Disentangling the relationship between caregiver stress and child executive function

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Lashley, Olivia

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Abstract

While parenting is often rewarding, there are some aspects of parenthood that are stressful. One potential source of stress for parents is child behavior, especially for parents of children with low executive function (EF), who may feel stress due to their child’s difficulties with focus, task completion, and emotion regulation. This form of stress, which is directly related to the parent-child interaction, is called parenting stress. Stress experienced by parents may also be related to more general factors, such as chronic stress, trait worry, or perceived stress. This study aims to determine if child executive function is more strongly related to parenting stress than other forms of stress in order to gain insight as to what resources may best support stress reduction in parents of children with low EF. If child EF is strongly correlated with parenting stress, interventions that help parents better support their child’s needs may be most effective in reducing their stress. However, if child EF is strongly correlated with other, more general forms of stress then interventions to target general stress management would be more effective in supporting parents of children with low EF. Results showed that EF was not related to parenting stress, nor was it related to parent chronic stress, trait worry, or perceived stress. This suggests that targeting parenting stress is not specifically more favorable than other types of support for parents of children with low EF.

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Single page poster

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executive, function, parenting, stress, child

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