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Direct and Indirect Longitudinal Associations of Mother and Father Engagement in Middle Childhood on Adolescent Externalizing and Internalizing Behaviors

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Abstract

Parent engagement is an important aspect of parenting during childhood. However, little is known about the unique longitudinal associations of mother and father engagement with adolescents’ externalizing and internalizing problem behaviors. This study uses Future of Families and Child Wellbeing Study data to examine the potential direct and indirect associations of parent engagement at age 9 on adolescent externalizing and internalizing behaviors at age 15. The analytic sample size is 1349, and at age 9, the mean age of children was 9.40 years (SD = 0.37). Forty-eight percent of children were female and 68% of them were from the married families. The results show that while controlling for mother engagement, higher father engagement at age 9 was directly associated with fewer adolescent internalizing behaviors, only among adolescent boys and in married families. In addition, among adolescent boys, father engagement had an indirect association with externalizing behaviors through father–child closeness. Mother engagement, however, is only found to have an indirect association with adolescents’ externalizing and internalizing behaviors through maternal hostility (while controlling for father engagement). The results for mother engagement held for boys and in married families only. The findings indicate that both mother and father engagement during childhood is important and helpful to prevent adolescent problem behaviors directly or indirectly via parent–child relationship.

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Notes

  1. Problem behaviors in this study refer to both externalizing and internalizing problem behaviors.

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Funding

Research reported in this publication was supported by the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD) of the National Institutes of Health under award numbers R01HD036916, R01HD039135, and R01HD040421, as well as a consortium of private foundations. The content is solely the responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily represent the official views of the National Institutes of Health.

Data Sharing Declaration

Data used in this paper are publicly available in https://ffcws.princeton.edu/.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Center for Research on Child and Family Wellbeing, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ, USA

    Panpan Yang, Sarah L. Pachman & Kathryn J. Edin

  2. Department of Educational and Counseling Psychology, University at Albany, SUNY, Albany, NY, USA

    Gabriel L. Schlomer

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  1. Panpan Yang
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Contributions

PY conceived of the study, designed and coordinated the study, drafted the manuscript. SP participated in its design and coordination and helped to draft the manuscript. GS participated in its design and drafted the manuscript. KE participated in the design and helped to draft the manuscript. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.

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Correspondence to Panpan Yang.

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The original project grant was approved by the IRB at Princeton University. The current study was deemed exempt by Princeton University because the study uses deidentified secondary data. All procedures performed in studies involving human participants were in accordance with the ethical standards of the institutional and/or national research committee and with the 1964 Helsinki Declaration and its later amendments or comparable ethical standards.

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Yang, P., Pachman, S.L., Schlomer, G.L. et al. Direct and Indirect Longitudinal Associations of Mother and Father Engagement in Middle Childhood on Adolescent Externalizing and Internalizing Behaviors. J. Youth Adolescence (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10964-024-01982-z

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