Influence of mother's depression on her reports of father involvement and child behavioral problems: a latent state-trait approach (original) (raw)
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What Predicts Parental Involvement by Young Fathers at Psychosocial Risk?
Fathering: A Journal of Theory, Research, and Practice about Men as Fathers, 2013
Personal, relational, and contextual characteristics were examined to explain paternal involvement by an ethnically diverse sample of young men at-risk for poor parenting due to psychosocial factors. Ninety-one young fathers (M = 21.6 years) of young children (M = 17.1 months) participated at Time 1; 64 were in the longitudinal sample. Half did not have a high school education; incomes were working poor levels or below. Data were collected at two time points 8 months apart through interviews and questionnaires administered in the participants' homes. Level of paternal cognitions was the strongest predictor of father involvement. Fathers reported that job/school was often a barrier to involvement; the children's mothers were seen as gatekeepers or gateopeners and own mothers were seen as facilitators of involvement.
The Influence of Depressive Symptoms on Fathers'Behaviors and Attitudes
Working Papers, 2001
The present study examines the impact of young, poor, unwed fathers on their family by investigating the influence of depressive symptom frequency on fathers' relationship with their children and partners. Couples from seven American cities with populations over 200,000 were recruited and interviewed about such areas of life as romantic and parental relationships, health, and employment at the hospital within 24 hours after the birth of their child. An Item Response Theory (IRT) within-group analysis of the 1,759 African-, Caucasian-, Hispanic-, Asian-, and Native American fathers in the study yielded a 3-class clustering of depressive symptoms. Class 1 fathers had the lowest frequency of depressive symptom expression; class 2 fathers had a low frequency; and class 3 fathers had low to medium rates of depressive symptoms. Multivariate statistics revealed that depressive class membership predicted domestic violence toward fathers' partners but not affection toward their children. The importance of the parental behavior of teaching children about life, however, varied by class, with class 2 fathers most highly endorsing this behavior. Implications of young, unwed, poor fathers' behaviors and attitudes toward their children and romantic partners will be discussed in terms of men's contributions to family life.
Parent-child interaction among depressed fathers and mothers: Impact on child functioning
Journal of Family Psychology, 1997
Relatively little is known about whether children of depressed mothers versus fathers demonstrate similar difficulties and whether parent-child interaction moderates the effects of maternal depression, paternal depression, or both. In the current study, intact families with a depressed father (n ~ 50), a depressed mother (n = 41), and normal control families (n = SO) completed questionnaires and participated in videotaped problem-solving interactions. Results indicate that paternal and maternal depression were similarly associated with child adjustment problems and more impaired parent-child communication. Interestingly, maternal versus paternal depression was associated with increased parent-child negativity, whereas father-child interactions were more influential than mother-child interactions in predicting child outcome after controlling for parental depression.
Journal of Family Psychology, 2008
Although much has been written about transactional models in the study of parenting practices, relatively few researchers have used this approach to examine how child behavior might be related to parental well-being. This study used latent growth curve modeling to test transactional models of age 2 child noncompliance, parental depressive symptoms, and age 4 internalizing and externalizing behaviors using a subsample of families in the Early Steps Multisite Study. In unconditional models, maternal depressive symptoms showed a linear decrease from child ages 2 to 4, whereas paternal depression did not show significant change. Observed child noncompliance at age 2 showed significant associations with concurrent reports of maternal depressive symptoms and trend-level associations with paternal depressive symptoms. For both parents, higher levels of initial depressive symptoms were related to increased age 4 child internalizing behaviors. The findings provide support for reciprocal process models of parental depression and child behavior, and this study is one of the first to present empirical evidence that fathers' depressive symptoms have bidirectional associations with their children's behavior in early childhood.
