Early-occurring Maternal Depression and Maternal Negativity in Predicting Young Children’s Emotion Regulation and Socioemotional Difficulties (original) (raw)
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This study tested a model of children's emotionality as a moderator of the links between maternal emotion socialization and depressive symptoms and child emotion regulation. Participants were 128 mother-preschooler dyads. Child emotion expression and emotion regulation strategies were assessed observationally during a disappointment task, and a principal component analysis revealed three factors: passive soothing (including sadness and comfort seeking), negative focus on distress (including anger, focus on distress and low active distraction) and positive engagement (including positive emotion, active play and passive waiting, which was loaded negatively). Hierarchical linear regression models revealed that child positive emotionality (PE) and negative emotionality (NE) moderated the links between maternal support/positive emotion expression and child emotion regulation strategies. In particular, children's low PE exacerbated the association between lack of maternal support and child passive soothing, whereas high PE enhanced the association between maternal positive expression and reduced negative focus on distress. Furthermore, the associations of mothers' support and reduced passive soothing and negative focus on distress, as well as the association between mothers' positive expression and child positive engagement, were stronger for children with low levels of NE, compared with those with average and high levels of NE. Findings partially support a diathesis-stress model in understanding the effects of both child characteristics and the familial influence on child emotion regulation.
Journal of Affective Disorders, 2019
Background: Maternal depression is associated with impairments in child behavioural and emotional development, although the effect of exposure to maternal depression until adolescence is underexplored in most studies. This longitudinal study examined the association between maternal depressive symptoms trajectories and offspring socioemotional competences at age 11. Methods: We included 3,437 11-year-old adolescents from the 2004 Pelotas Birth Cohort Study. Maternal depressive symptoms were assessed during the follow-up waves. Adolescent socioemotional competences were peer relationship problems and prosocial behaviour, both assessed by Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire (SDQ), and Locus of Control (LoC), assessed by Nowick-Strickland Internal-External Scale. We used multivariate linear and logistic regression models to examine the effects of maternal depression trajectories on offspring's socioemotional competences, adjusting for potential confounding variables. Results: We identified five trajectories of maternal depressive symptoms: a "low" trajectory (32.6%), a "moderate low" (42.2%), a "increasing" (11.1%), a "decreasing" (9.2%), and a "high-chronic" trajectory (4.9%). Adolescents whose mothers had persistent depressive symptoms, either intermediate or high, had greater levels of peer relationship problems and lower levels of prosocial behaviour than those whose mothers had low depressive symptoms. These differences were not explained by socioeconomic, maternal, and child characteristics. Maternal depressive symptoms during offspring's life was not a predictor of LoC orientation. Limitations: Nearly 20% of original cohort were not included in the analysis due to missing data. Adolescent's socioemotional competences were ascertained by maternal report. Conclusion: Our study extended the evidences of the negative impact of severe and recurrent maternal depression on offspring's socioemotional competences until early adolescence.
Journal of Abnormal Child Psychology, 2007
Relations among past maternal depressive disorder, current depressive symptoms, current maternal interaction behaviors, and children's adjustment were examined in a sample of 204 women and their young adolescent offspring (mean age=11.86, SD=0.55). Mothers either had (n=157) or had not (n=57) experienced at least one depressive disorder during the child's life. Mothers and children participated in a problem-solving task, video-taped for later coding. Mothers with current depressive symptoms and those with histories of chronic/severe depressive disorders displayed fewer positive behaviors toward their children; mothers with current depressive symptoms also showed more negative behaviors with their children. The relation between mothers' depression history and their behavior during the interaction with their child was partially mediated by mothers' current mood state. Moreover, high levels of maternal negativity and low levels of positivity during the problem-solving task were related to children's externalizing problems. Maternal positivity partially mediated the relation between maternal depression and children's externalizing symptoms. These findings highlight the importance of providing parenting interventions for depressed mothers.
The impact of maternal depression on adolescent adjustment: The role of expressed emotion
Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, 2003
The present study evaluated the role of expressed emotion (EE) as a predictor of child symptomatology and functional impairment in a sample of nearly 800 adolescent children of mothers with varying histories of depression or who were nondepressed. Structural equation modeling was used to test the hypothesized associations in half of the sample, and all models were cross-validated on the other half of the study sample. Results indicated that EE criticism and degree of maternal depression both had independent predictive associations with youths' externalizing symptoms and functional impairment. In addition, high EE criticism served as an intervening variable between maternal depression and child functioning (externalizing symptoms and functional impairment). Results are discussed in terms of the mutual effects of depressed mothers and dysfunctional youths on each other.
