This meta-analysis includes an evaluation of the relationships between the adequacy of family resources and four parenting measures (beliefs, burden, engagement, and practices). Adequacy of family resources was hypothesized to be positively related to parenting beliefs, engagement, and practices and negatively related to parenting burden. Studies were eligible for inclusion if the Family Resource Scale was used to measure family resources, the total scale score was used to index the adequacy of family resources, one or more parenting belief or practices measures were used as outcome measures, and the correlations between the adequacy of family resources and the parenting measures were reported. Twenty-eight studies (including 30 independent samples of study participants) conducted between 1986 and 2019 met the inclusion criteria. The 30 samples included 5,247 study participants. Results showed that the adequacy of family resources was related to each of the four parenting measures as hypothesized and that child risk condition (children with or without identified disabilities or medical conditions and the number of items for computing a total family resource scale score moderated the strength of the relationships between family resources and parenting beliefs and practices. The findings are discussed in terms of the contributions to family systems theory and research. Several limitations of the meta-analysis are described.
Keywords: Family resources, meta-analysis, parent engagement, parenting beliefs, parenting burden, parenting practices
