ABSTRACT

Previous research studies have left behind some important aspects about the relation between poverty and child behavior development as most of them suggested that behavior is mainly influenced by the environment they are in, failing to mention that poverty and parenting are also major influences. Furthermore, the purpose of this research paper is to analyze and study in depth how poverty can affect the way parents discipline their children because parents living under poverty tend to work under the pressure of having the obligation to provide for their children and without mentioning, themselves as well. As a result, the workload becomes a burden for them to carry out along with the need to provide for the family. This burden can lead parents to fall into psychological risks such as depression and distress, and eventually affect their children as well. Furthermore, one of the studies was conducted through a program that mainly targeted children with elevated risk for the development of serious conduct problems at school in which their teachers would complete a behavior assessment for each of the students they nominated. Students that scored very high on either the aggression or social withdrawal scale had their parents called on to participate in the program, resulting in a total of 290 parents who agreed to fill out the survey which asked questions about social support, psychological functioning, family environment, and parent-child relationships. The study reported that lower family income suffered the most from economic pressure which was the main cause for the high levels of parental depressive symptoms. These symptoms led to a less positive relationship between parents and their children. 

INTRODUCTION

Poverty is a huge factor in shaping the environment where children grow up with because there are certain aspects in life they are restricted to as their parents are unable to afford a proper lifestyle for them. For this reason, the relation between poverty and parenting is crucial to study the unknown reason behind a child’s certain conduct. Low income parents portray a stricter attitude toward their children that may affect the way their children interpret life as they grow up. Furthermore, this study is significant to an extent because most previous research studies have overlooked poverty and parenting as two of the major factors in relation to one’s personality development. For this reason, further research needs to be conducted to fill in the holes of previous studies.

The present study suggests that poverty causes economic pressure and parentalpsychological distress which have been proven to affect parenting practices in a negative manner due to the fact that parents gothrough a depressive stage, involving anger and frustration, that prevents them from being more supportive and showing affection to their children resulting in a more disengaged parent-child relationship. Furthermore, parents encounter psychological distress as they go through depression, which is associated with the fear of being uncertain about the future as they find themselves constantly dealing with daily life struggles such as the inability to buy basic material needs (Lee, Anderson, Horowitz, & August, 2009). In addition, the majority of low-income families consist of young mothers who are prone to depression compared with older mothers due to their inexperience in the economic field (Barnett, 2008). Because of their inexperience, these mothers have no choice other than to join the labor force consisting of nonstandard jobs and eventually find themselves confined in very a complex work schedule ranging from long hours to no break at all, thus, there is barely any free time. As a result, there is less mother-child interaction which can negatively affect their relationship as it becomes increasingly distant, and not to mention, nonstandard work schedules also lead to parental depression (Gassman-Pines, 2011). Moreover, economic pressure puts parents in a position where they are forced to create their own set of beliefs on how to discipline a child which influences parental behavior as well as children’s personality development, for instance, low-income families in rural areas (Coleman, Ganong, Clark, & Madsen, 1989). Another factor that has partial impact on parenting and child behavior is social support which is a mediator of the relationship between parental behavior and psychological distress because economic pressure levels seem to decrease with increased social support as depression increases the necessity to seek for outside help. This has been proven by a previous research study in which mothers who received significant amount of social support such as stronger maternal bonds, which included grandmother support, were more likely to lead a stable mother-child interaction with less negative parental conduct (Lee, Anderson, Horowitz, & August, 2009). However, some low-income families have higher access to social support than others because families that come from specific areas have closer kinship ties among them, for instance, rural family members support each other more, resulting in mothers receiving the essential enthusiasm to fully carry out their roles (Barnett, 2008). Overall, the present study investigates a sample that consists of individuals particularly living in or nearby rural zones (Lee, Anderson, Horowitz, & August, 2009) where most low-income families reside due to the fact that housing is cheaper and affordable there. The study analyzes the depression levels of parents by asking them whether or not they feel depressive symptoms on a regular basis such as feeling lonely and frustrated. Parent-child interactions were observed carefully in order to test how confident parents were when it comes to looking after their children. The amount of social support parents receive was tested as well, the higher it is the less depressing parenting experience is, and the higher chance the children’s conduct would turn out to be positive (Lee, Anderson, Horowitz, & August, 2009).

