Dyadic parent-child interaction during early childhood: contributions of parental and child personality traits

Longitudinal Associations Between Use of Mobile Devices for Calming and Emotional Reactivity and Executive Functioning in Children Aged 3 to 5 Years

IMPORTANCE

Mobile devices are often used to keep young children occupied or calm, but it is not known whether this practice influences child development.

OBJECTIVE

To examine the longitudinal, bidirectional associations between the parent-reported frequency of using mobile devices to calm young children and children's executive functioning (EF) and emotional reactivity, testing moderation by child sex and temperament.

DESIGN, SETTING, AND PARTICIPANTS

This prospective cohort study included a community-based convenience sample of English-speaking parents of typically developing children aged 3 to 5 years. The study duration was from August 2018 to January 2020, with baseline (T1), 3-month follow-up (T2), and 6-month follow-up (T3) waves.

EXPOSURES

Parent-reported frequency of use of mobile devices to calm children when upset (5-point Likert scale).

MAIN OUTCOMES AND MEASURES

At each wave, the child's EF was assessed with the Behavior Rating Inventory of Executive Function-Preschool Version Global Executive Composite and emotional reactivity with the Child Behavior Checklist Emotional Reactivity subscale. Structural equation models were built to examine cross-lagged associations of the use of devices for calming, EF, and emotional reactivity, testing for moderation by child sex or temperament (Child Behavior Questionnaire-Very Short Form surgency score, median split).

RESULTS

Of 422 eligible parents with data at T1, 375 (88.9%) provided data at T2 and 366 (86.7%) at T3. At baseline, the mean (SD) age of the 422 children was 3.8 (0.5) years, the number of boys in the sample was 224 (53.1%), the number of individuals of non-Hispanic White race and ethnicity was 313 (74.2%), and among the parents, 254 (60.2%) had a college degree or higher. Among the boys, the use of devices to calm at T2 was associated with higher emotional reactivity at T3 (r [standardized regression coefficient] = 0.20; 95% CI, 0.10-0.30), while higher emotional reactivity at T2 had a nonsignificant association with increased device use for calming at T3 (r = 0.10; 95% CI, -0.01 to 0.21). Among children with high temperamental surgency, the use of devices to calm at T2 was associated with increased emotional reactivity at T3 (r = 0.11; 95% CI, 0.01-0.22), while higher emotional reactivity at T2 was associated with increased device use for calming at T3 (r = 0.13; 95% CI, 0.02-0.24).

CONCLUSIONS AND RELEVANCE

The findings of this study suggest that the frequent use of mobile devices for calming young children may displace their opportunities for learning emotion-regulation strategies over time; therefore, pediatric health care professionals may wish to encourage alternate calming approaches.

The influence of children's effortful control on parent-child behavioral synchrony

Child temperament appears to evoke specific parenting behaviors that contribute to child development. However, questions remain about whether individual differences in children's temperamental self-regulation, namely, effortful control (EC), shape moment-to-moment parent-child interaction dynamics. Accordingly, we examined whether differences in children's EC were related to dynamic synchrony of parent and child behaviors during a challenging problem-solving task. We also tested whether these relations varied by parents' expressions of positive and negative behaviors that might differentially support or undermine children's regulatory efforts. State-trait multilevel models demonstrated that parent-child dyads engaged in dynamic, real-time behavioral concordance while parents engaged in positive but not negative behaviors. Further, dynamic concordance during parents' expressions of both positive and negative behaviors was moderated such that dyads with children higher in EC showed greater concordance. Additionally, when child behavior was more negative on average, parent behavior was also more negative on average. Results suggest parents' positive (compared to negative) behaviors are more likely to facilitate real-time synchrony and that children with higher EC may experience or foster greater behavioral synchrony with parents. Discussion centers on the importance of children's individual differences in shaping parent-child synchrony and potential implications for children's developing self-regulation. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved).

Child Temperament as a Moderator of Promoting First Relationships Intervention Effects Among Families in Early Head Start

As availability of parent-child interaction curricula increases, Early Head Start (EHS) provides a relevant context to test research-based parenting models as part of everyday practice. We trained EHS staff to incorporate the Promoting First Relationships (PFR) intervention into ongoing weekly home visits with mothers and their young children (n = 102) enrolled in EHS. Children had a mean age of 19.75 months and were 56% Hispanic, 23% Black, and 14% White. Families were randomly assigned to an intervention group where they participated in PFR as an EHS enhancement, or to a waitlist-control group where they received only typical EHS services. To explore the possibility that effectiveness of parent-child curricula may differ based on child characteristics, we used linear regression to examine children's temperament as a potential moderator of PFR efficacy on outcomes related to parenting stress, family functioning, and parent-child interaction. While we did not find a significant main effect of PFR for the full sample, there were several significant moderated effects. For families where children showed higher levels of surgency, mothers' parenting stress was significantly reduced after PFR participation. Also, when children showed higher levels of negative affect, mothers demonstrated higher sensitivity in parent-child interactions after participating in PFR. Given findings from our exploratory study, agencies should consider the characteristics of families served and the match with intervention priorities, when selecting intervention programs. When delivered as a home visitation enhancement, PFR may be a valuable support for certain enrolled families, based on child characteristics including high levels of surgency or negative affect.

