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Parenting, Family Loneliness, and Peer Functioning in Boys with Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder

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Abstract

The goal of the present study was to consider the associations between family functioning (parenting and family loneliness) and peer functioning in a sample of boys with ADHD (N = 110) and their mothers (N = 108) and fathers (N = 53). Results indicated that higher paternal warmth was associated with more peer acceptance, less peer rejection, and less problematic social behavior, but only for boys who reported low levels of family loneliness. In addition, more paternal power assertion was related to less peer acceptance, but only for boys who reported low levels of family loneliness. Maternal warmth and power assertion were not significantly related to boys’ peer functioning. We discuss these findings in the context of the processes by which parenting may affect the peer relationships of these children.

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Notes

  1. In light of the fact that the three groups of children differed significantly on socioeconomic status, supplementary analyses were run with socioeconomic status as a covariate in a manner otherwise parallel to the main analyses for the regressions including mothers’ perceptions of warmth and power assertion. All covariates were nonsignificant at the p<.05 level; further, results were otherwise consistent with the results in the main analyses.

  2. We acknowledge that optimally, it may be preferable to analyze warmth and power assertion in the same regressions for each parent so as to reduce the number of analyses needed and to allow for additional interactions of interest (i.e., Warmth×Power Assertion×Loneliness). However, doing so would have increased the number of predictors from 3 to 7 in each regression. Given our limited n of 51 for fathers, and the fact that even our three predictor model falls short of generally recommended subject-to-predictor ratios (see, e.g., recommendations of Tabachnick & Fidell, 2001), we decided to retain the simpler model. We acknowledge, however, that this remains an important goal for future work.

  3. Although our sample included children in a relatively large age range (7–12), child age was not significantly correlated with any of our dependent variables. Further, when we reran our analyses using age as a covariate, the results of our analyses were consistent with those reported in the text.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Psychological Sciences, Purdue University, West Lafayette, IN, USA

    Elizabeth A. Hurt

  2. Department of Psychology, University of Vermont, Burlington, VT, USA

    Betsy Hoza

  3. Department of Psychology, State University of New York at Buffalo, Buffalo, NY, USA

    William E. Pelham Jr.

  4. John Dewey Hall, 2 Colchester Ave, Burlington, VT, 05405, USA

    Elizabeth A. Hurt

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  1. Elizabeth A. Hurt
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Correspondence to Elizabeth A. Hurt.

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Hurt, E.A., Hoza, B. & Pelham, W.E. Parenting, Family Loneliness, and Peer Functioning in Boys with Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder. J Abnorm Child Psychol 35, 543–555 (2007). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10802-007-9111-x

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