Developmental Pathways from early exposure to maternal depressive symptoms to school adjustment in adolescence

• In Event: Poster Session 14
  In Poster Session: PS 14 Topic - Parenting & Parent-Child Relationships

Abstract

The early exposure to maternal depressive symptoms is a well-known risk factor for a range of offspring’s maladjustment through increased parenting stress and the compromised parenting. Although the well documented link between early exposure to maternal depressive symptoms and children's development, relatively little known is whether the previously proposed mediating processes play developmentally specific roles across infancy, toddlerhood, pre-school age, and early school age to influence children’s adjustment in adolescence. This study examined the extent to which maternal depressive symptoms during infancy influenced children’s school adjustment in adolescence through potential mediators across childhood. We specifically focused on mothers’ parenting stress in toddlerhood, harsh parenting in pre-school age, and children’s poor self-regulation in early school age as underlying mediating processes that might help explain long lasting consequences of early maternal depressive symptoms.
Data for the present study were taken from the Fragile Families and Child Well-Being Study, a national longitudinal study of low-income children born between 1998 and 2000. We focused on married or cohabiting mothers at both ages 1 and 3, and used 1,371 mothers’ reports on maternal depressive symptoms (age 1), parenting stress (age 3), and harsh parenting (age 5), and children’s (48.6% girls) reports on self-regulation (age 9) and school adjustment (age 15) for the analyses.
Results from the structural equation modeling indicated that maternal depressive symptoms at age 1 were positively associated with maternal parenting stress at age 3, which was positively associated with harsh parenting at age 5 and poor self-regulation skills at age 9. Maternal depressive symptoms were also directly associated with children’s poor self-regulation skills, which was negatively associated with their school adjustment at age 15. Additionally, the mediating path from maternal depressive symptoms during infancy to school adjustment in adolescence was significant through increased mothers’ parenting stress and harsh parenting and children’s poor self-regulation during childhood. Further, the mediating path through children’s poor self-regulation was also significant. The direct effects of maternal depressive symptoms on maternal harsh parenting or on children’s school adjustment in adolescence were not significant. Similarly, direct effects of maternal parenting stress and harsh parenting on school adjustment in adolescence were not significant.
Findings from the present study supports the literature that early exposure to maternal depressive symptoms is likely to have long-term implications for children's adjustment. More specifically, our findings highlight that developmentally specific negative cascading processes in which adverse effects of maternal depressive symptoms during infancy affect other domains of maternal functioning across development. Our findings also indicate that targeting to reduce mothers’ parenting stress in toddlerhood and harsh parenting in pre-school age, and subsequently to promote children’s poor self-regulation in early school age via prevention and intervention programs can be an effective way to facilitate school adjustment among children whose mothers experienced depressive symptoms. Given recent evidence on cascading resilience through parenting prevention programs, further implications for potential leverage points that can be considered in support programs that can lead to resilient cascading processes will be discussed.

Authors

• Yunhee Kim, Yonsei University
  Presenting Author

• Wonjung Oh, Texas Tech University
  Non-Presenting Author

• Hyoun K. Kim, Yonsei University
  Non-Presenting Author