Externalizing problems in fifth grade: relations with productive activity, maternal sensitivity, and harsh parenting from infancy through middle childhood

This study used data from the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development's Study of Early Child Care and Youth Development to examine relations between parenting, self-control, and externalizing behavior from infancy through 5th grade. Results indicate that self-control measured during middle childhood mediates relations between maternal sensitivity, opportunity for productive activity, and parental harshness and both mother-reported and teacher-reported externalizing behavior. Results showed that parenting measured during middle childhood was more strongly related to 5th-grade externalizing behavior compared with parenting measured during infancy and early childhood. However, there was evidence that parenting during the preschool years was related to 5th-grade externalizing behavior through later parenting and self-control.     

From Parent to Child to Parent…: Paths In and Out of Problem Behavior

This study used data from the NICHD Study of Early Child Care and Youth Development to examine relations between parenting, self-control and externalizing behavior from early childhood to mid-adolescence (N?=?956; 49.9 % male). Results indicated that maternal sensitivity, parental harshness and productive activity are related to externalizing problems but that patterns of relations change from early childhood to middle childhood to adolescence, with evidence suggesting that externalizing behavior influences parenting more than the reverse from middle childhood onward. Self-control measured during early adolescence partially mediated relations between maternal sensitivity and adolescent-reported externalizing behavior. Parental monitoring during adolescence was also related to externalizing behavior at age 15. Monitoring partially mediated the relation between externalizing behavior in early adolescence and externalizing at age 15.     

父母严厉管教与儿童问题行为的关系:儿童自我控制的中介作用

为探讨父母严厉管教、儿童自我控制与儿童问题行为间的关系,采用中文版亲子冲突解决策略量表、社会技能评定量表和儿童行为核查量表对济南市两所公立学校的1097名小学四到六年级儿童及其父母双亲进行测查。结果发现：（1）父母心理攻击和体罚与儿童自我控制均呈显著负相关,与儿童内化和外化问题行为均呈显著正相关,儿童自我控制与其内化和外化问题行为均呈显著负相关;（2）父亲心理攻击可以显著正向预测儿童内化和外化问题行为,母亲体罚可以显著正向预测儿童外化问题行为;（3）儿童自我控制在父亲心理攻击和母亲体罚与儿童内外化问题行为之间起中介作用,在母亲心理攻击和父亲体罚与儿童内外化问题行为关系间的中介作用不显著,中介作用模型不存在显著的儿童性别差异。综上,本研究发现父母严厉管教不仅直接影响儿童的内外化问题行为,而且会通过降低儿童自我控制水平间接导致儿童问题行为的增多。     

父母严厉管教与儿童问题行为的关系:儿童自我控制的中介作用

为探讨父母严厉管教、儿童自我控制与儿童问题行为间的关系,采用中文版亲子冲突解决策略量表、社会技能评定量表和儿童行为核查量表对济南市两所公立学校的1097名小学四到六年级儿童及其父母双亲进行测查。结果发现：（1）父母心理攻击和体罚与儿童自我控制均呈显著负相关,与儿童内化和外化问题行为均呈显著正相关,儿童自我控制与其内化和外化问题行为均呈显著负相关;（2）父亲心理攻击可以显著正向预测儿童内化和外化问题行为,母亲体罚可以显著正向预测儿童外化问题行为;（3）儿童自我控制在父亲心理攻击和母亲体罚与儿童内外化问题行为之间起中介作用,在母亲心理攻击和父亲体罚与儿童内外化问题行为关系间的中介作用不显著,中介作用模型不存在显著的儿童性别差异。综上,本研究发现父母严厉管教不仅直接影响儿童的内外化问题行为,而且会通过降低儿童自我控制水平间接导致儿童问题行为的增多。     

Self-control,parenting, and problem behavior in early childhood: A multi-method,multi-informant study

