Longitudinal Associations Among Low-Income Mothers' and Fathers' Parenting and Relationships with Children and Adolescent Depression

Reciprocal relationships between depressive symptoms and peer attachment in Chinese adolescents: The influence of early parental harsh discipline

BACKGROUND

Despite high social acceptance and prevalence of harsh discipline in China, its long-term cascading effects on adolescent emotional/interpersonal challenges remain unclear.

OBJECTIVE

This study examined whether peer attachment and depressive symptoms would be reciprocally related over time and how early harsh discipline influences these dynamics.

PARTICIPANT AND SETTING

Data was drawn from a longitudinal study over a 9-year period. Parental harsh discipline was reported by both parents at Grade 1-3 (N = 403), and depressive symptoms and peer attachment were reported by adolescents at Grade 7-9 (N = 651).

METHODS

The random intercept cross-lagged panel model was used to assess the reciprocal association between adolescents' depressive symptoms and peer attachment. Furthermore, the predictive effects of early parental harsh discipline were examined.

RESULTS

There was a significant association between adolescents' depressive symptoms and peer attachment at between-person level, and these two constructs were also predicted each other at within-person level expected for the path from peer attachment at Grade 7 to depressive symptoms at Grade 8. Paternal but not maternal early harsh discipline from Grade 1 to Grade 3 could drive the dynamic within-person relations between adolescents' depressive symptoms and peer attachment.

CONCLUSIONS

These findings reveal the antecedent or concurrent factors and their processes that account for early adolescents' depressive symptoms. Intervention targeted at reducing early parental harsh discipline and improving peer relationship quality may be beneficial for alleviating adolescents' depressive symptoms.

Dynamic Processes of Parent-Adolescent Conflict and Warmth in Chinese Families: Differences between Mothers and Fathers

Parent-adolescent relationships are shaped by daily interactions that include both warmth and conflict, yet most research has focused on aggregate or long-term patterns rather than their day-to-day fluctuations. Guided by family systems theory, this study examined how mothers and fathers distinctly contribute to daily parent-adolescent warmth and conflict, as well as how these interactions vary across families. The sample consisted of 307 Chinese adolescents (Mage = 13.02 years, SD = 0.762 years; 49.51% girls). Participants reported their daily perceptions of warmth and conflict with both their mothers and fathers over a 10-day period. Dynamic structural equation modeling showed significant autoregressive effects for mother- and father-adolescent warmth and conflict. Cross-lagged analyses revealed that higher levels of mother-adolescent conflict, higher levels of father-adolescent warmth, and lower levels of father-adolescent conflict predicted increased mother-adolescent warmth the following day. Additionally, greater father-adolescent conflict predicted greater mother-adolescent conflict the next day. Within-family effects varied in both direction and magnitude across families and some lagged effects were moderated by adolescent age and family income. Overall, these findings emphasize the importance of considering parent gender and family-level variations when examining daily family dynamics. They also suggest that maternal warmth may be especially sensitive to the family's daily relational experiences, highlighting the need for parenting practices and interventions that acknowledge and address this responsiveness.

Early Childhood Income Instability and Mental Health in Adolescence: Parenting Stress and Child Maltreatment as Mediators

Ample research has examined how point-in-time or static measures of economic deprivation are associated with children's mental health outcomes. Less is known about the relationship between early childhood unstable income and mental health outcomes. Using the Future of Families and Child Wellbeing Study, this study examined (1) the latent patterns of early childhood economic well-being, predicted by income level and instability (i.e., direction and frequency of income change); (2) the association of income deprivation patterns with subsequent anxiety and depression symptoms, paying particular attention to the mediating roles of parenting stress and child maltreatment risk. The latent class analysis results suggested four distinct groups representing different combinations of income level and instability. Structural equation modeling results indicated indirect links between income deprivation patterns and mental health outcomes, through parenting stress and physical and psychological abuse. Findings indicated the importance of policies and programs promoting economic stability over the long run.

Mother-child closeness and adolescent structural neural networks: a prospective longitudinal study of low-income families

Mother-child closeness, a mutually trusting and affectionate bond, is an important factor in shaping positive youth development. However, little is known about the neural pathways through which mother-child closeness is related to brain organization. Utilizing a longitudinal sample primarily from low-income families (N = 181; 76% African American youth and 54% female), this study investigated the associations between mother-child closeness at ages 9 and 15 years and structural connectivity organization (network integration, robustness, and segregation) at age 15 years. The assessment of mother-child closeness included perspectives from both mother and child. The results revealed that greater mother-child closeness is linked with increased global efficiency and transitivity, but not with modularity. Specifically, both the mother's and child's reports of closeness at age 15 years predicted network metrics, but report at age 9 years did not. Our findings suggest that mother-child closeness is associated with neural white matter organization, as adolescents who experienced greater mother-child closeness displayed topological properties indicative of more integrated and robust structural networks.

Associations between perceived parenting, brain activity and connectivity, and depression symptoms in Brazilian adolescents

In adolescence, parental care is associated with lower depression symptoms whereas parental overprotection is associated with greater depression symptoms, effects which may be mediated by adolescent brain activity and connectivity. The present study examined associations between perceived parenting, brain activity and connectivity, and depression symptoms in adolescents from Brazil, a middle-income country (MIC). Analyses included 100 adolescents who underwent functional magnetic resonance imaging scanning while completing a face matching task. Parental care and overprotection were associated with adolescent depression symptoms in expected directions. We also found that parental care and overprotection were associated with amygdala connectivity with several brain regions; however, amygdala activity was not associated with parenting and neither activity or connectivity mediated the association between parenting and depression symptoms. Results identify how parenting influences brain function and depression symptoms in youth from a MIC.