METHODS

In this study, the subjects were selected carefully through a questionnaire based on income and child behavior. For this reason, participants contained the suitable characteristics for this research because they were low-income families residing in poor areas, whose children appeared to have behavioral problems. Furthermore, the study may be biased because the study mostly focused on African American and white families, making this study mainly depend on two different types of cultural backgrounds as each culture has its own style of teaching and disciplining children, and also because mostly females were involved. Despite the fact that the study may yield biased outcomes, it included a fair number of participants raging from 100 to nearly 2,000 families. In addition, the study structure was perfectly designed to examine the two main factors, poverty and parenting, in relation to child conduct because it targeted low-income families with children at risk, in which income information was shared with the party using a biographical survey. The subjects were asked several personal questions as well as their daily activities were closely monitored through a program that ran for a specific period of time. The independent variable was very valid and comprehensive because it was proven that poverty most likely affected parenting experience and child behavior development due to many factors such as long hours of work, and in terms of dependent variables, parents were hardly affected by poverty as they manifested depressive symptoms that led their children to develop a negative conduct, thus, the dependent variables were valid and reliable. During the course of the study, the researchers were effective in controlling extraneous variables because they mainly focused on studying parent-child interaction, job, or any other activity that hinted signs of struggle caused by low socioeconomic status. In addition, they also included social support as one of the variables because it effectively moderated the relationship between economic pressure and parental psychological distress, however, it can be considered an extraneous variable because it highly influenced the degree of parent-child interaction but it was not one of interest for the study. Lastly, the statistical analyses were very appropriate and accurate as they were able to prove the hypothesis true.

RESULTS/DISCUSSION

The outcomes showed that economic pressure affects the majority of parents and children living under poverty because there was a high chance that poverty causes economic pressure while analyzing the study’s observations (Lee, Anderson, Horowitz, & August, 2009) which puts parents in a very difficult position due to the fact that they have no choice other than to join the labor force. This mostly happens to low-income families that consist of young parents since they lack formal education, thus, it is challenging for them to find a stable, high-paying job where they can earn enough to sustain their children. For this reason, they usually end up going for nonstandard jobs where they work for long hours at low wages. Parents eventually find themselves trapped in a cycle of struggles with no way out which are common symptoms of depression. Moreover, depression is a stage that involves an ambiguous mix of emotions associated with frustration, anxiety, and anger which affects the relationship between parents and child because they will often project their stress onto their children through discipline impacting their behavior development. Not to mention, the fact that parents spend most of their time at work drastically lessens the opportunity for them to see their children more often and vice versa (Gassman-Pines, 2011). However, child conduct can be affected either in a positive or negative way depending on the degree at which discipline is taught (Burton, Phipps, & Curtis, 2002). Overall, poverty is a major determinant of parenting and child behavior development.

CONCLUSION

The present research study breaks down in a careful manner the major factors that determines one’s behavior, particularly poverty and parenting practices with the purpose to raise awareness about the struggles that low-income families face throughout their daily lives and how that affects a child’s growth as a person as most previous research studies have failed to recognize poverty and parenting as major determinants of one’s behavior. After all, these findings could potentially serve the field of psychology as key to open up new studies on depression because it has the ability to heavily deteriorate one’s mind and body as well as their surroundings, as previously mentioned depressed parents affect their children in a way that can shape their attitude. Another benefit is that this study can lead to further research about mental illness in order to provide enough information to create better ways to cope with it and more advanced treatments.

WORKS CITED

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2. Lee, Chih-Yuan S., et al. “Family Income and Parenting: The Role of Parental Depression and Social Support.” Family Relations, vol. 58, no. 4, 2009, pp. 417–430. JSTOR, JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/40405700.
3. Gassman-Pines, Anna. “Low-Income Mothers’ Nighttime and Weekend Work: Daily Associations With Child Behavior, Mother-Child Interactions, and Mood.” Family Relations, vol. 60, no. 1, 2011, pp. 15–29. JSTOR, JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/41236744.
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