Power assertive discipline, maternal emotional involvement, and child adjustment

Maternal symptoms of depression and sensitivity mediate the relation between maternal history of early adversity and her child temperament: The inheritance of circumstance

We examined maternal depression and maternal sensitivity as mediators of the association between maternal childhood adversity and her child's temperament in 239 mother-child dyads from a longitudinal, birth cohort study. We used an integrated measure of maternal childhood adversity that included the Childhood Trauma Questionnaire and the Parental Bonding Index. Maternal depression was assessed with the Edinburgh Postnatal Depression Scale at 6 months postpartum. Maternal sensitivity was assessed with the Ainsworth maternal sensitivity scales at 6 months. A measure of "negative emotionality/behavioral dysregulation" was derived from the Early Childhood Behaviour Questionnaire administered at 36 months. Bootstrapping-based mediation analyses revealed that maternal depression mediated the effect of maternal childhood adversity on offspring negative emotionality/behavioral dysregulation (95% confidence interval [0.026, 0.144]). We also found a serial, indirect effect of maternal childhood adversity on child negative emotionality/behavioral mediated first by maternal depression and then by maternal sensitivity (95% confidence interval [0.031, 0.156]). Results suggest the intergenerational transmission of the effects of maternal childhood adversity to the offspring occurs through a two-step, serial pathway, involving maternal depression and maternal sensitivity.

Parental influences on child report of relational attribution biases during early childhood

Influences on social cognition, such as hostile attribution biases, are a relatively understudied topic despite the association of hostile attribution biases with important developmental and clinical outcomes. From a developmental perspective, it is particularly important to understand the early development of biases regarding how the intentions of others are perceived, especially in the relationship context. Therefore, understanding potential correlates, such as parental influences, of such biases during early childhood may be especially important. The current study (N = 121) was designed to explore several gaps and limitations in the hostile intent attribution literature, especially the lack of research on hostile attribution biases for relational provocations and associated parent behavior. In particular, this gap was addressed by investigating parental influences on hostile attribution biases for relational provocations during early childhood (i.e., 3-5 years of age) using parent and child reports. It was found that parent hostile attribution biases for relational provocations was significantly associated with child hostile attribution biases for relational provocations. Furthermore, it was demonstrated that parent relational aggression was related to parenting practices. Implications for research and practice are discussed.

Disciplinary Practices, Metaparenting, and the Quality of Parent-Child Relationships in African-American, Mexican-American, and European-American Mothers

Coercive responses to children's behavior are well recognized to be problematic for children's adjustment. Less well understood is how parental social cognition is linked to discipline. In this study we sought to link metaparenting - parents' thoughts about their parenting - to the use of coercive discipline. We predicted that mothers who engaged in more metaparenting, thus reflecting more deliberate parenting, would use corporal punishment less frequently and instead engage in non-coercive discipline. We also expected that mothers who engaged in more metaparenting would report closer relationships with their children. In order to assess a diverse sample, data were collected from approximately equal numbers of African-American, European-American, and Mexican-American mothers. Participants included 113 mothers with target children in three age groups, ranging from 2 to 12 years. The results indicated reports of corporal punishment as well as non-coercive discipline did not significantly differ across child sex and child age groups, but did differ significantly across race/ethnicity. Reports of frequency of metaparenting also differed across racial/ethnic groups; African-American mothers reported more metaparenting than European-American mothers on three of four subscales. Metaparenting was significantly related to reports of the mother-child relationship but in the opposite direction than predicted. Based on these results, future research directions linking parental social cognition to discipline are proposed.

I. INTRODUCTION: UNDERSTANDING THE TRANSITION TO SIBLINGHOOD FROM A DEVELOPMENTAL PSYCHOPATHOLOGY AND ECOLOGICAL SYSTEMS PERSPECTIVE

The birth of an infant sibling is a common occurrence in the lives of many toddler and preschool children. Early childhood is also a time for the emergence of disruptive behavior problems that may set the stage for later problem behaviors. The current study examined individual differences in young children’s behavioral and emotional adjustment after the birth of a sibling in an effort to uncover developmental trajectories reflecting sudden and persistent change (maladaptation), adjustment and adaptation (resilience), gradual linear increases, and no change (stability and continuity). Growth mixture modeling (GMM) was conducted with a sample of 241 families expecting their second child using a longitudinal research design across the first year after the sibling’s birth (prenatal, 1, 4 8 and 12 months) on seven syndrome scales of the Child Behavior Checklist (CBCL 1.5–5:(Achenbach & Rescorla, 2000 ): aggression, attention problems, anxiety/depression, emotional reactivity, withdrawal, somatic complaints, and sleep problems. For all scales, multiple classes describing different trajectory patterns emerged that reflected predominantly intercept differences; children high on problem behavior after the birth were those high before the birth. There was no evidence of a sudden, persistent maladaptive response indicating children underwent a developmental crisis for any of the problem behaviors examined. Most children were low on all problem behaviors examined and showed little change or actually declined in problem behaviors over time, although some children did experience more pronounced changes in the borderline clinical or clinical range. Only in the case of aggressive behavior was there evidence of an Adjustment and Adaptation Response showing a sudden change (prenatal to 1 month) that subsided by 4 months, suggesting that some young children react to stressful life events but adapt quickly to these changing circumstances. Further, children’s withdrawal revealed a curvilinear, quadratic path, suggesting children both increased and decreased in their withdrawal over time. Guided by a developmental ecological systems framework, we employed data mining procedures to uncover the child, parent, and family variables that best discriminated the different trajectory classes and found that children’s temperament, coparenting, parental self-efficacy, and parent-child attachment relationships were prominent in predicting children’s adjustment after the birth of an infant sibling. Finally, when trajectory classes were used to predict sibling relationship quality at 12 months, children high on aggression, attention problems, and emotional reactivity in the year after the birth engaged in more conflict and less positive involvement with the infant sibling at the end of the first year.

