of racial discrimination might affect children 's socioemotional development not only through an increase in harsh parenting practices , as hypothesised here , but also through a decrease in supportive parenting . Although we were not able to assess this mechanism with the data we analysed , other studies show that psychological distress is associated with less nurturing and supportive parenting ( McLoyd , 1990 ) . Parental support is important not only as a predictor of the healthy development of children ( Pettit et al . , 1997 ) , but as a moderator in the association between experienced racial discrimination and detrimental outcomes among children ( Simons et al . , 2002 ) . Future studies that are able examine the multiple pathways , and their particular details that link vicarious racial discrimination to children 's health and development , will improve our understanding of the intergenerational transmission of ethnic inequalities in health . We did not find any associations between living in a neighbourhood where racist incidents are common , and children 's socioemotional development . We had proposed in the introduction that living in a racist neighbourhood would have a detrimental effect on maternal mental health by producing a state of heightened vigilance from the constant fear of either them , or their children , experiencing racial discrimination . It is possible that hypervigilance may also be elicited via other exposures to racial discrimination ( including personal , and those of family members ) , and not only through living in a neighbourhood where racist events are common . This is a plausible explanation given the documented association between fear of racism and poor health outcomes ( B ecares et al . , 2009 ) , and that ethnic minority mothers report they vicariously experience racism by witnessing discrimination against their children ( Sanders - Phillips et al . , 2009 ) .