Genetic and Environmental Associations Between Parenting and Adolescent Externalizing Behavior in China: A Multi-Informant Twin Study

Less is known about the relationship between conduct disorder (CD), callous-unemotional (CU) traits, and positive and negative parenting in youth compared to early childhood. We combined traditional univariate analyses with a novel machine learning classifier (Angle-based Generalized Matrix Learning Vector Quantization) to classify youth (N = 756; 9-18 years) into typically developing (TD) or CD groups with or without elevated CU traits (CD/HCU, CD/LCU, respectively) using youth- and parent-reports of parenting behavior. At the group level, both CD/HCU and CD/LCU were associated with high negative and low positive parenting relative to TD. However, only positive parenting differed between the CD/HCU and CD/LCU groups. In classification analyses, performance was best when distinguishing CD/HCU from TD groups and poorest when distinguishing CD/HCU from CD/LCU groups. Positive and negative parenting were both relevant when distinguishing CD/HCU from TD, negative parenting was most relevant when distinguishing between CD/LCU and TD, and positive parenting was most relevant when distinguishing CD/HCU from CD/LCU groups. These findings suggest that while positive parenting distinguishes between CD/HCU and CD/LCU, negative parenting is associated with both CD subtypes. These results highlight the importance of considering multiple parenting behaviors in CD with varying levels of CU traits in late childhood/adolescence.

Background: Although children’s depressive and anxious symptoms have been broadly construed as internalizing problems, the current study sought to identify factors that may differentially contribute to these two mental health problems in a high-risk sample. Prior research has not adequately tested both depressive versus anxious symptoms simultaneously, nor has it adequately considered the role of negative versus positive parenting simultaneously, thereby neglecting the potential overlap in both sets of constructs. Overlooking such potential statistical overlap obfuscates how factors may differentially contribute to either depressive versus anxious symptoms. Existing research has also focused on lower-risk community samples. Method: The present study investigated whether children’s negative self-concept or maladaptive attributional style mediated the link between both negative and positive parenting in a racially diverse, at-risk sample of 65 primary school-age children recruited from mental health agencies. Results: When tested together, more negative parenting, but not less positive parenting, retained direct effects on both depressive and anxious symptoms. Both negative self-concept and maladaptive attributional style fully mediated the association between less positive parenting and children’s depressive symptoms, whereas positive self-concept, but not attributional style, mediated between less positive parenting and anxious symptoms. Conclusions: The current findings underscore potential differential intervention targets for these two internalizing problems and highlight the need for future research to consider both depressive and anxious symptoms, and related predictors, simultaneously to control for their shared variance.

This study investigated how genetic susceptibility may affect children's sensitivity to parenting practices in their development of externalizing behavior. We created a continuous polygenic index composed of 5 dopamine polymorphisms to investigate the moderating role of dopamine-related genes in shaping parent-child gene-by-environment (Gc×E) interactions. Accumulating research supports that differences in children's dopamine neurotransmission make certain children more susceptible to both negative and positive parenting practices, a "for-better and for-worse" effect. Data from a 3-wave longitudinal study (4 months between waves) on 190 at-risk families with children aged 4 to 8 were used to investigate whether a heightened polygenic index score amplified the associations between negative and positive parenting and later children's externalizing behavior. Parenting practices and child externalizing behavior were assessed by parent-reported questionnaires. Findings were not in line with the expectation that there was a stronger association between positive and negative parenting and later externalizing behavior for children with higher scores on the polygenic susceptibility index. Rather, children with a lower score on the polygenic susceptibility index showed more later externalizing behavior in response to positive parenting behavior, whereas for children with a higher score on the polygenic index, positive parenting was predictive of relatively lower levels of later child externalizing behavior. The results indicate that not only are children with higher but also lower scores on the polygenic index sensitive to parenting, they suggest that different phenotypical characteristics related to reward processing might underlie these genetic susceptibilities to parenting practices.

