ABSTRACT
The topic of mental health in Mexican American youth is an important one, as past research suggests that Latino children and adolescents may be more at risk for certain difficulties. For example, previous research has shown that Latino children and teenagers report higher levels of depressive symptoms than Caucasian or African American youth. Therefore, before examining the relationships between parenting and children's mental health in Mexican American families, it is important to discuss the factors that encompass the broader social context in which parenting occurs, and which may play a role in the relationship between parenting and child functioning. Parent behavior has been implicated as an important contributing factor to children's internalizing and externalizing symptoms in various parenting models. Most models of the relationships between parenting and children's mental health have been primarily based on European American families, and less research has focused on the application of these models with Latino populations.
