The curvilinear effect of mothers’ parenting stress and attunement on children’s internalizing symptoms: A six wave study of mother–youth dyads across the transition to adolescence.

Abstract

We aimed to test how deviations in a mother’s own parenting stress (PS) levels across her child’s transition to adolescence contribute to subsequent changes in her child’s internalizing symptom levels. We tested both linear and curvilinear effects, as well as the extent to which a child’s perception of his or her mother’s attunement alters these links. We further explored whether overall maternal PS levels (relative to the other mothers) further moderate the within-dyad association. These effects were tested in a community sample consisting of 202 mother-child dyads during transition to early adolescence. The dyads were examined within and across six waves, each separated by 6 months. During each wave, the mothers (Mage at baseline = 40.1 years [SD = 6.1]) reported on their PS, while children (Mage at baseline = 10.1 years [SD = .90]) reported on their internalizing symptoms and their perceived maternal attunement. Multilevel within-dyad analyses revealed a -shaped effect of mothers’ PS on concurrent child symptoms, whereas the prospective association was not significant. Maternal attunement moderated the concurrent effects, changing the tipping point at which the concurrent potential benefits of rising PS were outweighed by the potential negative consequences of overburdening the child. Increases in PS prospectively predicted increased symptoms in the child but not when maternal attunement was above the mothers’ average level. Global PS levels did not moderate these effects. The results underscore the contribution made by mothers’ PS to the emotional trajectories of their children and show that these effects vary as a function of deviations in maternal attunement.

Interparental conflict as a quadratic predictor of children’s reactivity to interparental conflict and school adjustment: Steeling effects or risk saturation?

“…For example, research has shown that adults reporting mild levels of lifetime adversity exhibited lower psychological problems and stress reactivity than their counterparts who experienced either minimal or high adversity (e.g., Seery et al, 2010Seery et al, , 2013. Consistent with this research, a concurrent curvilinear link between parenting stress and adolescent internalizing symptoms corresponded with the steeling effects model and the hypothesis that youth would evidence the lowest emotional distress at moderate levels of parenting stress (Arbel et al, 2020). However, in this same study, prospective analyses failed to identify a quadratic risk effect.…”

“…Although research on interparental conflict as a quadratic predictor of child functioning is limited, stress conceptualizations in the broader developmental psychopathology literature have postulated that quadratic or curvilinear risk may be expressed in two complementary ways. First, steeling effects models propose that family adversity is not necessarily harmful for children when it occurs in mild and manageable doses (Arbel et al, 2020; Repetti & Robles, 2016; Rutter, 2012). Although steeling effects models generally share the assumption that intermittent, brief, and mild stress in the family is benign for children, versions of the model differ in the degree to which exposure to these stressful events may reduce their subsequent distress and vulnerability.…”

“…However, a strong model of steeling effect also hypothesizes that children should exhibit comparable decreases in their subsequent reactivity to conflict following exposure to mild levels of conflict as compared to children exposed to negligible levels (i.e., left side of the curve in Figure 1a). This strong “steeling” effect suggests that exposure to transient, minor adversity substantially strengthens children's well‐being relative to the experience of high or negligible levels of stress (Arbel et al, 2020; Repetti & Robles, 2016). When applied to the interparental conflict context, witnessing angry arguments that occur occasionally, are brief, and are generally mild in intensity may provide children with valuable opportunities to develop and refine emotion regulation and problem‐solving abilities in ways that increase their capacity to withstand future stressors compared to children who are either not exposed (or minimally exposed) to conflict or anger (i.e., left side of curve) or who are exposed to high levels of hostility and anger (i.e., right side of curve) between parental figures (Repetti & Robles, 2016).…”

Neighborhood‐level predictors of African American and Latinx parents' ethnic–racial socialization

“…Given the broader representation of SES, various family constellations, and multiple ethnic–racial groups, the link between SES and ERS may follow a curvilinear trend such that at different ends of the SES spectrum the associations differ, thereby canceling each other out in the current sample. This assumption is plausible given that similar trends are found among the links between SES and youth outcomes or parenting and youth outcomes (e.g., Arbel et al, 2020; Lei, 2017). Future studies should purposively sample families with diverse family structures and SES to better approximate the national landscape, offering a more holistic picture of these associations.…”

The Divorce Process and Child Adaptation Trajectory Typology (DPCATT) Model: The Shaping Role of Predivorce and Postdivorce Interparental Conflict

“…Prominent interparental conflict scholars (Davies & Sturge-Apple, 2007 ; Davies et al, 2021 ) thus have called for refinements to the classic models by underscoring that interparental conflict may not merely sensitize children’s distress and behavioral responses in the linear, dose–response manner as originally proposed. Considering a quadratic manner as suggested by the curvilinear models of risk sensitization (see Arbel et al, 2020 ; Repetti & Robles, 2016 ; Susman, 2006 ) may constitute a promising direction for future research in this field. To our knowledge, no study has tested such patterns specifically in divorce families, but research based on intact families has been emerging during the recent years (e.g., Davies et al, 2020 , 2021 ).…”