Parental Involvement and Children's Extra-Familial Contexts

Parental involvement has been shown to be a robust predictor of child conduct problems (CP)
and drug use risk in childhood and adolescence, but relatively little attention has been
paid to the role of parental involvement in relation to child problem behavior during the
transition to school-age, when children are spending more time in school, after-care
settings, and in the neighborhood. Concomitantly, as children transition from preschool to
school-age, there is evidence to suggest that the quality and organization of schools,
after-school care, and neighborhoods play an increasingly important role in the emergence of
children's CP and drug use risk. Specifically, we will address: 1) the extent to which the
quality of school environments, after-school care, and neighborhoods are associated with the
emergence of CP during the early school-age period; 2) how parental involvement in the
toddler and preschool period may be associated with parental involvement and monitoring in
extra-familial contexts in the early school-age years; 3) how parental involvement in
schools, after-care, and the neighborhood, may moderate relationships between extra-familial
factors and children's CP; and 4) whether a parenting intervention can increase parental
involvement in school, after-care, and neighborhood contexts and decrease risk of children's
subsequent CP. These issues will be tested with an existing sample of 731 ethnically-diverse
children from urban, suburban, and rural sites. As all families in the study were recruited
based on the presence of sociodemographic, family, and child risk factors, the cohort of
children are at high risk for displaying a persistent trajectory of clinically-meaningful CP
and drug use risk. Thus, the study has the potential to fill a much-needed void on
associations between extra-familial contexts and risk for early-starting CP and later
problem behavior during the early school-age years. Equally critical, the study can provide
data on the potential moderating influence of involved parenting, its malleability for
families facing multiple adversities, and whether family-based interventions can make a
difference for children facing multiple adversities.