Children's coping strategies and coping efficacy: Relations to parent socialization, child adjustment, and familial alcoholism

Cynthia L. Smith, Nancy Eisenberg, Tracy L. Spinrad, Laurie Chassin, Amanda Sheffield Morris, Anne Kupfer, Jeffrey Liew, Amanda Cumberland, Carlos Valiente, Oi Man Kwok

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

36 Scopus citations

Abstract

The relations of children's coping strategies and coping efficacy to parent socialization and child adjustment were examined in a sample of school-age children that included families in which some of the grandparents and/or parents had an alcoholism diagnosis. Parents and older children reported on the children's coping strategies; parents reported on their parenting behavior; and teachers reported on children's externalizing and internalizing problems. Measures of parent socialization were associated with parents' and children's reports of active coping strategies and parents' reports of both support-seeking coping and coping efficacy. Some of these relations were moderated by familial alcohol status. Children higher in parent-reported active/ support-seeking coping and coping efficacy were rated lower in teacher-reported externalizing and internalizing adjustment problems. The findings were consistent with the view that active/support-seeking coping and coping efficacy mediated the association of parent socialization to children's psychological adjustment and that this relation was sometimes moderated by parental alcohol status.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)445-469
Number of pages25
JournalDevelopment and Psychopathology
Volume18
Issue number2
DOIs
StatePublished - Apr 2006

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