Poster #147 - Mother’s History of Child Sexual Abuse and Children’s Behavior: A Serial Mediation Model

• In Event: 2-163 - Poster Session 08
  In Poster Session: PS 08 Section - Parenting & Parent-Child Relationships

Integrative Statement

A history of childhood victimization has been shown to indirectly affect the behavioral outcomes of survivors’ children through hostile or aggressive parenting (Neppl, Conger, Scaramella, & Ontai, 2009), which is a robust risk factor for both child externalizing problems, such as aggression and delinquency, and child internalizing problems, such as depression and anxiety (Rijlaarsdam et al., 2014). Attachment theory and research suggest that unresolved experiences of loss or abuse during childhood, including child sexual abuse (CSA), may activate a helpless state of mind when parenting the next generation (George & Solomon, 1999; Main & Hesse, 1990). Further, attachment researchers suggest that parents’ unresolved trauma can contribute to hostile and helpless caregiving behaviors, such as reenactments of victimization experiences (Lyons-Ruth, Yellin, Melnick, & Atwood, 2003), that significantly disrupt parent-child interaction. Despite a strong theoretical foundation for expecting positive relations among a mother’s history of CSA, helpless state of mind regarding the parent-child relationship, and aggressive parenting behaviors, no empirical study has specifically evaluated these relations.

Given these empirical gaps in the literature, this investigation evaluated a theoretically-specified serial mediation model of associations among mothers’ history of CSA assessed when children were 4 years old, mothers’ helpless state of mind with regard to the mother-child relationship assessed at age 5, psychologically aggressive parenting assessed at age 7, and child externalizing and internalizing problems assessed by independent observers at age 8 (see Figure 1). Data were collected from a high diversity longitudinal sample of 225 biological mother-child dyads (48% female; 46.4% Hispanic). Mothers reported their CSA history during administration of the Early Trauma Inventory (Bremner et al., 2000) at wave 1 (Mchild_age_W1=49.05 months, SD=2.91), which was coded on a 4-point severity scale (ICC=.91). Mothers completed the Caregiving Helplessness Questionnaire (George & Solomon, 2011; α=.88) at wave 2 (Mchild_age_W2=61.82 months, SD=2.37). Children reported on mothers’ psychologically aggressive parenting behaviors at wave 3 (Mchild_age_W3=85.57 months, SD=2.71) using the Parent-Child Conflict Tactics Scales (Straus et al., 1998), and independent observers evaluated children’s externalizing and internalizing at wave 4 (Mchild_age_W4=97.51 months, SD=2.93) using the Test Observation Form (McConaughy & Achenbach, 2004).

Hayes’ (2013) PROCESS routine evaluated the serial mediation model. Analyses revealed significant indirect pathways from mothers’ CSA history to increased externalizing and internalizing problems in the next generation via mothers’ helpless state of mind and psychologically aggressive parenting (see Table 1). Indirect effects were significant above and beyond demographic covariates and children’s prior behavioral problems.

The current investigation contributes to the neophyte literature on transgenerational CSA effects by showing that a mother’s CSA history may impact state of mind regarding the mother-child relationship, which in turn may influence parenting behaviors and children’s behavioral outcomes. This research has significant implications for clinical intervention with survivors of CSA and their young children. To the extent that a parent’s beliefs and expectations about the parent-child relationship influence child adjustment via parenting practices (Murphey, 1992), parents’ state of mind may represent an important port of therapeutic understanding and change for efforts to mitigate negative transgenerational effects of CSA (Sameroff, 2004).

Authors

• Linnea Linde-Krieger, University of California, Riverside
  Presenting Author

• Tuppett M Yates, University of California, Riverside
  Non-Presenting Author