Parental depression, parenting behaviours, and behaviour problems in young children

Abstract

In the past, research has demonstrated that parental depression and parenting practices are related. More recently, there has been an increase in research examining child outcomes as they are related to maternal and paternal psychopathology. To continue with this line of research, this study examined the relationships among mothers' and fathers' symptoms of depression, characteristics of their parenting practices, and their ratings of their young children's internalizing and externalizing behaviour problems.The results of this study demonstrated that these variables are related significantly. Further, the results of this study suggested that mothers' parenting, particularly their limit setting with their young children, is an important predictor of their ratings of their young children's externalizing behaviour problems in the context of their own symptoms of depression. A different pattern of relationships may be present for fathers, as both their symptoms of depression and their parenting characteristics predicted their ratings of their young children's externalizing behaviour problems. Such findings were not supported for young children's internalizing behaviour problems. These findings suggested that interventions should have different targets for mothers and fathers.

An Exploratory Study of Domains of Parenting Concern among Mothers Who Are Childhood Sexual Abuse Survivors

“…Cronbach's alphas from the validation sample were .88, .80, .76, and .82 for Limit Setting, Autonomy, Involvement, and Communication (Gerald, 1994) and for this sample are .82, .56, .82, and .69 respectively. The alpha coefficient for Autonomy is somewhat low; however, this is consistent with prior findings (Middleton, Scott, & Renk, 2009) and was not improved by dropping items.…”

Attitudes Toward Never-Married Single Mothers and Fathers: Does Gender Matter?

“…Attitudes Toward Never-Married Parents 123 parental depression and shame have been found to negatively impact parenting abilities and are also associated with negative child outcomes (Hammen, 2009;Middleton, Scott, & Renk, 2009;Robila & Krishnakumar, 2006). This research study, therefore, contributes to a better understanding of current societal views of never-married single parents and seeks to provide insight into how, based exclusively on gender, never-married custodial single parents may be perceived differently in society, and how this might impact the therapy process when working with single parent families.…”

The Role of Parent Psychopathology in Emotion Socialization

“…Research is needed to build on this very small body of research, and there is a particular need for observational studies to examine the link between parent psychopathology symptoms and parents’ reactions to child negative affect. Additionally, as parents of children with disruptive behaviors are known to have higher rates of psychopathology (e.g., Middleton et al 2009; Pfiffner et al 2005; Takeda et al 2010), examining this relation in a sample of children with behavior problems is particularly important.…”