A model of adolescent mothers' perceived parenting competence: The role of psychosocial, sociodemographic and family variables

Adolescent mothers have been regarded as being less cognitively prepared for parenting and as having more unstable social support resources than older parents. Generalizations made about adolescent mothers' parenting qualities often rely on predictive conceptual models that appear more descriptive of child rearing environments provided by older parents.;Structural Equation Modeling procedures were used in this study to assessed a hypothesized three factor structural model with direct and indirect effects among latent variables of social support, cognitive readiness for parenting, and perceived parenting competence among adolescent mothers. The proposed structural model also examined the direct and indirect effect of maternal self-concept, maternal ratings of child temperament, and maternal age, on the hypothesized three-factor structure.;Participants included a volunteer sample of 110 adolescent mothers recruited through several communities, and school based programs for pregnant and parenting teens. The average age of the participants at the time of the study was 17 years old and they were mothers to a child younger than 24 months of age.;Support was found for the hypothesis indicating a statistically significant direct effect of social support on adolescent mothers' cognitive readiness for parenting. This finding suggests that adolescent mothers' cognitive readiness for parenting can be enhanced within the context of supportive relationships that reinforce positive attitudes toward parenting and children.;Statistically significant mean differences in attitudes toward children and parenting, as well as perceived maternal competence were also observed across groups of mothers from different ethnicities and living in different family structures. It was also observed through this study that maternal self-concept measured in terms of an adolescents' sense of personal competence, was statistically significantly predictive of perceived social support, and to indirectly affect cognitive readiness for parenting, through its impact on social support. Child temperament was also observed to have a statistically significant direct effect on cognitive readiness for parenting and to be statistically significantly predictive of perceived maternal competence. These findings suggest that the understanding of adolescent mothers' diverse parenting experience and the views they hold about their parenting competencies requires the consideration of different levels of parenting influence.