Family Functioning in Latino Families of Children with ADHD: The Role of Parental Gender and Acculturation

It has been well established that parents of children with ADHD report significantly higher levels of parenting stress (Heath, Curtis, Fan, & McPherson, 2015) and chaos in the home (Wirth et al., 2017) than parents of children without ADHD. Parents of children with ADHD also report feeling less efficacious in their parenting abilities compared to parents of children without ADHD (Primack et al., 2012). To date, a majority of the literature on ADHD has focused on European American children and families, resulting in a paucity of research and clinical practice with ethnic minority families of youth with ADHD, specifically among Latinos (Alegría et al., 2007; Eiraldi et al., 2006). The current study aimed to build upon recent research on ADHD among Latino children and their families by exploring contextual and cultural factors, such as parental gender and acculturation, which may account for variations in parenting experiences among Latino parents of children with ADHD. The present study utilized secondary data analysis to analyze pre-treatment ratings of parenting stress, home chaos, and parental efficacy among a sample of Latino mothers and fathers (n = 46), who were recruited as a part of a larger study. Results indicated that Latina mothers of children with ADHD report higher levels of parenting stress than Latino fathers of children with ADHD; however, no significant parental gender differences were found in pre-treatment ratings of parental efficacy and home chaos. Additionally, several significant relationships were found between parental acculturation, parental gender and parenting variables. Clinical implications of these findings are discussed