Can the family drawing be a useful tool for assessing attachment representations in children? A systematic review and meta-analysis

A systematic review and meta-analysis were conducted to evaluate the quality and validity of Family Drawings (FD) with an Attachment-Based Coding System in assessing attachment representations among pre-school and school-age children. A literature search in notable databases identified 645 records, of which 20 were eligible after screening and quality assessment. Results showed: 1) ABCD attachment distribution in community children was: 48% secure, 20% avoidant, 21% ambivalent, 11% disorganized. Security prevailed both in classifications and Fury et al.' scales. 2) No significant differences according to the cultural background; 3) At-risk/clinical children showed higher insecurity than community ones using scales; 4) Girls were more secure than boys. In conclusion, FD may be a culture-fair method to assess attachment representations in children. Global scales seem more reliable than ABCD classifications for discriminating at-risk and clinical children, but further studies on these groups are needed.

Intimate Partner Violence, Parenting, and Children's Representations of Caregivers

Children's representational models of self and relationship quality with caregivers in the context of intimate partner violence (IPV) were investigated using family drawings created by children in their first-grade year. The present study examines the mediating role of mothers' and fathers' sensitive parenting behaviors in the relations between IPV and children's representations of relationship quality with mothers and fathers. The sample (N = 947) is drawn from a longitudinal study of rural poverty exploring the ways in which child, family, and contextual factors shape development over time. Results of analyses indicate significant associations between IPV, sensitive parenting, and children's representation of relationship quality with mothers and fathers. There was a significant indirect effect from IPV on children's representation of relationship quality with fathers through paternal parenting behaviors. The findings from this study suggest that exposure to violence may affect how children view their family relationships and that fathers' parenting behavior is a key mediating process. Implications of the findings and directions for future study are proposed.

Contextualizing Children's Caregiving Responses to Interparental Conflict: Advancing Assessment of Parentification

Parentification is a parent-child dynamic in which children assume caregiving responsibilities while parents fail to support and reciprocate children's roles. There is a gap between empirical research, which typically operationalizes parentification as the occurrence of children's caregiving behaviors, and theory, which emphasizes consideration of the family context in which children engage in caregiving as well as adjustment. The present study (N=235) considered multiple operationalizations of the construct by assessing kindergarten-aged children's caregiving reactions to interparental conflict in a standardized paradigm and additionally contextualizing caregiving reactions within family context and child adjustment over time through mixture modeling approaches. Although 88% of children endorsed caregiving, contextualizing caregiving resulted in lower estimates of this phenomenon (conservatively, 30%). Moreover, contextualizing children's caregiving at the family level (i.e., within parent-child relationships) proved most informative in identifying between-family differences in within-family experiences of parentification. Despite identifying a pattern of parentification at the family level (high children's caregiving reactions in conjunction with poor parental caregiving competence and poor autonomy support), children's adjustment (externalizing, internalizing, prosocial behavior) remained in the normative range of functioning over two years, potentially suggesting child resilience to this family risk context. As such, these findings demonstrate an advancement in measuring parentification by contextualizing young children's caregiving within parent-child relationships.

Maternal parentification history impacts evaluative cognitions about self, parenting, and child

Parentification occurs when children are unfairly charged with fulfilling parental instrumental and emotional needs. Parentification is associated with risk to evaluative self cognitions from childhood to emerging adulthood, but this association has not yet been studied among parents. The transition to parenthood is typically characterized by declines in self-esteem, suggesting it is a critical period for understanding the risk parentification history poses to evaluative self-cognitions and evaluative cognitions about children. The present study addresses these gaps using longitudinal data (N = 374 first-time mothers) to examine the influence of maternal parentification history domains (emotional and instrumental caregiving, role unfairness) on trajectories of maternal evaluative cognitions about the self (self-esteem, parenting self-efficacy) and about the child (difficult child temperament, dissatisfaction with child contributions to relationships) in early parenthood. A spillover model was also examined such that evaluative cognitions about the self were examined as potential mediators between parentification history and evaluative cognitions about children. Results support associations between the role unfairness domain of parentification and each domain of maternal evaluative cognitions and a significant indirect effect of unfairness on risk to maternal evaluative cognitions about child contributions via parenting self-efficacy. Implications for mother-child relationships and processes of intergenerational transmission of parentification are discussed.