We investigated whether parenting and child behavior improve following psychosocial treatment for Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder, Predominantly Inattentive Presentation (ADHD-I) and whether parenting improvements mediate child outcomes. We analyzed data from a randomized clinical trial investigating the efficacy of a multicomponent psychosocial intervention (Child Life and Attention Skills, CLAS, n=74) in comparison to Parent-Focused Treatment (PFT, n=74) and treatment as usual (TAU, n=51) for youth with ADHD-I (average child age=8.6years, range 7-11years, 58% boys). Child and parent/family functioning were assessed prior to treatment, immediately following treatment, and at follow-up into the subsequent school year using parent and teacher reports of inattention, organization, social skills, academic competency (teachers only), parenting daily hassles, and positive and negative parenting behaviors (parents only). Both treatment groups improved on negative parenting and home impairment, but only CLAS families also improved on positive parenting as well as academic impairment. Improvements in positive and negative parenting mediated treatment effects on child impairment independent of improvements in child inattention, implicating parenting as an important mechanism of change in psychosocial treatment for ADHD-I. Further, whereas parent-focused training produces improvements in negative parenting and impairment at home for children with ADHD-I, a multicomponent approach (incorporating child skills training and teacher consultation) more consistently produces improvements at school and in positive parenting, which may contribute to improvements in social skills into the next school year.

Positive parenting experience can serve as a key psychological resource for parents and caretakers of children with autism spectrum disorders (ASDs). However, there has been limited evidence on the psychometric validity of measures to assess this construct, especially in non-Western contexts. This research explored the psychometric properties of two subscales in the Kansas Positive Contributions Subscales (i.e. happiness and fulfilment and strength and family closeness) in Chinese parents of children with ASD. Results of confirmatory factor analyses showed that the scores from the modified two-factor model of positive parenting experience had the best fit. Both subscales had moderate reliability coefficients. Furthermore, happiness and fulfilment and strength and family closeness were linked to lower levels of child’s externalizing behaviors. This study contributes to scarce evidence on measuring positive parenting experience in non-Western cultural contexts.

Family factors and parenting in Ukraine

This study examined the extent to which positive and negative parenting relates to conduct problems (CP) and callous-unemotional (CU) traits among 172 adolescents (72% males; Mage=16.91years, SD=.67) with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder and whether CU traits moderate the link between parenting and CP. Mothers reported on their adolescents' CP, CU traits, and their own parenting practices. Maternal behaviors were observed during a problem-solving communication task. Parents who engaged in more positive parenting (self-reported and observed) reported their adolescents as having lower levels of CU traits. No effect was found for negative parenting. Moderation analyses indicated that lower levels of positive maternal behavior was only associated with higher CP in the presence of higher levels of CU traits. Negative parenting was positively related to CP regardless of CU traits. Positive parenting, irrespective of measurement approach, uniquely relates to adolescents' CU traits while both positive and negative parenting relate to CP.

There is a dearth of evidence from non-Western populations and contexts in the sport psychology literature. With increasing attention given to the development of cultural sport psychology and decentralizing sport psychology evidence, this is the first study to document the effectiveness of applied interventions in non-Western populations (herein, India). With a rigorous methodological design, we randomly distributed a sample of 90 adolescents into three skill groups (discrete, serial, and continuous) and separated them across the team and individual sports. A random assignment of participants to two experimental groups, that is, imagery and video modeling interventions, and a control group was conducted for the duration of a 66-day intervention. Sport psychology imagery and video modeling interventions were provided in addition to skills training across all groups. Repeated-measures analyses of variance demonstrated that the intervention groups exhibited positive outcomes on skill execution (across discrete, serial, and continuous skills) and anxiety compared with the control group (p < .05). The findings of this study provide novel evidence that video modeling and imagery interventions are effective among a non-Western adolescent population. The context of this high-impact intervention case study, the intervention, and the challenges of developing and delivering the intervention are discussed along with their practical significance for future research and applied practice.

The abundance and diversity of host-associated Prevotella species have a profound impact on human health. To investigate the composition, diversity, and functional roles of Prevotella in the human gut, a population-wide analysis was carried out on 586 healthy samples from western and non-western populations including the largest Indian cohort comprising of 200 samples, and 189 Inflammatory Bowel Disease samples from western populations. A higher abundance and diversity of Prevotella copri species enriched in complex plant polysaccharides metabolizing enzymes, particularly pullulanase containing polysaccharide-utilization-loci (PUL), were found in Indian and non-western populations. A higher diversity of oral inflammations-associated Prevotella species and an enrichment of virulence factors and antibiotic resistance genes in the gut microbiome of western populations speculates an existence of a mouth-gut axis. The study revealed the landscape of Prevotella composition in the human gut microbiome and its impact on health in western and non-western populations.

