Children’s social and emotional behavior: Role of maternal emotion regulation, psychopathological symptomatology, and family functioning (original) (raw)
Related papers
Journal of Abnormal Child Psychology, 2007
This longitudinal investigation examined the effects of maternal depression and concomitant negative parenting behaviors on children's emotion regulation patterns and socioemotional functioning. One hundred fifty-one mothers and their children were assessed when children were approximately 1 1/2-, 3-, 4-, and 5-years of age. Ninety-three of the children had mothers with a history of Major Depressive Disorder (MDD) that had occurred within the first 21 months of the child's birth, and 58 of the children had mothers without any history of MDD. Early-occurring Initial maternal depression predicted children's dysregulated emotion patterns at age 4 and decreased perceived competence ratings at age 5. Initial maternal depression also indirectly predicted decreased child social acceptance ratings at age 5 through its association with dysregulated emotion patterns. Furthermore, the relation between maternal depression and children's decreased social acceptance was more pronounced in those offspring with a history of high versus low maternal negativity exposure. Findings increase understanding of the processes by which maternal depression confers risk on children's socioemotional adjustment.
Maternal Emotion Regulation: Links to Emotion Parenting and Child Emotion Regulation
Journal of Family Issues, 2014
This study examined the link between maternal emotion regulation (ER) and emotion parenting behaviors and child ER, particularly emphasizing the previously understudied potential associations between mothers’ ER and concurrent emotion parenting behaviors. Community-recruited participants included 64 mother–child ( M = 9.5 years, 38 girls) dyads. Mothers completed measures on their own ER, their child’s ER, and their emotion parenting strategies. Children completed measures on their ER and mother–child dyads engaged in a conflict discussion task that was coded using an ER behavioral observation scale. Results indicated that observed maternal ER was negatively associated with unsupportive emotion parenting, whereas self-reported maternal emotion dysregulation was positively associated with unsupportive parenting and child emotion dysregulation and negatively associated with child adaptive ER. Partial support was provided for the mediating role of emotion parenting behaviors on the lin...
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.
Parental expressed emotion toward children: Prediction from early family functioning
Journal of Family Psychology, 2008
Expressed emotion (EE), an index of family member criticism and emotional overinvolvement, predicts outcome among adults and children with mental disorders. However, limited research exists on factors contributing to EE. Aims of the current study were to (a) examine EE in mothers of young children; (b) assess relationships between demographic factors and EE in a diverse sample; and (c) investigate whether family stress and functioning, including quality of marital relationship, life events, maternal stress, and family environment, predict EE. In the current study, 276 mothers completed questionnaires when their children were between 1 and 3 years of age and a measure of EE when their children were in kindergarten. Results indicated that family expressiveness was the most consistent predictor of EE. Further research seems warranted to better delineate associations between family functioning and EE.
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.
Maternal Depression and Child Internalizing: The Moderating Role of Child Emotion Regulation
Journal of Clinical Child & Adolescent Psychology, 2006
This study tests a model of children's emotion regulation as a moderator of the link between maternal depression and child internalizing problems. Participants were 78 children (ages 4-7), including 45 children of mothers with a history of childhood-onset depression (COD) and 33 children of never-depressed mothers (NCOD). Emotion regulation was assessed observationally during a laboratory mood induction. Emotion regulation behaviors were empirically reduced into three categories: (1) negative focus on delay; (2) positive reward anticipation; and (3) behavioral distraction. Linear mixed models indicated that positive reward anticipation moderated the effects of maternal COD on children's internalizing problems, particularly if mothers had current depressive symptoms. Findings suggest that generating positive affect in the face of a potential frustration may be a protective emotion regulation strategy for children at risk for depression. Emotion Regulation and Maternal Depression 3 Maternal Depression and Child Internalizing: the Moderating Role of Child Emotion Regulation Offspring of depressed parents are known to be at increased risk for depression and other psychiatric and psychosocial problems compared to the general population (Beardslee, Bemporad, Keller, & Klerman, 1983). Children of depressed parents are at a 3-to 4-fold risk for developing depression prior to adulthood (Beardslee, Versage, & Gladstone, 1998; Weissman, Warner, Wickramaratne, Moreau, & Olfson, 1997), with up to 