Does Children’s Effortful Control Moderate the Relation between Family Environment and Children’s Behavioral Problems?
This study explored the effects of child effortful control, negative parenting responses and chaotic households, on children’s externalizing behavioral problems. The 188 parent-child dyads were recruited from elementary schools in the southwest region of the US and reflected the sex and ethnic make-up of the classrooms. Correlation analyses were consistent with previous findings, indicating that negative parenting and chaos were associated with children’s externalizing problem behaviors. Further regression analyses indicated that chaos in the home and effortful control were significant predictors of externalizing behaviors but negative parenting was not. Also, a moderating interaction of effortful control between child environmental aspects and child externalizing behaviors was not a significant predictor of children’s externalizing behaviors. This study demonstrates significant associations between the family environment, effortful control and externalizing problems; a finding that co
