A 1-year follow-up study of children's divorce adjustment,custodial mothers' divorce adjustment,and postdivorce parenting

This study examined stability of and change in divorce adjustment in a sample of 20 white custodial mothers and their children (8 boys, 12 girls; mean age = 10.45 years) who were examined an average of 12.85 months after separation and again one year later. Pearson correlations generally revealed moderate stability in children's adjustment, mothers' adjustment, and parenting dimensions. Significant changes over the one-year period were found only with respect to children's beliefs about the divorce: problematic beliefs regarding peer ridicule and avoidance, fear of abandonment, and self-blame decreased over the 1-year period. Children's adjustment at Time 2 was related to the following variables assessed at Time 1: low rhythmic and low reactive child temperaments; children's mature understanding of conflict resolution; high social support for children and for mothers; low maternal stress; high maternal adjustment; cooperative parenting; high paternal involvement; and frequent visitation by and phone contact from the fathers. Children with few problematic beliefs at Time 2 regarding fear of abandonment and hope of reconciliation had mothers who functioned poorly at Time 1. Although the small sample size necessitates that the findings be viewed with caution, they support the view that children's divorce adjustment is related to children's own competencies, intrafamilial processes, and extrafamilial conditions.     

Mothering under political violence: Post-traumatic symptoms,observed maternal parenting practices and child externalising behaviour

Using the family stress model as our conceptual framework, we explored whether observed maternal parenting practices (positive and coercive) account for the associations between mothers' post-traumatic stress symptoms and children's externalising behaviours. Mothers' self-reported post-traumatic stress symptoms, observed maternal practices, and reports of children's externalising behaviour were collected from 123 Israeli mothers and their children, who were exposed to ongoing rocket attacks in southern Israel. A structural equation model revealed that mothers' post-traumatic stress symptoms were linked with greater maternal coercive parenting practices, which in turn were associated with more externalising behaviours in children. The study highlights the crucial role of maternal distress and mothers' parenting skills in the development of externalising behaviours in children exposed to chronic political violence. These results suggest that prevention interventions designed to promote parenting skills for mothers exposed to political violence may be beneficial for children's healthy development.     

Mothers' and Fathers' Depressive Symptoms and Conflict-Resolution Strategies in the Marriage and Children's Externalizing and Internalizing Behaviors

The authors examined mothers' and fathers' avoidance and attacking conflict-resolution strategies in the marriage and their depressive symptoms as they related to children's externalizing and internalizing behaviors. A nonclinical community sample of 51 families and their children's 1st-grade teachers (N = 41) participated. Both mothers and teachers completed a behavior-problem checklist in order to evaluate the incidence of internalizing and externalizing behaviors in the children. Correlational statistics revealed significant associations between parents' avoidance and attacking strategies and their depressive symptoms. Also, parents' use of avoidance was related to more internalizing behaviors in the children. When hierarchical regression analyses were used to examine the contributions of the parents' attributes to children's externalizing and internalizing behaviors, mothers' avoidance and an interaction between mothers' and fathers' avoidance were identified as significant predictors of children's internalizing behaviors.     

Maternal Emotion Socialization: The Contribution of Inhibited Behaviour and Mothers' Dissatisfaction with the Parent–Child Relationship

In the present study, we examined the associations between children's inhibited behaviour, mothers' dissatisfaction with the parent–child relationship and mothers' self‐reported reactions to children's emotions. Fifty‐three mother–child dyads visited the laboratory, and mothers completed questionnaires about child temperament and emotion socialization. Maternal stress stemming from dissatisfaction with the parent–child relationship was negatively predictive of mothers' supportive reactions to happiness. In addition, the interaction between children's inhibited behaviour and parent–child relationship dissatisfaction significantly predicted mothers' supportive reactions to children's fear; specifically, mothers who reported the highest levels of dissatisfaction in their relationship with their children and had children who exhibited low levels of inhibition reported the lowest levels of supportive responses to their children's fear. Importantly, mothers reported the highest levels of supportive reactions to children's fear when their children were low in inhibition, and they reported low levels of dissatisfaction in their relationship with their child. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Self‐efficacy as a moderator of negative and positive self‐fulfilling prophecy effects: mothers' beliefs and children's alcohol use

This research examined two issues relevant to self‐fulfilling prophecies. First, it examined whether children's risk for alcohol use, as indicated by their self‐efficacy to refuse alcohol from peers, moderated their susceptibility to negative and positive self‐fulfilling prophecy effects created by their mothers. Second, it explored behavioral mediators that could be involved in the self‐fulfilling process between mothers and children. Longitudinal data from 540 mother–child dyads indicated that (1) low self‐efficacy children were more susceptible to their mothers' positive than negative self‐fulfilling effects, whereas high self‐efficacy children's susceptibility did not vary, (2) mothers' global parenting and children's perception of their friends' alcohol use partially mediated mothers' self‐fulfilling effects, and (3) these mediators contributed to low self‐efficacy children's greater susceptibility to positive self‐fulfilling prophecy effects. The power of self‐fulfilling prophecies, their link to social problems, and the potential for mothers' favorable beliefs to have a protective influence on adolescent alcohol use are discussed. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Coparenting Conflict and Academic Readiness in Children of Teen Mothers: Effortful Control as a Mediator

