mother DAS at 36 mos

Maternal Education

Intercept Mom PDH

Slope Mom PDH

1.477 (5.922)

-.153 (.058)**

.037 (.022)

.423 (.562)

.267 (.215)

Figure 5 Mother reported marital adjustment as predictor of thegrowth of mothers’ parenting daily hassles (PDH). Numbersrepresent unstandardized path coefficients, and their associatedstandard errors. †P < 0.07, *P < 0.05, **P < 0.01, ***P < 0.001.DAS, marital adjustment.

Father DAS at 36 mos

Maternal Education

Intercept Mom PDH

Slope Mom PDH

-8.058 (5.001)

-.159 (.077)*

-.003 (.030)

.154 (.580)

.263 (.223)

Figure 6 Father reported marital adjustment as predictor of thegrowth of mothers’ parenting daily hassles (PDH). Numbersrepresent unstandardized path coefficients, and their associatedstandard errors. †P < 0.07, *P < 0.05, **P < 0.01, ***P < 0.001.DAS, marital adjustment.

Father DAS at 36 mos

Paternal Education

Intercept Dad PDH

Slope Dad PDH

-9.936 (5.797)

-.235 (.058)***

.006 (.399)

Figure 7 Father reported marital adjustment as predictor of thegrowth of fathers’ parenting daily hassles (PDH). Numbersrepresent unstandardized path coefficients, and their associatedstandard errors. Slope variance was fixed to zero. Grey dashedlines indicate parameters fixed to 0. †P < 0.07, *P < 0.05,**P < 0.01, ***P < 0.001. DAS, marital adjustment.

Mother DAS at 36 mos

Paternal Education

Intercept Dad PDH

Slope Dad PDH

2.434 (6.879)

-.170 (.046)***

.356 (.397)

Figure 8 Mother reported marital adjustment as predictor of thegrowth of fathers’ parenting daily hassles (PDH). Numbersrepresent unstandardized path coefficients, and their associatedstandard errors. Slope variance was fixed to zero. Grey dashedlines indicate parameters fixed to 0. †P < 0.07, *P < 0.05,**P < 0.01, ***P < 0.001. DAS, marital adjustment.




prediction of parent–child relationships ontofathers’ PDH was good, c2(9) = 10.095, P = ns,CFI = 0.986, RMSEA = 0.027, SRMR = 0.046.However, neither mother–child nor father–childrelationship was a significant predictor on either theintercept or slope of fathering daily hassles.

Discussion

Constructs such as resilience and adaptation areoften construed as if they are unidimensional innature and exist as if an individual or family eitherhas it or does not. However, the complexity of fami-lies and the individuals within them belie suchsimple understandings (Luthar et al. 2000), and thiswould seem to be especially true when developmen-tal risk is part of the nature of a family’s experi-ence. The results of the current study indeedsuggest that for families in which a child is earlyidentified as having a developmental delay, parentalexperience of stress across time is complexly deter-mined by a variety of factors which operate topredict either the level of stress experienced, thetrajectory of stress during early the childhoodperiod, or both.

Unique to this study is the inclusion of bothmothers’ and fathers’ reports of daily parentingstress across a 2-year period. As noted earlier, stresshas been a salient factor of interest in families ofchildren with ID for some time (Crnic et al. 1983;

Hauser-Cram et al. 2001; Plant & Sanders 2007),and our results indicate that mothers’ and fathers’experience of daily parenting stress differs meaning-fully not only in the level at which it is experiencedbut also in degree to which it is experienced overtime. Similar to reports of parenting stress in otherstudies (Deater-Deckard 1998; Baker et al. 2003;Crnic et al. 2005), not only do mothers of childrenwith ID experience higher levels of daily parentingstress than do fathers, but their stress increasesmeaningfully over the preschool period whilefathers’ daily parenting stress does not. Thatmothers are more stressed and their stress increasesover this period may reflect the greater amount oftime they spend with the children relative to thefather. However, it may also be the case that dailyparenting stresses are more salient for mothersbecause stress may have the greatest effects when itoccurs within the domain of life in which one iden-tifies most strongly. Research has suggested thatmen identify most strongly with their role as bread-winner and worker (Diemer 2002) and fatheringhas been a somewhat less defined role than mother-ing (Belsky & Rovine 1990; Erel & Burman 1995).As such, we are only beginning to understandfathering processes within the context of high-riskchildren (Gray 2003).

