Parental satisfaction with center-based child care and life satisfaction: Exploring the effects of parenting stress

Content Provider	Semantic Scholar
Author	Howard, Stacy
Copyright Year	2010
Abstract	Crnic and Low (2002) made a compelling argument that “perhaps nothing characterizes parenting better than the everyday challenges and caregiving demands that involve relationships with the developing child” (p. 243). Today, these relationships for children involve more adults beyond the parents. The purpose of this study was to explore the factors that help parents to cope with stress and to determine the overall impact that parenting stresses have on satisfaction with child care and overall life satisfaction. The current study utilized a family stress model to better understand which variables had influence on the identified dependent variables. The influences of parenting stresses, parenting daily hassles, level of family coping, perceived teacher support, and sense of coherence were examined for their predictive qualities in determining satisfaction with child care and satisfaction with life. Participants were asked to complete an online survey consisting of demographic and open-ended questions, and measurements of each variable. The variables and the corresponding scales were Parenting Stress Scale to measure parenting stresses, Parenting Daily Hassles Scale to measure parenting daily hassles, Family Crisis Oriented Personal Evaluation Scale to measure level of family coping, Caregiver Support Scale to measure perceived teacher support, Orientation to Life Scale to measure sense of coherence, Child Care Satisfaction Scale to measure satisfaction with child care, and Satisfaction with Life Scale to measure overall life satisfaction. Owners or directors of 246 private, center-based child care programs that offer Florida’s Voluntary Prekindergarten (VPK) program were asked to assist in the recruitment of parents. A total of 201 parents completed the survey. Data analysis was conducted using SPSS 15.0 and AMOS 6.0. Overall, the model fit well with the observed data and thus supported the research question for this study that parenting stresses, parenting daily hassles, level of family coping, perceived teacher support, and sense of coherence can be integrated to predict satisfaction with child care and overall life satisfaction. The variable with the greatest total effect on satisfaction with child care was sense of coherence followed by parenting stress and perceived teacher support. The reported R explained 10.0% of the variance for satisfaction with child care. Similar results were found for satisfaction with life. The variable with the greatest total effect on satisfaction with
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Language	English
Access Restriction	Open
Content Type	Text
Resource Type	Article