Preschooler Negativity Predicts Increased Maternal Negativity for Dyads in Which Mothers Have Borderline Personality Disorder

• In Event: Bidirectional Influences Among Mother-Child Dyads: Exploring Child-Directed Effects Across Multiple Timescales

Abstract

Children of mothers with Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD) are at risk for early signs of mental health problems, with poorer parenting identified as a key mechanism conferring this risk (Eyden et al., 2016). To date, the maternal BPD literature has almost exclusively examined the unidirectional influence of maternal BPD on parenting and child outcomes, and has not considered the role that child difficult behaviors play in shaping mother’s parenting quality, akin to more modern formulations within the parenting literature that show difficult child behavior reciprocally influences greater maternal negativity. Because maternal BPD is characterized by extreme deficits in emotion regulation, a prerequisite to effective parenting, mothers with BPD may have pronounced negativity expressed toward their child, especially in the context of sustained child negative behavior. Using a clinical sample of mothers with BPD who have preschool-age children and a control group, we examined if heightened child negativity predicted greater maternal negativity in the context of maternal BPD. We will further test if maternal emotion dysregulation and child negativity predict steeper increases in observed maternal negativity over the course of a challenging dyadic task, hypothesizing that mothers with extreme emotion dysregulation may exhibit even more negativity over time.

Participants were 159 mothers and their preschool-aged children, enrolled in a two-site randomized clinical trial. Mothers in the control group (n=77) did not endorse any mental disorders since conception of their child, and mothers in the elevated BPD group (n=82) had BPD symptoms assessed using a structured clinical interview. Maternal emotion dysregulation was measured using the Difficulties in Emotion Regulation Scale. Maternal and child negativity were coded observationally in 1-minute epochs during a challenging 5-minute interaction task, where dyads were asked to build a LEGO figure too complex for children to build alone.

First, independent t-tests showed that maternal negativity scores were significantly different between the control and elevated BPD groups (ps<.05), with BPD mothers demonstrating greater negativity. However, child negativity did not significantly differ between groups (ps>.05). Next, moderation analyses were conducted, and supported our hypothesis showing a significant interaction (see Figure 1) between maternal BPD status and child negativity (β=.37, t=2.38, p=.02) predicting greater maternal negativity. Simple slopes analyses demonstrated a positive association between child and maternal negativity among BPD mothers (β=.45,t=5.04, p<.001), but not control mothers (β=.08, t=0.68, p=.50). Next, latent growth curve models showed that child negativity predicted higher initial levels of maternal negativity for mothers with BPD (β=.22, p=.014), but not for control mothers (β=.02, p=0.63). Contrary to hypotheses, neither child negativity nor maternal emotion dysregulation significantly predicted slopes of maternal negativity in BPD mothers or control mothers.

These findings suggest that for mothers with BPD, greater child negative behaviors have a significantly greater influence on mothers’ own negative behaviors towards their child. This is especially noteworthy as children of mothers with BPD traits did not exhibit greater negativity compared to children of control mothers during the task. Discussion of these results will highlight potential implications for parenting interventions, particularly for dyads characterized by maternal extreme emotion dysregulation.

Authors

• Angela H. Lee, University of Oregon
  Presenting Author

• Bryan Mantell, University of Oregon
  Non-Presenting Author

• Stephanie Stepp, University of Pittsburgh
  Non-Presenting Author

• Maureen Zalewski, University of Oregon
  Non-Presenting Author