BackgroundEarly childhood self-control and parenting are suggested to play key roles in the development of child problem behavior. The current study aims to 1) replicate earlier work by examining the unique and combined effects of child self-control and parenting on child problem behavior and 2) extend earlier work by including both mother and father reports.MethodsData were used from 107 Dutch families: mothers, fathers, and their two-year old child. Child self-control was measured using both father’s and mother’s reports of effortful control and with an observed behavioral task (i.e., gift-in-bag task). Similarly, parenting (i.e., emotional availability and discipline) and child problem behavior (i.e., externalizing and internalizing problems) were measured by using both father’s and mother’s reports.ResultsChild self-control reported by fathers and mothers, but not observed self-control, was related to fewer externalizing and (mother-reported) internalizing problems. Paternal emotional availability showed a modest association with fewer child externalizing problems, maternal emotional availability was related to fewer internalizing problems. Finally, there was an interaction between father- (but not mother) reported self-control and paternal emotional availability in the prediction of child internalizing problems. No main or interaction effect was revealed for discipline.ConclusionFindings confirm prior work on self-control, parenting, and child problem behavior. Most importantly however, the current study adds to the literature by highlighting the need for additional research including maternal as well as paternal data. Specifically, insight in the unique role of fathers may shed light on aspects of child adjustment not covered by mother reports alone.     

Parenting style as a mediator between children's negative emotionality and problematic behavior in early childhood

Negative emotionality is considered to be the core of the difficult temperament concept (J. E. Bates, 1989; R. L. Shiner, 1998). In this correlational study, the authors examined whether the relations between children's negative emotionality and problematic behavior (internalizing and externalizing) were partially mediated by parenting style (authoritative and authoritarian) in a community sample of 196 3-year-old children and their mothers. The authors assessed maternal perception of child negative emotionality using the Children's Behavior Questionnaire (M. K. Rothbart, S. A. Ahadi, K. L. Hershey, & P. Fisher, 2001) and assessed problematic child behavior by means of maternal report using the Child Behavior Checklist (T. M. Achenbach, 1992). The results showed that the relations between child negative emotionality and internalizing and externalizing behaviors were partially mediated by mothers' authoritative parenting style. Moreover, when the authors used confirmatory factor analysis to decontaminate possible overlap in item content between measures assessing temperament and problematic behavior, the association between negative emotionality and internalizing behavior was fully mediated by authoritative parenting.     

Child Effortful Control as a Mediator of Parenting Practices on Externalizing Behavior: Evidence for a Sex-Differentiated Pathway across the Transition from Preschool to School

An explanatory model for children’s development of disruptive behavior across the transition from preschool to school was tested. It was hypothesized that child effortful control would mediate the effects of parenting on children’s externalizing behavior and that child sex would moderate these relations. Participants were 241 children (123 boys) and their parents and teachers. Three dimensions of parenting, warm responsiveness, induction, and corporal punishment, were assessed via maternal report when children were 3 years old. Child effortful control at age 3 was measured using laboratory tasks and a mother-report questionnaire. Mothers and teachers contributed ratings of child externalizing behavior at age 6. Results showed that the hypothesized model fit the data well and that the pattern of associations between constructs differed for boys and girls. For boys, parental warm responsiveness and corporal punishment had significant indirect effects on children’s externalizing behavior three years later, mediated by child effortful control. Such relations were not observed for girls. These findings support a sex-differentiated pathway to externalizing behavior across the transition from preschool to school.     

Differential susceptibility to discipline: the moderating effect of child temperament on the association between maternal discipline and early childhood externalizing problems.

This study investigated the interaction of child temperament and maternal discipline in the prediction of externalizing problems in early childhood. Interaction effects were evaluated in a sample of 227 one- to three-year-old children with relatively high externalizing problems scores on the Child Behavior Checklist/1 1/2-5. Child temperament was reported by the mothers, maternal discipline was observed in a laboratory session, and child outcome measures included both mother-reported externalizing problems and observed physical aggression. Results indicate that children with difficult temperaments are more susceptible to negative discipline (i.e., they showed more externalizing problems) as well as more susceptible to positive discipline (i.e., they showed fewer externalizing problems and less physical aggression), as compared with children with relatively easy temperaments. These findings provide empirical evidence for the differential susceptibility hypothesis and suggest directions for enhancing the effectiveness of interventions aimed at reducing early childhood externalizing problems.     