Personality Pathology and Spouses' Moment-to-Moment Interpersonal Behaviors

We assessed the association of personality pathology with romantic couples' observed interpersonal behaviors. Couples engaged in four discussion tasks, after which observers used the Continuous Assessment of Interpersonal Dynamics method to continuously rate each participant's dominance and warmth over the course of each discussion. Using these ratings, we derived indices of average behaviors and changes in behaviors over the course of discussions. Generally, results indicated that the more personality pathology either spouse reported, the colder husbands were on average, and the colder they became toward their wives over time. However, personality disorder symptoms and overall interpersonal problems were largely unassociated with wives' behaviors. Results also indicated that the more dominance-related problems husbands and wives reported, the more dominantly and coldly they behaved, the more submissive or withdrawn their partners were, and the colder wives became over time; and the more warmth problems wives reported, the more dominantly, they behaved.

The link between child temperament and low-income mothers' and fathers' parenting

Numerous studies have shown that children's temperamental characteristics impact the quality and quantity of parent-child interactions. However, these studies have largely focused on middle-class samples, have not compared multiple domains of parenting across mothers and fathers, and have not considered the possibility of nonlinear associations between temperament and parenting. The present study addresses these gaps by examining the potentially nonlinear role of two temperamental characteristics-negative emotionality and sociability-in predicting the quality and quantity of low-income mothers' and fathers' parenting. Data were drawn from the Early Head Start Research and Evaluation Project, a study of low-income children and families. Results indicated that whereas parenting quality was somewhat impaired when children were temperamentally vulnerable (low sociability, high negativity), parents increased parenting quantity with the same vulnerable children. There was some evidence that parents were most reactive to children who scored either very high or very low on negative emotionality and sociability in both parenting domains. Patterns also suggest that mothers were more reactive to sociability, and fathers to negative emotionality.

Actor, partner, and similarity effects of personality on global and experienced well-being

The current study examined actor, partner, and similarity effects of personality on a variety of well-being indices, including both global and experiential measures of well-being in 2,578 heterosexual couples (N = 5,156 individuals; M age = 51.04, SD = 13.68) who completed the 2016 Wellbeing and Daily Life supplement to the Panel Study of Income Dynamics (PSID). Among actor effects, those for conscientiousness, agreeableness, extraversion, and neuroticism were the most robust predictors of well-being. Among partner effects, conscientiousness and neuroticism were the most robust predictors of well-being. Consistent with past research, similarity effects on well-being were generally small and not always significant. The results are discussed in the context of experiential conceptualizations of well-being and operationalizing similarity in relationship research.

Applied Implications of Understanding the Natural Development of Effortful Control

Effortful control (EC) is an important target for many interventions intended to facilitate positive psychosocial outcomes. The first wave of these efforts have emphasized adult-to-child instruction and individualized practice at target skills. Future tests of these ideas will be facilitated by efforts to critically evaluate and improve the construct validity of EC measures. New avenues for these applied approaches will also grow out of a more complete understanding of the processes that govern EC development. Specifically, I argue that the natural development of EC includes important roles for contextual and peer relationship factors that have yet to be capitalized on in efforts to increase EC in children.

Modeling the complexity of dynamic, momentary interpersonal behavior: Applying the time-varying effect model to test predictions from interpersonal theory

This paper demonstrates a recently-popularized quantitative method, the time-varying effect model (TVEM), in describing dynamic, momentary interpersonal processes implicated by Interpersonal Theory. We investigated moment-to-moment complementarity in affiliation and control behaviors (i.e., correspondence in affiliation and reciprocity in control between married dyad members) in a five-minute interaction (N=135), and how complementarity changed over time. Overall, results supported complementarity in affiliation and control. Moreover, effects were time-varying: Complementarity in affiliation increased over time and complementary in control changed over time in a cyclical manner. Dyadic adjustment moderated the strength in complementarity in control during specific timeframes. We discuss implications of these results and future directions. The findings support the utility of TVEM for studying dynamic and time-dependent interpersonal processes.

Internalizing Symptoms and Personality Traits Color Parental Reports of Child Temperament

OBJECTIVE

Depressed parents have negatively distorted views of the personalities and behaviors of their children. Our goal was to evaluate how other internalizing symptoms and personality traits relate to perceptions of child temperament using data from mothers and fathers as well as a novel statistical method for modeling multi-informant data.

METHOD

We applied the trifactor model (Bauer et al., 2013) to data collected from the parents of 273 children (aged 3-5 years).

RESULTS

Internalizing symptoms and personality traits were related to both mothers' and fathers' perceptions of their children. Effects varied somewhat across dimensions of child temperament.

CONCLUSIONS

These results support concerns that psychological characteristics influence parental perceptions of their children. This research also provides insights about psychological predictors of potential parental biases.

