Poster #149 - Stability of the Mother-Child Relationship from Early Infancy to Early Adolescence

• In Event: 3-003 - Poster Session 09
  In Poster Session: PS 09 Section - Parenting & Parent-Child Relationships

Integrative Statement

Does the quality of the parent-child relationship remain stable across development? Parent-child relationships are constantly re-organized, prompted by pressures on both parents and children to adapt to pronounced physical, cognitive, behavioral, and social changes in parent, child, and environment. Few studies recognize the deeply dyadic nature of parent-child relationships, and none to date has explored how the dyad develops using a longitudinal dyadic design accounting for interdependence between parent and child (Bronfenbrenner and Morris, 1996, p. 797). Stability describes consistency through time in the relative standing of individuals in a group.

This study has 4 main aims: (1) to assess the common convergences of multiple measures from different sources on single latent variables of dyadic interaction at 5 months and 4, 10, and 14 years, (2) to assess stability of dyadic interaction between those latent variables, (3) to assess stability in families with girls and boys, and (4) to assess stability controlling for family socioeconomic status.

We studied 375 mother-child dyads in this 14-year 4-wave longitudinal study. Children were healthy firstborns, 46% girls, and M ages = 5.37 months (SD = 0.21, n = 374), 4.05 years (SD = 0.09, n = 255), 10.26 years (SD = 0.17, n = 199), and 13.84 years (SD = 0.26, n = 148) at the first, second, third, and fourth assessment waves, respectively. At the first wave, mothers averaged 29.05 years (SD = 6.53). Families represented a full range from low to upper socioeconomic status (SES; Hollingshead Index, 1975, M = 49.22, SD = 13.74, range = 14 to 66). Mother-child interaction was evaluated using four procedures: the Emotional Availability Scales at 5 months, the Teaching Tasks a 4 years, the JOBS Wave II Middle Childhood Observational Coding Scheme at 10 years, and the Manual for Family Assessment at 14 years.

We found that all indicators of dyadic interaction loaded significantly on their factors at each age, which indicated that diverse measures of the dyad formed stable, single factors of dyadic interaction at each age. Additionally, longitudinal analyses revealed stability of mother-child interactions from infancy to adolescence (Figure 1). Longitudinal stability of quality-of-dyadic mother-child interaction did not differ between mother-daughter and mother-son pairs. Controlling for family SES attenuated dyadic stability somewhat, but dyadic mother-child interaction remained stable between each wave.

The mother-child dyad is a gestalt that maintains dyadic quality from infancy to adolescence. The measures of the dyad were robust: different ages, different measures, and different coders, but still we found significant and increasing stability in mother-child relationship quality from infancy to adolescence. The pattern of stability which emerges from these findings helps to guide new research and further developmental theories about parenting and child development. The findings may be particularly important to consider when designing and evaluating intervention efforts aimed at improving troubled dyadic interactions. This study’s dyadic design is faithful to the dynamic nature of family life, and a better understanding of partner effects increases our knowledge of how adaptive (and maladaptive) practices permeate families.

Authors

• Chun-Shin Hahn, NICHD
  Presenting Author

• Marc H. Bornstein, Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development & Institute for Fiscal Studies, London, UK
  Non-Presenting Author

• Adela Leahu, NICHD
  Non-Presenting Author

• Joan T. D. Suwalsky, NICHD
  Non-Presenting Author

• Charlene Hendricks, NICHD
  Non-Presenting Author

• Diane L. Putnick, NICHD
  Non-Presenting Author