ABSTRACT
BACKGROUND: The study aimed to confirm previous findings showing links between household chaos and parenting in addition to examining whether household chaos was predictive of children's behaviour over and above parenting. In addition, we investigated whether household chaos acts as a moderator between parenting and children's behaviour. METHOD: The sample consisted of 118 working- and middle-class two-parent English families with two children aged 4-8. Parents provided reports of the parent-child relationship, the level of chaos in their home and the children's problematic behaviour. The children also provided reports of parent-child relationships via a puppet interview. RESULTS: The results confirmed the links between household chaos and parenting, and indicated that household chaos is predictive of children's problem behaviour over and above parenting. In addition, in a minority of cases, household chaos played a moderating role between parenting and children's behaviour in that it exacerbated the effect of poorer quality parenting on children's behaviour. CONCLUSIONS: Household chaos is able to work in an additive way and predict children's problem behaviour over and above parenting, and is particularly potent when in combination with less positive/more negative parenting.
Subject(s)
Child Behavior Disorders/psychology , Family Characteristics , Parenting/psychology , Social Environment , Anger , Child , Child Behavior Disorders/diagnosis , Child, Preschool , Crowding/psychology , England , Female , Hostility , Humans , Interview, Psychological , Male , Maternal Behavior/psychology , Noise/adverse effects , Parent-Child Relations , Paternal Behavior , Personality Assessment , Risk Factors , Siblings/psychology , Statistics as TopicABSTRACT
The overarching goal of the study was to identify links between sibling relationship quality in early/middle childhood with children's adjustment, having accounted for the effects of parent-child relationship quality. The sample consisted of 101 working and middle-class 2-parent English families with 2 children ages 4-8 years. Parents provided reports of sibling relationship quality, the parent-child relationship, and the children's prosocial and problematic behaviors. The children also provided reports of their familial relationships with a puppet interview. Results indicated that sibling relationship quality was associated with the older siblings' adjustment, controlling for the children's relationships with parents. In addition, the pattern of findings suggested that positivity within the sibling relationship was more strongly linked with child adjustment than was sibling conflict.
