Do You See What I See? Longitudinal Associations Between Mothers' and Adolescents' Perceptions of Their Relationship and Adolescent Internalizing Symptoms

How Coparenting Is Linked to Depression among Chinese Young Girls and Boys: Evidence from a Network Analysis

This study aimed to explore the relationship between parental coparenting and depression among Chinese young adolescents and potential gender differences via network analysis. Thus, 793 fourth-grade students (girls: 281 (35.40%), Mage = 9.99 years, SD = 0.59 years) were recruited from three primary schools in Northern China. The young adolescents rated their depression and perceived paternal and maternal coparenting. Network analysis was used to detect the central nodes and bridge mechanisms among coparenting and depressive components. The results indicated that paternal and maternal consistency as well as maternal conflict were the most central components in the coparenting-depression network. Paternal consistency, maternal conflict and paternal disparagement in coparenting, as well as somatic complaints and positive affect in adolescents' depression, exhibited high bridge strengths, suggesting those constructs served as vital bridges to connect the two subnetworks. Moreover, paternal consistency showed a higher bridge strength in the boys' network than the girls' one, whereas the edge linking adolescents' positive affect to paternal disparagement and integrity was stronger in the girls' network. This study contributes to the understanding of associations between parental coparenting and young adolescents' depression and offered insights into targeted interventions for early adolescent depression by enhancing parental coparenting.

Longitudinal Linkages Between Parent-Child Discrepancies in Reports on Parental Autonomy Support and Informants' Depressive Symptoms

Although parent-child discrepancies in reports of parenting are known to be associated with child depressive symptoms, the direction of causality is unknown. To address this knowledge gap, this study contributes to existing literature by examining longitudinal within-family linkages between parent-child discrepancies in their reports on autonomy support and depressive symptoms of children, while also assessing these linkages with parents' depressive symptoms. In addition, this study explored whether these linkages differ for father- versus mother-child discrepancies. Longitudinal data (six annual waves) of 497 adolescents (56.9% boys, M_age at T₁ = 13.03, SD = 0.46), their mothers (N = 495), and their fathers (N = 446) of the Dutch study Research on Adolescent Development and Relationships (RADAR) were used. Counter to expectations, the results of a Random Intercept Cross-Lagged Panel Model provided no evidence for within-family cross-lagged effects. Instead, stable differences between families explained linkages; in families where children reported on average higher levels of depressive symptoms, children also reported lower levels of autonomy support relative to their parents. There were no associations between parent-child discrepancies and parents' depressive symptoms. Thus, the findings suggest that depressive symptoms are neither a consequence, nor a predictor of parent-child discrepancies in adolescence. The hypotheses and analytical plan of this study were preregistered in a project on the Open Science Framework.