Abstract
c e w t e t g p b q E very major theory of the origins of mental health problems, from Sigmund Freud to Gerald Patterson, posits a key causal role for maladaptive parenting. We are, in the shared view of the mental health field, the person created by our parents—but, are we really? This is one of the most important, complicated, and vexing questions facing the mental health sciences. Trying to answer it has proved to be at least as confounding and confusing as navigating carnival funhouse mirrors. In favor of the widely held view that parents causally influence the lives of their children, there are hundreds of studies reporting correlations between variations in parenting and variations in the mental health outcomes of children. In some cases, these correlational studies are predictive, with parenting measured at one point in time and child mental health measured later. Correlation does not equal causation, of course, but these predictive correlations could mean that variations in parenting cause variations in the mental health outcomes of children. In contrast, psychologist Dick Bell taught us years ago that the causal effect could go in the opposite direction: the behavior of children often has profound effects on the ways in which parents interact with them. In a clever and rigorous test of Bell’s child-effects hypothesis, Russell Barkley and Charles Cunningham showed that, although the mothers of children with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder interacted in what appeared to be maladaptive ways with their children, their parenting became significantly more responsive and less demanding when a dose of methylphenidate was taken—by child, not the mother. The improved behavior of the child after taking medication changed the mother’s behavior toward the child. Similarly, longitudinal studies of twins, which J
Published Version
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a call