Child characteristics and parenting hostility: exploring the mediating effects of parental stress

Scope and Method of Study: Child characteristics play an important role in influencing parenting behaviors. Biological theory and the Parent-Child Interactive Stress model were used as frameworks to examine how child characteristics', parental stress, and parenting behaviors interact. Parental Stress was examined as a mediating variable between child characteristics and parenting. Findings and Conclusions: Child difficult temperament was significantly related to parental stress and parenting hostility. There was no significant link found between child development status and parental stress, while child development status was negatively related to parenting hostility. Parental stress did not mediate the link between child characteristics and parenting hostility. Results suggest that difficult child temperament yields high levels of both parenting stress and parenting hostility. In addition, child developmental delay yields lower levels of parenting hostility.