Parenting Behaviors Influence Children’s Mathematical Skills: Examining Potential Mediating and Moderating Roles of Child Executive Function

Abstract

Parenting sets up the characteristics of the environment in which development takes place, making it a major predictor of most developmental outcomes, including academic skills. Much research has demonstrated that parenting behaviors influence math performance, however, the mechanisms and conditions under which this association takes place remain unclear. My thesis project assessed how child executive functions (EFs) influence the effects of middle childhood parenting on adolescents’ math skills. 77 mother-child dyads from Blacksburg contributed data in two different occasions: during the first visit (child age=9), maternal parenting behaviors (supportive and non-supportive), and child EF were assessed via questionnaires, behavioral coding, and a battery of EF tasks; during the second visit (child age=14), children’s math skills were assessed using a standardized test of achievement. Regression analyses revealed a direct effect of a composite measure of non-supportive parenting during middle childhood on adolescents’ math performance. Furthermore, EF did not mediate or moderate the effect of parenting on math skills, when using composite measures of parenting. However, when the parenting behaviors were assessed individually, maternal facilitation of attention, maternal expressive encouragement, and maternal minimizing reactions had indirect effects on adolescents’ math skills via EFs; specifically, working memory and inhibitory control were significant mediators. Furthermore, child cognitive flexibility moderated the effect of maternal distress reactions on adolescents’ math skills, but only when the levels of cognitive flexibility are considerably low.