Risk and Adversity, Parenting Quality, and Children's Social-Emotional Adjustment in Families Experiencing Homelessness.

HOMELESS families; RISK assessment; EMOTIONS in children; PARENTING; SOCIAL conditions of children; HOMELESSNESS -- Social aspects; SOCIODEMOGRAPHIC factors; PSYCHOLOGICAL adaptation in children; FAMILIES & psychology; COMPARATIVE studies; HOMELESS persons; RESEARCH methodology; MEDICAL cooperation; RESEARCH; RESEARCH funding; SOCIAL adjustment; PSYCHOSOCIAL factors; EVALUATION research; BEHAVIOR disorders; RELATIVE medical risk; PSYCHOLOGICAL factors

A multimethod, multi-informant design was used to examine links among sociodemographic risk, family adversity, parenting quality, and child adjustment in families experiencing homelessness. Participants were 245 homeless parents (Mage  = 31.0, 63.6% African American) and their 4- to 6-year-old children (48.6% male). Path analyses revealed unique associations by risk domain: Higher sociodemographic risk predicted more externalizing behavior and poorer teacher-child relationships, whereas higher family adversity predicted more internalizing behavior. Parenting quality was positively associated with peer acceptance and buffered effects of family adversity on internalizing symptoms, consistent with a protective effect. Parenting quality was associated with lower externalizing behavior only when sociodemographic risk was below the sample mean. Implications for research and practice are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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