Extended Family Relations and Social
Support Networks
African Americans are more likely to reside in ex-
tended family households than are European Ameri-
cans. Extended families are close kin relations within
and across generations whose members are intensely
involved in the reciprocal exchange of goods, ser-
vices, and ongoing emotional support. As such, they
are problem-solving and stress-coping systems. Typi-
cally, involvement with extended family is beneficial
to young children and adolescents, partly because of
increased support, monitoring, and supervision.
African-American adolescents whose single parent is
involved in extended family activities report fewer
problem behaviors.
African-American and Latino adolescent mothers
who report higher levels of grandmother support
have fewer psychological problems, more positive in-
teractions with their babies, and higher levels of edu-
cational attainment. Nevertheless, the impact of
grandmother involvement, especially when mother
and grandmother are co-residing and/or co-
parenting, is not uniformly positive. Researchers do
not yet have a good understanding of what circum-
stances render different types of support from grand-
mothers helpful versus detrimental or inert. In
general, though, parents’ support networks reduce
emotional strain; lessen the tendency toward puni-
tive, coercive, and inconsistent parenting; and in
turn, foster socioemotional development in children.
Racial Socialization
Given the especially virulent and egregious dis-
crimination that African Americans have historically
faced and continue to experience, it is not surprising
that African-American parents generally provide
more extensive racial and ethnic socialization than
other parents of color who have been studied. For ex-
ample, African-American parents are more likely to
report talking with their adolescent children about ra-
cial and ethnic prejudice as a problem and how to
handle it than are Mexican-American parents, who,
in turn, are more likely to talk about these issues than
are Japanese-American parents.
African-American parents convey messages about
children’s cultural heritage and the importance of ra-
cial pride more frequently than messages about racial
discrimination and how to cope with it. Messages in-
tended to promote racial mistrust are a comparatively
minor, if not rare, element of racial socialization
among African-American parents. It is not yet clear
whether racial socialization consistently influences
African-American children’s racial identity, school
achievement, or ability to deal with racial stereotyp-
ing and discrimination. There is evidence from
studies of African-American adults, however, that
both racial socialization and group identity (i.e., feel-
ings of closeness in ideas and affect to one’s self-
identified racial group; race-linked self-image) pro-
tect physical/mental health in the face of perceived
racial discrimination and unfair treatment.
Responsive Discipline
Urban African-American and European-
American parents modify their strategies for manag-
ing their children’s lives and behavior in accordance
with the risks and opportunities afforded by neigh-
borhood conditions (e.g., resources, level of crime).
This responsiveness has positive effects on children’s
development. For example, parenting characterized
by a combination of restrictiveness, extensive rule set-
ting, and warmth appears to be especially beneficial
to the cognitive and socioemotional functioning of
African-American children living in high-risk, crime-
laden neighborhoods. This parenting style shields
children from noxious elements and bestows them
with a positive self-concept that helps deflect negative
influences in their extrafamilial environment.
African Americans are more likely to view physi-
cal discipline short of abuse as an appropriate display
of positive parenting than are European Americans.
African-American mothers consistently report higher
frequencies of spanking than European-American
mothers, even when socioeconomic status is taken
into account (McLoyd, Cauce, Takeuchi, and Wilson
2000). Cultural variation in the acceptability, mean-
ing, and parental attributes associated with spanking
also may be the reason that parents’ use of physical
discipline predicts higher levels of behavior problems
among European-American children, but does not
among African-American children. That is, because
of its commonplaceness in African-American culture,
spanking may coexist with high levels of warmth to
a greater extent in African-American households
than in European-American households. African-
American parents also may be less likely to administer
spanking in an impulsive or excessively harsh, puni-
tive manner. There is some preliminary support for
these claims, but more rigorous evaluation of them is
needed. In any case, existing research underscores
how critically important it is that parental strictness
not be equated with punitiveness and a cold emotion-
al style. The latter qualities are risk factors for behav-
ioral problems in children as indicated by evidence
that mothers of stress-resilient African-American chil-
dren (those exposed to high stress burdens, but who
show no clinically significant behavior problems) are
less rejecting and aggressive than mothers of stress-
impaired African-American children (those exposed
to high stress burdens who show clinically significant
behavior problems).See also: RACIAL DIFFERENCESAFRICAN-AMERICAN CHILDREN 17