Urgent engagement in 9/11 pregnant widows and their infants: Transmission of trauma

The potential effects of maternal trauma on mother-infant interaction remain insufficiently studied empirically. This study examined the effects of the September 11, 2001, trauma on mother-infant interaction in mothers who were pregnant and widowed on 9/11, and their infants aged 4-6 months. Split-screen videotaped interaction was coded on a one-second basis for infant gaze, facial affect, and vocal affect; and mother gaze, facial affect, and touch. We examined the temporal dynamics of communication: self-contingency and interactive contingency of behavior by time-series methods. We documented heightened maternal and infant efforts at engagement in the 9/11 (vs. control) dyads. Both partners had difficulty tolerating moments of looking away as well as moments of negative behavior patterns. Heightened efforts to maintain a positive visual engagement may be adaptive and a potential source of resilience, but these patterns may also carry risk: working too hard to make it work. A vigilant, hyper-contingent, high-arousal engagement was the central mode of the interpersonal transmission of the trauma to these infants, with implications for intervention.

Expanding and Extending the Role Reversal Construct in Early Childhood

OBJECTIVES

Role reversal or boundary dissolution (BD) refers to the breakdown of expected parent-child roles and poses risk to development. Although retrospective reports in adulthood demonstrates that the emotional aspects of BD negatively influence self-concept, examination of BD in early childhood typically focuses on BD broadly as a reversal of parent-child roles rather than isolating the emotional aspects of BD. In addition, empirical work has yet to distinguish between mother and child engagement in BD despite the strong theoretical emphasis on this distinction.

METHODS

We coded (N = 110 mother-child dyads) mother and child (age 3-6 years) engagement in role reversal during play and in emotional BD during mother-child reminiscing discussions to isolate emotional BD.

RESULTS

Child engagement in BD was associated across the contexts of play and mother-child emotional conversations whereas there was no association between maternal engagement in BD across these contexts. We examined associations between mother and child engagement in emotional BD and the extent to which child self-concept was consistent. Maternal engagement in emotional BD during reminiscing emerged as a significant predictor of less consistency in child self-concept in regression models including child engagement in emotional BD, role reversal in play, and child age.

CONCLUSIONS

Results provide empirical support for critical components of BD theory (e.g., salience of emotional BD, distinguishing parent versus child engagement in BD, impact on self-concept) and the measurement of these aspects of BD in future studies.

Does family drawing assess attachment representations of late-adopted children? A preliminary report

BACKGROUND

Attachment representations of late-adopted children have usually been measured by attachment narratives or observational procedures. Recently an attachment-based coding system for family drawings was developed by attachment researchers and it was used both with clinical and nonclinical samples, but it has never been used with adoptees.

METHOD

This study examined the differences between attachment representations of 29 late-adopted children aged 5-7 years (M = 6.35, 51.7% girls) and 12 non-adopted peers as assessed by family drawings, controlling for demographic variables and children's cognitive status. The attachment-based coding system of family drawings included three levels: (1) 24 individual markers, (2) eight global rating scales (1-7 points), and (3) four attachment categories (secure, avoidant, resistant, and disorganized).

RESULTS

Late-adopted children assessed with the family drawings were more insecure on the attachment categories and achieved lower scores on positive global ratings such as the Vitality/Creativity and Family Pride/Happiness scales, higher scores on the Role Reversal scale, and a tendency toward higher scores on the Bizarreness/Dissociation scale. No difference emerged between the two groups regarding the individual markers.

CONCLUSIONS

Family drawing seemed to be a useful tool for classifying attachment representations, and able to capture underlying mental states that it was hard for late-adopted children to express in words.

The mediating role of parenting in the associations between household chaos and children's representations of family dysfunction

Children's drawings are thought to reflect their mental representations of self and their interpersonal relations within families. Household chaos is believed to disrupt key proximal processes related to optimal development. The present study examines the mediating role of parenting behaviors in the relations between two measures of household chaos, instability and disorganization, and how they may be evidenced in children's representations of family dysfunction as derived from their drawings. The sample (N = 962) is from a longitudinal study of rural poverty exploring the ways in which child, family, and contextual factors shape development over time. Findings reveal that, after controlling for numerous factors including child and primary caregiver covariates, there were significant indirect effects from cumulative family disorganization, but not cumulative family instability, on children's representation of family dysfunction through parenting behaviors. Results suggest that the proximal effects of daily disorganization outweigh the effects of periodic instability overtime.