Mothers' interactions with normal and conduct-disordered boys: Who affects whom?

Compared the reactions of 16 mothers of 6–11 yr old conduct-disordered (CD) boys with those of 16 mothers of normal boys. The dyads in the 2 groups were matched pairwise on age and sex of the child and education of the mother. Each mother interacted with her own child (CD or normal) and with 2 other children of the same or different classification over 3 tasks in a laboratory. Mothers' positive, negative, or requesting behaviors and the children's compliance were counted. The 2 groups of mothers did not differ in the 3 behaviors, but they all addressed more negatives and requests to CD than to normal children. CD children were less compliant, irrespective of type of mother. The type of mother?×?type of child interaction did not produce a significant effect on either mothers' or children's behavior. Findings suggest that the child's, and not the mother's, behavioral tendency is the major influence in CD. Mothers of CD children were also more coercive toward their own children than to other CD children, indicating the operation of transactional effects arising from cumulative past interactions. (28 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Interactional correlates of treatment outcome in behavioral parent training.

52 21–38 yr old mothers and their 2–11 yr old children took part in a behavioral parent-training program to modify aggressive and oppositional child behavior. Several measures of mother–child interaction were obtained for each dyad at baseline, treatment, and follow-up. Measures included sociodemographic variables and home observations. After 1-yr follow-up, measures were compared between dyads who succeeded in the program and dyads who did not. Results show that: (1) unsuccessful mothers were more aversive and indiscriminate in their use of aversive behavior toward their children than successful mothers in all phases; (2) unsuccessful children were more aversive than successful children, but only in treatment and follow-up; and (3) all children evidenced some degree of indiscriminate aversive responding. The majority of unsuccessful dyads scored high on several measures of socioeconomic disadvantage, suggesting that such interactional differences might provide a link to account in part for the impact of adverse socioeconomic factors on mother–child interaction. (32 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Depressive symptoms among physically abused and psychiatrically disturbed children.

Examined the relation of physical abuse and depressive symptoms among 79 6–13 yr old child psychiatric inpatients. Childhood depression, hopelessness, and self-esteem were assessed through questionnaire or interview measures administered to the children. 79 25–52 yr old mothers or maternal guardians also completed measures to evaluate their children's dysfunction. As predicted, the 33 physically abused children, compared with the 46 nonphysically abused patient controls, evinced significantly lower self-esteem and greater depression and negative expectations toward their futures. Among abused children, those with both past and current abuse showed more severe symptoms of depression that did those with either past or current abuse only. The differences in depressive symptoms between abused and nonabused children could not be accounted for by differences in child psychiatric diagnosis, age, race, gender, IQ, or severity of psychopathology or parent psychiatric diagnoses, marital, or SES. Results suggest that physical abuse, at least for a psychiatric patient sample, is related to symptoms of depression. The possible basis for this relation and the treatment implications are discussed. (36 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Effects of domestic violence on children's behavior problems and depression.

The Children's Depression Inventory, Child Behavior Checklist, and Youth Self-Report were completed by mothers, fathers, and their 8–12 yr old children to assess the effects of various types of domestic violence on children's behavior problems and depression. 110 Israeli children from lower-class families were identified through social service records. 33 of the children had been physically abused by their parents within the last 6 mo, 16 had witnessed spouse abuse, 30 had been both victims and witnesses of domestic violence, and 31 had experienced no known domestic violence. Overall, domestic violence had effects on child development that varied in magnitude and nature depending on the type of domestic violence and who reported the information about the child's adjustment. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Filial therapy: An intervention for parents of children with chronic illness.

Describes the use of filial therapy as an intervention with families of chronically ill children. Filial therapy is an extension of play therapy which uses the behaviors of the client-centered play therapist in a family skills training program. Ss were 5 29–36 yr old mothers of 4.5–8.0 yr old children with chronic illnesses. Parents completed the State–Trait Anxiety Inventory and Parental Acceptance Scale (B. R. Porter, 1952) before and after participating in filial therapy sessions. Children completed the Child Anxiety Scale. Results show that filial therapy can have a positive impact on parents of children with chronic illness. Parents were better able to accurately judge their child's level of anxiety and reported differentiation between themselves and their children. Qualitative reports of outcomes indicate that the parents believed that the course had a positive impact on their relationships with their children. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Lightning-strike disaster: Effects on children's fears and worries.

Administered a fear survey to 29 10–13 yr old children and their mothers who had been participants or observers when lightning struck a soccer game with a force that knocked down most of the participants and observers and led to the death of 1 participant. Two control children were matched to each lightning-strike (LS) child for age, sex, and SES, making a total of 58 controls. In addition, measures of Ss' sleep disturbances and somatic complaints were obtained from their mothers, and the interviewer rated each LS S for the extent of emotional upset caused by the disaster. Results show that differences between the LS and control groups were most pronounced for child-reported fears. The generalization gradient was fairly consistent with expectations from classical conditioning theory. The correspondence between the mothers' and children's reports of intense storm-related fears was markedly larger in the LS Ss than in the controls. Child-reported fears showed a number of substantial relations with mother-reported sleep and somatic problems and with interviewer-rated emotional upset. (26 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

An observational approach to the assessment of anxiety in young children.

