Mother-child Relationship Research Articles

Parent-child dance and movement therapy (PCDMT): mothers’ subjective experiences

ABSTRACT This article presents and discusses the subjective experiences of mothers who took part in group Parent-Child Dance and Movement Therapy (PCDMT) with their children. A semi-structured, open-ended interview was conducted with 18 mothers on their experiences as active participants in the therapeutic process and the effects of this process on the relationship with their children. Grounded theory analysis revealed four themes: (1) The contribution of group PCDMT to the mother-child relationship. (2) Movement as a therapeutic intervention in group PCDMT. (3) The mothers’ insights deriving from therapeutic process. (4) The mothers’ perceptions of PCDMT in a group setting. The findings suggest that the dyadic joint movement activity contributes significantly to the relational fabric between these mothers and children.

Intimate partner violence, maternal depression, and pathways to children's language ability at 10 years.

Intimate partner violence (IPV) between parents is associated with poorer child language development. This study aimed to examine pathways from IPV and maternal depressive symptoms in children's 1st year to language skills at 10 years. Pathways were examined via IPV, maternal depressive symptoms, and maternal involvement in home learning activities (e.g., reading, storytelling) at age 4. A secondary aim was to examine whether these pathways differed by child gender. Data were drawn from 1,507 mothers and their firstborn children participating in a community-based prospective longitudinal study. At child age 1 and 4 years, mothers reported IPV using the Composite Abuse Scale (CAS) and completed a depression scale. At child age 10 years, mothers completed the Children's Communication Checklist (2nd edition) Short Form and 4 pragmatic subscales, and children completed a receptive vocabulary test. Results provided some evidence that maternal depressive symptoms at 4 years postpartum may be an important mechanism by which exposure to IPV and maternal depressive symptoms in the child's 1st year is associated with poorer language at age 10. These pathways remained evident after accounting for social disadvantage, number of siblings, and concurrent IPV exposure at 10 years. There was little evidence that the pathways were mediated by maternal involvement or differed by gender. Implications for speech pathology, health, and education professionals concern identifying and supporting the language needs of children in family contexts where IPV is present. Intervention strategies for families affected by IPV such as supporting maternal mental health and the mother-child relationship could be extended to support child language development. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2021 APA, all rights reserved).

Analysis of the early mother-child relationship in schizophrenic patients.

The mother as the first caregiver plays a significant role in the formation of the child's behavior, growth, and communication. The present study aimed to analyze the early mother-child relationship in schizophrenic patients. This qualitative study employed a descriptive phenomenological approach. The participants were male patients with schizophrenia who were hospitalized in Qazvin Bahman Psychiatric Hospital from March to September 2020 with an age range of over 18 years. Given the objective of the study, the data were collected using semi-structured interviews. The participants were selected using purposive sampling and the sampling procedure continued until data saturation as the point when no new information is observed in the data. Accordingly, the data were saturated after interviewing 15 participants. The data were analyzed using Colaizzi's seven-step method. The analysis of the data revealed four main themes including ambivalent attachment to the mother, feelings of constant fear and worry, a sense of constant care for the mother, and a cold and emotionless relationship with the child. The present study suggested that schizophrenia is a disorder that affects the mother-child relationship, and does the term "schizophrenic mothers" need to be reconsidered? However, the result of this research has been done according to the nature and cultural context of Iranian society.

Impact of Intimate Partner Violence on Parenting and Children's Externalizing Behaviors: Transactional Processes Over Time.

This study used longitudinal data to examine the transactional associations between mothers’ spanking and mother–child relationship quality with children’s externalizing behaviors in the context of intimate partner violence (IPV). Data came from a sample of 1,152 low-income mothers with children age 10–14 years. Results showed that past-year IPV triggered transactional associations by increasing children’s externalizing behaviors which, in turn, increased spanking and subsequently more externalizing behaviors. Transactional associations were also found for relationship quality. All outcomes used were mothers-reported except relationship quality. Implications for practice include the importance of the mother–child dyad and their reciprocal processes in assessment and treatment.