Vocabularies

Negative emotionality is considered to be the core of the difficult temperament concept (J. E. Bates, 1989; R. L. Shiner, 1998). In this correlational study, the authors examined whether the relations between children's negative emotionality and problematic behavior (internalizing and externalizing) were partially mediated by parenting style (authoritative and authoritarian) in a community sample of 196 3-year-old children and their mothers. The authors assessed maternal perception of child negative emotionality using the Children's Behavior Questionnaire (M. K. Rothbart, S. A. Ahadi, K. L. Hershey, &; P. Fisher, 2001) and assessed problematic child behavior by means of maternal report using the Child Behavior Checklist (T. M. Achenbach, 1992). The results showed that the relations between child negative emotionality and internalizing and externalizing behaviors were partially mediated by mothers' authoritative parenting style. Moreover, when the authors used confirmatory factor analysis to decontaminate possible overlap in item content between measures assessing temperament and problematic behavior, the association between negative emotionality and internalizing behavior was fully mediated by authoritative parenting.     

Tightly linked systems: reciprocal relations between maternal depressive symptoms and maternal reports of adolescent externalizing behavior

The frequently observed link between maternal depressive symptoms and heightened maternal reporting of adolescent externalizing behavior was examined from an integrative, systems perspective using a community sample of 180 adolescents, their mothers, fathers, and close peers, assessed twice over a 3-year period. Consistent with this perspective, the maternal depression-adolescent externalizing link was found to reflect not simply maternal reporting biases, but heightened maternal sensitivity to independently observable teen misbehavior as well as long-term, predictive links between maternal symptoms and teen behavior. Maternal depressive symptoms predicted relative increases over time in teen externalizing behavior. Child effects were also found, however, in which teen externalizing behavior predicted future relative increases in maternal depressive symptoms. Findings are interpreted as revealing a tightly linked behavioral-affective system in families with mothers experiencing depressive symptoms and teens engaged in externalizing behavior and further suggest that research on depressive symptoms in women with adolescent offspring should now consider offspring externalizing behaviors as a significant risk factor.     

Mother parity as a main and moderating influence on early mother-infant interaction

This study investigated main and moderating effects of mother parity on maternal attitudes and behaviors. In a sample of 87 mothers with 5-month-old infants, relations between determinants of parenting (maternal personality, marital quality, infant negative emotionality) and maternal behavior and attitudes (sensitivity, self-efficacy, mother-reported infant temperament) were examined as a function of parity. Results revealed both main and moderating effects of parity. Multiparous mothers reported higher self-efficacy, whereas primiparous mothers reported more of an increase in marital ambivalence following the baby's birth. The relations of self-efficacy, sensitivity, and mother-reported infant temperament to a laboratory measure of infant crying all differed by parity. In addition, for primiparous mothers, negative personality traits related to reported infant temperament, and for multiparous mothers, marital ambivalence and maternal sensitivity appeared to reflect a compensatory process. These results suggest that parity contributes to explaining how differing family systems influence development during infancy.     

Association between maternal sensitivity and externalizing behavior from preschool to preadolescence

Using data from the longitudinal NICHD Study of Early Child Care and Youth Development (N = 1364), this study examined the association between mothers' sensitivity and children's externalizing behavior from preschool to preadolescence. Externalizing behavior declined on average across this period with a slowing of this decline around middle childhood. Maternal sensitivity remained relatively stable on average, and there was significant variation across mothers. A decrease in maternal sensitivity from ages 3 to 11 was related to an increase in externalizing behavior from ages 4 to 12. A model-based test of the direction of the effect suggested that the association between changes in maternal sensitivity and externalizing behavior from ages 4 to 11 was driven by child effects on mothers and not vice-versa. Between late preschool age and preadolescence, the behavior problems of children appear to strongly influence the sensitive support of mothers. Practical implications were discussed in light of these findings.     

