Mother-Child Interactions in Depressed Children and Children at High Risk and Low Risk for Future Depression

Abstract

Objective-To compare mother-child interactions and parenting styles in families of children with major depressive disorder, youths at high risk for depression, and healthy controls.Method-Currently depressed (n = 43), high-risk (n = 28), and healthy control (n = 41) youths and their mothers engaged in a standardized videotaped problem-solving interaction. Measures of affect and behavior for both mothers and children were obtained, in addition to global measures of parenting.Results-Depressed children demonstrated more negativity and less positivity in dyadic interactions than did children at high risk and control children. Mothers of depressed children were more disengaged than control mothers. Exploratory repeated-measures analyses in a subgroup of depressed children (n = 16) suggested mother-child interactions do not significantly change when children recover from depression. Children at high risk demonstrated less positivity in dyadic interactions than did controls. Mothers with a history of major depressive disorder and mothers with higher current depressive symptoms demonstrated patterns of disengagement and low control in interactions with children.Conclusions-Mother-child interactions in depressed youths are marked by maternal disengagement and low child positivity that may not improve when children recover. The bidirectional effects of maternal disengagement and low levels of child positivity may precede onset of major depressive disorder in children and serve as risk factors for recurrent depression in youths.Keywords major depressive disorder; high risk; mother-child interaction; parenting Family interactions provide a rich context for studying the bidirectional relationship between interpersonal environments and the onset and course of psychopathology in depressed children and adolescents. Depressed children and adolescents have discordant family relationships, marked by high rates of conflict, hostility, rejection, low support and cohesion, Copyright © 2008 NIH-PA Author ManuscriptNIH-PA Author Manuscript NIH-PA Author Manuscript and poor communication, [1][2][3][4][5] that may persist after children and adolescents recover from acute depressive episodes. 6,7 As such, maladaptive family interactions have been postulated to be one of the mechanisms by which depression develops and is maintained in at-risk children and adolescents. 4,8 Research on children of depressed mothers further indicates that poor family functioning, negative mother-child interactions and maladaptive parenting strategies may predate the development of depression in children with familial loading for depression. 9,10 Because of the bidirectional nature of child and parent factors that contribute overall discordant interactions in families of depressed children, it remains unclear whether negative family interactions precede depression in children and adolescents or whether negative family interactions are a consequence of children's depressive symptoms 1,11-13 or both. Two recently published studies sought to untangle ...

The role of the mother–child relationship for anxiety disorders and depression: results from a prospective-longitudinal study in adolescents and their mothers

“…These findings suggest low valence to primarily increase the risk for offspring depression, which might be explained by the possibility that low valence promotes distress and impedes the development of self-esteem, thus leading to offspring depression. Our results with respect to valence are consistent with previous evidence for conceptually related constructs (low mother-child-connection, low maternal warmth and affection, high maternal hostility and disengagement) to be associated with offspring psychopathology, primarily depression [25][26][27][28]38]. However, previous studies mostly examined maternal characteristics/ behaviors and their relation to anxiety or depression as isolated outcomes [25][26][27][28]38], while-to our best knowledge-no prior study examined the role of child valence and potency for both offspring anxiety and depression.…”

“…Further studies found that a reduced parent-child connectedness, low maternal warmth/affection, and maternal hostility were associated with offspring depressive symptoms [26][27][28]. During interaction tasks, mothers of depressed children and mothers with a history of depression or current depressive symptoms displayed higher levels of disengagement than control mothers [25]. Moreover, adolescent anxiety symptoms were associated with lower maternal autonomy support, and anxious adolescents and their mothers perceive lower levels of childautonomy within the mother-child relationship [35,36].…”

“…Previous research on familial and parental risk factors for anxiety and depression suggests that especially adverse parental rearing styles and unfavorable characteristics of the parent-child relationship increase the risk for offspring anxiety and depression [11,14,[25][26][27][28][29][30][31][32][33][34][35][36][37][38][39][40][41]. Particularly the role of parental rearing for offspring anxiety and depression has been extensively studied [11,14,[29][30][31][32][33][34].…”

“…That is, valence is conceptually related to constructs such as warmth, affection, and responsiveness, while potency is conceptually related to constructs such as autonomy and low/moderate parental monitoring and control. However, child valence and potency refer to child characteristics/behaviors and this is important, since most prior studies on the mother-child relationship focused on parental characteristics/behaviors and their relation to offspring mental health [11,14,[25][26][27][28][29][30][31][32][33][34][36][37][38][39][40]. For instance, mother-child-connectedness (which is closely related to child valence) was mostly conceptualized as the child's perception of maternal care and communication [28,54,55].…”

The Effects of Nonshared Environments on Adolescent Depression: Findings From a Sample of Monozygotic Twins

“…Research on the etiology of adolescent depression has implicated the importance of environmental variables, such as peer group networks [15], relationships with parents [13,16], experiences with delinquency [17] and victimization [18], in the development of depressive symptoms. Findings from behavioral genetic research have highlighted the importance of both genetic and nonshared environmental effects on adolescent depression [19].…”