Risk and resilience in low-income African American families: Moderating effects of kinship social support.

The moderating effects of kinship social support on the association of mother-adolescent problematic relations and mothers' report of adolescents' internalizing and externalizing problems were assessed among 204 African American mothers of adolescents who were between the ages of 14 and 18 years. Kinship support was negatively associated with both internalizing and externalizing problems. Mother-adolescent communication problems and mothers' psychological control were positively associated with internalizing problems. Mother-adolescent communication problems were positively related to externalizing problems. The interaction of kinship support and mothers' psychological control on internalizing problems was significant. Probing the interaction revealed that the relation of mothers' psychological control with internalizing problems was less apparent for mothers who had higher compared with lower kinship social support. Also, the relation of the interaction of kinship support and mother-adolescent communication problems with externalizing problems was significant. The association of mother-adolescent communication problems with externalizing problems was less apparent when mothers had higher compared with lower kinship support. The findings are discussed in terms of the need for more information on factors that moderate families' access to social support.