Do Parents’ Internal Processes and Feelings Contribute to the way they Report Their Children’s Mental Difficulties on the Strength and Difficulties Questionnaire (SDQ)?

Abstract

The way parents report their child’s emotional and behavioral difficulties is important both for identifying the child’s needs, diagnosis, and prevention. This study examined to what extent parents’ internal processes predict the way in which parents report their child’s emotional and behavioral difficulties on the SDQ, as mediated by parental feelings. Parents of children who were referred to a community mental health clinic completed a self-report questionnaire including the following scales: adulthood attachment style, self-regulation difficulty, personal well-being, self-compassion parental feelings, and their child’s emotional-behavioral difficulties. Study findings indicated that parents’ internal processes do not directly predict parents’ report of their children’s mental difficulties on the SDQ, only when mediated by parental feelings. These findings highlight the significance of parental feelings in reporting children’s behavioral and emotional difficulties. It also contributes to the body of knowledge concerning the importance of caring for parents’ needs and feelings and overall parenthood.

Resting respiratory sinus arrhythmia moderates the within‐person relations of parental emotional expressivity and children's prosocial behaviors

“…First, the same parent reported both their own expressivity and their children's prosocial behaviors in the present study. This may lead to common method variance; for example, parents with negative emotions may report both lower positive emotional expressivity and children's lower prosocial behaviors (Shenaar‐Golan & Hen, 2022), which could potentially bias the within‐person associations between parental expressivity and children's prosocial behaviors. Moreover, although the SDQ‐CV is a reliable and validated questionnaire for measuring children's prosocial behaviors (Liu et al., 2013), the small number of items and only parental reports may not comprehensively reflect prosocial behaviors in school‐aged children.…”

Reduced Psychosocial Well-Being among the Children of Women with Early-Onset Breast Cancer

“…This method of data collection required a comprehensive analysis of the sociodemographic and clinical characteristics and psychosocial well-being of the mothers. This was performed to mitigate potential biases in the assessment of the children's psychosocial well-being, such as those arising from maternal depressive symptoms [52]. Further, the questionnaire was not amended after the onset of the pandemic with pandemic-related questions regarding the children.…”

Child–parent agreement on the SDQ: The role of child–parent attachment and parental feelings

“…For instance, Booth et al (2023) found that parental psychological distress was associated with all SDQ scales, as adolescents reported higher difficulties and lower prosocial behavior if their parent had a higher level of distress. Recently the authors of this paper found that parental anger and sadness impacted parents' reporting on the SDQ (Shennar‐Golan & Hen, 2022). Using other multi‐informant measures, Maoz et al (2014) suggested the significance of maternal depression and mood changes to parental reporting.…”

“…Previous studies have found that parental feelings are influenced by intrapersonal and interpersonal aspects, such as the parent's level of maturity, ability to regulate emotions, sense of self‐efficacy, and mental well‐being, as well as environmental aspects, such as education level, socioeconomic status, and the special needs of parents or children (Ziv et al, 2020). Studies focusing on parental feelings in the specific context of the parental role (e.g., Bradley et al, 2013; Fijałkowska & Bielawska‐Batorowicz, 2021; Shennar‐Golan & Hen, 2022), suggest three specific groups of feelings experienced by parents in their roles: anger (e.g., annoyance), anxiety/sadness (e.g., fear), and happiness (e.g., cheerfulness). Considering these studies and given that parents are responsible for managing their own feelings and helping their children manage their emotions, the importance of studying parental feelings continues to escalate (Teti & Cole, 2011).…”

“…Thus, the current study focused on parent–child dynamics as a possible explanation for this gap. Following the literature, and different from studies that directly examined child–parent relationships (Lohaus et al, 2020), we examined parental inner dynamics toward their parenthood (feelings) (Shennar‐Golan & Hen, 2022) and child inner dynamics toward their parents (attachment). By that, we hoped to better understand deeper underlying dynamics that play a role in the agreement between parent and child reports on the SDQ.…”