Parenting Stress in Parents of Hispanic Adolescents‪.‬

Interrelations between parenting stress, quality of parent-adolescent relationship, and communication between parents and adolescents were studied in a sample of 124 Hispanic parents (62 mothers and 62 fathers) of adolescents. Parents responded to two subscales of the Stress Index for Parents of Adolescents (SIPA; Sheras, Abidin, & Konold, 1998), and the Parent Adolescent Communication Scale (PACS; Barnes & Olson, 1982). As expected, a closer and mutually supportive parent-adolescent relationship, and better communication between parents and adolescents were both associated with lower levels of parenting stress. However, a higher level of stress in mothers was not found, as in earlier studies. Results are discussed in the light of specific sample as well as cultural characteristics. Parenting characteristics have been linked to developmental outcomes in children (Domitrovich & Bierman, 2001) and adolescents (Lamborn, Mounts, Steinberg & Dornbusch, 1991), and identified as a crucial component of children's social context. At the same time, there is a general consensus that parenting is perhaps the most difficult role that adults play. There is no explicit preparation for the inherently ill-defined parenting role in the course of socialization (Coleman, 1997; Pasley & Gecas, 1984), especially for men, and parents have to make decisions for children in a constantly changing world, thus increasing the uncertainty about the appropriateness of those decisions. It is hardly surprising then, that all parents experience a certain amount of stress associated with parenting. Indeed parenting stress itself has been recognized as a central variable determining parenting behaviors.