Trajectories of externalizing behavior from age 2 to age 9: relations with gender, temperament, ethnicity, parenting, and rater

Trajectories of children's externalizing behavior were examined using multilevel growth curve modeling of data from the NICHD Study of Early Child Care and Youth Development. According to ratings by both mothers and caregivers/teachers when children were 2, 3, 4, 7, and 9 years old, externalizing behavior declined with age. However, mothers rated children as higher in externalizing behavior than did caregivers and teachers. Higher levels of age 9 externalizing behavior were predicted by the following factors: child male gender (for caregiver/teacher reports only), infant difficult temperament (for children with harsh mothers only), harsher maternal attitude toward discipline, higher level of maternal depression (for maternal reports only), and lower level of maternal sensitivity (especially for boys). Caregivers and teachers reported higher levels of externalizing behavior in African American children than in European American children, increasingly so over time; mothers' ratings revealed the reverse. The declining slope of externalizing behavior was predicted by infant difficult temperament for mother reports only. Additional analyses suggested that the association between parenting and externalizing behavior was bidirectional.     

Marital Conflict as a Mediator of the Longitudinal Connections between Maternal Emotional Distress and Early Adolescent Maladjustment

In this study, we examined the longitudinal relations among maternal emotional distress, marital conflict, and early adolescent externalizing behaviors and internalizing symptoms during the transition to adolescence. 3 years of self-report data were collected from 136 married mothers and their children, beginning when the children were in 5th grade. Structural equations modeling with latent variables were conducted to examine the nature and directionality of paths between constructs. For mothers, results indicated that marital conflict mediated the relation between prior maternal emotional distress and subsequent early adolescent externalizing behaviors and internalizing symptoms. For early adolescents, a mediating pattern was seen only for externalizing behaviors. In testing the reverse pattern of effects for mothers, marital conflict mediated the relation between prior early adolescent externalizing behaviors and subsequent maternal emotional distress whereas only an indirect pattern of effects existed for internalizing symptoms. Thus, we identified dynamic patterns of familial relations that accounted for the diminished well-being of both early adolescents and their mothers, suggesting that prevention and intervention work during the transition to adolescence should focus on multiple components of family functioning.     

Relations among mothers' expressivity, children's effortful control, and their problem behaviors: a four-year longitudinal study

Longitudinal relations between mothers' expressivity, children's effortful control, and their problem behaviors were examined when children (N = 181) were 6.5-10 years old (T2) and again 2 (T3) and 4 (T4) years later. Mothers reported on their expression of positive and negative dominant emotion. Mothers and teachers reported on children's effortful control and externalizing and internalizing problem behaviors. In structural equation models, variables exhibited consistency over time. Further, the relation between mothers' expressivity (positive minus negative dominant emotion) at T2 and children's externalizing problems at T4 was mediated by T3 effortful control. The same process of mediation was significant for teacher- but not mother-reported internalizing problems. The results provide one explanation for how emotion-related socializing behaviors influence children's problem behaviors.     

The relationship between cognitive abilities and maternal ratings of externalizing behaviors in preschool children

The association between child cognitive abilities and maternal ratings of child externalizing behaviors was investigated in a randomly selected sample of 290 preschool children. Child cognitive abilities were assessed by the WPPSI-R, whereas mothers completed the Yale Children's Inventory for the assessment of child externalizing behaviors. Maternal education, and maternal child-rearing style, as defined by scores on the Child Rearing Practices Report, was significantly related to perceived externalizing child behavior. Hierarchical regression analyses revealed that for girls, low child IQ remained a significant predictor of perceived externalizing behavior when effects of maternal education and child-rearing style were controlled for (p < 0.01). Maternal child-rearing style made independent contributions to explaining variance in girls' and boys' behavior score. The results are discussed in terms of differential gender socialization practices and gender stereotypes.     

