Longitudinal Effects of PostDivorce Interparental Conflict on Children's Mental Health Problems Through Fear of Abandonment: Does Parenting Quality Play a Buffering Role?
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SUBMITTER: O'Hara KL
PROVIDER: S-EPMC8273193 | biostudies-literature |
REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature
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Project description:Although social difficulties have been identified as sequelae of children's experiences with interparental conflict and insecurity, little is known about the specific mechanisms underlying their vulnerability to social problems. Guided by emotional security theory, this study tested the hypothesis that children's emotional insecurity mediates associations between interparental conflict and their social difficulties by undermining their affiliative goals in best friendships. Participants included 235 families with the first of 5 measurement occasions over a 10-year period occurring when children were in kindergarten (mean age = 6 years). Findings from the lagged latent difference score analyses indicated that intensification of multi-method assessment of interparental conflict during the early school years predicted subsequent increases in children's emotional insecurity 5 years later in adolescence. In the latter part of the cascade, rises in emotional insecurity predicted decreases in adolescent friendship affiliation, which, in turn, were specifically associated with declines in social competence. The specificity of this cascade of changing processes in predicting social problems was supported by the robustness of the findings after the inclusion of static measures of each construct as predictors, parent-child relationship insecurity as a covariate, and increases in children's internalizing symptoms as an alternative outcome. (PsycINFO Database Record
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Project description:Little is known about the role children's processing of emotions plays in altering children's vulnerability to interparental conflict. To address this gap, the present study examined whether the mediational cascade involving children's exposure to interparental conflict, their insecure responses to interparental conflict, and their psychological problems varied as a function of children's preexisting biases to attend to angry, fearful, sad, and happy expressions. Participants included 243 children (M age = 4.60 years) and their parents assessed at 3 annual measurement occasions. Moderated-mediation analyses within a cross-lagged autoregressive design indicated that the indirect paths among interparental conflict, emotional insecurity, and psychological problems were significant for children who exhibited greater attentional biases toward angry and fearful emotions. Greater attention to anger and fear specifically moderated the first link in the mediational path. Interparental conflict was a significantly stronger predictor of emotional insecurity for children who attended to angry and fearful cues longer. Consistent with environmental sensitivity theories, children with attentional biases to angry and fearful emotions exhibited disproportionately higher levels of emotional insecurity following exposure to heightened interparental conflict but also lower levels of emotional insecurity after experiencing minimal interparental conflict. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2020 APA, all rights reserved).
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Project description:COVID-19's outbreak in March 2020 and the social distancing measures that followed it changed the lives of children worldwide. Studies assessing the pandemic's implications for children have reported an alarming increase in the use of digital media (DM) and warned of its adverse impacts on children's functioning and development. The current study aimed to assess the relationship between excessive and problematic DM use and emotional, behavioral, and academic functioning among Israeli adolescents during COVID-19 and to identify adolescents at elevated risk of developing problematic DM use. Three hundred forty-seven Israeli parent-child dyads (M age = 11.81, SD = 1.41) separately completed measures assessing children's DM use (time and addiction), functioning (academic, social, emotional, and behavioral), behavioral dysregulation, and the parents' parenting practices. The results showed that DM addiction, but not DM use, was related to children's emotional, behavioral, and academic difficulties. Moreover, the results indicated that negative parenting and behavioral dysregulation increased the risk of DM addiction, which in turn increased emotional, behavioral, and academic difficulties. The results underscored parents' role in preventing problematic DM use and highlighted the need to treat DM use and problematic DM use as distinct constructs.
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Project description:Guided by the affective spillover hypothesis and the differential susceptibility to environmental influence frameworks, the present study examined how associations between interparental conflict and mothers' parenting practices were moderated by serotonin transporter (5-HTT) and oxytocin receptor (OXTR) genes. A sample of 201 mothers and their 2-year old child participated in a laboratory-based research assessment. Results supported differential susceptibility hypotheses within spillover frameworks. With respect to OXTR rs53576, mothers with the GG genotype showed greater differential maternal sensitivity across varying levels of interparental conflict. Mothers with one or two copies of the 5-HTTLPR S allele demonstrated differential susceptibility for both sensitive and harsh/punitive caregiving behaviors. Finally, analyses examined whether maternal depressive symptoms and emotional closeness to their child mediated the moderating effects. Findings suggest that maternal emotional closeness with their child indirectly linked OXTR with maternal sensitivity. The results highlight how molecular genetics may explain heterogeneity in spillover models with differential implications for specific parenting behaviors. Implications for clinicians and therapists working with maritally distressed parents are discussed.
