Self-Reported Parenting of Clinic-Referred and Non-referred Mexican American Mothers of Young Children.

Behavioral parent training (BPT) interventions for child behavior problems have been based on decades of research that demonstrate links between particular parent behaviors and child externalizing problems. However, the majority of this research has been conducted with European-American (EA) families, and less is known about whether these findings can be generalized to Mexican Americans (MAs). In the current study, we investigated self-reported parenting practices that have been associated with externalizing behavior problems among EA families (harsh parenting, inconsistency, and low parental warmth), to determine if those practices can also differentiate MA mothers whose young children have clinically significant behavior problems from MA mothers whose children do not have behavior problems. Participants were 115 MA families with young children, 58 with a child with clinically significant behavior problems and 57 with a child in the normal range for such problems. Results indicated that MA mothers whose children have behavior problems self-reported significantly less warmth and consistency and more harsh parenting compared to parents whose children's behavior was in the normal range. These findings indicate that parenting behaviors that are associated with externalizing behavior problems among EA families are associated with the same problems among MA families with young children, suggesting that parent training interventions designed to target these behaviors are also likely to be relevant to MA families with children in this age range. However, findings also indicate that parenting behaviors differ depending on acculturation level, suggesting that BPT programs must respond to variation in normative parenting practices for MA families.

Parent-child interaction therapy for Mexican Americans: results of a pilot randomized clinical trial at follow-up.

We examined treatment effects over a 6- to 24-month period posttreatment for 3 different interventions for externalizing behavior problems in young Mexican American (MA) children: a culturally modified version of Parent-Child Interaction Therapy (PCIT), called Guiando a Niños Activos (GANA), standard PCIT, and treatment as usual (TAU). Fifty-eight MA families with a 3- to 7-year-old child with clinically significant behavior problems were randomly assigned to GANA, standard PCIT, or TAU. As previously reported, all three treatment approaches produced significant pre-post improvement in conduct problems across a wide variety of parent-report measures, and those effects remained significant over the follow-up period. GANA produced results that were significantly superior to TAU on 6 out of 10 parent-report measures 6 to 24months posttreatment, and GANA significantly outperformed PCIT on child internalizing symptoms. However, PCIT and TAU did not differ significantly from one another. These data suggest that both PCIT and GANA produce treatment gains that are maintained over time, and that GANA continues to outperform TAU over the long term.

Parent-child interactions among low-income Mexican American parents and preschoolers: do clinic-referred families differ from nonreferred families?

This study compared low-income Mexican American parents of young children referred for behavior problems to their nonreferred counterparts on an observational measure of parent-child interactions. Referred Mexican American parents demonstrated more negative behaviors than their nonreferred counterparts in both nondirective and highly directive situations. However, no differences were found at moderate levels of directiveness. The most and least directive situations in the Dyadic Parent-Child Interaction Coding System best differentiated referred from nonreferred Mexican American families, and families differed more in their negative behaviors than positive behaviors. Many of the parenting behaviors that have been found to differ between referred and nonreferred Caucasian families were also observed to differ between their Mexican American counterparts.

Parent-child interaction therapy for Mexican Americans: a randomized clinical trial.

This study compared the effectiveness of a culturally modified version of Parent-Child Interaction Therapy (PCIT), called Guiando a Ninos Activos (GANA), to the effectiveness of standard PCIT and Treatment as Usual (TAU) for young Mexican Amerian children with behavior problems. Fifty-eight Mexican Amerian families whose 3- to 7-year-old child had a clinically significant behavior problems were randomly assigned to GANA, standard PCIT, or TAU. All three treatment approaches produced significant pre-post improvement in conduct problems across a wide variety of parent-report measures. GANA produced results that were significantly superior to TAU across a wide variety of both parent report and observational indices; however, GANA and PCIT did not differ significantly from one another. PCIT was superior to TAU on two of the parent report indices and almost all of the observational indices. There were no significant differences between the three groups on treatment dropout, and families were more satisfied with both GANA and PCIT than with TAU.

The acculturation gap-distress hypothesis among high-risk Mexican American families.

The authors tested the acculturation gap-distress hypothesis by examining whether parent-adolescent acculturation gaps were associated with greater conflict and youth conduct problems among 260 high-risk Mexican American families. The authors operationalized acculturation gaps in 2 ways: parent-youth mismatches in acculturation style, and parent-youth discrepancies in acculturation toward both mainstream and heritage cultures. Acculturation gaps were common, but results of hierarchical regression analyses indicated that parent-youth discrepancies in acculturation toward mainstream and heritage cultures were not related to increased conflict or youth conduct problems. Conduct problems were no higher in families in which the adolescent was more aligned with mainstream culture than the parent. Unexpectedly, the authors found more youth conduct problems in families in which the youth was more aligned with traditional culture than the parent. The results call into question the assumption that the more rapid acculturation of adolescents to American culture inevitably leads to distress in minority families.

Cultural affiliation and self-esteem as predictors of internalizing symptoms among mexican american adolescents.

We investigated the relations between affiliation with Mexican culture and self-esteem at baseline (Time 1 [T1]), and internalizing symptoms 2 years later (Time 2 [T2]) among a sample of high-risk Mexican American adolescents. Results indicated that T1 affiliation with Mexican culture was not related to T2 internalizing symptoms, controlling for T1 internalizing symptoms. The relation between T1 self-esteem and T2 internalizing symptoms was significant, controlling for T1 internalizing symptoms. Regression analyses revealed, for girls only, a significant interaction between affiliation with Mexican culture and self-esteem in the prediction of T2 internalizing symptoms. Specifically, low self-esteem was a risk factor for internalizing symptoms only among those girls minimally affiliated with Mexican culture. There was no significant interaction between cultural affiliation and self-esteem among Mexican American boys. Findings highlight the importance of gender and culture in risk processes for internalizing symptoms.