Family stress and parent-infant interaction: The mediating role of coping

Stress, whether in the form of daily hassles, chronic life stressors, or stressful life events, has consistently been shown to impact the quality of the parent-child relationship. Coping has been defined as any strategy meant to manage stressful situations or events. To the extent that daily hassles and life events evoke strategies for coping with stress, the efficacy of such strategies could impact the quality of family relationships. The focus of the current study was to examine the relationship between stress and parent-child interactions, with direct interest in the mediating role of family coping on this family process. Participants were 105 low-income mother-infant pairs who were enrolled in the national evaluation of Early Head Start. Study findings revealed that mothers are more likely to demonstrate positive interactions with their infants when perceptions of life stressors are low. Furthermore, although mothers who report fewer stressors utilize more support from friends and family, results did not support a mediating effects of coping on mother-infant interactions.