Relational Empowerment Moderates the Relationship between Perceived Stress and Parenting Efficacy in Immigrant Parents

Background: When migrating to and settling in the U.S., immigrant parents face a number of challenges including acculturative stress and dissonance in parenting practices and beliefs between the cultures in the U.S. and those in their country of origin. Prior studies suggest these stressors can negatively impact immigrant parents’ parenting efficacy (i.e., one’s confidence in their ability to fulfill their role as parents), which could thus lead to negative parenting practices and child health outcomes. Several studies suggest parental empowerment, which is defined as the process by which parents realize control for their life and take action to promote family’s health, may mitigate the relationship between heightened stress and reduced efficacy among low-income parents. However, relatively little is known about this pathway in the context of migration, wherein immigrant parents often experience stress in the process of cultural adaptation. Guided by the Family Adjustment and Adaptation Response Model and the Empowerment theory, we hypothesized that higher perceived stress is associated with lower parenting efficacy among low-income immigrant parents, and parental empowerment – including resource empowerment, critical awareness, and relational empowerment – serves as a buffer in this relationship.

Method: Participants included foreign-born and low-income parents (n = 680) with preschool-aged children enrolled in Head Start of Greater Boston for the 2017 and 2018 school years. Participants reported perceived stress, parental empowerment, and parenting efficacy using previously validated scales. Linear regression models adjusting for covariates (e.g., demographic characteristics, spoken English proficiency, and health literacy) were conducted to examine the relationship between perceived stress and parenting efficacy. An interaction term between perceived stress and empowerment was included in the model to test the moderating effect of each dimension of parental empowerment on this relationship.

Result: Most parents (60%) reported having a high school education or less, and identified as Black/African American (28%) or Hispanic/Latino (44%); 50% reported limited English proficiency. Higher perceived stress was associated with lower parenting efficacy (B = -0.41; p < .01). Among the three dimensions of empowerment, only relational empowerment moderated the relationship between perceived stress and parenting efficacy (B = 0.09; p < .05); the negative relationship between perceived stress and parenting efficacy was weaker among parents with high (vs. moderate or low) relational empowerment.

Conclusion: Relational empowerment, or the ability to utilize social relationships to improve individual’s life situation, may mitigate the inverse relationship between perceived stress and parenting efficacy. Designers of family-based interventions targeting parenting efficacy may consider centering curriculum design on relational empowerment processes. For immigrant parents, who may experience higher levels of stress and limited social connection due to language differences, relational empowerment may serve as a particularly important intervention target for parenting efficacy promotion. Social work professionals and clinicians can support parents by creating consistent and safe environments for parent-to-parent relationships to be created and sustained.