Pathways of Risk for Accelerated Heavy Alcohol Use Among Adolescent Children of Alcoholic Parents

The current study examined two questions. First, do internalizing symptoms and externalizing behavior each mediate the relations between parent psychopathology (alcoholism, antisocial personality disorder, and affective disorder) and growth in adolescent heavy alcohol use? Second, are there gender differences in these mediated pathways? Using latent curve analyses, we examined these questions in a high-risk sample of 439 families (53% children of alcoholic parents; 47% female). Collapsing across gender, adolescent-reported externalizing behavior mediated both the relation between parent alcoholism and growth in heavy alcohol use and the relation between parent antisociality and growth in heavy alcohol use. Parent-reported externalizing behavior only mediated the relation between parent antisociality and growth in heavy alcohol use in males. No support was found for internalizing symptoms as a mediator of these relations. Avenues are suggested for further exploring and integrating information about different mediating processes accounting for children of alcoholics' risk for heavy alcohol use.     

The Relations Among Maternal Depression,Maternal Criticism,and Adolescents’ Externalizing and Internalizing Symptoms

This study examined the relations between maternal criticism and externalizing and internalizing symptoms in adolescents who varied in their risk for psychopathology. Both maternal-effects and child-effects models were examined. The sample consisted of 194 adolescents (mean age = 11.8~years) and their mothers; 146 mothers had a history of depressive disorders and 48 did not. When adolescents were in 6th and 8th grade, maternal criticism was measured with the five-minute speech sample and adolescents symptoms were assessed with the Child Behavior Checklist. Maternal criticism was significantly associated with both adolescents externalizing and internalizing symptoms, beyond the contribution of the chronicity/severity of mothers depression history. Maternal criticism did not mediate the relation between maternal depression and adolescent symptoms. In contrast, adolescent externalizing behaviors mediated the relation between chronicity/severity of maternal depression history and maternal criticism in 6th grade. Prospective analyses showed that adolescents externalizing symptoms in 6th grade significantly predicted maternal criticism in 8th grade, controlling for maternal depression history and prior maternal criticism. Results are discussed in terms of the importance of examining child-effects models in studies of maternal criticism.     

The Relations among Maternal Depressive Disorder, Maternal Expressed Emotion, and Toddler Behavior Problems and Attachment

Direct and indirect relations among maternal depression, maternal Expressed Emotion (EE: Self- and Child-Criticism), child internalizing and externalizing symptoms, and child attachment were examined. Participants were mothers with depression (n?=?130) and comparison mothers (n?=?68) and their toddlers (M age?=?20 mo.; 53% male). Assessments included the Diagnostic Interview Schedule (maternal depression); the Five Minute Speech Sample (EE); the Child Behavior Checklist (toddler behavior problems); the Strange Situation (child attachment). Direct relations were significant linking: 1) maternal depression with both EE and child functioning; 2) Child-Criticism with child internalizing and externalizing symptoms; 3) Self-Criticism with child attachment. Significant indirect relations were found linking maternal depression with: 1) child externalizing behaviors via Child-Criticism; 2) child internalizing behaviors via Self- and Child-Criticism; and 3) child attachment via Self-Criticism. Findings are consistent with a conceptual model in which maternal EE mediates relations between maternal depression and toddler socio-emotional functioning.     

Responsiveness in Interactions of Mothers and Sons with ADHD: Relations to Maternal and Child Characteristics

We observed mother–child interactions, at baseline, in 136 families of 7–10-year-old boys with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) who were part of a large clinical trial, the Multimodal Treatment Study of Children with ADHD. Independent coders rated stylistic aspects of maternal behavior and factor analyses revealed a responsiveness factor that included overall responsiveness and sensitivity to the child, warmth and acceptance, and appropriate control. We examined relations between maternal responsiveness and (a) maternal depressive symptoms and maternal childhood ADHD symptoms, and (b) boys' ADHD and conduct problem symptoms. Controlling for all other variables, maternal responsiveness displayed a unique negative association with mother-reported child conduct problems, but not with child ADHD symptoms, and also was negatively related to maternal depressive symptoms. We discuss the unique association between mother-reported child conduct problems and parenting, and note the utility of studying parenting style in families of children with ADHD. We describe the results within the framework of a transactional model.