ANN ARBOR—How parents react to hardship?not income alone?affects children’s cognitive skills and their social and emotional competence, new research shows.

“Our results suggest that providing children from low-income families with free enriching materials or experiences when parents are financially unable to do so can have the greatest impact on improving children’s behavior,” said Elizabeth T. Gershoff, the study’s lead author and a professor at the University of Michigan’s School of Social Work.

Gershoff and colleagues from New York University, University of Chicago and Columbia University looked at 21,255 kindergartners from the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study Kindergarten Class of 1998-99.

In the study, which appears in the current issue of Child Development, parents provided information about their families’ economic situation, their own parenting and their children’s behaviors. Teachers provided additional information about children’s behaviors in school, and children’s cognitive skills were measured by standardized tests.

The study identified two ways family income affects children. First, parents who make more money are better able to buy educational materials such as books, and provide enriching experiences, such as visits to museums, that support their children’s academic achievement.

The second, the material hardship experienced by many low-income families, such as not having enough to eat, can lead parents to be depressed and fight with one another. Parents may show less affection toward their children, leaving the children depressed or more likely to misbehave, the researchers said.

By considering material hardship and family income together, the study’s results challenge the well-established finding that family income is directly associated with parents’ stress. The researchers found that only when increases in income were accompanied by decreases in families’ experiences of hardship did income lessen parents’ stress levels; added income alone was not enough. This distinction is important because the same level of family income can mean hardship in some parts of the country, such as large cities, but not in other areas, such as small, rural towns.

The National Institute of Child Health and Human Development supported the research through a grant.

Additional information about GershoffU-M School of Social WorkChild Development