45% having an episode of major depression by late adolescence (Beardslee et al., 1998; Hammen, 2000). However, even within this high-risk population, many children remain free of psychopathology (Weissman et al., 1997). During the last two decades, a growing number of researchers have applied a transactional perspective to the study of vulnerability and resiliency among high-risk populations. A transactional perspective highlights the ongoing reciprocal interplay between social, biological, and psychological characteristics (Sameroff & MacKenzie, 2003). According to such a perspective, reciprocal transactions among caregiver and child characteristics act dynamically to increase or decrease the likelihood that a child will develop depression or other psychological disturbances (Cicchetti & Toth, 1998). One important child characteristic that could promote resiliency or exacerbate risk in the context of maternal depression is the ability to adaptively regulate emotions. Emotion regulation (ER) is defined as the internal and external processes involved in the initiation, maintenance, or modification of the quality, intensity, or chronometry of affective responses (Forbes & Dahl, in press). Emotion regulation is a complex construct, and factors involved in initiating versus regulating an emotion are closely intertwined (e.g. Campos, Frankel, & Camras, 2004; Cole, Martin, & Dennis, 2004). The literature suggests that a wide variety of responses can serve emotion regulatory goals in childhood, such as seeking physical Emotion Regulation and Maternal Depression 4 comfort from a caregiver, re-focusing attention away from the source of distress, or taking direct action to resolve a problem (Calkins, Gill, Johnson, & Smith, 1999; Grolnick, Bridges, & Connell, 1996). Emotion regulation may be a particularly important factor in understanding risk for internalizing problems, which are characterized by affective dysregulation involving sadness, fear, or joy. One of the most common scenarios requiring emotion regulation for children is the demand to wait for a desired object or goal, especially when there is little else of interest in the environment. Examples include having to wait for a parent to get off the phone or attend to another child, for school to end, or for a favorite snack or toy. For a young child, waiting even a few minutes without attaining a desired goal can provoke negative emotions. Children may respond under such circumstances with adaptive strategies that serve to down-regulate levels of negative affect, or with maladaptive emotion regulation strategies that maintain or even increase levels of negative affect. Beginning in infancy, children utilize rudimentary behaviors to regulate emotional experience. These behaviors become increasingly sophisticated as children develop more complex cognitive and emotional skills (Kopp, 1989). Grolnick et al. (1996) outlined a set of behaviors for regulating emotion that are commonly used by preschool aged children. The first set of strategies includes behaviors aimed at shifting attention from a distressing stimulus toward a non-distressing stimulus (Derryberry & Rothbart, 1988). Observational studies of infants and young children show that attention shifting, or re-focusing attention on a non-distressing stimulus, is generally an effective strategy that has been associated with lower levels of
Practice in Clinical Psychology, 2023
Depression and anxiety are common in children and a major cause of many illnesses and disabilities in this age group; Moreover, parents have the greatest impact on shaping the mental health and well-being of their children and there is a vast literature describing the importance of parenting factors in the development of depression and anxiety in children. Methods: We used the experimental research design in this study. The sample consisted of 34 children with depression and anxiety who were randomly allocated into ACT on parenting (intervention) and control groups via the randomization method. The intervention group received eight 2-h sessions weekly. The revised child anxiety and depression scale, parent short versions and the self-compassion scale were administered in both groups. The analyses of covariance (ANCOVA) and the repeated measures of analysis of variance (ANOVA) were employed to determine the difference between the intervention and control groups on depression, anxiety, and self-compassion. Results: ANCOVA and repeated measures ANOVA results showed clinically significant changes in depression and anxiety in children and self-compassion in parents in the intervention group (P<0.001). The Mean±SD of depression in the intervention group was 16.50±0.89 at baseline, which significantly decreased to 2.94±3.27 at post-measure and 2.25±3.35 at followup (P<0.001). The Mean±SD of anxiety was 18.19±1.87, which significantly decreased to 7.63±4.34 at post-measure and 7.06±4.52 at follow-up (P<0.001). Additionally, the mean and SD score of self-compassion was 56.43±3.14 in pre-intervention, which significantly improved to 97.18±3.72 in post-intervention and 98.25±4.76 at follow-up (P<0.001). Conclusion: The results show that ACT-based parenting is an effective treatment for depression and anxiety in children. This method also improves self-compassion in parents.
