The Influence of Family Interaction Process on Child Aggressive Behavior: The Role of Paternal Engagement, Maternal Parenting Stress and Child Resistant Attachment

Background

Attachment theory showed that children experiencing inconsistent or minimal emotional comfort from the caregiver tend to exaggerate their negative emotions and create a hyper-activating attachment relationship, namely resistant attachment, to gain attention.  Children who deploy hyper-activating strategies are more likely to develop aggressive behavior.  However, few empirical studies have demonstrated the dynamics between resistant attachment and aggressive behavior in the context of family interaction process.  This study fills the gap by examining the pathway by which parental engagement influences children’s aggressive behavior via maternal parenting stress and children’s resistant attachment.

Methods

The data were obtained from 2016 mother participants in the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Study.  The key dependent variable was the child’s aggressive behavior at age 9.  The key independent variable was the child’s one year age paternal engagement.  The key mediators were the child’s one year age maternal parenting stress, and the level of the child’s resistant attachment at age 3.

Structural equation modeling was conducted in Mplus 7 to explore the process by which paternal engagement influences the child’s aggressive behavior through the mother’s parenting stress and the child’s resistant attachment.  Key covariates were the sex and negative temperament of the child, the race, age, education and marital status of the mother, as well as the household size and income.

Results

The measurement model suggested one factor models for paternal engagement, maternal parenting stress, and a two factor model for the child’s aggressive behavior: oppositional defiance based aggression and conduct disorder oriented aggression. The child’s resistant attachment was an observed variable. The measurement model fit well: RMSEA=.04, CFI=.99, TLI =.99.

The structural model showed a good fit too: RMSEA=.04, CFI=.98, TLI =.98.  After controlling for covariates, we found paternal engagement was indirectly associated with the child’s aggressive behavior, through a fully mediated pathway from paternal engagement to maternal parenting stress to the child’s resistant attachment to aggressive behavior.  Specifically, higher paternal engagement was associated with a lower level of maternal parenting stress (β= -.13), which was associated with a lower level of the child resistance attachment (β=.17), which, in turn, was associated with a lower level of oppositional defiance (β=.17).  Maternal parenting stress exerted both direct (β=.11) and indirect impacts (β=.03 via resistant attachment) on the child’s oppositional defiance.  However, maternal parenting stress had no significant direct effect on the child’s conduct disorder oriented aggression, which means the effect of maternal parenting stress on the child’s aggressive behavior was fully mediated by the child’s resistant attachment (β=.03).

 Conclusions and implications

This study demonstrated the mechanism of the development of children’s aggressive behavior in the context of family interaction process.  This study also identified different pathways for oppositional defiance based and conduct disorder oriented aggression.  The findings underscore the importance of decreasing mother’s parenting stress and alleviating children’s resistant attachment as preventative strategies, particularly for conduct disorder oriented aggression.  Interventions should focus on promoting paternal engagement to reduce maternal parenting stress, so as to improve children’s attachment development, to ultimately boost the healthy development of children.