Maternal and paternal unsupportive parenting and children's externalizing symptoms: The mediational role of children's attention biases to negative emotion

Early life adversity and psychopathology in preschoolers: mechanisms and moderators

Developmental theories suggest that exposure to early life adversity (ELA) alters developing emotional response systems, predicting risk for psychopathology across the life span. The present study examines whether negative emotionality (NE), a trait-like measure of emotionality that develops during early childhood, mediates the association between ELA and psychopathology in a representative sample of 917 preschoolers (Mage = 3.84). Additionally, we explored whether cognitive control, which supports attentional focusing and inhibition and has been identified as a transdiagnostic protective factor, moderates the impact of heightened emotionality following adversity on psychopathology risk. We utilized parent report of adversity, psychopathology, and NE and parent report and task-based measures of cognitive control. Structural equation modeling of cross-sectional data revealed that NE partially mediated the link between ELA and psychopathology symptoms. Moreover, parent-reported cognitive control buffered this link such that the effect of ELA on psychopathology through NE was stronger in children with low versus high cognitive control. These results identify elevated NE as one mechanism linking ELA and psychopathology, specifically among children with poorer top-down control, informing our understanding of key risk and protective factors among adversity-exposed children.

Individualized Implementation of Youth Quality of Life Instrument-Research Version (YQOL-R) Among Chinese Adolescents with Different Weight Status

Purpose

This study implemented the individualized Youth Quality of Life Instrument-Research Version (YQOL-R) to estimate the quality of life (QoL) among Chinese adolescents with three different Body Mass Index (BMI) levels. The study aims to explore and provide a reference for developing individualized QoL (IQoL) measurements in China.

Methods

The sample consisted of 822 aged 11-18 from nine schools. The data collection included all participants' primary characters (age, sex, annual household income, parental education, and recruitment community) and their self-report QoL. Precisely, based on the generic measurement of YQOL-R, we developed IQoL measurements by asking adolescents' perceived five most important things to them (IQOLimportance) and the aspects they most want to change (IQOLchange) from 19 facets, respectively. The one-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) was applied to compare total and subscale scores of IQOLimportance, IQOLchange, and YQOL-R among adolescents with three different weight status. Also, the data analysis used multivariable linear regression modeling to test the effects on scores of IQOLimportance and IQOLchange.

Results

Overall, the obese adolescents identified "Having good physical health" as the most important (54.03%) and most like-to-change (42.65%); in contrast, the normal-weight group ranked "Being myself" as the top facet of IQOLimportance (52.42%) and "Having good friends" as the top facet of IQOLchange (43.12%). The obese adolescents' reported IQOLimportance scores are significantly lower than those of the normal-weight group (P=0.039). However, there is no significant difference in IQOLchange score among the three weight-status groups. The multivariable linear regression models indicated that adolescents who are girls (P=0.035), have higher educated fathers (P=0.049), and are overweight/obese (P=0.041) self-reported worse IQOLimportance score; yet, the girls (P=0.023) and older adolescents (P=0.004) answered lower IQOLchange scores. In addition, adolescents who had higher educated mothers (P=0.047; 0.023) and responded with higher total YQOL-R scores (P<0.001; <0.001) reported higher IQOLimportance and IQOLchange scores.

Conclusion

In the current study, although the self-reported YQOL-R scores from different weight status did not present a significant difference, the obese group reported a statistical trend towards lower IQOLimportance scores than the normal-weight and overweight adolescents. These findings emphasize that IQOLimportance and IQOLchange could capture adolescents' perspectives with different weight statuses about their lives, which are unique as complementary health outcomes accompanying YQOL-R in health surveys and interventions among Chinese adolescents.

Prediction of Youth Violence Perpetration by Parental Nurturing Over Time

Parental nurturing, including maternal and paternal caring and discussing ethics, is likely to predict violence perpetration in the youth negatively. This prediction stands on social bond theory, which specifies that parents and their bonding are crucial to curb violence perpetration. Nevertheless, the prediction is unclear from adolescence to young adulthood. To clarify this, the present study examines the effects over 6 years, using the panel data of the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent to Adult Health on 3,947 U.S. youths. The examination controlled for prior violence perpetration and, thus, its confounding factors. Results showed that paternal nurturing but not maternal nurturing at Wave 1 and Wave 2 consistently displayed statistically significant inverse effects on violence perpetration at Wave 3. However, the significant effects were very weak. Paternal nurturing was very weakly inversely predictive of youth violence perpetration 6 years later. This conclusion implies that promoting paternal nurturing is slightly but not tremendously helpful to prevent violence perpetration in youth later. Meanwhile, practice can capitalize on the features of paternal bonding to deploy male nurturing and role modeling for such prevention.