Developmental Psychology, 2001
The relations between mothers' expressed positive and negative emotion and 55-79-month-olds' (76% European American) regulation, social competence, and adjustment were examined. Structural equation modeling was used to test the plausibility of the hypothesis that the effects of maternal expression of emotion on children's adjustment and social competence are mediated through children's dispositional regulation. Mothers' expressed emotions were assessed during interactions with their children and with maternal reports of emotions expressed in the family. Children's regulation, externalizing and internalizing problems, and social competence were rated by parents and teachers, and children's persistence was surreptitiously observed. There were unique effects of positive and negative maternal expressed emotion on children's regulation, and the relations of maternal expressed emotion to children's externalizing problem behaviors and social competence were mediated through children's regulation. Alternative models of causation were tested; a child-directed model in which maternal expressivity mediated the effects of child regulation on child outcomes did not fit the data as well.
We examined how maternal depression, anxiety, hostility, mentalization, negative intentionality (NI), and unsupportive emotion socialization (UES) predict child internalizing and externalizing problem behaviors (CIEPB). Mothers (N = 537) of toddlers (M age = 23.26 months, Range 10-44 months) completed the Brief Symptom Inventory, the Parental Reflective Functioning Questionnaire, the Infant Intentionality Questionnaire, the Coping with Children's Negative Emotions Scale, and the Child Behavior Checklist. All maternal symptoms negatively predicted mentalization and positively predicted NI, UES, and CIEPB. NI and UES mediated the relationship between maternal symptoms and CIEPB. Negative intentionality mediated the link between maternal hostility and internalizing behaviors, indicating a possible intervention area. Mentali-zation had an effect on externalizing behaviors only for high-SES, anxious mothers, underscoring the role of SES. Thus, the relationship between maternal symptoms, cognitive and behavioral parenting characteristics and CIEPB supports the multifinality principle for early childhood psychopathology development and shows the importance of screening for maternal symptoms and CIEPB. Keywords Maternal symptoms · Mentalization · Negative intentionality · Unsupportive emotion socialization · Child problem behaviors Early childhood problem behaviors are known to be the first indicators of adjustment issues [1, 2], which are leading factors in the development of various psychological problems such as depression [3], substance abuse, and anxiety [4]. Two categories of problem behaviors have been extensively explored-namely, internalizing and externalizing behaviors [5]. Externalizing behaviors involve aggressive behaviors and hyperactivity in children, triggered by anger, fear, and frustration, whereas internalizing behaviors typically indicate anxiety and depression in the form of social withdrawal and fearfulness [5]. These problem behaviors become detectable from as early as 12 months [6, 7] and are likely to persist from early childhood [8] into adolescence [9] and adulthood [10]. A wide array of environmental factors and parental characteristics , such as personality [11] and parenting behaviors can contribute to the complexity of child development [12] and the occurrence of problem behaviors. Individual differences in parental psychopathology, cognitions about parenting, and emotion socialization are highly salient factors in child development. In the relevant literature, parental psychopathology, cognitions, and socializing behaviors are listed as critical etiological factors with unique as well as joint contributions to problem behaviors in young children [13]. For example, maternal depressive symptomatology [14] and maternal anxiety [15] have been associated with both externalization and internalization problems in children [16-18]. Since psychopathology is also linked with negative cognitions about the self, the world, and the future [19], it can also contribute to negative cognitions and attri-butions towards children [20] as well as negative maternal parenting behaviors and unsupportive emotion socialization [21]. However, there is a lack of research focusing on how