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Direct, indirect, and buffering effects of support for mothers on children's socioemotional adjustment.

ABSTRACT: Support for mothers may improve children's socioemotional adjustment, yet few studies have considered the benefits of formal support (from health and social work professionals) in addition to social support (from family and friends) or explored the mechanisms. These issues were addressed using a birth cohort (n = 2,649) to explore how mothers' perceptions of social and formal support when children were ages 10-22 months predicted trajectories of children's externalizing and internalizing problems from 58 to 122 months. We tested mediating pathways from support to child adjustment via 3 family stressors measured at 46-58 months (maternal distress, economic strain, and dysfunctional parenting) and examined whether support buffered effects of stressors on child adjustment. Social and formal support were simultaneously associated with lower child externalizing and internalizing problem trajectory intercepts at 90 months but did not predict trajectory slopes. Social support effects were mediated mainly via lower maternal distress, which then reduced children's problems via lower dysfunctional parenting, or more directly. Additional indirect effects involved lower economic strain. Formal support effects were mediated to a lesser extent by reduced dysfunctional parenting. Two buffering effects were found: social support reduced effects of economic strain on internalizing problems, and formal support reduced effects of dysfunctional parenting on internalizing problems. Findings suggest measures promoting families' social integration should benefit children's socioemotional adjustment via improved parental psychological and economic resources and by buffering impacts of economic strain. Enhancing access to health and welfare services through greater awareness and trust should benefit children's adjustment, via improved parenting and by buffering impacts of dysfunctional parenting. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2018 APA, all rights reserved).

SUBMITTER: Parkes A

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6205417 | biostudies-literature | 2018 Oct

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Direct, indirect, and buffering effects of support for mothers on children's socioemotional adjustment.

Parkes Alison A Sweeting Helen H

Journal of family psychology : JFP : journal of the Division of Family Psychology of the American Psychological Association (Division 43) 20180809 7

Support for mothers may improve children's socioemotional adjustment, yet few studies have considered the benefits of formal support (from health and social work professionals) in addition to social support (from family and friends) or explored the mechanisms. These issues were addressed using a birth cohort (<i>n</i> = 2,649) to explore how mothers' perceptions of social and formal support when children were ages 10-22 months predicted trajectories of children's externalizing and internalizing ...[more]

PMID: 30091624

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Project description:BackgroundFamily members resemble each other in their propensity for aggression. In twin studies, approximately 50% of the variance in aggression can be explained by genetic influences. However, if there are genotype-environment correlation mechanisms, such as environmental manifestations of parental and sibling genotypes, genetic influences may partly reflect environmental influences. In this study, we investigated the importance of indirect polygenic score (PGS) effects on aggression.MethodsWe modeled the effect of PGSs based on 3 genome-wide association studies: early-life aggression, educational attainment, and attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). The associations with aggression were tested in a within- and between-family design (37,796 measures from 7740 individuals, ages 3-86 years [mean = 14.20 years, SE = 12.03], from 3107 families, 55% female) and in a transmitted/nontransmitted PGS design (42,649 measures from 6653 individuals, ages 3-61 years [mean = 11.81 years, SE = 8.68], from 3024 families, 55% female). All participants are enrolled in the Netherlands Twin Register.ResultsWe found no evidence for contributions of indirect PGS effects on aggression in either a within- and between-family design or a transmitted/nontransmitted PGS design. Results indicate significant direct effects on aggression for the PGSs based on early-life aggression, educational attainment, and ADHD, although explained variance was low (within- and between-family: early-life aggression R2 = 0.3%, early-life ADHD R2 = 0.6%, educational attainment R2 = 0.7%; transmitted/nontransmitted PGSs: early-life aggression R2 = 0.2%, early-life ADHD R2 = 0.9%, educational attainment R2 = 0.5%).ConclusionsPGSs included in the current study had a direct (but no indirect) effect on aggression, consistent with results of previous twin and family studies. Further research involving other PGSs for aggression and related phenotypes is needed to determine whether this conclusion generalizes to overall genetic influences on aggression.

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Direct, indirect, and buffering effects of support for mothers on children's socioemotional adjustment.

Publications

Direct, indirect, and buffering effects of support for mothers on children's socioemotional adjustment.

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