Family origins of distinct forms of children's involvement in interparental conflict

Previous research has highlighted the value in parsing unidimensional assessments of children's involvement in interparental conflict into distinct forms for advancing an understanding of children's development; however, little is known about the underlying antecedents of distinct forms of involvement. The present study provides the first systematic analysis of the interparental conflict and parenting predictors of residualized change in maternal reports of three forms of children's involvement in interparental conflict (i.e., cautious, caregiving, coercive). Participants in this multimethod, multi-informant longitudinal study included 243 preschool children (Mage = 4.60 years), mothers, and their partners from racially, ethnically, and socioeconomically diverse backgrounds. Multivariate analyses demonstrated selectivity in links between interparental conflict and parenting and children's involvement in interparental conflict. Findings from the interparental conflict analyses revealed that Wave 1 constructive conflict uniquely predicted lower Wave 2 cautious involvement, and Wave 1 hostile conflict uniquely predicted greater Wave 2 coercive involvement. Findings from the parenting analyses indicated that Wave 1 maternal responsiveness uniquely predicted lower Wave 2 cautious involvement and Wave 1 maternal vulnerability uniquely predicted greater Wave 2 coercive involvement. Although interparental conflict and parenting antecedents did not predict caregiving involvement, a series of follow-up analyses individually examining each form of interparental conflict and parenting as a predictor of children's involvement revealed that greater Wave 2 caregiving involvement was predicted by higher levels of Wave 1 disengaged conflict and lower levels of Wave 1 constructive conflict. Findings are interpreted in the context of developmental psychopathology models that emphasize children's response patterns to family adversity. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved).

Preschool children's negative affect and social skills in China: The moderating effect of the teacher-child relationship

Negative affect is an important temperament in children, influencing their social skills. However, the evidence for this association in preschool children is limited. Moreover, the underlying mechanisms that explain the relationship between preschool children's negative affect and social skills remain less understood. Thus, the primary goal of this study was to examine the moderating role of the teacher-child relationship in the associations between negative affect and social skills of Chinese preschoolers. A sample of 198 preschool children (M age = 58.64 ± 3.83 months, 53% boys), recruited from 13 classes in two public kindergartens in Shanghai, China, participated in this 1-year longitudinal study. The mothers reported children's negative affect, while the teachers reported children's social skills and the teacher-child relationship. Results of a series of moderating effect analyses showed that (1) T1 negative affect could significantly negatively predict T2 social skills (cooperation, self-control, and assertion), and (2) the associations between negative affect and social skills were moderated by the teacher-child relationship (including teacher-child closeness and conflict). Specifically, a high level of teacher-child closeness buffered the prediction of negative affect on social skills, while a high level of teacher-child conflict aggravated the said prediction. The findings highlight the importance of the teacher-child relationship in the development of children's social skills during preschool age when they have a high level of negative affect. This has important implications for the development of interventions to improve teacher-child relationships and children's social skills.

Parenting, Peers and Psychosocial Adjustment: Are the Same-or Different-Children Affected by Each?

The prospective research presented herein extends work on parent and peer effects on adolescent psychosocial adjustment by looking beyond average effects. Instead, it considers variation in susceptibility to each source of influence in order to assess the extent to which those individuals most and least susceptible to parent effects are similarly-or differentially-susceptible to peer effects. Data from the NICHD Study of Early Child Care and Youth Development (n = 1364, 48.3% female, age range: 10-15 yrs., race/ethnicity: 80.4% white, 12.9% black and 6.7% other) was analyzed to assess the degree to which each child was susceptible to parent and peer effects. Toward this end, an influence statistic, DFBETAS, was used. A significant and moderate positive association between the two susceptibility effects indicated that children most or least susceptible to the effects of quality of parenting proved to be similarly affected by their peers, although this was not the case for a substantial minority of youth. The fact that at least some children vary dramatically in the effects to which they are most susceptible is discussed with respect to potential targets of intervention, namely, parents or peers.