Mothers' early depressive symptoms and children's first‐grade adjustment: a transactional analysis of child withdrawal as a mediator

Yan, Ni; Dix, Theodore

doi:10.1111/jcpp.12189

Cited by 29 publications

(27 citation statements)

References 43 publications

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“…Early vulnerability at home, in terms of poor maternal mental health and attachment problems, is also likely to play a role once a child starts to develop moderate levels of internalising symptoms. Research has pointed to a vicious cycle, whereby withdrawn or avoidant child behaviour fuels maternal depression and poorer parent–child relations, which in turn lead to further internalising problems (Ciciolla et al 2014; Yan and Dix 2014). …”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Early Childhood Precursors and School age Correlates of Different Internalising Problem Trajectories Among Young Children

Parkes

Sweeting

Wight

2016

J Abnorm Child Psychol

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It is unclear why trajectories of internalising problems vary between groups of young children. This is the first attempt in the United Kingdom to identify and explain different trajectories of internalising problems from 46 to 94 months. Using both mother- and child-reported data from the large Growing Up in Scotland (GUS) birth cohort (N = 2901; male N = 1497, female N = 1404), we applied growth mixture modelling and multivariable multinomial regression models. Three trajectories were identified: low-stable, high-decreasing and medium-increasing. There were no gender differences in trajectory shape, membership, or importance of covariates. Children from both elevated trajectories shared several early risk factors (low income, poor maternal mental health, poor partner relationship, pre-school behaviour problems) and school-age covariates (low mother-child warmth and initial school maladjustment) and reported fewer supportive friendships at 94 months. However, there were also differences in covariates between the two elevated trajectories. Minority ethnic status and pre-school conduct problems were more strongly associated with the high-decreasing trajectory; and covariates measured after school entry (behaviour problems, mother-child conflict and school maladjustment) with the medium-increasing trajectory. This suggests a greater burden of early risk for the high-decreasing trajectory, and that children with moderate early problem levels were more vulnerable to influences after school transition. Our findings largely support the sparse existing international evidence and are strengthened by the use of child-reported data. They highlight the need to identify protective factors for children with moderate, as well as high, levels of internalising problems at pre-school age, but suggest different approaches may be required.Electronic supplementary materialThe online version of this article (doi:10.1007/s10802-015-0116-6) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Early Childhood Precursors and School age Correlates of Different Internalising Problem Trajectories Among Young Children

Parkes

Sweeting

Wight

2016

J Abnorm Child Psychol

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“…Children may attribute such mother‐focused behavior to hostile intentions, focus processing on their own unmet needs (Hoffman, ), and develop representations dominated by coercive behavior and its short‐term effectiveness. Children, in turn, react with negative emotion (Maccoby & Martin, ), withdrawal (Dix, Meunier, Lusk, & Perfect, ; Yan & Dix, ), or increasingly coercive demands (Shaw et al., ), which focuses their processing on their own self‐oriented intentions, justifications for their negativity in mothers' negative intentions, and the necessity of coercion for eliciting maternal attention (Shaw et al., ).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Mothers' early depressive symptoms predict children's low social competence in first grade: mediation by children's social cognition

Wang

Dix

2014

Child Psychology Psychiatry

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“…Although such child effects are underrepresented in the literature on parenting compared to child outcomes of parenting, there is growing support for children as a passive or active medium of change in parents (Pettit & Arsiwalla, 2008). Much of the “child effects” literature, however, has focused on parents’ mental health (Yan & Dix, 2014; Choe, Olson, Sameroff, 2014) and use of corporal punishment (Gershoff et al, 2012). Emerging research does suggest that children's academic and behavioral skills can elicit more educational involvement from parents (Crosnoe et al, 2012; Gershoff, Aber, & Clements, 2009), and there is some indication that these patterns extend to the overall quality of the home environment (Lugo-Gil & Tamis-LeMonda, 2008).…”

Section: Considering Child Effectsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Children's elicitation of changes in parenting during the early childhood years

Crosnoe

2015

Early Childhood Research Quarterly

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Using a subsample of the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study-Birth Cohort (ECLS-B; n = 1,550), this study identified parents who engaged in more developmentally problematic parenting—in the form of low investment, above average television watching, and use of spanking—when their children were very young (M = 24.41 months, SD = 1.23) but changed their parenting in more positive directions over time. Latent profile analysis and other techniques revealed that parents who demonstrated less optimal parenting behaviors when their children were 2 years old were more likely to be African American, from lower socioeconomic backgrounds, and experiencing greater depressive symptoms. Approximately half of such parents, however, made positive changes in their parenting practices, with 5% in the profile characterized by high investment and low use of spanking by the time that their children were in elementary school. These positive changes in parenting behavior were more likely to occur among parents whose children were already demonstrating early reading skills and less problem behavior. These potential “child effects”, suggesting that children elicited improvements in parenting, were more pronounced among higher income families but did not vary according to parents’ educational attainment. Findings from this study have important implications for intervention programs, suggesting that children's academic and behavioral skills can be leveraged as one means of facilitating positive parenting.

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Mothers' early depressive symptoms and children's first‐grade adjustment: a transactional analysis of child withdrawal as a mediator

Abstract: The findings suggest that, due to its interdependence with maternal depression and low mother-child mutual responsiveness over time, child withdrawal may play an important role in the poor first-grade adjustment of children whose mothers are high in depressive symptoms.

Cited by 29 publications

References 43 publications

Early Childhood Precursors and School age Correlates of Different Internalising Problem Trajectories Among Young Children

Early Childhood Precursors and School age Correlates of Different Internalising Problem Trajectories Among Young Children

Mothers' early depressive symptoms predict children's low social competence in first grade: mediation by children's social cognition

Children's elicitation of changes in parenting during the early childhood years

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