Effects of Maternal Parenting and Mother-Child Relationship Quality on Short-Term Longitudinal Change in Self-Regulation in Early Adolescence

The purpose of the present study was to explore the degree to which short-term longitudinal change in adolescent self-regulation was attributable to maternal parenting and mother-child relationship quality. A total of 821 mother-adolescent dyads provided data in the 1992 and 1994 waves of the Children of the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth-1979 (52.5% male; 24.2% Hispanic, 36.7% African American, 39.1% European American; adolescents’ initial age range = 10-12 years). Consistent with hypotheses, longitudinal improvements in young adolescents’ self-regulation were associated with high levels of mother-child relationship quality and low levels of maternal discipline. The association between self-regulation in 1992 and 1994 was moderated by child sex and maternal discipline. Thus, this study provides further evidence favoring the exploration of the parent-child relational context in addition to discrete parenting behaviors in studies on self-regulation during the early adolescent years.