Parental Wartime Deployment and Socioemotional Adjustment in Early Childhood: The Critical Role of Military Parents' Perceived Threat During Deployment

A Systematic Review and Meta-analysis: Paternal Anxiety and the Emotional and Behavioral Outcomes in Their Offspring

OBJECTIVE

Anxiety disorders are highly prevalent worldwide; however, the literature lacks a meta-analytic quantification of the risk posed by fathers' anxiety for offspring development. This systematic review and meta-analysis aimed to provide a comprehensive estimate of the magnitude of the association between paternal anxiety and emotional and behavioral problems of offspring.

METHOD

In February 2022, Web of Science, Ovid (Embase, MEDLINE, PsycINFO), Trip Database, and ProQuest were searched to identify all quantitative studies that measured anxiety in fathers and emotional and/or behavioral outcomes in offspring. No limits were set for offspring age, publication language, or publication year. Summary estimates were extracted from the primary studies. Meta-analytic random-effects 3-level models were used to calculate correlation coefficients. Quality was assessed using the Newcastle-Ottawa Scale. The study protocol was preregistered with PROSPERO (CRD42022311501) and adhered to Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) reporting guidelines.

RESULTS

Of 11,746 records identified, 98 were included in the meta-analysis. Small but significant associations were found between paternal anxiety and offspring emotional and behavioral problems overall (r = 0.16, 95% CI [0.13, 0.19]) and behavioral (r = 0.19, 95% CI [0.13, 0.24]), emotional (r = 0.15, 95% CI [0.12, 0.18]), anxiety (r = 0.13, 95% CI [0.11, 0.16]), and depression (r = 0.13, 95% CI [0.03, 0.23]) problems. Some significant moderators were identified.

CONCLUSION

Paternal mental health is associated with offspring development, and the offspring of fathers with anxiety symptoms or disorders are at increased risk of negative emotional and behavioral outcomes, in line with the principles of multifinality and pleiotropy. The substantial heterogeneity among studies and the overrepresentation of White European American groups in this literature highlight the need for further research.

DIVERSITY & INCLUSION STATEMENT

While citing references scientifically relevant for this work, we also actively worked to promote inclusion of historically underrepresented racial and/or ethnic groups in science in our reference list.

Multiple Informant Cluster Analysis Findings: Which Military-Connected Preschool Aged Children Are Doing Well and Why?

Informed by models of resilience in military families, we explored factors theorized to be associated with social-emotional resilience and risk among young military-connected children. Our secondary analysis of cross-sectional data from 199 military-connected families (n = 346 parents) with at least one preschool-age child in the home (n = 199) led to the empirical identification of two distinct clusters: families with children demonstrating healthy social-emotional functioning and those showing indicators of poor social-emotional functioning. We then identified factors associated with membership in each cluster to determine which deployment and parental wellbeing variables were salient for young child adjustment. Parent psychological health symptoms, parenting, child behavior, and parent-child relationships were measured by parent report and observed interaction. Children with healthier social-emotional functioning were found to be residing with families experiencing less stress and distress. The importance of maternal trauma history is highlighted in our study, as elevated maternal symptoms across all three posttraumatic stress disorder symptom domains were associated with child social-emotional risk. Basic family demographic characteristics did not contribute significantly to the cluster distinctions, nor did military service factors such as active duty, reserve or veteran status, military rank or parent deployment history. These findings are important as the results deemphasize the importance of military service characteristics and highlight the importance of parent wellbeing when considering social-emotional risk and resilience of young children within military families.

Conceptualizing Emotion Regulation and Coregulation as Family-Level Phenomena

The ability to regulate one’s emotions is foundational for healthy development and functioning in a multitude of domains, whereas difficulties in emotional regulation are recognized as a risk factor for a range of adverse outcomes in childhood, adolescence, and adulthood. Caregivers play a key role in cultivating the development of emotion regulation through coregulation, or the processes by which they provide external support or scaffolding as children navigate their emotional experiences. The vast majority of research to date has examined coregulation in the context of caregiver–child dyads. In this paper, we consider emotion regulation and coregulation as family-level processes that unfold within and across multiple family subsystems and explore how triadic and whole family interactions may contribute to the development of children’s emotion regulation skills. Furthermore, we will examine the implications of a family-centered perspective on emotion regulation for prevention of and intervention for childhood emotional and behavioral disorders. Because emotion regulation skills undergo such dramatic maturation during children’s first several years of life, much of our focus will be on coregulation within and across the family system during early childhood; however, as many prevention and intervention approaches are geared toward school-aged children and adolescents, we will also devote some attention to later developmental periods.

A Trauma-Informed, Family-Centered, Virtual Home Visiting Program for Young Children: One-Year Outcomes

Military-connected families face many challenges associated with military life transitions, including deployment separations. We report on a randomized controlled trial to evaluate the efficacy of Families OverComing Under Stress-Early Childhood (FOCUS-EC) delivered through an in-home, virtual telehealth platform. FOCUS-EC is a trauma-informed, family-centered preventive intervention designed to promote family resilience and well-being. Military-connected families with 3- to 6-year-old children (194 mothers; 155 fathers; 199 children) were randomized to FOCUS-EC or an online education condition. Parent psychological health symptoms, child behavior, parenting, and parent-child relationships were examined by parent-report and observed interaction tasks for up to 12 months. Longitudinal regression models indicated that FOCUS-EC families demonstrated significantly greater improvements than online education families in parent-reported and observational measures of child behavior, parenting practices, and parent-child interaction, as well as greater reductions in parent posttraumatic stress symptoms. Findings provide support for the benefit of a virtually-delivered preventive intervention for military-connected families.