Parenting stress among parents in kinship and non-kinship foster homes

Compared to the general population, foster children experience a higher incidence of physical, cognitive, developmental emotional and behavioral problems. It is therefore reasonable to hypothesize that foster parents are... [ view full abstract ]

Compared to the general population, foster children experience a higher incidence of physical, cognitive, developmental emotional and behavioral problems. It is therefore reasonable to hypothesize that foster parents are likely to experience stress in relation to the caregiver role. There are several studies conducted on parenting stress, and the conclusion in the parenting stress research literature is generally that parenting stress decreases the quality of the parent-child relationship. There are however few studies on parenting stress in different types of foster homes. The aims of this study were therefore to measure parenting stress in kinship (N=114) and non-kinship foster homes (N=95) and to study factors that predict parental stress among foster parents. Results show that there were significant differences between the two groups on both the child domain scores and the parenting domain scores but not on total stress scores. This indicate that kinship foster parents and nonkinship fosterparents experience different sources of stress in their parenting role. Kinhip-foster parents experienced higher stress related to the parent domain i.e. depression and relationship problems with the spouse. This was explained by kinship foster parents being of older age, having lower income and receiving fewer social support services, compared to non-kinhip foster parents. Non-kinship foster parents experienced higher parenting stress related to the child domain i.e. child’s acceptability and adaptability in the family. This was explained by children in non-kinship foster homes having higher internalizing and externalizing mental health problems. The implications are that different types of support are needed for kinship foster parents and non-kinship foster parent in order reduce parent stress. More differentiated support for foster parents may help prevent parenting problems and increase placement permanency.