: Statistically, women, particularly pregnant women and new mothers, are at heightened risk for depression. The present review describes the current state of the research linking maternal depressed mood and children's cognitive and language development. Exposure to maternal depressive symptoms, whether during the prenatal period, postpartum period, or chronically, has been found to increase children's risk for later cognitive and language difficulties. The present review considers both the timing of maternal depression and the chronicity of mothers' depression on children's risk for cognitive and language delays. Infancy is frequently identified as a sensitive period in which environmental stimulation has the potential to substantially influence children's cognitive and language development. However, children's exposure to chronic maternal depression seems to be associated with more problematic outcomes for children, perhaps because depression interferes with mothers' ability to respond sensitively and consistently over time. Consistent with this expectation, interventions targeting parenting practices of depressed mothers have been found to increase children's cognitive competence during early childhood. The current review provides a synthesis of the current state of the field regarding the association between maternal depression and children's cognitive and language development during early childhood.

Consistent with existing theory, the quality of parent-child interactions during early childhood affects children's social relationships and behavioral adjustment during middle childhood and adolescence. Harsh parenting and a propensity toward emotional overarousal interact very early in life to affect risk for later conduct problems. Less empirical work has evaluated the emergence of early childhood coercive parent-child reciprocities. The proposed early childhood coercion model describes the processes by which coercive parent-child reciprocities emerge. Specifically, the interaction between parenting and infants' propensities toward reactivity influences the development of emotion regulation in children and disciplinary styles in parents. Highly reactive children are expected to experience more difficulty learning to regulate emotions and to evoke harsher parenting. Through a process of mutual reinforcement, harsh parenting, negative emotional reactivity, and poor emotion regulation become coercive parent-child reciprocities during early childhood. The emergence of coercive parent-child interactions further diminishes children's emotional regulatory capacities and affects the formation of peer relationships during kindergarten.

This prospective, longitudinal investigation examined mechanisms proposed to explain continuities in parenting behavior across two generations (G1, G2). Data came from 187 G2 adults, their mothers (G1), and their children (G3). Prospective information regarding G2 was collected both during adolescence and early adulthood. G1 data were collected during G2's adolescence and G3 data were generated during the preschool years. Assessments included both observational and self-report measures. The results indicated a direct relationship between G1 and G2 harsh parenting and between G1 and G2 positive parenting. As predicted, specific mediators accounted for intergenerational continuity in particular types of parenting behavior. G2 externalizing behavior mediated the relationship between G1 and G2 harsh parenting, while G2 academic attainment mediated the relationship between G1 and G2 positive parenting. In addition, the hypothesized mediating pathways remained statistically significant after taking into account possible G2 effects on G1 parenting and G3 effects on G2 parenting.Parenting behavior has been associated with both child competence and child maladjustment (see Collins, Maccoby, Steinberg, Hetherington, & Bornstein, 2000). For example, supportive parenting practices have been linked to higher levels of psychosocial well-being during childhood (Baumrind, 1991;Jones, Forehand, Brody, & Armistead, 2002;Zhou et al., 2002), while harsh and inconsistent parenting has been associated with higher levels of children's externalizing problems (Forman & Davies, 2003; Ge, Brody, Conger, Simons, & Murry, 2002;Pettit, Laird, Dodge, Bates, & Criss, 2001;Shaw et al., 1998). Less is known about how parents come to behave in different ways toward their children. Recent evidence, however, suggests that an important influence on parenting may involve continuities in childrearing practices across generations (Belsky, Jaffee, Sligo, Woodward, & Silva, 2005;Conger, Neppl, Correspondence regarding this manuscript should be addressed to Tricia K. Neppl, Institute for Social and Behavioral Research, Iowa State University, 2625 N. Loop Dr., Suite 500, Ames, IA 50014; tneppl@iastate.edu. The following manuscript is the final accepted manuscript. It has not been subjected to the final copyediting, fact-checking, and proofreading required for formal publication. It is not the definitive, publisher-authenticated version. The American Psychological Association and its Council of Editors disclaim any responsibility or liabilities for errors or omissions of this manuscript version, any version derived from this manuscript by NIH, or other third parties. The published version is available at www.apa.org/journals/dev. NIH Public Access Author ManuscriptDev Psychol. Author manuscript; available in PMC 2010 September 1. NIH-PA Author ManuscriptNIH-PA Author Manuscript NIH-PA Author Manuscript Kim, & Scaramella, 2003;Patterson, 1998;Putallaz, Constanzo, Grimes, & Sherman, 1998;Van IJzendoorn, 1992). Despite the growing evidence that the s...

No abstract

The relations between parents' and siblings' psychological control and adolescent adjustment (i.e., self-esteem and problems of internalization and externalization) were assessed over a 3 year periodfor 388 adolescents (7th graders at Year 1). Correlational and regression analyses were used to assess the contemporaneous and lagged associations between these variables. Patterns of association between psychological control and adolescent adjustment were consistent across family members. Results indicated that psychological control both by parents and by siblings contributes to increases in adolescents'adjustment problems and to diminished self-confidence. Relations to previous research on parents' behavior and adolescent adjustment, as well as implications forfuture research, are discussed.