Mothers' resilience and potential for disrupted parenting in COVID-19: The protective effect of cognitive reappraisal

Stress related to the COVID-19 pandemic may pose acute threats to caregivers' capacity to cope and result in problematic parenting. However, studies have suggested that some caregivers were able to maintain high resilience when facing hardship. The goal of the present study was to examine how COVID-19-related stress affects resilience and parenting of mothers with young children and whether mothers' individual differences in emotion regulation skills lead to different resilience and parenting outcomes. We followed a sample of 298 mothers in the United States with children between 0 and 3 years old over 9 months beginning in April 2020 when most states were on lockdown. Results indicated that both COVID-19-related stress in April 2020 and greater increases/smaller decreases of COVID-19-related stress across 9 months were associated with mothers' lower resilience in January 2021. Low resilience, in turn, was associated with mothers' higher parenting stress, perceptions of parenting incompetence, and risk for child abuse. Furthermore, for mothers with low and moderate levels of cognitive reappraisal, a greater increase/smaller decrease in COVID-19-related stress was associated with their lower resilience after 9 months. In contrast, for mothers with high cognitive reappraisal, the change in COVID-19-related stress was not related to their resilience. This study demonstrates the importance of cognitive reappraisal for mothers of young children to resist and thrive against chronic and uncontrollable external stressors, which are crucial to preventing mothers' child abuse potential and maintaining positive parenting. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved).

Developmental antecedents of attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder symptoms in middle childhood: The role of father-child interactions and children's emotional underregulation

The present study examined the influence of fathers' parenting quality during infancy on children's emotion regulation during toddlerhood and, subsequently, attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) symptoms in middle childhood. Fathers and their 8-month-old infants (N = 124) were followed over time to obtain home observations of parenting quality at 8 and 24 months, laboratory observations of children's emotion regulation at 24 months, and teacher reports of children's ADHD symptoms at 7 years. A path analysis revealed that fathers' emotional disengagement in infancy and minimizing responses to children's distress in toddlerhood forecast children's development of ADHD symptoms in middle childhood. Further, a significant indirect effect was found such that fathers' parenting at 8 and 24 months predicted subsequent development of ADHD symptoms at age 7 through toddlers' difficulty regulating emotion. Implications of this study for early intervention and directions for future research are discussed.

Parent-mediated intervention training for caregivers of children with developmental differences in Zambia

BACKGROUND

Lower- and middle-income countries (LAMICs) are under-resourced and have limited intervention services for children with developmental differences and their families. A logical method to address service gaps within resource-scarce contexts is to train caregivers as interventionists, specifically using empirically-supported parent-mediated Naturalistic Developmental Behavioral Interventions (P-M NDBIs; Kasari et al., 2010; Ingersoll & Wainer, 2013).

AIMS

The study implemented the first P-M NDBI in Zambia and aimed to train caregivers and improve children's social-communication skills.

METHODS/PROCEDURES

The current study utilized a mixed-methods, pre-post design and implemented Project ImPACT (Ingersoll & Dvortcsak, 2010, 2019). Participants included 19 Zambian caregivers of children (n = 20) with developmental differences including autism spectrum condition, Down syndrome, and cerebral palsy.

OUTCOMES/RESULTS

Findings indicated that children's language skills and pretend play skills significantly improved from pre- to post-assessment, and caregivers most frequently used intervention strategies for modeling communication and prompting communication.

CONCLUSIONS/IMPLICATIONS

The success and feasibility of implementing Project ImPACT in Zambia, and recommendations for culturally adapting and implementing P-M NDBIs in LAMICs, were discussed.

Fathers' Sensitivity in Infancy and Externalizing Problems in Middle Childhood: The Role of Coparenting

The present study examined the role of father sensitivity and couple coparenting quality in the first 2 years of life in relation to the development of externalizing behavior problems in middle childhood, focusing on the unique role of fathers. In this study, 125 mothers, fathers, and their first-born children were followed from 8 months to age 7 years. Paternal sensitivity was rated when infants were 8 and 24 months old. Fathers were videotaped at home playing, feeding, and changing their 8-month-old infants’ clothes. They also were videotaped in a lab playing with their 24-month-olds and solving a variety of challenging tasks. At 24 months, competitive coparenting was assessed via videotaped triadic family interactions at home in which families participated in a variety of tasks (i.e., clothes change, eating a snack together and solving tasks). Teachers rated externalizing behavior problems when the children were age 7. Continuity in paternal sensitivity was documented from 8 to 24 months, and paternal sensitivity at 8 months predicted externalizing behavior in middle childhood through father sensitivity at 24 months. Moreover, paternal sensitivity at 8 months predicted competitive coparenting which, in turn, forecast externalizing behavior problems in middle childhood, even after controlling for maternal sensitivity at 8 and 24 months. These findings highlight the unique role of paternal caregiving quality during the first year of life on couple coparenting and children’s subsequent development of externalizing problems and have implications for creating effective interventions to prevent children from developing externalizing disorders.