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Project description:Mothers' emotional problems are associated with autistic children's behavioral problems. We aim to test whether parenting styles moderate associations between mothers' mood symptoms and autistic children's behavioral problems. A sample of 80 mother-autistic child dyads were enrolled at three rehabilitation facilities in Guangzhou, China. The Social Communication Questionnaire (SCQ) and the Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire (SDQ) were used to collect the autistic symptoms and behavioral problems of the children. Mothers' depression and anxiety symptoms were measured using the Patient Health Questionnaire 9 (PHQ-9) and the General Anxiety Disorder 7-item (GAD-7) scale, respectively, and parenting styles were measured using the Parental Behavior Inventory (PBI). Our results show that mothers' anxiety symptoms were negatively associated with their children's prosocial behavior scores (β = -0.26, p < 0.05) but positively related to their social interaction scores (β = 0.31, p < 0.05). Supportive/engaged parenting styles positively moderated the effects of mothers' anxiety symptoms on their prosocial behavior score (β = 0.23, p = 0.026), whereas hostile/coercive parenting styles had a negative moderation (β = -0.23, p = 0.03). Moreover, hostile/coercive parenting styles positivity moderated the effects of mothers' anxiety symptoms on social interaction problems (β= 0.24, p < 0.05). The findings highlight, where mothers adopted a hostile/coercive parenting style while experiencing high anxiety, their autistic child may have more serious behavioral problems.
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Project description:Although an extensive literature has linked couple conflict with the development of children's externalizing behavior problems, longer term protective effects of positive dimensions of couple relationships on children's externalizing behavior remain understudied, particularly in relation to underlying mechanisms. Supportiveness in the dyadic couple relationship may enhance mothers' and fathers' individual parenting skills and protect against children's behavior problems, but the contribution of coparenting (couples' support for one another's individual parenting) remains unclear. This observational study investigated associations between couple supportiveness in children's infancy and middle childhood externalizing problems, exploring pathways involving coparenting and/or mothers' and fathers' individual parenting using data from the U.K. Millennium Cohort Study (MCS; N = 5,779) and the U.S. Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Study (FFS; N = 2,069). Couple supportiveness was associated with reduced externalizing problems 8 to 10 years later (standardized betas: MCS = -.13, FFS = -.11, both ps < .001). Much of this effect (60% MCS, 55% FFS) was attributable to coparenting and parenting when children were aged 3 to 5 years. Pathways from couple supportiveness involving negative parenting were stronger than those via positive parenting, pathways via mothers' parenting were stronger than those via fathers' parenting, and there were pathways via coparenting alone (without affecting parenting). Pathways involving coparenting were similar in magnitude (MCS), or larger (FFS), than those involving parenting alone. Consistent findings across different population samples suggest that helping parents to support one another in coparenting and to develop their individual parenting skills may lessen the longer term impact of couple relationship problems during early childhood. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2019 APA, all rights reserved).
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Project description:Variable-centered research has found complex relationships between child well-being and two critical aspects of the post-divorce family environment: the level of non-residential father involvement (i.e., contact and supportive relationship) with their children and the level of conflict between the father and mother. However, these analyses fail to capture individual differences based on distinct patterns of interparental conflict, father support and father contact. Using a person-centered latent profile analysis, the present study examined (1) profiles of non-residential father contact, support, and interparental conflict in the 2 years following divorce (N = 240), when children (49 % female) were between 9 and 12 years of age and (2) differences across profiles in concurrent child adjustment outcomes as well as outcomes 6 years later. Four profiles of father involvement were identified: High Contact-Moderate Conflict-Moderate Support, Low Contact-Moderate Conflict-Low Support, High Conflict-Moderate Contact-Moderate Support, and Low Conflict-Moderate Contact-Moderate Support. Concurrently, children with fathers in the group with high conflict were found to have significantly greater internalizing and externalizing problems compared to all other groups. Six years later, children with fathers in the group with low contact and low support were found to have greater internalizing and externalizing problems compared to children with fathers in the high conflict group, and also greater internalizing problems compared to children with fathers in the low conflict group. These results provide insight into the complex relationship among non-residential fathers' conflict, contact, and support in child adjustment within divorcing families.
