2.3.1. Parenting Dimensions Inventory: Short Form (PDI-S)

General parenting was assessed with the primary subscales of the PDI-S [25,26]. These scales were derived from 17 items on 6-point Likert scales: nurturance (e.g., “I encourage my child to talk about his or her troubles,” 6 items), inconsistency (e.g., “There are times I just don’t have the energy to make my child behave as he or she should,” 4 items), follow through on discipline (e.g., “Once I decide how to deal with a misbehavior of my child, I follow through on it,” 3 items), and organization (e.g., “Our family is organized,” 4 items). Amount of control was assessed with five dichotomous items. For each item, mothers chose one of a pair of opposing statements that best described her approach to parenting—one reflected the level of control expected of a permissive parent (e.g., “Children need more freedom to make up their own minds about things than they seem to get today”) and one reflected the level of control expected of an authoritative or authoritarian parent (e.g., “Children need more guidance from their parents than they seem to get today”). Coefficient alphas for the PDI subscales in the current sample were: nurturance (0.74), inconsistency (0.66), follow through on discipline (0.71), organization (0.64), and amount of control (0.03). Because of the low alpha for amount of control, this scale score was not used in the current analyses.

The PDI has predicted a number of child outcomes in various Spanish-speaking samples including achievement [63], social competence [64], smoking initiation [62], and weight status [65]. In addition to examining the correlates of the parenting dimensions on the PDI-S, we also assigned mothers to the authoritative, authoritarian, indulgent, or uninvolved parenting styles using a modification of the approach used in Hood et al. [61], Olvera and Power [65], and Hennessy et al. [23]. The approach for assigning mothers to general parenting styles is described in the preliminary analyses section below.