The Implications of Early Marital Conflict for Children's Development

Mary Main's contributions to our family systems approach to interventions with parents of young children

In this paper we describe our Berkeley colleague Mary Main's intellectual contributions to our program of creating and evaluating couples group interventions for parents of young children. The first section presents the theoretical model and the projects at the heart of our research program. The second section illustrates how the Adult Attachment Interview, a Couple Attachment Interview, or a questionnaire describing attachment styles helped us to understand how internal working models of both parent-child and couple relationships added to our observational measures of couple and parenting behavior to provide unique information. In a third section, we conclude that we did not have the kind of impact on Mary's thinking that Mary had on ours, but we are heartened by seeing increasing attempts of some developmental attachment theorists to include fathers in their studies and others who focus on the effects of the quality of relationship between the parents on their children's development.

Examining the Relation Between Prenatal Emotion Dysregulation and Toddler Vocabulary Development: A Biobehavioral Approach

Early language is shaped by parent-child interactions and has been examined in relation to maternal psychopathology and parenting stress. Minimal work has examined the relation between maternal emotion dysregulation and toddler vocabulary development. This longitudinal study examined associations between maternal emotion dysregulation prenatally, maternal everyday stress at 7 months postpartum, and toddler vocabulary at 18 months. Data were collected from 289 typically developing, monolingual children (54% female) and their mothers (63% White and non-Hispanic; 56% held a college degree). During pregnancy, maternal emotion dysregulation was measured via self-report and resting respiratory sinus arrhythmia (RSA). Mothers completed questionnaires about their perceived everyday stress and their child's vocabulary at 7 and 18 months postpartum, respectively. Path analysis revealed that expectant mothers' self-reported emotion dysregulation was indirectly associated with toddlers' expressive vocabulary via their level of postpartum perceived everyday stress. In addition, prenatal maternal resting RSA directly predicted toddlers' expressive vocabulary size. These findings yield insights into the mechanisms by which perinatal mental health may shape early language development and highlight the potential utility of interventions targeting emotion dysregulation during pregnancy.

Relationship satisfaction and family routines of young parents before and during the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic: A latent growth curve analysis

With the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, parents had to reorganize their family routines under many external stressors (e.g., limited external childcare), which could have negatively affected their relationship satisfaction. This study aimed to examine the changes in relationship satisfaction of young parents from pre-pandemic times up to the second wave of the COVID-19 pandemic in Germany in December 2020 and whether these changes were different for mothers and fathers. Additionally, the role of perceived pandemic-related stress and changes in family routines was investigated. Data from 564 participants from DREAMCORONA, a sub-study of the prospective longitudinal cohort study "Dresden Study on Parenting, Work, and Mental Health" (DREAM), were analyzed. Relationship satisfaction was assessed at three measurement points (T0: pre-pandemic, i.e., August 2018-March 2020; T1: May-June 2020; T2: October-December 2020). To estimate changes in relationship satisfaction over time, Latent Growth Curve Models were calculated. Changes in family routines (i.e., changes in the division of housework and childcare from T0 to T1 as well as the availability of external childcare facilities at T1) and perceived pandemic-related stress at T1 were used as predictors. The models were adjusted for education and number of children per household. There was no significant change in relationship satisfaction over time, with no differences between mothers and fathers. The multi-group model revealed that changes in the division of housework and childcare predicted changes in relationship satisfaction in mothers, but not in fathers. For mothers, doing more housework than before the pandemic was negatively associated with changes in their relationship satisfaction over time. Additionally, reporting that their partner did more childcare than before the pandemic was positively associated with the relationship satisfaction of mothers. Our results indicate no general negative prospective association between the COVID-19 pandemic and parental relationship satisfaction over time. Nevertheless, our findings highlight the importance of the division of housework and childcare for mothers' relationship satisfaction and how pandemic-related changes in family routines alter this association.

The moderating effect of marital conflict on the relationship between social avoidance and socio-emotional functioning among young children in suburban China

Social avoidance has been found to be related to negative social adjustment, yet evidence of the relationship between social avoidance and social adjustment is very limited in suburban preschoolers in China. Moreover, the underlying mechanisms that help to explain the associations between social avoidance and socio-emotional adjustment remain poorly considered. The goal of the present study was to examine the moderating effect of marital conflict in the link between social avoidance and indices of socio-emotional functioning among young children in mainland China. Participants were N = 256 children aged from 49 to 72 months (125 boys, 131 girls, M_age  = 59.06 months, SD = 6.58) attending preschools/kindergartens in suburban areas of Shanghai, People's Republic of China. Multi-source assessments were employed, with mothers reporting marital conflict as well as rating their children's social withdrawal (i.e., social avoidance, shyness, unsociability), and teachers assessing indices of children's socio-emotional functioning at school (i.e., anxious-fearful behavior, peer exclusion, and loneliness). Children were asked about their loneliness. Among the results, social avoidance was positively associated with anxious-fearful behavior, peer exclusion, and loneliness (marginal significance). Moreover, as hypothesized, marital conflict was found to exacerbate the relations between social avoidance and peer exclusion, and loneliness. Results are discussed in terms of the etiology and implications of social avoidance among young children in mainland China.

The association between the romantic relationships of parents and offspring depressive symptoms: Mediating effects of offspring communication patterns and romantic relationships

This study investigated a conceptual model by testing how parental romantic relationships influenced the depressive symptoms of grown-up children and whether the constructive communication patterns of grown-up children and romantic relationships played mediation effects within it. A total of 421 Chinese participants were enrolled in the study. The level of depressive symptoms, romantic relationship satisfaction and closeness, couple communication patterns, and parental romantic relationships were measured via self-report questionnaires. According to the results, the structural equation modeling analysis verified that the severity of participants’ depressive symptoms was negatively associated with the parental romantic relationship and that the association was mediated by participants’ constructive communication patterns and their own romantic relationships. Furthermore, compared with nondepressed participants, depressed participants were less satisfied with their parental romantic relationships, exhibited fewer constructive communication patterns, and were more distant and unsatisfied with current romantic relationships.