Adolescent mothers: The relationship between enacted social support and parenting competence

Adolescent parenting has been cited as the cause for long term psychological, economic and social problems for adolescent mothers and their children. The consequences of adolescent parenting include difficulty in completing high school and obtaining meaningful employment. This quantitative study utilized Belsky's (1984) Determinants of Parenting Model as the framework to examine the relationship between the maternal characteristics of age, self-esteem, ethnicity, the child characteristic of fussiness and the situational characteristics of socioeconomic status and enacted social support and the parenting competence of Caucasian and First Nation/Métis adolescent mothers using stepwise multiple regression. Emotional support, ethnicity, and socioeconomic status were found to be significant predicators of parenting competence. The discussion includes recommendations for future research, applications for education, direct care, and policy and program development.