Indirect Effects of Parental Physical Discipline on Child Literacy through Child Externalizing and Internalizing Problems: A Longitudinal Mediation

Parents’ physical discipline has been shown to adversely impact child socioemotional (McLoyd & Smith, 2002), and academic development (Gershoff, et al., 2016). However, no prior research has investigated the impacts of parents’ physical discipline in a process-oriented model. Therefore, we tested a developmental cascade model in which child externalizing and internalizing problems mediate the relationship between parental physical discipline and child literacy development. Data from the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study-Kindergarten Cohort, 1998-1999 (ECLS-K) were used to test a longitudinal mediation using a piecewise latent growth curve model. Results demonstrated that externalizing and internalizing symptoms mediated relationship between parents’ physical discipline and trajectories of child literacy. Furthermore, parents’ physical discipline during a child’s Kindergarten year predicted more externalizing and internalizing symptoms one year later and lower literacy skills in 8^th grade. Overall, findings suggest that parents’ physical discipline may have cascading detrimental impacts on child literacy development through problem behaviors.