Impact of Positive Parenting Behaviors and Children’s Self-Control on Levels of Externalizing Behavior Problems during Early Childhood

This study investigated the impact of parenting and children’s self-control on children’s externalizing behavior problems among 167 predominantly African-American mothers and their 2-year-old children. Two hypotheses were considered based on two distinct theoretical origins of self-control. First, consistent with a behavioral perspective, exposure to positive parenting was hypothesized to indirectly affect externalizing behaviors through children’s self-control; that is, children’s self-control was expected to mediate the association between positive parenting and externalizing behaviors. Second, consistent with a temperamental perspective, self-control was expected to moderate the impact of positive parenting on levels of children’s externalizing behaviors such that only children with a propensity towards low self-control benefited from positive parenting. Results were not consistent with the mediational hypothesis and provided limited support for the moderational hypothesis. That is, only for children with characteristically low self-control was exposure to more positive parenting associated with fewer externalizing behavior problems, as rated by teachers, one year later.