Parenting Practices as Mechanisms for Transmission of Maternal Risk Factors and Child Psychological Outcomes

Session Type: Paper Symposium

Abstract

Broadly, poorer parenting quality is an established mechanism accounting for transgenerational transmission of mental health problems from parents to children. However greater precision is needed to couple unique aspects of parenting with specific contexts of risk. This symposium will examine how parenting practices can buffer the association between maternal factors and child psychological outcomes in various contexts of risk. Specifically, this symposium will focus on how parenting practices may moderate or mediate the risk of (1) maternal chronic pain, (2) maternal adverse childhood experiences, and (3) maternal depression on child psychological outcomes. All three studies characterize parenting practices within each of these maternal risk factors, emphasizing parenting behaviors that are understudied or unique to the sample (e.g., pain-specific parenting, growth fostering). Importantly, all studies employed large, longitudinal samples, allowing mechanistic pathways to be tested in order to understand how parenting practices partly account for the intergenerational transmission of risk for children’s negative mental health outcomes. Each study further contextualizes their results by examining maternal and child factors (e.g. distress tolerance, effortful control) that mediate or moderate the effect of parenting on child psychological outcomes. Discussion will focus on how parenting practices may differ across contexts of risk and factors to consider when examining parenting practices as points of intervention. Our discussant, an expert on parenting across various contexts of risk and child temperament, will help illustrate the complexities of examining parenting as a mechanism for the intergenerational transmission of risk across contexts and highlight future directions in this research area.

Sub Unit

• Parenting & Parent-Child Relationships

Chair

• Jacqueline O'Brien, University of Oregon

Discussant

• Liliana J Lengua, University of Washington

Individual Presentations

• Maternal Chronic Pain Associated with Child Psychological Symptoms Through Pain-Specific Parenting and Child Distress Tolerance - Presenting Author: Jacqueline O'Brien, University of Oregon; Non-Presenting Author: Angela H. Lee, University of Oregon; Non-Presenting Author: Amanda L. Stone, Vanderbilt University Medical Center; Non-Presenting Author: Maureen Zalewski, University of Oregon; Non-Presenting Author: Anna C. Wilson, Oregon Health & Science University

• Maternal Parenting and Anxiety Mediate Associations between Maternal Adverse Childhood Experiences on Children’s Internalizing Symptoms - Presenting Author: Emily W. Shih, University of California, San Francisco; Non-Presenting Author: Shaikh I. Ahmad, University of California - San Francisco; Non-Presenting Author: Nicole R Bush, University of California - San Francisco; Non-Presenting Author: Danielle Roubinov, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill; Non-Presenting Author: Frances Tylavsky, The University of Tennessee Health Science Center; Non-Presenting Author: Joyce Carolyn Graff, University of Tennessee Health Science Center; Non-Presenting Author: Catherine J. Karr, University of Washington; Non-Presenting Author: Sheela Sathyanarayana, University of Washington; Non-Presenting Author: Kaja Z. LeWinn, University of California, San Francisco

• Bidirectional and Transaction Associations between Maternal Depression, Hostile Parenting, and Child Internalizing Symptoms - Presenting Author: Rochelle F. Hentges, University of Calgary; Non-Presenting Author: Susan A Graham, University of Calgary (U of C); Non-Presenting Author: Andre Plamondon, Université Laval; Non-Presenting Author: Suzanne Tough, University of Calgary (U of C); Non-Presenting Author: Sheri Madigan, University of Calgary (U of C)