The Intergenerational Transmission of Maladaptive Parenting and its Impact on Child Mental Health: Examining Cross-Cultural Mediating Pathways and Moderating Protective Factors

Association between maternal closeness with parents and mother-toddler relationship quality

Objective

Understanding how positive parenting is conveyed across generations informs early childhood policy.

Background

The extant literature has focused on how a mother's relationship with her own mother sets the stage for her parenting of her own children, yet less understood is how a mother's relationship with her father supports her responsive parenting and potentially informs her child's attachment security.

Method

We analyzed data from 6,400 mothers of singleton infants participating in the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study, Birth Cohort. We examined whether a mother's closeness with her own mother and father (Generation 1) related to her responsiveness and child attachment security (Generation 3) at age 24 months.

Results

Most mothers reported being extremely (25.7%) or at least quite close (25.1%) with both their mother and father. How close mothers felt to their own parents was not associated with their observed level of responsiveness to their toddler or their toddler's attachment security, adjusting for sociodemographic covariates. Maternal education was the strongest predictor of responsiveness and attachment security.

Conclusion

Maternal education is strongly related to responsiveness, and to a lesser extent, child attachment security, in toddlerhood.

Implications

Programs aimed at addressing the challenges of caregiving may overcome the limitations of lower education status.

Intergenerational Effects of the Fast Track Intervention on Next-Generation Child Outcomes: A Preregistered Randomized Clinical Trial

OBJECTIVE

The authors sought to determine whether the Fast Track mental health intervention delivered to individuals in childhood decreased mental health problems and the need for health services among the children of these individuals.

METHODS

The authors examined whether Fast Track assignment in one generation of children (generation 2; G2) from grades 1 through 10 reduced parent-reported mental health problems and health services use in these children's children (generation 3; G3) 18 years later relative to a control group. The Fast Track intervention blended parent behavior-management training, child social-cognitive skills tutoring, home visits, and classroom social-ecology changes across grades 1-10 to ameliorate emerging conduct problems among the G2 children. For this study, 1,057 G3 children of Fast Track participants (N=581 intervention group, N=476 control group) were evaluated.

RESULTS

G3 children of G2 parents who were randomized to the Fast Track intervention group used fewer general inpatient services and fewer inpatient or outpatient mental health services compared with G3 children of G2 parents randomized to the control group. Some of these effects were mediated: randomization to Fast Track predicted fewer internalizing problems and less use of corporal punishment among G2 adults at age 25, which subsequently predicted less general inpatient service use and outpatient mental health service use among the G3 children by the time the G2 parents were 34 years old. There were no significant differences between G3 children from these two groups on the use of other health services or on mental health measures.

CONCLUSIONS

Fast Track was associated with lower use of general inpatient services and inpatient and outpatient mental health services intergenerationally, but effects on parent-reported mental health of the children were not apparent across generations. Investing in interventions for the mental health of children could reduce service use burdens across generations.

Predictors and outcomes associated with the growth curves of self-efficacy beliefs in regard to anger and sadness regulation during adolescence: a longitudinal cross-cultural study

Introduction

This longitudinal study examined unique and joint effects of parenting and negative emotionality in predicting the growth curves of adolescents' self-efficacy beliefs about regulating two discrete negative emotions (anger and sadness) and the association of these growth curves with later maladjustment (i.e., internalizing and externalizing problems).

Methods

Participants were 285 children (T1: M age = 10.57, SD = 0.68; 53.3% girls) and their parents (mothers N = 286; fathers N = 276) from Colombia and Italy. Parental warmth, harsh parenting, and internalizing and externalizing problems were measured in late childhood at T1, whereas early adolescents' anger and sadness were measured at T2 (T2: M age = 12.10, SD = 1.09). Adolescent self-efficacy beliefs about anger and sadness regulation were measured at five time-points from T2 to T6 (T6: M age = 18.45, SD = 0.71), and internalizing and externalizing problems were measured again at T6.

Results

Multi-group latent growth curve models (with country as the grouping variable) demonstrated that in both countries there was on average a linear increase in self-efficacy about anger regulation and no change or variation in self-efficacy about sadness regulation. In both countries, for self-efficacy about anger regulation (a) T1 harsh parenting and T1 externalizing problems were negatively associated with the intercept, (b) T2 anger was negatively associated with the slope, and (c) the intercept and the slope were associated with lower T6 internalizing and externalizing problems, controlling for T1 problems. For self-efficacy about sadness regulation, (a) T1 internalizing problems were negatively associated with the intercept only in Italy, (b) T2 sadness was negatively associated with the intercept only in Colombia, and (c) the intercept negatively predicted T6 internalizing problems.

Discussion

This study advances knowledge of the normative development of self-efficacy beliefs about anger and sadness regulation during adolescence across two countries, highlighting the predictive value of pre-existing family and individual characteristics on this development and prediction by the development of self-efficacy beliefs on later adjustment.

Fast Track intervention effects on family formation

The present study examines whether the Fast Track (FT) intervention, a 10-year randomized controlled trial with children at risk for conduct problems, affects family formation in adulthood, as indexed by partnerships, parenthood, and family structure, and whether the intervention effect differs across participants' gender and race/ethnicity. Participants included 891 children (intervention n = 445; control n = 446; 69% male; 51% Black, 47% White) who were recruited in kindergarten and followed to age 32 or 34 (80% participation of still-living participants), when they reported on their romantic partnerships, parenthood, and family structure. Controlling for numerous covariates that are related to family formation, intervention participants were more likely than those in the control group to be married rather than single and to have a larger number of children; the intervention and control groups did not differ on cohabitation status, age at first marriage, whether they had ever been divorced, their likelihood of being a parent, the age at which they first became a parent, the spacing of births, family structure (partnered or not, with or without children), or in whether they were residentially independent of their parents and grandparents. Intervention effects were not moderated by gender, but race/ethnicity moderated the effect of the intervention on the probability of having any children and the number of children. These findings suggest that several elements of family formation may remain unchanged by an intervention that changes many other behavioral and psychological trajectories of participants. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved).

Correlates of maternal, newborn and child health services uptake, including male partner involvement: Baseline survey results from Bangladesh

South Asia bears a substantial proportion of the global maternal mortality burden, with adolescents disproportionately affected. Bangladesh has one of the highest adolescent pregnancy rates in the world, with low utilisation of maternal newborn and child health (MNCH) services. This hampers the country's efforts to achieve optimal health outcomes as envisioned by the Sustainable Development Goals. Male partner involvement is a recognised approach to optimise access to services and decision-making. In South Asia data on male involvement in MNCH service uptake is limited. Plan International's Strengthening Health Outcomes for Women and Children was implemented across four districts in Bangladesh between 2016 and 2020 and aimed to address these issues. Study results (N = 1,724) found higher maternal education levels were associated with use of MNCH services. After controlling for maternal education, service uptake was associated with male partner support level and perceived joint decision-making. The positive association between male support level and MNCH scale was robust to stratification by maternal education level, and by age group (i.e. adolescent vs. adult mothers). These findings suggest that one path for achieving optimal MNCH outcomes might be through structural-level interventions centred on women, combined with components targeting male partners or male heads of households.