The relationship between parenting stress and parent-child interaction with health outcomes in the youngest patients with type 1 diabetes (0-7 years)

To test whether parenting stress and the quality of parent-child interaction were associated with glycemic control and quality of life (QoL) in young children (0-7 years) with type 1 diabetes (T1DM), we videotaped 77 families with a young child with T1DM during mealtime (including glucose monitoring and insulin administration). Parent-child interactions were scored with a specifically designed instrument. Questionnaires assessed general and disease-related parenting stress and (diabetes-specific (DS)) QoL. HbA(1c) (glycemic control) was extracted from the medical records. Both general and disease-related parenting stress were associated with a lower (DS)QoL (r ranged from -0.39 to -0.70, p < 0.05), but not with HbA(1c) levels. Furthermore, with regard to the parent-child interaction, emotional involvement of parents (r = 0.23, p < 0.05) and expressed discomfort of the child (r = 0.23, p < 0.05) were related to suboptimal HbA(1c) levels. There was no clear pattern in the correlations between parent-child interaction and (DS)QoL.

CONCLUSION

The results support the notion that diabetes does not only affect the child with T1DM: T1DM is a family disease, as parenting factors (like stress and parent-child interactions) are associated with important child outcomes. Therefore, it is important for health-care providers to not only focus on the child with T1DM, but also on the family system.

Maternal-child dyads of functioning: the intergenerational impact of violence against women on children

Violence against women is a global epidemic with potential consequences of injury, illness, and death. Children exposed to the violence may also be impacted with functional impairments. Little is known of the inter-generational impact of violence experienced by the mother from an intimate partner on functioning of her children. No dyad analysis was found in the literature. To examine the inter-generational impact of violence against women on the behavioral functioning of children, 300 mothers reporting intimate partner abuse and one randomly chosen child, age 18 months to 16 years of age; were evaluated for borderline and clinical diagnostic levels of problem behaviors. Linear, Logistic, and Ordinal regression models were applied. Mothers' problem behavior scores were significantly related to children's problem behavior scores (internalizing r = 0.611, externalizing r = 0.494, total problems r = 0.662, all ps < 0.001). Mothers who reported clinical and borderline clinical internalized problems (i.e., depression, anxiety) were 7 times more likely to have children with the same problems and mothers with borderline clinical and clinical external problems (i.e., aggression, hostility) were 4.5 times more likely to have children with the same external problems. These dyadic analyses provide evidence of a direct relationship of maternal functioning on child behavioral functioning. Intervention strategies to decrease internalizing maternal behavioral problems, such as depression, anxiety, and post traumatic stress disorder, and/or externalizing problems, such as hostility and aggression, can be expected to have a pass through, secondary impact on the behavioral functioning of children. Awareness of the relationship between intimate partner violence against mothers and child behavioral function can support interventions that decrease the distress experienced by mothers and their children, interrupt intergenerational transmission of abusive behaviors, and promote better maternal child functioning.

Angry responses to infant challenges: parent, marital, and child genetic factors associated with harsh parenting

This study examined genetic and environmental influences on harsh parenting of adopted 9-month-olds (N = 503), with an emphasis on positive child-, parent-, and family-level characteristics. Evocative gene-environment correlation (rGE) was examined by testing the effect of both positive and negative indices of birth parent temperament on adoptive parents' harsh parenting. Adoptive fathers' harsh parenting was inversely related to birth mother positive temperament, indicating evocative rGE, as well as to marital quality. Adoptive parents' negative temperamental characteristics were related to hostile parenting for both fathers and mothers. Findings support the importance of enhancing positive family characteristics in addition to mitigating negative characteristics, as well as engaging multiple levels of the family system to prevent harsh parenting.

Observed positive parenting behaviors and youth genotype: evidence for gene-environment correlations and moderation by parent personality traits

Gene-environment correlations (rGE) have been demonstrated in behavioral genetic studies, but rGE have proven elusive in molecular genetic research. Significant gene-environment correlations may be difficult to detect because potential moderators could reduce correlations between measured genetic variants and the environment. Molecular genetic studies investigating moderated rGE are lacking. This study examined associations between child catechol-O-methyltransferase genotype and aspects of positive parenting (responsiveness and warmth), and whether these associations were moderated by parental personality traits (neuroticism and extraversion) among a general community sample of third, sixth, and ninth graders (N = 263) and their parents. Results showed that parent personality traits moderated the rGE association between youths' genotype and coded observations of positive parenting. Parents with low levels of neuroticism and high levels of extraversion exhibited greater sensitive responsiveness and warmth, respectively, to youth with the valine/valine genotype. Moreover, youth with this genotype exhibited lower levels of observed anger. There was no association between the catechol-O-methyltransferase genotype and parenting behaviors for parents high on neuroticism and low on extraversion. Findings highlight the importance of considering moderating variables that may influence child genetic effects on the rearing environment. Implications for developmental models of maladaptive and adaptive child outcomes, and interventions for psychopathology, are discussed within a developmental psychopathology framework.