Childhood Social Withdrawal Predicts Adult Family Resources and Parenting: Pathways to Intergenerational Risk

• In Event: Child and Adolescent Social Withdrawal and Subsequent Adult Psychosocial Adjustment, Health, and Intergenerational Transfer of Risk

Abstract

Socially withdrawn behavior in childhood may continue as a behavior pattern into adulthood, characterizing social interactions and impacting success in educational and occupational settings, as well as future family functioning. Unlike most other established childhood risk factors, however, social withdrawal may sometimes have mitigating effects on development by moderating other risk factors.

The present paper will summarize findings from a large, multigenerational longitudinal study (Serbin et al., 1998) of over 4000 lower-income Montreal children and their families. The study was begun in 1976 to identify childhood behavioral markers including peer-nominated measures of social withdrawal and aggressive behavior that might predict adult psychopathology and other psychosocial outcomes (Schwartzman et al., 1985). The original child participants are now in their 40’s and 50’s, and many have become parents. Using repeated waves of data collection, and education, health, and criminal justice records, we are able to trace pathways from withdrawal in childhood to the intergenerational transfer of social, developmental and health risk.

Predicting family resources in adulthood. A mediated pathway between childhood withdrawal and educational attainment was found for both women and men in the sample (e.g. Serbin et al, 2010; Veronneau et al., 2015). Specifically, childhood withdrawal was consistently associated with lower academic achievement scores (reading, math), which in turn predicted lower educational attainment (e.g., fewer years of education; high school non-completion; lower enrollment and completion in post-secondary programs). Educational attainment was, in turn, predictive of occupational status and family income after participants became parents. Lower educational attainment predicted teenage and single parenthood. That is, the indirect pathway from childhood withdrawal through reduced educational attainment led to a variety of adult outcomes which would reduce resources for the families and offspring.

Parenting and interactions with offspring: In observations of parent-child dyads, repeated over time (Ns range from 90 to 220 parent-child dyads), direct effects of parents’ childhood social withdrawal were found, in terms of less responsive parenting, negative emotional availability, and avoidant behavior towards their young children, with less dyadic synchrony, as well as both internalizing and externalizing behavioral problems in young offspring (e.g., Serbin et al., 1998; Stack et al., 2012; 2017). These may represent “continuity” of mothers’ withdrawn behavioral styles from childhood but may also reflect other problems linked with social withdrawal in adulthood, such as anxiety and depression.

Moderation of risk: Finally, withdrawal often moderated the impact of other established risk variables, such as childhood aggression, low parental education and occupational status, and neighborhood disadvantage. In general, childhood withdrawal functioned to enhance the effects of other established risk factors in adulthood, increasing their negative effects on adult psychopathology and family functioning (e.g., Hastings et al., 2019). However, there are some situations in which withdrawal seemed to “mitigate” other risk factors, possibly by protecting children from exposure to harmful social or neighborhood conditions.

These findings will be summarized in the context of other childhood predictors of intergenerational risk, with discussion of the direct and indirect pathways from childhood withdrawal to adult functioning, family formation and parenthood.

Authors

• Lisa A Serbin, Concordia University
  Presenting Author

• Dale M Stack, Concordia University