Implicit Aspects of Relationships as Predictors of Adjustment in Middle Childhood; Mutual Recognition and Role Confusion

Explicit and implicit aspects of the mother-child relationship in middle childhood are thought to contribute to the development of child individuation in the context of close and protective relations. Implicit (nonverbal, procedural and non-conscious) aspects of the mother-child relationship were examined as predictors of children’s adjustment through the Joint Painting Procedure (JPP). A multi-method research design was implemented to assess the implicit interactions between mother and child in terms of mutual recognition and role confusion beyond the child’s temperament (effortful control) on a sample of 87 Jewish Israelis aged 9–12 and their mothers. The explicit aspects of the relationships were assessed on validated relationship questionnaires completed by both mothers and children. A high level of mutual recognition and a low level of role confusion as expressed in the Joint Painting Procedure were associated with better academic adaptation, and a low level of role confusion was associated with social adaptation. The implicit aspects predicted children’s adjustment beyond the measures of explicit aspects and temperament. These findings thus point to the importance of assessing and treating implicit aspects of relationships.

Longitudinal Associations Between Mother–Child and Father–Child Closeness and Conflict From Middle Childhood to Adolescence

ObjectiveThe present study aimed at examining the longitudinal associations between closeness and conflict in mother–child and father–child relationships from middle childhood to adolescence.MethodUsing six‐wave longitudinal data of mother–child and father–child relationships from Grades 1 to 9 from the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development Study of Early Child Care and Youth Development study (N = 1,105 families; 79% European White, 21% ethnic minorities), the present study used multivariate longitudinal modeling to address the research goal.ResultsFor mother–child relationships, higher levels of conflict at Grade 1 were significantly associated with slower increases in conflict and greater declines in closeness over time, while controlling for the effects of demographic variables. Moreover, findings suggest coordination of change across mothers and fathers, such that sharper decreases in closeness (or increases in conflict) between mothers and children were associated with sharper decreases in closeness (or increases in conflict) between fathers and children.ConclusionThe present study contributes to the literature by elucidating the complexities of the dynamic changes in parent–child relationships and highlighting the importance of including both mothers and fathers in the same model.ImplicationsOur findings have important implications for family practitioners and education and intervention programs aimed at supporting families in coping with the challenges in tuning parent–child relationships during adolescence.

Like daughter, like grandson: Queering post-traumatic memory

Queer and trauma theory both concern internal experiences that challenge normative social frameworks. Considering the roles of queerness within trauma and memory studies opens interpretive pathways for otherwise discredited or inaccessible meanings. It also relates survivors’ receding knowledge to those currently “queered” or endangered. With a focus on childhood and mother-child relationships, this article maps intersections of memory studies, queer theory, and trauma theory, applying subsequent insights to an “autotheoretical” analysis of the author’s own transnational, post-Holocaust family across four generations. It explores the possibility through queer studies of excavating new post-traumatic meanings and relating those meanings to present contexts.

On processing maternal absence, dysfunction and traumatic familial disruption in an early adolescent

ABSTRACT This article describes the course of a psychotherapy with a depressed encopretic boy, using a psychoanalytic approach. The therapy was administered in a public welfare clinic in Israel. Based on an understanding of how the boy’s developmental needs had been neglected, an appropriate intervention programme was constructed and implemented. The principal insights determining the course pursued by the psychotherapist included the understanding acquired of the dysfunction and absences within the mother-child relationship during the boy’s early years, and the need for the therapist to provide corrective and containing maternal emotional experiences, together with insight regarding the repercussions on the boy’s emotional life. Additional understanding was gained about the role of the boy’s encopresis, which comprised a symptom, and seemed to be a response to the repressed, unmodulated regressive anger towards the internal maternal figure, owing to the parents’ difficulties in meeting the boy’s primary developmental needs.

Psychological distress and mother-child relationship: influence of life context on a population sample (BRISA) through the use of directed acyclic graphs (DAG).