Clinical research on anxiety has often relied on assessment techniques that may be inappropriate with young children (e.g., self-report inventories). The present article describes a scale using observational methodology. To assess the reliability and validity of this instrument, the Preschool Observational Scale of Anxiety (POSA), 36 2.6–4.11 yr old preschoolers were observed and scored on the scale during 2 test sessions. Session 1, with mothers absent, was expected to provoke minimal anxiety. Total POSA scores assigned by 2 independent judges correlated .78, with highly significant interjudge correlations for most of the scale items. It was found that (a) POSA scores were significantly correlated with teachers' (Teachers' Separation Anxiety Scale) and parents' (Parent Anxiety Rating Scale) inventory ratings of children's anxiety, and (b) children's POSA scores were significantly higher in Session 1 than Session 2. The findings suggest that the POSA may provide a means of assessing situationally induced anxiety in children who are too young to accurately report their internal states. (38 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Parent–child interaction and the acquisition of lexical information during play.

Examined individual play interactions of 14 pairs of parents with their preschool-aged boys and girls (2.6–4.11 yrs old) to determine the ways mothers and fathers provided and elicited lexical information about the names and functions of the parts of a complex toy car. Parents' and children's speech was analyzed for utterances that provided or requested the name (label) or purpose (function) of a car part and for nonlabeling utterances that mentioned the part (term). Analyses revealed significant contrasts between fathers and mothers in their interactive styles and in the amounts and kinds of lexical information they provided and elicited. Fathers' speech contained more different terms than did mothers', and more fathers than mothers described the functions of the car parts. Fathers were also more cognitively and linguistically demanding: More fathers than mothers requested labels and functions from their children. Children, in turn, produced more total vocabulary to fathers than to mothers. These parent–child interaction patterns suggest that fathers and mothers may exert an active influence on children's language development. (4 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Role of maternal depression in perceptions of child maladjustment.

We investigated (a) the relation of maternal depression to perceptions of externalizing and internalizing disorders in children and (b) quality of communication in a mother–child interaction task as a function of maternal depression and perceptions of the child. 64 children of unipolar or bipolar mothers, chronic medically ill or normal mothers were studied; clinical diagnoses, children's reports, and teachers' ratings served as objective criteria of children's maladjustment. Maternal depression defined by current symptomatology on the Beck Depression Inventory and by psychiatric status was not associated with misperceptions of psychopathology. Maternal depression interacted with children's actual behaviors to predict mothers' perceptions: nondepressed mothers were less accurate reporters of problems in children than were depressed mothers. Depressed mothers who perceived maladjustment in their disturbed children made more negative comments in interactions than did nondepressed mothers of disturbed children. The apparent mutual impact of mothers' and children's maladjustment requires fuller exploration in offspring studies. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Children's intention-cue detection as a function of maternal social behavior: Pathways to social rejection.

This study examined the role of maternal social behavior in children's behavioral reactions to provocation. Popular and rejected 1st graders and their mothers independently completed an intention-cue detection task. Mothers also completed a questionnaire assessing if their responses to their child were based on the child's intent. A moderate relation within the mother–child dyad was noted for all measures. Rejected children and their mothers reported more aggressive behavioral responses to nonhostile and ambiguous provocations than did popular children and their mothers. Mothers of popular children provided more prosocial resolutions to provocation than did mothers of rejected children. In addition, mothers of popular children focused more on the intent of their children's actions than did mothers of rejected children, particularly when behavior led to negative outcomes. Implications of these findings in terms of the correlates of social status are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Do children's perceptions and attributions mediate the effects of mothers' child-rearing actions?

The authors analyzed whether the relation between maternal child-rearing behaviors and a child's self-regulation was mediated by the accuracy in the child's perceptions of the mother's goals and methods and by the direction of attributions for the mother's intentions. Sixty mothers with children 7–10 years old were asked how and why they would react in 15 hypothetical situations. Children were interviewed to assess the accuracy of their perceptions and the direction of their attributions. To assess the children's self-regulation, mothers and children were observed planning an excursion. LISREL analysis showed that the reported use of both control and demandingness and of responsiveness has a positive influence on the accuracy of children's perceptions and, in turn, on their self-regulation. However, part of the positive impact of control and demandingness on children's self-regulation was due to the effect of positive attributions on the accuracy of perceptions. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Parental problem-solving speed as a correlate of intelligence in parents and their adopted and natural children.

300 families of adoptive parents and their 5–15 yr old adoptive and natural children took the age-appropriate form of the WAIS or the WISC. An index of speed of problem solving was obtained for each parent based on the times taken to solve easy problems of the Block Design subtest. Speed of solution correlated .26 with Verbal IQ and .51 with Performance IQ among the parents. Parental speed was then correlated with the subtest scores of their children on the WISC. Although mothers' speed correlated negligibly with the scores of adoptive and natural children, fathers' speed correlated more positively with their natural children's Performance scores than with their adopted children's scores. Results suggest a relationship of parental problem-solving speed to children's intellectual performance. (17 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Two-career families: Demographic variables, parenting, and competence in young children.

