Protective Neighborhood Processes for Mothers of Children with Disabilities

Background & Purpose:

 

Parenting is a rewarding but sometimes difficult task.  For mothers who have children with a disability, parenting can prove to be even more challenging.  Parenting stress relates to the negative impact of stress that extends into a parent’s relationship with their children, and has been found to be associated with increased risk for child abuse and neglect, and children with disabilities are also at an increased risk for maltreatment. Perceptions of social cohesion (trust and support between neighbors) directly relates to parenting behaviors and some of these relations are explained by cohesion’s impact on parenting stress. However, findings in this area are mixed; understanding whether this protective mechanism within neighborhoods reduces parenting stress for mothers of children with disabilities is key for informing our understanding of how to support parents in such situations. An ecological theory perspective is utilized in order to explore the protective mechanisms within neighborhoods that may decrease parenting stress for mothers of children with disabilities.

 

Methods:

 

Using structural equation modeling (SEM), this study compares the protective effect of social cohesion on parenting stress for mothers of children with a disability to mothers of children without a disability.  The study relies on data from 3288 mothers and children in 20 large, urban U.S. cities in the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing dataset. For the purposes of this study, disability was defined as a physical or intellectual disability or chronic health condition.

Social cohesion variables include items from a subset of the Social Cohesion and Trust Scale, e.g. “my neighborhood is close knit.”  Parenting stress was measured by four items from the Panel Study of Income Dynamics, e.g. “being a parent is harder than I thought it would be.”  Both variables were measured as latent constructs using MPlus 7.0 that is robust in handling ordinal level data.

Results:  Identical structural equation models were tested separately among mothers of children with a disability and mothers of children without those conditions.  Model fit indices for mothers of children with disabilities demonstrated acceptable model fit (x²₆₉ = 270.902 p<.01, RMSEA= 0.051, CFI= 0.972, TLI=0.964, and WRMR=1.427).  Acceptable model fit was also demonstrated for the same model tested with mothers of children without disabilities/ health problems (x²₆₉ = 370.500 p<.01, RMSEA= 0.045, CFI= 0.972, TLI= 0.958, and WRMR=1.656).  For both groups, models results suggest neighborhood social cohesion decreased parental stress, though this effect appears more pronounced among mothers of children without disabilities and/or health problems.

Conclusions & Implications:

 

The overall finding of this study was that while neighborhood social cohesion was associated with decreased parenting stress for parents of children with disabilities, the association was smaller in magnitude than for parents of children without disabilities.  The study suggests that parents of children with disabilities have differing support needs and may need additional support from sources outside their neighborhoods.  Future work should examine other support networks available for these families.