Although our results support emerging findingsabout differences in parenting stress betweenmothers and fathers, it is apparent that the pro-cesses operating to determine the nature of this

Maternal Education

M–C Relation at 36 mos

F–C Relation at 36 mos

Intercept Mom PDH

Slope Mom PDH

-1.110 (2.378)

1.135 (.853)

-1.831 (2.433)

-1.919 (.876)*

.539 (.574)

.341 (.217)

.226 (.086)**

.346 (.158)*

.253 (.154)

Figure 9 Parent–child relationship aspredictor of the growth of mothers’parenting daily hassles (PDH). Numbersrepresent unstandardized pathcoefficients, and their associated standarderrors. †P < 0.07, *P < 0.05, **P < 0.01,***P < 0.001.




stressful experience are characterised by complexity.Previous research has provided some guidance inidentifying several factors that might explain therange of functioning in stressful experience forparents of children with early ID (e.g. psychologicalwell-being, marital adjustment, positive parent–childrelationships); however, our results indicate thatfactors associated with more resilient functioning inmothers and fathers operate in fairly specific con-texts rather than to more general effect. Further, weattempted to explore models of resilience from twoperspectives in our study of parents: within-personindividual influences and crossover influences.These two perspectives offer a greater sense of thecomplexity involved in understanding more resilientfunctioning, as the crossover influences producedgenerally stronger contributors and father-relatedprocesses were particularly important to mother’sreported stress.

Individual mother and father prediction

Despite differences in the level and trajectory ofdaily parenting stress between mothers and fathers,there was more similarity than difference in theoperation of factors that predicted stressful experi-ence. Similarities are apparent predominantly infactors that represent quality dyadic relationships,although the predictions to stressful experiencevaried. Marital quality was a clear compensatoryfactor for both mothers and fathers, but neither apositive mother–child relationship nor a positivefather–child relationship served to lessen the experi-ence of daily parenting stress for mothers or fathers,respectively. And although mothers’ reportedmarital quality was associated with the overall levelof stress experienced, it was unrelated to the degreeto which mothers’ daily parenting stress increasedacross this period. Only psychological well-beingdifferentiated mothers’ and fathers’ experience ofstress; greater maternal well-being was associatedwith lower reported daily parenting stress formothers but fathers’ psychological well-being wasnot associated with his own reported daily parent-ing stress.

The findings supporting marital quality as a com-pensatory factor that differentiates the experience ofparenting stress for parents of children with ID fitwell with the existing literature (Kersh et al. 2006).

The failure to find similar effects for a positiveparent–child relationship was somewhat surprisingas a high-quality parent–child relationship betweenparents and children with ID has been shown to beprotective with respect to multiple child outcomes(Mink et al. 1983; Hauser-Cram et al. 1999; Spikeret al. 2002).Yet, we still know little about the directassociation between parent–child relationships andthe experience of daily parenting stressors. Perhapsa positive parent–child relationship may help thechild develop better skills in communication andsocial relationships (Guralnick et al. 2008), but thismay not completely shield the parent from thechallenges of raising a child with developmentaldisabilities.

Crossover influences

Beyond the individual within-parent influencemodel, we hypothesised that crossover effects maybe operative in families of children with ID inwhich fathering factors might influence the natureof mothers’ stressful experience and motheringfactors might influence fathers’ experience of stress.We found that crossover effects are indeed presentin families of young children with ID, and in fact,they tended to be more important to resilient func-tioning than did the within-parent processes. Withrespect to parent’s well-being and marital adjust-ment, both parents’ level of psychological symptomsand more positive marital adjustments influencedthe others’ experience of stress. Mothers’ well-beinghelped fathers experience lower levels of parentinghassles whereas fathers’ well-being was associatedwith less increasing parenting hassles across timefor mothers, replicating findings by Hastings et al.(2005). These connections are well in line with theprocesses of emotional transmission between hus-bands and wives that have been articulated byLarson & Almeida (1999), which suggest that eventsor emotions in one family members’ experience canbe related to subsequent emotion or experience inanother family member.

Of interest, however, was the finding that a posi-tive father–child relationship early on helpedprevent increasing stress in the mothers across thepreschool period. The same was not true for themother–child relationship influencing fathers’ stress.Larson & Almeida (1999) have suggested that




within family emotion transmission more typicallyflows from husband to wife than from wife tohusband, and again this may reflect the greater cul-tural salience of within family processes for womenthan men. Regardless, Rusbult & Van Lange (1996)have suggested that the capacity for one partner’spsychological states and actions to influence thoseof the other partner is a defining feature of a closerelationship, and the nature of such processesappear to be important in facilitating more resilientfunctioning for parents of children with ID.