Children's exposure to coparenting conflict has important implications for their developmental functioning, yet limited work has focused on such processes in families with diverse structures or ethnically and culturally diverse backgrounds. This longitudinal study examined the processes by which Mexican‐origin adolescent mothers' coparenting conflict with their 3‐year‐old children's grandmothers and biological fathers (N = 133 families) were linked to children's academic and social skills at 5 years of age, and whether children's effortful control at 4 years of age mediated the link between coparenting conflict and indices of children's academic readiness. Findings revealed that adolescent mothers' coparenting conflict with their child's biological father was linked to indices of children's academic and social school readiness through children's effortful control among girls, but not boys, whereas conflict with grandmothers was directly linked to boys' and girls' social functioning 2 years later. Findings offer information about different mechanisms by which multiple coparenting units in families of adolescent mothers are related to their children's outcomes, and this work has important implications for practitioners working with families of adolescent mothers.     

Mothers' and Fathers' Internal State Language with Their Young Children: An Examination of Gender Differences During an Emotions Task

The current study examined gender differences in mothers' and fathers' internal state language (ISL), children's use of ISL, and whether ISL was related to parents' ratings of the children's social skills. Fifty‐seven (28 boys, 29 girls) toddler/preschool children (M age = 32.5 months, SD = 5.38 months) were observed separately with their mothers and fathers in their homes while they discussed pictures of children's facial expressions of emotions. Parents completed a questionnaire concerning their child's social–emotional behaviours (i.e. BASC‐2). Parents used more ISL with sons compared with daughters, and sons used more ISL with mothers than with fathers. No overall differences were found between mothers' and fathers' ISL. Children's social skills as rated by mothers were predicted by mothers' ISL comments, whereas children's social skills as rated by fathers were predicted by children's age and fathers' ISL clarifications. Implications and limitations of the study are discussed. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Maternal Emotional Distress,Abuse Risk,and Children's Symptoms: Child Gender as a Moderator of Parent Sensitivity as a Mediator

Mothers' distress is a correlate of their children's elevated behaviour problems and symptoms. Parenting practices have been shown to mediate these associations, but few studies have observed parenting or focused on parents at risk of child abuse. In this study of 269 high‐risk mothers and their young children (M = 4.2 years), structural equation modelling was used to test associations between mothers' distress and child externalizing and internalizing symptoms. Associations were expected to be partly indirect via mothers' observed low sensitivity, and child gender was expected to moderate associations. Also, mothers' child abuse risk was examined as a unique correlate of sensitivity and children's symptoms, and a moderator of associations of distress with sensitivity and symptoms. Associations showed a pattern of gender‐moderated mediation with the link between mothers' distress and internalizing mostly direct for boys, and equally direct and indirect via sensitivity for girls. The association of mothers' distress with externalizing was mostly direct for boys and girls. Mothers' child abuse risk was not uniquely associated with sensitivity or symptoms and did not moderate any associations. There were no differences in model paths between mothers referred from child welfare/mental health compared with other sources or self‐referred. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Mothers' beliefs and children's long-term cognitive change: A developmental task interpretation

A longitudinal study was used to explore the following hypotheses concerning the relation between mothers' beliefs, their use of high distancing utterances and children's cognitive development: (1) beliefs moderate the impact of high-distancing utterances on children's development, and (2) beliefs reflect mothers' normative expectations that motivate themselves and their children to try to satisfy them. The participants consisted of 34 children and their mothers and teachers. Results for the motherchild dialogues indicated that the distancing–cognitive performance relationship was strongest for children whose mothers had the most positive beliefs. In addition, mothers' beliefs about a 4-year-old child were more strongly related to children's cognitive performance at ages 6 and 10 than to cognitive performance at age 4. Characteristics of both verbal parent–child and verbal teacher–child interactions at age 4 supported a developmental task interpretation of these findings.     

