Culture and Coping: Kinship Caregivers’ Experiences with Stress and Strain and the Relationship to Child Well-Being

Given the diverse ethnic makeup of the 3 million U.S. children who reside with kinship caregivers, it is imperative that human service professionals understand caregiving from a broad cultural perspective. In this survey research study, the caregiving experiences of 656 African American, Asian American, European American, Latino American, and Native American kinship caregivers were compared and contrasted. The caregivers share many of the same overall parenting experiences; however, there were differences in how they experience stress and strain and how this affects their sense of readiness/capacity to parent and their childrearing experiences. Likewise, kinship caregivers’ perceptions of the well-being of the children in their care are influenced by ethnicity, the number of children in their care, and their annual incomes. The findings may suggest the influence of culture on stress and strain as well as cultural variations in perceptions of child well-being. The findings provide a direction for practitioners who are engaged in work with culturally diverse kinship caregivers.