Daniella Biondic

I am a PhD student in the School and Clinical Child Psychology Program at OISE/University of Toronto. My MA research examined parenting stress levels as a function of the characteristics of the adolescent (e.g., mood, delinquency, motivation to achieve), the effect of parenting on other life roles (e.g., relationship with friends and spouse, feelings of competence), and the perceived quality of the relationship parents have with their adolescent (e.g., degree of communication, amount of affection). This study was the first to show that parents of adolescents with ADHD report more stress than parents of adolescents without ADHD. Mothers and fathers of adolescents with ADHD reported similar levels of parenting stress across all stress domains; however, mothers reported higher levels of stress in terms of life restrictions, alienation from friends, conflict with their spouse, and feelings of incompetence and guilt. In addition, this study found that adolescent externalizing behaviour mediated the influence of ADHD status on stress in the Adolescent domain for both mothers and fathers of adolescents with ADHD. Symptoms of inattention, however, were only found to mediate the influence of ADHD status on stress in the Parent and the Adolescent-Parent Relationship domains for mothers of adolescents with ADHD. The results of this study thus showed that although mothers and fathers of adolescents with ADHD report similar levels of parenting stress, they differ in the factors that predict their levels of stress. My PhD research will be examining how parents of adolescents with ADHD cope with stress and how their parenting stress impacts the quality of their parenting practices. I will also be examining the impact of adolescent externalizing behaviour and parental ADHD and parental depression on coping strategies, parenting practices, and parenting stress levels.