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Project description:Parenting programmes can improve parenting quality and, in turn, children's mental health. If scaled-up, they have the potential to reduce population inequalities and prevalence in child mental health problems (MHP). However, this cannot be investigated with trials. Using data from the UK Millennium Cohort Study (18,000 children born 2000-2002), we simulated population impact of scale-up of seven parenting programmes. Predicted probabilities of child MHP (Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire) by household income quintile (Risk ratios [RRs] and differences [RDs], 95% confidence intervals [CI]) were estimated from logistic marginal structural models, adjusting for parenting quality scores (Child-Parent Relationship Scale at 3 years) and confounders. The impact of scaling-up parenting programmes was simulated by re-estimating predicted probabilities of child MHP after increasing parenting scores according to intervention intensity, targeting mechanisms and programme uptake levels. Analyses included data from 14,399 children, with survey weights and multiple imputation addressing sampling design, attrition and item missingness. Prevalence of child MHP at 5 years was 11.3% (11.4% unadjusted), with relative and absolute income inequalities (RR = 4.8[95%CI:3.6-5.9]; RD = 15.8%[13.4-18.2]). In simulations, universal, non-intensive parenting programmes reduced prevalence (9.4%) and absolute inequalities (RR = 5.0[95%CI:3.8-6.2]; RD = 13.6%[11.5-15.7]). Intensive programmes, targeting a range of potential risk criteria (e.g. receipt of means-tested benefits), reduced inequalities (RR = 4.0[95%CI:3.0-4.9]; RD = 12.4%[10.3-14.6] and, to a lesser extent, prevalence (10.3%). By simulating implementation of parenting programmes, we show that universal non-intensive and targeted intensive approaches have the potential to reduce child MHP at population level, and to reduce but not eliminate inequalities, with important implications for future policy and practice.
| S-EPMC8209401 | biostudies-literature
Project description:Evidence suggests that household chaos is associated with less optimal child outcomes. Yet, there is an increasing indication that children's experiences in childcare may buffer them against the detrimental effects of such environments. Our study aims were to test: (1) whether children's experiences in childcare mitigated relations between household chaos and children's cognitive and social development, and (2) whether these (conditional) chaos effects were mediated by links between chaos and executive functioning. Using data from The Family Life Project (n = 1,235)-a population-based sample of families from low-income, rural contexts-our findings indicated that household disorganization in early childhood was predictive of worse cognitive and social outcomes at approximately age five. However, these relations were substantially attenuated for children attending greater childcare hours. Subsequent models indicated that the conditional associations between household disorganization and less optimal outcomes at age five were mediated by conditional links between disorganization and less optimal executive functioning.
| S-EPMC5926246 | biostudies-literature
Project description:BackgroundAn extensive literature has shown a strong connection between maternal parenting practices and adolescent mental health problems. However, it has been difficult for previous research to map a dynamic concurrent and prospective relationships within and between types of parenting practices and adolescent mental health problems. The present study addressed these issues using a network analysis approach and a longitudinal design.MethodsThis study involved 591 Chinese adolescents (249 males; mean age at T1 = 13.53) and their mothers (mean age at T1 = 39.71) at two time points (T1 and T2) with eighteen months apart. Mothers reported their parenting practices including warmth, monitoring, inductive reasoning, hostility, and harshness, while adolescents reported their mental health problems including anxiety, depression, aggression, and conduct problems. Network analysis was conducted for contemporaneous networks at T1 and T2 and temporal networks from T1 to T2.ResultsThe contemporaneous networks revealed the negative association between monitoring and conduct problems served as the main pathway through which parenting practices and adolescent mental health mutually influenced each other, and further, warmth was the most influential parenting practice on adolescent mental health. The temporal network revealed that maternal hostility exerted the most influence on adolescent mental health problems, whereas adolescents' depression was most influenced by maternal parenting practices. Moreover, maternal hostility was most predicted by maternal harshness.ConclusionsThis study presents a novel perspective to gain a better understanding of the dynamics between and within maternal parenting practices and adolescent mental health problems. Findings highlight maternal harshness and warmth as potential prevention and intervention targets for adolescent mental health problems.
| S-EPMC10953267 | biostudies-literature