Poster #131 - Associations between family factors, maternal-child attachment, and maternal responsiveness at family meals

• In Event: 3-206 - Poster Session 13
  In Poster Session: PS 13 Section - Parenting & Parent-Child Relationships

Integrative Statement

Background: Parent emotional responsiveness is associated with positive emotional and physical health outcomes in young children, including better emotion regulation, less unhealthy food consumption, and less emotional eating. Parent feeding responsiveness is also associated with positive child outcomes. Parents’ past attachment-related experiences, as well as risk and protective factors in the family environment (e.g., routines, household chaos) are known to independently and interactively influence emotional responsiveness. It is unclear whether feeding responsiveness has similar antecedents. Investigating these processes will help practitioners and researchers identify families with both risk and protective factors for engaging in positive parenting practices.

Method: A subsample of mothers (n = 110) consented to complete the Attachment Script Assessment and have family mealtimes recorded when their children were 18-24 months old, after being recruited for the larger STRONG Kids 2 Study. Mealtime videos were coded to assess observed feeding responsiveness, emotional responsiveness, and mealtime distractions. Mothers also completed validated questionnaires assessing self-reported feeding responsiveness, emotional responsiveness, household chaos, mealtime routines, adult attachment orientations. Structural equation modeling was used to assess independent and interactive effects of family and attachment factors onto feeding and emotional responsiveness (Table 1).

Results: More household chaos was associated with less feeding and self-reported emotional responsiveness. More maternal mealtime distractions were associated with less observed emotional responsiveness. Regarding interactive effects, mothers who were more distracted at mealtimes and highly insecure engaged in less observed emotional responsiveness (Figure 1). Interestingly, the association between household chaos and self-reported emotional responsiveness was only significant for mothers with low levels of attachment insecurity (b1 [SE] = -1.17 [.45], t = -2.57, p = .012). That is, mothers who were more insecure self-reported that there was no association between their emotional responsiveness and household chaos (b1 [SE] = -.37 [.67], t = .54, p = .58).

Discussion: These findings point to both risk and resilience processes. Reducing mealtime distractions may improve emotional responsiveness at mealtimes, particularly among mothers with insecure attachment orientations. Reducing household chaos may lead to improved feeding responsiveness, regardless of attachment orientation. Both resilience- and attachment-informed approaches are needed to understand why there was no association between emotional responsiveness and household chaos among insecure mothers. Insecure mothers may have experienced other types of life stressors that have prepared them to ignore or protect their children from the negative effects of household chaos. Although these analyses leverage both observational and self-report measures of key constructs, longitudinal studies are needed to replicate and confirm findings.

Authors

• Jaclyn A. Saltzman, Harvard University T. H. Chan School of Public Health and Massachusetts General Hospital for Children
  Presenting Author

• Kelly K. Bost, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
  Non-Presenting Author

• Brent McBride, University of Illinois at Urbana/Champaign
  Non-Presenting Author

• Barbara Fiese, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
  Non-Presenting Author