title: African american mothers' self-described discipline strategies with young children.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  African American families have been described as using higher levels of non-abusive physical discipline with their children than European American families. Few if any studies have documented AA families' use of disciplinary strategies in their own words, however, or their reasons for their use.
  
  
  METHODS
  In this qualitative study, 51 African American mothers from a 1992 Memphis sample described their disciplinary strategies with their 12 to 19 month old children.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Seventy-seven percent of mothers described using verbal teaching along with non-abusive physical discipline, such as tapping their children's hands. Mothers also expressed concern about being too strict, described awareness of their children's developmental limits, and used non-physical disciplinary methods, consistent with positive accepting parent-child relationships.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  These findings are important because the low-income girls who experienced such parenting in the 1990s are now young mothers themselves. Current practice guidelines encourage new mothers to think about how they themselves were parented; the knowledge from this study may assist practitioners to engage present-day African American mothers in supportive discussions about physical and non-physical discipline methods with young children.
authors.affiliation: University of Rochester School of Nursing, Rochester, New York 14642, USA. elizabeth_lecuyer@urmc.rochester.edu
authors.forename: Elizabeth A
authors.initials: EA
authors.lastname: Lecuyer
authors.forename: Julie J
authors.initials: JJ
authors.lastname: Christensen
authors.forename: Margaret H
authors.initials: MH
authors.lastname: Kearney
authors.forename: Harriet J
authors.initials: HJ
authors.lastname: Kitzman
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D001741:Black or African American / Q000523:psychology*; D001294:Attitude to Health; D002654:Child Care / Q000379:methods; D002668:Child Rearing / Q000208:ethnology*; D002675:Child, Preschool; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008425:Maternal Behavior / Q000208:ethnology*; D009034:Mother-Child Relations / Q000208:ethnology*; D016487:Parenting / Q000523:psychology*; D011678:Punishment / Q000523:psychology*; D012931:Social Environment; D012944:Social Support; D012959:Socioeconomic Factors; D055815:Young Adult