Stress: A Potential Disruptor of Parent Perceptions and Family Interactions

Reviews research on the relationship between extra familial stressors (e.g., unemployment, low socioeconomic status), interpersonal stressors (e.g., marital distress, divorce), and child stressors and parents' perceptions and family interactions in families with conduct-problem children. Various stressors appear to have the power to disrupt parenting practices seriously by causing some parents to be more irritable, critical, and punitive. Such parenting behaviors increase the likelihood that children develop conduct problems, setting in motion a cycle of negative parent-child interactions and further stress on the parents. This process appears to be mediated by patents' psychological well being, quality of social support or degree of isolation, sex and drug use.