McMahon, T.J., & Luthar, S.S. (2007). Defining characteristics and potential consequences of caretaking burden among children living in urban poverty. American Journal of Orthopsychiatry, 77(2), 267-81. This study examined the impact of caretaker burden imposed on children between the ages of 8 and 17, living in inner-city households with mothers abusing drugs or suffering from psychiatric problems. Doing household chores, caring for siblings, and/or caring for mother were significant predictors of internalizing and externalizing behaviors and social competence. The authors mentioned continued controversy about how to measure caretaker burden in children, which could represent a significant limitation of this study.
Sagrestano, L.M., Paikoff, R.L., Holmbeck, G.N., & Fendrich, M. (2003). A longitudinal examination of familial risk factors for depression among inner-city African-American adolescents. Journal of Family Psychology, 17(1), 108-20. This longitudinal study followed children of inner-city, African-American single-parent household to better understand how family factors influenced the incidence of depression and anxiety among children and parents. Increased family conflict and reduced parental monitoring were both significant predictors of child depression, while increased positive parenting was protective. Interestingly, parental depression was increased by peer interactions with the child and decreased by positive parenting. The data was based on self-reports from child and mother and revealed significant differences in perceptions, which the authors attributed in part to the immaturity of the child.
Florsheim, P., Tolan, P., & Gorman-Smith, D. (1998). Family relationships, parenting practices, the availability of male family members, and the behavior of inner-city boys in single-mother and two-parent families. Child Development, 69(5), 1437-47. African-American and Latino families, with boys between 10- and 15-years of age and living in inner-city Chicago neighborhoods, were recruited to participate in a study examining possible predictors of externalizing behaviors. Externalizing behaviors by the boys in the study were reduced significantly by feelings of family cohesion, structure, discipline, affiliation, and the presence of a positive male influence. Although child self-reports were the source for much of this data, the externalizing data was based on child, parent, and teacher reports.