Data on parenting were collected for 30 families with 1 or 2 3–5.8 yr old children, using home observations, observer ratings, and self-reports. Children's competence was assessed by a preschool behavior Q-sort. Patterns of employment and socioeconomic status (SES) differed for mothers and fathers, apparently in response to the demands of the childbearing and rearing. For both parents, SES was related across methods to parental warmth. Paternal variables were more strongly associated with children's competence than were maternal variables. Partial correlation analyses suggested that the links between paternal measures and competence were mediated by father warmth. These results have implications for models of the processes connecting demographic variables, parenting, and child outcomes. (French abstract) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Down's syndrome temperament and maternal response to descriptions of child behavior.

Administered a behavioral style questionnaire (BSQ) to the mothers of 23 3–6 yr old Down's syndrome children to determine the temperament characteristics of their child and interviewed them with a parental learning theory scale (PLTS) that asked how they would handle certain specified child behaviors. Results show that mothers with temperament rated as easy responded to the PLTS situations with more direct teaching responses and with less verbal expression of negative emotions than mothers of more difficult children. In addition, there were significant associations between maternal PLTS response and the activity, rhythm, approach, adaptability, and mood dimensions of the BSQ. (13 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Developing narrative structure in parent–child reminiscing across the preschool years.

This study is a longitudinal exploration of relations between parents' and children's provision of narrative structure in joint retellings of the past and children's developing personal narrative skills. 15 White, middle-class families participated when children were 40 and 70 mo old. At both ages, mothers and fathers talked separately with children about shared past events and uninformed experimenters elicited children's personal narratives. Whereas mothers and fathers did not differ in how they structured past narratives, children narrated differently with fathers than with mothers. Further, even at 40 mo, girls' narratives were more contexted and evaluative than boys', but parents' provision of narrative structure increased similarly with daughters and sons over time. Children's early abilities to provide evaluative narratives was a strong predictor of their later abilities to provide evaluative narratives; maternal emphasis on evaluations also predicted children's later narrative structure. Parental and child influences on personal narrative skill development are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Patterns of guilt in children of depressed and well mothers.

Expressions of guilt were examined in 87 children, 5–9 years old, in a psychiatric interview and in a semiprojective procedure using vignettes to elicit children's narratives about interpersonal conflict and distress. Psychiatric assessments yielded similar patterns for children of depressed and well mothers, but semiprojective representations differed for the two groups. Children of well mothers showed prototypic expressions of adaptive guilt involving themes of responsibility and reparation, especially at the older ages. In contrast, themes of children of depressed mothers often were aberrant, distorted, and unresolved, indicating possible differences in the etiology and functions of their guilt. Guilt is considered in relation to other dimensions of affect, theories of moral development, patterns of adaptation and maladaptation, and processes of social transmission of emotional problems. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Quality of attachment and early symbolic play.

This research investigated (a) the relationship between the quality of attachment and symbolic play development and (b) differences in the ways mothers of secure and anxious children involved themselves in play. Fifteen mother–child dyads (7 secure, 8 anxious) were filmed at regular intervals in free play from 20–28 months. Results indicated that secure children had longer episodes of symbolic play overall and that at 26 and 28 months they spent more time in the highest level of symbolic play than their anxious peers. When symbolic play variables were contrasted across maternal involvement conditions, secure children were found to have longer episodes and higher level play when mothers were actively engaged in play with them. Thus, mother's involvement appeared to serve a facilitating function for secure, but not anxious, children. When engaged in conversation with an experimenter, mothers of secure children were more involved in their children's play and appeared to favor play in which they actively interacted with the child; in contrast, mothers of anxious children favored passive participation in their children's play. (43 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Maternal evaluation of social reinforcement and time-out: Effects of brief parent training.

28 21–40 yr old middle-class mothers and their noncompliant children, ages 2.6–6.6 yrs, participated in 1 of 3 treatment (social reinforcement, time-out, and social reinforcement plus time-out) conditions or a no-treatment control. Results indicate that in addition to producing greater reductions in noncompliant behavior, time-out is rated as comparable in acceptability to social reinforcement. (6 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Effects of mothers' perceptions of children's competence: The moderating role of mothers' theories of competence.

There is much evidence that parents' perceptions of children's competence affect the development of children's academic functioning. In the current research, the possibility that this is moderated by parents' theories about the stability of competence was examined. In a 2-wave, 1-year study of 126 children (9 to 12 years old) and their mothers, children's academic functioning (i.e., grades, perceptions of competence, attributions for performance, and mastery orientation) and affective functioning (i.e., self-esteem and depressive symptoms) were examined. Among mothers with relatively high entity theories, their perceptions acted as self-fulfilling prophecies foreshadowing children's academic and affective functioning over time. However, among mothers with relatively low entity theories, mothers' perceptions did not predict children's academic and affective functioning. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)