The impact of mothers' trait anxiety on their expectations of approach‐avoidance behaviour in anxious and non‐anxious children

This study investigated estimates of approach and avoidance behaviour in clinically anxious and non‐anxious children, and whether mothers' expectations of their children's avoidance differed as a function of high trait anxiety (HTA) versus low trait anxiety (LTA). Participants were 62 clinically anxious and 60 non‐anxious children aged 7–12 years and their mothers. Estimates of avoidance were obtained using an analogue task in which children and mothers were given threat and pleasant information about two novel animals and were asked to estimate children's avoidance of the threat animal's habitat when the threat animal was present (threat condition) and absent (safe condition) from the habitat and when its presence was uncertain (ambiguous condition). Contrary to expectation, anxious children did not differ from controls in estimates of avoidance in any condition. However, relative to HTA mothers of anxious children and LTA mothers of non‐anxious children, HTA mothers estimated greater approach behaviour by their non‐anxious children in the threat condition. Findings suggest that mothers' expectations of children's approach‐avoidance behaviour is influenced by both maternal and child factors.     

Bidirectional influences in mother–toddler dyads: an examination of the relative influence of mothers' and children's behaviours

This study examined bidirectional relationship between mothers' lax and overreactive discipline and children's misbehaviour and negative effect. We examined the moment‐to‐moment stability of mothers' and children's behaviours (actor effects) and mothers' and children's influence on their partners' subsequent behaviours (partner effects). Participants were 71 mothers and their 24‐ to 48‐month‐old children observed during a 30‐min interaction. Both children and mothers exhibited stability in their own behaviours and influenced the subsequent behaviours of their partners. Additionally, a comparison of partner effects indicated that overreactive discipline more strongly predicted child's negative effect than child's negative effect predicted overreactive discipline. In contrast, although a child's negative effect predicted lax discipline, lax discipline did not predict subsequent child's negative effect. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Adults' estimates of pre-school children's verbal and motor abilities compared with those children's scores on an individual developmental test

Forty-seven mothers estimated their pre-school children's development on a psychometrically constructed multidomain mothers' inventory. Similar data were obtained for the same children from 13 pre-school teachers. The mothers' and pre-school teachers' estimates were compared to the children's scores on McCarthy Scales of Children's Abilities (MSCA). The mothers' inventory responses yielded convergent–divergent correlations with the MSCA results; in two domains out of seven, their standardized estimations were significantly lower than standardized MSCA scores, and in no case higher. Teachers' estimates deviated more than mothers' estimates from MSCA verbal and motor development scores, though in the latter case the difference between teachers and mothers were less marked. Both mothers' and teachers' difference scores (i.e. deviation of their estimates from MSCA scores) were highly correlated with the respective MSCA scores. However, when the difference scores are adjusted for shared error variance, the correlations shrink and are in most cases non-significant.     

Does HPA‐Axis Dysregulation Account for the Effects of Income on Effortful Control and Adjustment in Preschool Children?

The effects of low income on children's adjustment might be accounted for by disruptions to hypothalamic–pituitary–adrenal (HPA)‐axis activity and to the development of effortful control. Using longitudinal data and a community sample of preschool‐age children (N = 306, 36–39 months) and their mothers, recruited to over‐represent low‐income families, we explored the associations among diurnal cortisol levels and effortful control, and we tested a model in which diurnal cortisol and effortful control account for the effects of family income on child adjustment. Continuous indicators of morning cortisol level and diurnal slope, as well as dichotomous indicators reflecting low morning levels and flat diurnal slope, were examined as predictors of rank‐order changes in two dimensions of effortful control, executive control and delay ability. Low income was related to a flat diurnal cortisol slope, and above the effects of family income, a flat diurnal cortisol slope predicted lower social competence. Low morning cortisol level predicted smaller gains in executive control and higher total adjustment problems. Further, delay ability predicted lower adjustment problems above the effects of income and diurnal cortisol levels. The results suggest that HPA‐axis dysregulation and effortful control contribute additively to children's adjustment. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Parental depression,parenting behaviours,and behaviour problems in young children

In the past, research has demonstrated that parental depression and parenting practices are related. More recently, there has been an increase in research examining child outcomes as they are related to maternal and paternal psychopathology. To continue with this line of research, this study examined the relationships among mothers' and fathers' symptoms of depression, characteristics of their parenting practices, and their ratings of their young children's internalizing and externalizing behaviour problems. The results of this study demonstrated that these variables are related significantly. Further, the results of this study suggested that mothers' parenting, particularly their limit setting with their young children, is an important predictor of their ratings of their young children's externalizing behaviour problems in the context of their own symptoms of depression. A different pattern of relationships may be present for fathers, as both their symptoms of depression and their parenting characteristics predicted their ratings of their young children's externalizing behaviour problems. Such findings were not supported for young children's internalizing behaviour problems. These findings suggested that interventions should have different targets for mothers and fathers. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

The Moderating Role of English Proficiency in the Association Between Immigrant Chinese Mothers' Authoritative Parenting and Children's Outcomes

The authors' objective was to investigate the association between Chinese immigrant mothers' authoritative parenting and their children's socioemotional and behavioral difficulties. Participants were 136 first-generation Chinese immigrant mothers with 3–5-year-old children residing in the United States. Authoritative parenting was associated with lower socioemotional and behavioral difficulties in children as reported by preschool teachers. Further moderation analyses revealed that immigrant mothers' English proficiency moderated the association between authoritative parenting and children's difficulties. Specifically, authoritative parenting was significantly associated with fewer total difficulties only for children with mothers who reported higher English proficiency.     