Nature of stress

The degree to which parents experience stress is animportant facet of resilient functioning, as highstress has been related to a variety of problematicoutcomes for families, parents and children (Crnic& Low 2002). Parents of children with ID havebeen the focus of much stress research, and the vastmajority of this research has indicated that theseparents experience higher levels of stress than dofamilies of children who are typically developing(Baker et al. 2003). However, it is unclear that theheightened parenting stress is due solely to thepresence of the developmental delay and increasedsupport needs (Hodapp et al. 2003). Findings haveindicated that it was the comorbid behaviour pro-blems associated with the ID that was related toparenting stress, rather than the delay itself. Blacheret al. (2005) have also examined the range of factorsthat may affect stress levels in parents of childrenwith ID, including parental factors, contextualfactors, siblings, parenting and cognitions. Identify-ing those mechanisms by which parent’s stressresponses are minimised or decreasing over timeremains an important focus of research in familiesof children with ID, and the findings from thepresent study suggest that a number of factorsoperate complexly to keep daily parenting stresseslower for these parents and prevent their increaseacross time, at least for mothers.

Yet, stress has been measured in a variety of waysacross studies of parents of children with ID, andvariability in the stress constructs may be importantin understanding the nature of parental responseand resilience. The current study focused exclu-sively on parents’ perceptions of the daily hassles ofparenting, which involve the potentially demanding

and challenging events that parents experienceeveryday in interaction with their children. PDHhave proven to be of major adaptational significanceto parents, both in relation to their own well-beingand in relation to quality of parenting and chil-dren’s development (Crnic & Low 2002; Crnicet al. 2005), but this stress context has not beenwell explicated in comparison with contexts thataddress major life stresses (Crnic & Low 2002),more general parenting stresses (Hassall et al. 2005;Plant & Sanders 2007) or stresses that are specificto children with ID (Friedrich et al. 1983.).Research that integrates multiple perspectives onparents’ stress experience will not only further dif-ferentiate parental response, but may provide amore complete picture for the study of resilience infamilies of children with ID.

Limitations

Despite the findings noted above, there are a fewlimitations that are important to note. First, theparent–child interaction variables were slightlyskewed and had little variance.Yet, the findingswere slightly skewed such that parent–child dyadicrelationships showed less pleasure, rather than morepleasure, as is sometimes reported with observedinteractions. This does not indicate that parents andchildren had negative interactions; it only suggeststhat the interactions were not exuberantly positive.This may be because these families were observedin naturalistic contexts when they may have alsobeen engaged with other children and completingother tasks around the home. Second, the study didhave an attrition rate of 20% across the 2 years.These rates of attrition are in keeping with otherlongitudinal studies of children with ID (Hastingset al. 2006), and there were no differences in attri-tion as a function of any study variable. Nonethe-less, missing data techniques were used in order toaccount for subject loss in the data.

It should also be noted that our measure ofparental well-being actually indexed the quantity ofpsychological symptomatology reported by theparents. Although it would be preferable to assesswell-being from the perspective of the positive rangeof functioning, the absence of psychological symp-toms is one important marker of resilient function-ing when a population has putative risk for




psychopathology. Lastly, the study examinedmothers and fathers separately across different pos-sible compensatory factors. This was intentional tocarefully examine crossover effects separately whileminimising multicolinearity. However, in the future,it would be interesting to examine mothers andfathers stress in the same model to explore the mod-erating effects of parent gender more specifically.

Summary

There is substantial evidence that the stresses infamilies of children with ID are meaningful, andthis appears to be the case regardless of the natureof that stress. Despite the consistency with whichstress emerges as an important factor, it is alsoapparent that many families of children with IDfunction well across important domains (Blacher &Baker 2007) which implies the presence of resil-ience processes. Resilience is a multifaceted con-struct, and it is necessary that it be understoodfrom multiple perspectives (Luthar et al. 2000). Asour understanding of families and children at riskexpands to embrace greater complexity in themodels that explain resilience and the range ofparental functioning over time, it is critical that amore systemic approach be included. Both fathersand mothers need to be included in our researchmodels, as it is apparent that stress processes arenot shared entirely across the preschool period inparents of children with ID. Likewise, the factorsleading to resilient fathers and mothers are not fullysimilar. Although individual parent characteristicsand high-quality dyadic relationships contribute toemerging resilience in parents of children with ID,parents also affect each others’ adaptations in waysthat have not been previously considered in thesefamilies.

Acknowledgements

Data collection for this study was funded throughthe Collaborative Family Study, supported with agrant from the National Institute for Child Healthand Human Development, #34879-1459 (KeithCrnic, Principal Investigator; Bruce Baker, JanBlacher, and Craig Edelbrock, co-Principal Investi-gators).The first author was also supported by

Institutional Training Grant T32MH018387 fromthe National Institute of Mental Health.

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Accepted 30 September 2009




Documents

Resilience and the course of daily parenting stress in families of young children with intellectual disabilities