The Development of Mother-Child Conflict and Child Internalizing Problems in Mid-Childhood

• In Event: Poster Session 06
  In Poster Session: PS 06 Topic - Developmental Psychopathology

Abstract

Several aspects of mother-child relationships are associated with children’s internalizing problems. Internalizing problems, which include symptoms of depression and anxiety, are among the most prevalent mental health difficulties (Epkins & Heckler, 2011). Internalizing problems can emerge as young as early childhood, with the incidence increasing from childhood through adolescence (Brock & Kochanska, 2015). Conflictual relationships between mothers and children may be associated with an increased risk of children’s internalizing symptoms because of their negative implications for children’s emotional development (Smith et al., 2019). It is important to understand how associations between these aspects of maternal relationships and children’s internalizing problems unfold over time, for example, whether relationship characteristics and internalizing problems are mutually influential, or whether one tends to precede the other. The goal of this study is to disentangle the longitudinal associations between one aspect of mother-child relationships—mother-child conflict—and children’s internalizing problems during mid-childhood.

To date, most of the research on longitudinal associations between conflict and children’s internalizing symptoms has used cross-lagged panel models (CLPMs). However, these models can lead to misspecified cross-lagged paths because the examination of within-family change processes requires accounting for its trait-like stability (which are not adequately captured by auto-regressive paths). Thus, we used a random intercept (RI) CLPM to explicitly model stable between-family differences in both conflict and internalizing problems so that cross-lagged paths could be interpreted as time-specific within-family associations (Hamaker et al., 2015).

We had three primary hypotheses: (1) We expected positive between-family correlations such that families with higher conflictual relationships would tend to have children with higher internalizing problems. (2) We expected mother-child conflict to more strongly predict children’s internalizing problems over time (than vice versa), in line with research to date (e.g., Epkins & Heckler, 2011). (3) We hypothesized that the longitudinal associations between mother-child conflict and children’s internalizing problems would be stronger for girls than for boys.

We examined whether conflict and children’s internalizing problems predict each other longitudinally in a sample of children from 3rd through 6th grade (N = 1,364) and their mothers using the RI-CLPM shown in Figure 1. In line with expectations, we found stable between-family differences in both mother-child conflict and children’s internalizing problems. Contrary to expectations, we did not find that mother-child conflict and children’s internalizing problems showed significant cross-lagged associations. However, mother-child conflict and children’s internalizing problems had correlated errors at each wave, indicating that these two constructs covary with each other concurrently at multiple times across development, independent of stable between-family associations (i.e., as one increases, so does the other, and vice versa). Contrary to expectations, we did not observe significant gender differences in the associations between mother-child conflict and children’s internalizing problems. The results of this study point to the importance of using statistical approaches that can disentangle between-family differences from within-family processes. In future studies, shorter time scales (e.g., weeks or months) may better capture dynamic associations between parent-child conflict and internalizing problems.

Authors

• Jessica P. Lougheed, University of British Columbia (UBC)
  Presenting Author

• Robert Duncan, Purdue University, West Lafayette
  Non-Presenting Author

• Gizem Keskin, University of British Columbia, Okanagan
  Non-Presenting Author

• Kristine Marceau, Purdue University, West Lafayette
  Non-Presenting Author