More than Just the Breadwinner: The Effects of Fathers' Parenting Stress on Children's Language and Cognitive Development

Despite numerous studies on parenting stress suggesting negative influences on parent–child interactions and children's development, the majority of these studies focus on mothers' parenting stress with little or no acknowledgement of fathers. Using data from the National Early Head Start Research and Evaluation Project, this study examined (i) the effects of fathers' parenting stress during toddlerhood on children's language and cognitive outcomes when children are 3 years old (ii) whether the effects of fathers' parenting stress on children's language and cognitive development vary by child gender? Results from mixed linear models showed fathers' parenting stress predicted children's lower cognitive scores, but there were no gender differences in the effects of fathers' parenting stress on children's cognitive outcomes. In the language domain, boys, not girls, were found to be more susceptible to the effects of fathers' parenting stress. These findings indicated that fathers, in addition to mothers, should be included in early parenting research and interventions. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Pregnancy Plans of First‐time Mothers and Their Children's Outcomes: An Examination of Mechanisms

Unintended pregnancy is prevalent in the United States and has been linked to challenges for both mothers and their children over time. However, studies have not yet identified mechanisms through which pregnancy intention is associated with children's outcomes. Identification of mechanisms among families at risk for negative outcomes will inform early clinical intervention. This current study examined the association between mothers' pregnancy plans reported during pregnancy and children's externalizing, internalizing, dysregulation, and social–emotional competence outcomes at 3 years old among an at‐risk sample of 682 first‐time mothers from the Predicting and Preventing Neglect in Teen Mothers Study. Further, this study identified mechanisms in the association that can be targeted in clinical intervention. Mediation analyses revealed that mothers' parenting stress when children were 24 months old served as a mechanism in the association between unplanned pregnancy and children's low social–emotional competence at 36 months. Implications for research and clinical practice are discussed. Specifically, early intervention with mothers experiencing unplanned pregnancies may help to promote healthy outcomes among their children over time. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Anxious cognitions in children: An exploration of associations and mediators

To investigate sources of influences connecting mothers' and their children's anxious cognitions, 65 children (aged 10 to 11 years) completed self‐report measures of anxiety. Children and mothers responded to an ambiguous scenario questionnaire and measures of parenting style and life events. Mothers also reported expectations about their child's reaction to ambiguous situations. Mothers' and children's threat cognitions were significantly correlated (r = .31), and partially mediated by mothers' expectations about their child. Mothers' anticipated distress was associated with expectations for their child's distress, which was associated with the child's own anticipated distress. Parenting and life events were significantly associated with children's interpretative bias, but did not mediate the intergenerational association in interpretative bias. The results suggest influences on children's ‘anxious cognitive style’ and potential targets for preventing and reducing maladaptive cognitions in children.     

The Prediction of Mothers' Behavior with their Hyperactive Children during Play and Task Situations

Forty mothers were observed interacting with their hyperactive children during a play and structured task situation. Relationships between observed child behavior, maternal self-ratings of self-esteem and stress and mothers' behavior in these situations were examined. The amounts of interaction, control and nonresponding exhibited by mothers during play and task situations were significantly correlated with both their children's behavior and their reported self-esteem and stress associated with the parental role. Multiple regression analyses revealed that the behavior of the child predicted maternal behavior for both the play and structured task situations. However, mothers' reports of stress and self-esteem were significant predictors of their behavior only for the structured task situation. These preliminary findings suggest that maternal cognitions and affects may be more highly correlated with their interactional behavior for some situations versus others. Such information could be useful for the development of situation-specific treatment goals when working with mothers of disturbed children.     

Boosting Children's Memory by Training Mothers in the Use of an Elaborative Conversational Style as an Event Unfolds

An experimental methodology was adapted to examine children's language skills and mothers' conversational styles during a specified event as they are linked to the children's event memory. Thirty-nine preschoolers (mean age = 46.82 months) were pretested and grouped as having high or low language skills. Children in each group were then randomly assigned to either maternal-style training or no training conditions. Trained mothers were instructed to use 4 specific conversational techniques to enhance children's understanding of unfolding events: Wh- questions, associations, follow-ins, and positive evaluations. When observed engaging with their children in a specially constructed camping activity, trained mothers did indeed use these elements of style more than untrained mothers. Moreover, assessments of the children's memory after 1-day- and 3-week-delay intervals indicated substantial effects of both maternal training and children's language skills on remembering.