Linking maternal efficacy beliefs, developmental goals, parenting practices, and child competence in rural single-parent African American families

With,sample of 139 rural, single-parent African American families with a 6- to 9-year-old child, we traced the links among family financial resource a dequacy, maternal childrearing efficacy beliefs, developmental goals, paren ting practices, and children's academic and psychosocial competence. A mult imethod, multiinformant design was used to assess the constructs of interes t. Consistent with the hypothesized paths, financial resource adequacy was linked with mothers' sense of childrearing efficacy. Efficacy beliefs were Linked with parenting practices indirectly through developmental goals. Com petence-promoting parenting practices were indirectly linked with children' s academic and psychosocial competence through their association with child ren's self-regulation.