Depression and Anxiety, 2012
Background: The relationship between parental and child depressive symptoms has been found to be stronger for mothers than for fathers. Does this mean that fathers' mental health is less important in the context of child depressive symptoms? The goal of the current study is to test whether the degree of fathers' depressive symptoms moderate the relationship between mothers' and children's depressive symptoms. Our knowledge about such interaction effects between mothers' and fathers' symptoms is limited. Methods: We examined depressive symptoms in 190 children (age 7-13, 118 boys) referred to child community clinics and their parents. Mothers and fathers reported on their own and their child's depressive symptoms, whereas children only reported on their own symptoms. Results: Structural equation modeling revealed significant interaction effects of mothers' and fathers' depressive symptoms on mother-and father-reported child depressive symptoms, while no effects were found for child reports. When fathers reported few depressive symptoms for themselves, no relationship between mothers' and children's depressive symptoms was observed. The more depressive symptoms in fathers, the stronger the relationship between mothers' and children's symptoms. Conclusions: Fathers' mental health may be a protective factor in the relationship between mothers' and children's depressive symptoms. Thus, researchers and practitioners would benefit from considering not only depressive symptoms in mothers, but also in fathers, when examining and working with child depressive symptoms. Depression and Anxiety 30:31-38, 2013.
Psychiatric Services, 2009
Purpose-To extend understanding of the effects of maternal depression on children to lowincome and minority families; to apply advanced analytic methods to incorporate the reports of mothers, fathers, and teachers on the emotional and behavior problems and adaptive skills of 4-10 year old urban children; and to examine parenting quality and family environment as possible explanations of high rates of problems among children whose mothers have depression compared to those whose mothers are not depressed. Methods-Mothers who participated either had major depressive disorder (n=84) or did not (n=49). They were predominantly African-American or Latino and lived in low-income, urban communities. Mothers, fathers, and teachers reported on children's emotional, behavioral and adaptive functioning. Parenting behavior and family stress were examined as potential mediators and generalized estimating equations (GEE) were employed to test mediation and to account for discrepancies in reports by different raters.
Journal of Child and Family Studies, 2015
The consequences of living in single-parent households on children's wellbeing are well documented, but less is known about the impact of living in single-mother households among children with high familial risk for depression. Utilizing data from an ongoing three-generation study of high-risk families, this preliminary study examined a sample of 161 grandchildren of probands diagnosed with major depressive disorder, comparing those in single-parent households to those in dual-parent households with household status defined as the full-time presence of a resident male in the home. High-risk children were compared across households in terms of psychiatric diagnoses (measured by Schedule for Affective Disorders and Schizophrenia for School-Age Children; K-SADS-PL) and global functioning (assessed by Global Assessment Scale, child version; C-GAS). Results indicated that high-risk children in single-parent households had 4.7 times greater odds for developing a mood disorder and had significantly lower mean C-GAS scores (p = 0.01) compared to those in dual-parent households. Differences remained significant when controlling for household income, child's age, and either parent's depression status. There were no significant differences between high-risk children across households when household status was instead defined as legal marital status. This study has several limitations: sample size was small, pro-bands were recruited from a clinical population, and participants had not passed completely through the period of risk for adult psychiatric disorders. These findings
Journal of Abnormal Child Psychology, 2007
This study examined parental behaviors as mediators in links between depressive symptoms in mothers and fathers and child adjustment problems. Participants were 4,184 parents and 6,048 10-to 15-year-olds enrolled in the 1998 and 2000 cycles of the Canadian National Longitudinal Survey of Children and Youth. Mothers and fathers self-reported symptoms of depression at Times 1 and 2 and their children assessed parental nurturance, rejection, and monitoring and self-reported internalizing and externalizing problems and prosocial behavior at Time 2. Hierarchical linear modeling showed evidence of mediation involving all three domains of parental behavior. Findings supported the hypothesis that the quality of the child's rearing environment is one mechanism that carries risk to children of depressed parents. Interventions for parents whose symptoms of depression interfere with parenting responsibilities could help reduce the risk of some childhood disorders.