Researchers and practitioners concerned about children with emotional disorders and their families often try to understand the relationship between a child's condition and family functioning. Does some aspect of the caregiver affect the child's emotional and behavioral difficulties? Does the strain of caring for a child with such difficulties have an impact on parents? Does each affect the other in some reciprocal fashion? Previous research has often been limited by cross-sectional designs and study of unidirectional effects. This article attempts to advance the understanding of the interplay between children's functioning and caregivers' well-being in a longitudinal study of 164 families. Data are from two waves of a panel survey and are analyzed using structural equation modeling. Results indicate that caregivers and children do have effects on each other and that the effect of child functioning on caregiver well-being increases over time. Implications for further research and interventions are suggested.
Get full access to this article
View all access options for this article.
References
1.
Achenbach, T. M. (1991). Manual for the Child Behavior Checklist/4-18 and 1991 profile. Burlington: University of Vermont Department of Psychiatry.
2.
Angold, A. , Messer, S. C., Stangl, D., Farmer, E.M.Z., Costello, E. J., & Burns, B. J. (1998). Perceived parental burden and service use for child and adolescent psychiatric disorders. American Journal of Public Health, 88, 75-80.
3.
Baker, D. B. , & McCal, K. (1995). Parenting stress in parents of children with attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder and parents of children with learning disabilities. Journal of Child and Family Studies, 4, 57-68.
4.
Bentler, P. (1995). EQS structural equations program manual. Encino, CA: Multivariate Software.
5.
Bernstein, G. A. , Svingen, P. H., & Garfinkel, B. D. (1990). School phobia: Patterns of family functioning. Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, 29, 24-30.
6.
Bollen, K. (1989). Structural equations with latent variables. New York: John Wiley.
7.
Caplan, P. J. , & Hall-McCorquodale, I. H. (1985). Mother-blaming in major clinical journals. American Journal of Orthopsychiatry, 53, 345-353.
8.
Costello, E. J. , Angold, A., Burns, B. J., Stangl, D. K., Tweed, D. L., Erkanli, A., et al. (1996). The Great Smoky Mountain Study of youth: Goals, designs, methods, and the prevalence of DSM-III(R) disorders. Archives of General Psychiatry, 53, 1129-1136.
9.
Crowley, M. J. , & Kazdin, A. E. (1998). Child psychosocial functioning and parent quality of life among clinically referred children. Journal of Child and Family Studies, 7, 233-251.
10.
Early, T. J. , & Poertner, J. (1993). Families with children with emotional disabilities: A review of the literature. Social Work, 38, 743-764.
11.
Finkel, S. (1995). Causal analysis with panel data. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
12.
Friesen, B. J. (1989). National study of parents whose children have serious emotional disorders: Preliminary findings. In A. Algarin, R. M. Friedman, A. J. Duchnowski, K. M. Kutash, S. E. Silver, & M. K. Johnson (Eds.), 2nd annual conference proceedings, children's mental health services and policy: Building a research base (pp. 36-52). Tampa: Research and Training Center for Children's Mental Health, Florida Mental Health Institute, University of South Florida.
13.
Hamden-Allen, G. , Stewart, M. A., & Beeghly, J. H. (1989). Subgrouping conduct disorder by psychiatric family history. Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, 30, 889-897.
14.
Fuller, G. B. , & Rankin, R. E. (1994). Differences in levels of parental stress among mothers of learning disabled, emotionally impaired, and regular school children. Perceptual and Motor Skills, 78, 583-592.
15.
Hayduk, L. A. (1987). Structural equation modeling with LISREL. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press.
16.
Hoyle, R. , & Panter, A. (1995). Writing about structural equation models. In R. Hoyle (Ed.), Structural equation modeling: Concepts, issues, and applications (pp. 158-176). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
17.
Hu, L. , & Bentler, P. (1995). Evaluating model fit. In R. Hoyle (Ed.), Structural equation modeling: Concepts, issues, and applications (pp. 76-99). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
18.
Kline, R. (1998). Principles and practice of structural equation modeling. New York: Guilford.
19.
MacCallum, R. (1995). Model specification: Procedures, strategies and related issues. In R. Hoyle (Ed.), Structural equation modeling: Concepts, issues, and applications (pp. 16-36). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
20.
McCubbin, M. A. , & McCubbin, H. I. (1987). Family stress theory and assessment: The T-Double ABC-X Model of family adjustment and adaptation. In H. I. McCubbin & A. I. Thompson (Eds.), Family assessment inventories for research and practice (pp. 1-32). Madison: University of Wisconsin.
21.
McDonald, T. P. , Couchonnal, G., & Early, T. (1996). The impact of major events on the lives of family caregivers of children with disabilities. Families in Society, 77, 502-514.
22.
McDonald, T. P. , Gregoire, T. K., Poertner, J., & Early, T. J. (1997). Building a model of family caregiving for children with emotional disorders. Journal of Emotional and Behavioral Disorders, 5, 138-148.
23.
McDonald, T. P. , Poertner, J., & Pierpont, J. (1999). Predicting caregiver stress: An ecological perspective. American Journal of Orthopsychiatry, 69, 100-109.
24.
Patterson, J. M. (1996). Family research methods: Issues and strategies. In C. A. Heflinger & C. T. Nixon (Eds.), Families and the mental health system for children and adolescents (pp. 117-144). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
25.
Poertner, J., McDonald, T. P., & Pierpont, J. (in press). Social support: Mediator or moderator. Children and Youth Services Review.
26.
Press, A. (1989). Internal reliability and validity of the computerized stress inventory. Unpublished manuscript, University of Kansas School of Social Welfare.
27.
Press, A. (n.d.). Additional evidence for the validity of several of the primary scales in the comprehensive and brief Stress Inventory. Unpublished manuscript.
28.
Satorra, A. , & Bentler, P. (1994). Corrections to test statistics and standard errors in covariance structure analysis. In A. von Eye & C. Clogg (Eds.), Latent variable analysis: Applications for developmental research (pp. 399-419). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
29.
Yatchmenoff, D. K. , Koren, P. E., Friesen, B. J., Gordon, L. J., & Kinney, R. F. (1998). Enrichment and stress in families caring for a child with a serious emotional disorder. Journal of Child and Family Studies, 7, 129-145.
