Sharon Alexa McDorman
Member, Maryland Language Science Center
Human Development and Quantitative Methodology
samcdor@umd.eduAdvisors: Rachel Romeo
Publications
Parenting relationships as a moderator of how socioeconomic status and household chaos relate to children’s cognitive and socioemotional skills
How low SES and household chaos impact children, and if positive parenting can help.
Contributor(s): Sharon Alexa McDorman, Ellie Taylor, Rachel RomeoNon-ARHU Contributor(s): Morgan A. Gilmer, Victoria A. Terry, John D. Gabrieli
This study explores how low socioeconomic status (SES) and household chaos (considered negative childhood experiences) can impact important skills like executive functioning (EF) and socioemotional (SE) development in children. It also looks at whether positive experiences, specifically strong parenting relationships, can help alleviate the negative effects of these challenges. The research involved 83 children, ages 4 to 7, from diverse backgrounds.
The findings show that SES was linked to children’s lab-based EF skills, while household chaos seemed to affect their socioemotional development, with parenting playing a big role in that connection. However, the study didn’t find strong evidence that parenting could protect against the negative effects of SES and chaos on either EF or SE skills. Still, it did find that positive parenting was more closely related to better survey-based EF and SE skills in kids. This suggests that focusing on improving parenting relationships could be key to helping children thrive, even in difficult circumstances.