Despite existing research on the contribution of social context and religiosity to adolescent behavioral outcomes, few studies have attempted to explore this topic among Muslim adolescents in non-Western settings, looking at both positive and negative outcomes. In response to this gap, the current study explored the effects of three dimensions of developmental assets (positive parenting, community support, and religiosity) on risk, prosocial, and thriving behaviors among Muslim adolescents ( N = 895) from Malaysia. Hierarchical regression results revealed positive parenting as the greatest protective factor against risk behavior, religiosity as the most significant promotive factor of prosocial behaviors, and community support as the greatest contributor to adolescent thriving. In the final model, unique effects varied by outcome. The findings support the importance and universality of multiple levels of developmental assets for youth development, and highlight the need to better understand their interaction in non-Western cultural contexts.

The present study examined the role of positive parenting on externalizing behaviors in a longitudinal, genetically informative sample. It often is assumed that positive parenting prevents behavior problems in children via an environmentally mediated process. Alternatively, the association may be due to either an evocative gene-environment correlation, in which parents react to children's genetically-influenced behavior in a positive way, or a passive gene-environment correlation, where parents passively transmit a risk environment and the genetic risk factor for the behavioral outcome to their children. The present study estimated the contribution of these processes in the association between positive parenting and children's externalizing behavior. Positive parenting was assessed via observations at ages 7, 9, 14, 24, and 36 months and externalizing behaviors were assessed through parent report at ages 4, 5, 7, 9, 10, 11, and 12 years. The significant association between positive parenting and externalizing behavior was negative, with children of mothers who showed significantly more positive parenting during toddlerhood having lower levels of externalizing behavior in childhood; however, there was not adequate power to distinguish whether this covariation was due to genetic, shared environmental, or nonshared environmental influences.

This study examined the effects of parents' positive and negative affect and behavior while interacting with their preschool child and the moderating role of child temperament in predicting children's subsequent difficulty with socially appropriate behavior around school-entry. Independent observational measures were used to assess child temperament (dysphoria; exuberance) and parenting at age 3, and multi-informant reports of child socially appropriate behavior were collected at age 6 (N = 219). Hierarchical multiple regression analyses revealed that children's temperamental dysphoria moderated the relationship between positive parenting and later socially appropriate behavior. High- and low-dysphoric children trended in opposite directions; highly dysphoric children experienced greater difficulty with socially appropriate behavior as levels of positive parenting increased, whereas low-dysphoric children experienced less difficulty with socially appropriate behavior with higher levels of positive parenting. There was also an interaction between positive and negative parenting, whereby the combination of elevated positive and negative parenting predicted children's later difficulty with socially appropriate behavior. The findings suggest that positive parenting interacts with early child temperament and negative parenting to impact the development of children's socially appropriate behavior.

This research examined predictors of positive and negative parenting behaviors in homeless families. Personal and social resources were tested as predictors of parenting in an ethnically heterogeneous sample of 38 homeless children between the ages of 6 and 12 and their parents. Parents' social support networks included few familiar intimates. Social support did not predict positive or negative parenting. Stressors predicted negative but not positive parenting. Parental physical health and self-esteem mediated the relationship between stressors and negative parenting. Stressors significantly predicted parents' mental health, but mental health was not a significant mediator of negative parenting.

Based on a family systems perspective, this research examined the role of parental gender and family play context in parent–toddler interactions and how behaviours of family members influence each other. Sixty‐seven mostly White, middle‐class families consisting of a mother, father and toddler were videotaped in three separate sessions: mother–child, father–child and both parents–child at a university laboratory setting. The results indicated that there were significant main effects of both parent gender (mother versus father) and context (dyadic versus triadic) on parents' positive and negative parenting and children's engagement and negativity toward parents. Higher levels of mutual engagement between mothers and toddlers were associated with lower levels of fathers' positive parenting and children's engagement with fathers, when moving from the dyadic to the triadic play context. However, fathers' mutual engagement with toddlers was not associated with mothers' parenting quality and child interactive behaviours with mothers. There were also interaction effects of parent gender and context on parents' negative parenting and children's engagement and negativity toward parents. This study adds unique insights to the differences and similarities of parent–child dyadic and triadic interactions during toddlerhood. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

BackgroundDisruptive behaviour disorders are a common set of diagnoses in childhood and adolescence, with global estimates of 5.7%. The most investigated risk factor for disruptive behaviour disorders is parenting practices....