Journal of Applied Developmental Psychology, 2011
This study examines how mothers with and without a history of childhood-onset depression respond to their 3-9 year-old children's emotions. Mother-child dyads included 55 offspring of mothers with a history of childhood-onset depressive disorders and 57 offspring of never-depressed mothers. Mothers with a history of childhood depression were less likely than control mothers to respond in supportive ways to their children's negative emotions and were more likely to magnify, punish, or neglect their children's negative emotions. Magnification, neglect, and punishment of children's negative emotions were concurrently associated with children's internalizing symptoms, and neglect and punishment were associated with internalizing over a one year follow-up. Maternal neglect of children's negative emotion was positively associated with later internalizing symptoms for children who already had higher internalizing symptoms at the initial assessment. Findings suggest that atypical socialization of emotion may be one mechanism in the development of internalizing disorders.
Journal of Child and Family Studies, 2013
Research indicates that parents' methods of emotion socialization impact the development of their children's emotion expressivity, which, in turn, is implicated in the emergence of internalizing symptoms. Relatively little research, however, has examined the emotion socialization behaviors that mothers and fathers use to socialize their children's emotion regulation with respect to how these behaviors may differentially predict depressive symptoms in their sons and daughters. In the current study, the relations among these three variables were investigated by having mothers and fathers report on their children's dysregulation and regulation coping of anger and sadness. Sons and daughters reported on their perceived receipt of parents' responses to their anger and sadness expressivity, as well as their own depressive symptoms. Correlational analyses revealed that unsupportive responses to emotional expressivity were related to greater child emotion dysregulation, poorer emotion coping, and depressive symptoms. Moderation analyses revealed that, for both mothers and fathers, at high levels of unsupportive responses to emotions, children were perceived to have more anger dysregulation, less anger coping, less sadness coping, and more depressive symptoms. Regression analyses indicated that mothers' unsupportive responses to sadness and fathers' unsupportive responses to anger are associated with their children's depressive symptoms. These findings support the notion that mothers and fathers play unique roles in children's emotion regulation skills and subsequent risk for depression.
Parenting as a Moderator of the Effects of Maternal Depressive Symptoms on Preadolescent Adjustment
Journal of clinical child and adolescent psychology : the official journal for the Society of Clinical Child and Adolescent Psychology, American Psychological Association, Division 53, 2015
The purpose of this study was to examine whether parenting moderated the association between maternal depressive symptoms and initial levels and growth of preadolescent internalizing and externalizing symptoms. This study used a community sample of preadolescent children (N = 214; 8-12 years old at Time 1), measuring maternal depressive symptoms and parenting at Time 1, and preadolescent internalizing and externalizing symptoms at each year for 3 years. After modeling latent growth curves of internalizing and externalizing symptoms, growth factors were conditioned on maternal depressive symptoms, positive (acceptance and consistent discipline) and negative (rejection and physical punishment) parenting, and the interactions of depression and parenting. Maternal rejection moderated the relation of maternal depression with internalizing symptoms, such that high rejection exacerbated the effects of maternal depressive symptoms on initial levels of preadolescent internalizing problems. T...
Journal of Abnormal Child Psychology, 2012
Direct and indirect relations among maternal depression, maternal Expressed Emotion (EE: Self-and Child-Criticism), child internalizing and externalizing symptoms, and child attachment were examined. Participants were mothers with depression (n=130) and comparison mothers (n=68) and their toddlers (M age=20 mo.; 53% male). Assessments included the Diagnostic Interview Schedule (maternal depression); the Five Minute Speech Sample (EE); the Child Behavior Checklist (toddler behavior problems); the Strange Situation (child attachment). Direct relations were significant linking: 1) maternal depression with both EE and child functioning; 2) Child-Criticism with child internalizing and externalizing symptoms; 3) Self-Criticism with child attachment. Significant indirect relations were found linking maternal depression with: 1) child externalizing behaviors via Child-Criticism; 2) child internalizing behaviors via Self-and Child-Criticism; and 3) child attachment via Self-Criticism. Findings are consistent with a conceptual model in which maternal EE mediates relations between maternal depression and toddler socio-emotional functioning.
Análise Psicológica
Research has demonstrated that maternal emotion regulation strategies (self-criticism and self-compassion), mental health, and family functioning impacts child functioning. Due to the paucity of studies, we aimed to analyze: (1) the associations between maternal emotion regulation strategies, psychopathological symptomatology, family functioning, and mother’s perceived child social and emotional behavior (SEB); (2) the differences in mother’s perceived child SEB, according to maternal, child and family characteristics; (3) the predictive role of maternal emotion regulation in mother’s perceived child SEB. A sample of 431 mothers (25-59 years), with children aged 4-17 years (55.5% male), answered the Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire, the Systemic Clinical Outcome and Routine Evaluation, the Brief Symptom Inventory, the Forms of Self-Criticizing/Attacking and Self-Reassuring Scale, and the Self-Compassion Scale. The results showed positive associations between self-criticism, ...