Bidirectional associations between bedtime parenting and infant sleep: Parenting quality, parenting practices, and their interaction

In keeping with transactional conceptualizations of infant sleep development (Sadeh, Tikotzky, & Scher, 2010), the present study was an examination of longitudinal, bidirectional linkages between bedtime parenting (through direct observations of parenting practices and quality) and infant sleep across the first 6 months postpartum. In doing so, we also drew from Darling and Steinberg's (1993) conceptual model to examine parenting quality as a moderator of linkages between specific bedtime practices and infant sleep. Multilevel model analyses revealed that the strongest increases in infant nighttime sleep across the first 6 months occurred among infants of mothers who engaged in low levels of nursing at bedtime. Within-person linkages between mothers' emotional availability (EA) at bedtime, infant distress, and infant sleep were found, such that at time points when mothers were more emotionally available, infants were less distressed and slept more throughout the night. Several moderating effects of maternal EA on linkages between parenting practices and infant sleep were obtained that were consistent with predictions from Darling and Steinberg (1993). Higher maternal EA in combination with less close contact at bedtime was associated with more infant sleep across the night on average, and higher EA in combination with fewer arousing bedtime activities predicted more rapid increases in infant sleep with age. Finally, there was evidence of infant-driven effects, as higher infant nighttime distress predicted lower EA at subsequent time points. Results showcased the complex, reciprocal interplay between parents and infants in the development of infant sleep patterns and parenting behavior during the first 6 months postpartum. (PsycINFO Database Record

Mothers' power assertion; children's negative, adversarial orientation; and future behavior problems in low-income families: early maternal responsiveness as a moderator of the developmental cascade

Parental power assertion, a key dimension of family environment, generally sets in motion detrimental developmental cascades; however, evidence suggests that other qualities of parenting, such as responsiveness, can significantly moderate those processes. Mechanisms that account for such moderating effects are not fully understood. We propose a conceptual model of processes linking parental power assertion, parental responsiveness, children's negative, adversarial, rejecting orientation toward the parent, and behavior problems. We test that model in a short-term longitudinal design involving 186 low-income, ethnically diverse mothers and their toddlers. When children were 30 months, the dyads were observed in multiple, lengthy, naturalistic laboratory interactions to assess behaviorally mothers' responsiveness and their power-assertive control style. At 33 months, we observed behavioral indicators of children's negative, adversarial, rejecting orientation toward the mothers in several naturalistic and standardized paradigms. At 40 months, mothers rated children's behavior problems. The proposed moderated mediation sequence, tested using a new approach, PROCESS (Hayes, 2013), was supported. The indirect effect from maternal power assertion to children's negative, adversarial orientation to future behavior problems was present when mothers' responsiveness was either low or average but absent when mothers were highly responsive. This study elucidates a potential process that may link parental power assertion with behavior problems and highlights how positive aspects of parenting can moderate this process and defuse maladaptive developmental cascades. It also suggests possible targets for parenting intervention and prevention efforts.

Corporal punishment in rural Colombian families: prevalence, family structure and socio-demographic variables

OBJECTIVE

To reveal the prevalence of corporal punishment in a rural area of Colombia and its correlates to family structure and other socio-demographic variables.

METHOD

A survey about childrearing and childcare was developed for this study, including a specific question about corporal punishment that was developed based on the Conflict Tactics Scale (CTS). Family structure was categorized as follows, based on previous literature: 'nuclear family,' 'single parent' family, 'extended family,' 'simultaneous family' and 'composed family.'

RESULTS

Forty-one percent of the parents surveyed admitted they had used corporal punishment of their children as a disciplinary strategy. The type of family structure, the number of children living at home, the age of the children, the gender of the parent who answered the survey, and the age and gender of the partner were significant predictors of corporal punishment.

CONCLUSION

Family structure is an important variable in the understanding of corporal punishment, especially in regard to nuclear families that have a large number of children and parents who started their parental role early in life.

Parents, parenting and toddler adaptation: evidence from a national longitudinal study of Australian children

Because infants and toddlers are particularly susceptible to parents' socialization efforts, the purpose of this 2-year longitudinal study (N=4271 infants) was to forecast toddlers' competence and problems (adaptational outcomes, age M=30 months) from parenting experiences when they were infants (age M=9 months). Using structural equation modeling and data from a nationally representative sample, parenting during infancy was important to toddlers' adaptational outcomes, with parenting warmth most strongly connected to toddler competence and parenting hostility most strongly connected to toddler problems. Additionally, toddlers' outcomes were associated with their parents' mental health symptoms, life difficulty, coping and self-efficacy when measured 2 years earlier (parent context), and parenting warmth and hostility mediated some of these associations. These pathways indicated that the infant parenting context had some spill over effect on toddlers via parental warmth and hostility. However, mediational paths were not as common as expected, suggesting that the parent context had more direct than indirect effects on toddlers. Conclusions were similar even after accounting for infant temperament, family demographic characteristics and infant birthweight, with substantial reductions in effects only found for associations of parenting self-efficacy with toddlers' outcomes.