Early Parenting Stress, Coparenting Quality, and Changes in the Home Learning Environment: Longitudinal Links to Children’s Language and Literacy

SYNOPSISObjective. This study examined longitudinal associations among early parenting stress, parenting behaviors (i.e. parental warmth/responsivity and engagement in home learning activities [HLAs]), and coparenting quality at ages 1 and 3 years, and children’s language and literacy outcomes at age 5, in a socioeconomically disadvantaged sample. Design. Using data from the Future of Families and Child Wellbeing (N = 1,506), residualized change modeling tested whether parenting stress at age 1 predicted declines in parental warmth/responsivity and reduced engagement in HLAs from ages 3 to 5; whether those declines in parenting quality and HLAs mediated the associations between parenting stress and children’s language and literacy; and whether perceived coparenting quality, assessed at ages 3 and 5, moderated associations among parenting stress, parenting behaviors, and children’s language and literacy outcomes. Results. Parenting stress was associated with declines in parents’ warmth/responsivity as well as their HLAs engagement. Declines in parental warmth/responsivity, but not engagement in HLAs, mediated the association between parenting stress and children’s receptive vocabulary. No indirect effects were observed for letter-word identification and teacher-rated language and literacy. Perceived coparenting quality at age 5 moderated the association between parenting stress and teacher-rated language and literacy skills and the association between HLA engagement and children’s letter-word identification skills. Conclusions. The associations between parenting stress and children’s subsequent language and literacy development may operate through specific family processes, including changes in parental warmth/responsivity.