Parenting, Adolescent Positive Functioning, and Adolescent Depression: Does Immigration Background Matter?

Background/Purpose:

Parenting has a significant impact on adolescent’s positive functioning and mental well-being. This study examined the mediation effect of adolescent positive functioning on the relationship between parental monitoring, parenting stress, and adolescent depression, and whether immigration background moderated these associations.

Methods:

This study used data from the Future of Families and Child Wellbeing Study (FFCW) Year 15 (Wave 6). We used cases in which the primary caregiver was a biological mother or a biological father and removed cases with missing data. The final sample featured 2,961 adolescents; 526 of immigrant origin (e.g., at least one parent was foreign-born) and 2,435 of non-immigrant families. We used self-reported primary caregiver data on parenting stress and adolescent-reported data on parental monitoring, adolescent positive functioning, and adolescent depression. T-tests were conducted to compare the difference in adolescent depression between immigrant and nonimmigrant families. Multi-group structural equation modelling (SEM) was employed to test the mediation effects of adolescent positive functioning, and to compare the difference in the mechanism between immigrant and non-immigrant families.

Results:

The average score of adolescent depression in the full sample was 5.17 points (SD=2.33). majority of adolescents in the non-immigrant families were Black and non-Hispanic (56.63%), followed by White and non-Hispanic (23.75%) and Hispanic/Latino (16.71%). More than half of adolescents in the immigrant families were Hispanic/Latino (59.89%), followed by Black and non-Hispanic (15.97%) and Asian (10.84%). The results of multi-group SEM demonstrated good model fit, as indicated by the chi-squared test (χ² = 690.83, df = 46, p <0.001), RMSEA (0.00), CFI (1.00), TLI (1.00), and SRMR (0.00). For non-immigrant families, parental monitoring was negatively associated with adolescent depression (B=-0.07, p=0.043), and parenting stress was positively associated with adolescent depression (B=.13, p=.002). However, these relationships were not statistically significant for immigrant families. Adolescent positive functioning had a negative association with depression for both non-immigrant and immigrant families (B= -.08, p<.001; B= -.10, p<.001, respectively), and only mediated the relationships between parental monitoring and adolescent depression for non-immigrant families.

Conclusions and Implications:

These findings underscore the disparity in the role of parental monitoring and parenting stress between non-immigrant and immigrant families. For immigrant families, adolescent positive functioning was found to mediate the impact of parental monitoring and parenting stress on adolescent depression. These findings highlight the critical role of resiliency in determining the mental well-being of adolescents in immigrant families. For non-immigrant families, parental monitoring acted as a protective factor, while parenting stress served as a risk factor. Together, these findings indicate that parenting intervention should prioritize the development of effective monitoring skills and stress reduction strategies. Policies and interventions for immigrant families, in particular, should focus on fostering the positive functioning of adolescents to address their unique challenges.