Parenting as it's lived!

Recently settled refugee families in the Netherlands face a number of stressors. A forced migration into a foreign country and culture, discrimination, and a feared loss of identity by their children are among the stressors families deal with on a daily basis. Such post-migration stressors come on top of a history of possibly traumatic experiences prior to their resettlement in the Netherlands. Both pre-migration and post-migration stressors may influence refugee parents’ feelings of parental self-efficacy (PSE) and use of autonomy-supportive parenting. In this study, we will use Experience Sampling Methods (ESM; i.e., where data is collected at multiple times during the day, for multiple days) to test, first, whether daily post-migration stressors are negatively associated with how efficacious parents feel, and how these feelings of PSE in turn are associated with parent’s use of autonomy-supportive parenting. Second, whether strengthening parents’ PSE weakens the association between daily stressors and PSE, and subsequently more use of autonomy-supportive parenting becomes evident. This study can inform research by highlighting the possible adverse link between daily stressors, PSE and autonomy-supportive parenting practices. In addition, this study informs future parenting support work with recently settled refugee families by testing the effectiveness of a brief intervention on PSE and autonomy-supportive parenting.

1. Post-migration stressors are associated with parental self-efficacy controlling for war-trauma
2. Parents feel more efficacious on days with less post-migration stressors and vice-versa
3. Real Tailored Verbal feedback on parenting will improve Parental Self-Efficacy
4. Parents will experience less fluctuation in Parental Self Efficacy upon experiencing post-migration stressors post-intervention

Intensive longitudinal design

Verbal feedback aimed to boost Parental Self-Efficacy