The aim of this study was to identify variables that distinguish mothers who broke the cycle of abuse from mothers who were abused as children and who also abused their own children. Based on maternal interviews and questionnaires completed over a 64-month period, measures of mothers' past and current relationship experiences, stressful life events, and personality characteristics were obtained. Abused mothers who were able to break the abusive cycle were significantly more likely to have received emotional support from a nonabusive adult during childhood, participated in therapy during any period of their lives, and to have had a nonabusive and more stable, emotionally supportive, and satisfying relationship with a mate. Abused mothers who reenacted their maltreatment with their own children experienced significantly more life stress and were more anxious, dependent, immature, and depressed.

Disorganized/Disoriented (D) attachment has seen widespread interest from policy makers, practitioners, and clinicians in recent years. However, some of this interest seems to have been based on some false assumptions that (1) attachment measures can be used as definitive assessments of the individual in forensic/child protection settings and that disorganized attachment (2) reliably indicates child maltreatment, (3) is a strong predictor of pathology, and (4) represents a fixed or static “trait” of the child, impervious to development or help. This paper summarizes the evidence showing that these four assumptions are false and misleading. The paper reviews what is known about disorganized infant attachment and clarifies the implications of the classification for clinical and welfare practice with children. In particular, the difference between disorganized attachment and attachment disorder is examined, and a strong case is made for the value of attachment theory for supportive work with families and for the development and evaluation of evidence-based caregiving interventions.

The aim of this study was to identify variables that distinguish mothers who broke the cycle of abuse from mothers who were abused as children and who also abused their own children. Based on maternal interviews and questionnaires completed over a 64-month period, measures of mothers' past and current relationship experiences, stressful life events, and personality characteristics were obtained. Abused mothers who were able to break the abusive cycle were significantly more likely to have received emotional support from a nonabusive adult during childhood, participated in therapy during any period of their lives, and to have had a nonabusive and more stable, emotionally supportive, and satisfying relationship with a mate. Abused mothers who reenacted their maltreatment with their own children experienced significantly more life stress and were more anxious, dependent, immature, and depressed.

The development of inattentiveness and hyperactivity in middle childhood was investigated using a prospective longitudinal approach. Endogenous and exogenous predictors measured in infancy and in early and middle childhood were examined independently and in combination. In early childhood, quality of caregiving more powerfully predicted distractibility, an early precursor of hyperactivity, than did early biological or temperament factors. Caregiving and contextual factors together with early distractibility significantly predicted hyperactivity in middle childhood. While environmental variables also predicted hyperactivity in later elementary years, these factors did not improve the prediction beyond the influence of hyperactivity in early elementary years. The findings support a developmental view of the origins and course of hyperactivity in childhood, that is, that the emergence and persistence of AD/HD symptoms depend on developmental history along with current circumstances.

This article argues for the importance of focusing explicitly on the construct of boundary disturbances in families to understand the development of depressive, anxious, and attention-deficit0hyperactivity disorder~ADHD! symptoms in middle childhood. Grounded in family systems theory, this study examined traditional parent-child antecedents of childhood depression and anxiety~hostile, controlling, and disengaged interactions! in the context of the entire family as well as enmeshed patterns, whereby one parent drew in the child by turning to the child for caregiving or intimacy and excluded the spouse, and balanced patterns, whereby all family members expressed vulnerabilities and asserted their needs or desires. Mostly White, middle-class mothers, fathers, and children were observed at home interacting on a series of everyday tasks when the children were 24 months old, and mothers and teachers rated children's symptoms of anxiety, depression, somatic problems, and ADHD at age 7. Regression analyses revealed that, after controlling for maternal depression and the effects of other family patterns, enmeshed family patterns forecast children's depressive symptoms; controlling and disengaged interactions predicted anxious and depressive symptoms; and hostility forecast ADHD and somatic complaints. Intriguing gender differences emerged. As predicted, whereas boys who experienced enmeshed family patterns more often developed symptoms of ADHD, girls who experienced enmeshed family interactions later showed symptoms of depression.