{"id":2463,"date":"2021-03-02T07:01:06","date_gmt":"2021-03-02T13:01:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/ccf\/?p=2463"},"modified":"2021-03-01T14:05:48","modified_gmt":"2021-03-01T20:05:48","slug":"african-american-mothers-racial-stressors-are-related-to-their-parenting-and-adolescents-academic-and-behavioral-outcomes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/ccf\/2021\/03\/02\/african-american-mothers-racial-stressors-are-related-to-their-parenting-and-adolescents-academic-and-behavioral-outcomes\/","title":{"rendered":"African American mothers\u2019 racial stressors are related to their parenting and adolescents\u2019 academic and behavioral outcomes"},"content":{"rendered":"

When parents experience racial discrimination do their parenting behaviors differ, and does that influence their teens? A new study<\/a> in the journal Family Relations<\/em> takes on the question of the effects of stresses related to race on youth \u2013 but focuses the question on stressors experienced by parents. The parenting of African American teens has been a focus of prior research on teen\u2019s academic achievement and success, and positive as well as risk behavior. Some of the existing research has included a focus on parents\u2019 experiences of discrimination, and how that shapes their parenting.<\/p>\n

What prior studies haven\u2019t done is consider how parents may anticipate discrimination or experience it vicariously<\/u>, and whether that plays a role in parenting. This new study shows that personally experiencing discrimination is important, yet that racial discrimination doesn\u2019t need to be individually experienced to influence parenting and teens\u2019 wellbeing. In particular, when mothers witnessed or heard others\u2019 stories of racial discrimination (which the authors call vicarious discrimination), there was an impact on teens.<\/p>\n

Specifically, the study found that mothers who anticipated racial discrimination were more involved and vigilant with their teens, which was associated with better adjustment for their kids. For mothers who experienced vicarious discrimination, their teens had more problem behaviors \u2013 yet at the same time they were also more involved and vigilant as parents, which was related to lower internalizing problems and higher academic persistence among their teens.<\/p>\n

These findings underscore that racial discrimination does not need to be personally or directly experienced in order to influence families. Just hearing about the discrimination of others can affect both parents as well as their kids. This is an important topic for future research, but also suggests that for teachers or counselors that work with families, racial stress doesn\u2019t have to be a specific event to have consequences. A focus on a family\u2019s exposure to racial stress \u2013 and their strategies to cope with it \u2013 could help parents and adolescents better manage these stressors. With so much attention to examples of racial discrimination circulating in the media, this new study shows that supporting African American parents is more important than ever.<\/p>\n

Acknowledgments:<\/strong> This research was supported by an infrastructure grant from the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD, P2C HD042849) awarded to the Population Research Center at The University of Texas at Austin.<\/p>\n

Kathleen Holloway is a Doctoral Candidate in Human Development and Family Sciences at University of Texas at Austin. <\/em>Fatima Varner is an Assistant Professor in Human Development and Family Sciences at University of Texas at Austin. Stephen T. Russell is Priscilla Pond Flawn Regents Professor in Child Development and Director of the School of Human Ecology at the University of Texas at Austin.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

When parents experience racial discrimination do their parenting behaviors differ, and does that influence their teens? A new study in the journal Family Relations takes on the question of the effects of stresses related to race on youth \u2013 but focuses the question on stressors experienced by parents. The parenting of African American teens has […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2095,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[38845],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2463","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-new-work"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/ccf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2463","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/ccf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/ccf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/ccf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2095"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/ccf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2463"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/ccf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2463\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2464,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/ccf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2463\/revisions\/2464"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/ccf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2463"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/ccf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2463"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/ccf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2463"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}