Latino immigrant parents’ financial stress, depression, and academic involvement predicting child academic success

The current study examines Mexican-heritage immigrant parents’ financial stress, English language fluency, and depressive symptoms as risk factors for parental academic involvement and child academic outcomes. Participants were 68 Latino immigrant (from Mexico) third and fourth graders and their parents. Results from a structural equation model analysis indicated that Latino parents who reported greater financial stress also reported higher levels of depressive symptoms; this, in turn, was related to lower parent-reported levels of engagement in the monitoring and transmission of implicit and explicit valuing of academics. Parental monitoring of academics was positively associated with children's success in mathematics and transmission of implicit and explicit valuing of academics was positively associated with children's success in language arts. The current study extends support for the Family Economic Stress Model by demonstrating connections between parental stress, emotional well-being, and child academic outcomes, through parental involvement in children's academics in a Latino-heritage sample.