This study aimed to investigate the association between maternal psychological distress and impairment in mother-child relationship in a sample from a Northeast capital city in Brazil with a low Human Development Index, using directed acyclic graphs (DAG). A total of 3,215 women were evaluated for the presence of psychological distress through the Self Reporting Questionnaire instrument and for the mother-child relationship by the first factor of Postpartum Bonding Questionnaire, considered the most appropriate in the literature. Demographic and socioeconomic variables were used to construct a theoretical model and, after this, multivariate logistic regression was performed using variables suggested by Directed Acyclic Graphs (DAG). Psychological distress was present in 22.7% of the women and 12.6% of them presented impaired mother-child relationships. After adjustment, the variable ‘maternal mental distress' remained associated with impaired mother-child relationship (RR=3.03), and among the explanatory variables only ‘primary school level' (RR=1.48) was associated as a risk factor to this outcome. The results indicated that, in this population, women with psychological distress and lower schooling are more likely to present impaired mother-child relationships.

Parental divorce, interparental conflict, and parent-child relationships in Spanish young adults

El principal objetivo de este estudio fue analizar las asociaciones entre el divorcio parental y el conflicto interparental con la calidad de las relaciones paterno-filiales y materno-filiales, en una muestra española de 1078 adultos jóvenes. También se analizó la función moderadora del género de estos adultos jóvenes. Nuestros resultados sugirieron que el conflicto interparental se asocia con relaciones paterno-filiales y materno-filiales de menor calidad, mientras que el divorcio parental se asocia de forma más negativa con la calidad de la relación con el padre que con la madre. Además, el género de los hijos adultos únicamente moderó la asociación entre el divorcio parental y la calidad de las relaciones paterno-filiales, de manera que las mujeres de familias divorciadas obtienen puntuaciones más bajas en la calidad de la relación paterno-filial que las mujeres de familias no divorciadas. Los resultados aportan mayor información a la literatura empírica existente y promueven una mejor comprensión de las asociaciones complejas existentes entre el divorcio y conflicto parental con la calidad de las relaciones parento-filiales, en un contexto cultural donde hay escasa investigación sobre el tema. The main aim of this study was to analyze the associations between parental divorce and interparental conflict with father-child and mother-child relationship quality, in a Spanish young adult sample. The moderating effect of adult child´s gender was also analyzed. Using a sample of 1,078 Spanish young adults, our results suggested that interparental conflict was more strongly associated with lower mother-child and father-child relationship quality, and that parental divorce was more strongly associated with father-child relationship quality than with mother-child relationship quality. In addition, adult child´s gender only moderated the effect of parental divorce on father-child relationship quality, such that women from divorced families score lower on father-child relationship quality than women from non-divorced families. Findings add to the existing literature and promote a better comprehension of the complex associations between parental divorce and conflict with parent-child relationship quality in an understudied cultural context.

The Aesthetics of “the good-enough mother” in Lucy Caldwell’s Short Fiction

It has been argued that “Troubles texts” tend to focus on identity formation, on violence and mimetic behaviour, on essentialist positions and on how they cause stasis and lack of emotion, while many short fiction writers have tried to deconstruct these phenomena. This article highlights how Lucy Caldwell’s Multitudes (2016) and Intimacies (2021) seem to be developing her own literary alternative in an aesthetics of “the good-enough mother”. Content-wise her short stories focus on mother-child relationships in which identity is less important than interaction; respect for the Other prevails, and most mothers encourage their children to develop their creative selves, often via a transitional object. On the formal level too, Caldwell’s economic prose reflects Winnicott’s holding and detoxifying, yet challenging “good-enough mother”, inviting the readers to participate in an anti-dualistic aesthetic, where abstract and concrete aspects are tightly interwoven and a fresh sense of life is fuelled by the powers of the imagination.

Optimization of neonatal hospital care for very preterm babies while supporting early parent-child relationships

Research shows that not only medical but also psychological factors such as parents' emotional state, their parenting skills, quality of very early relationships with the infant influence child's physical and mental health and development. The support of good infant-mother relationships is an essential part of early family-centered help to premature babies. The article reviews existing evidence-based programs of neonatal care and support of early mother-child relationships for preterm babies at the hospital. It covers three main directions: discussing with parents prognosis of a child's health and development; supporting natural conditions of child development, and including parents into child early care and observation. Data presented in the article shows that if using each of the mentioned above directions that are important for quality early care and interaction, positive dynamics is seen both on parents' and preterm infant's side. Designated programs can be widely implemented in neonatal intensive care units for children born before term, including those with extremely low body weight when they achieve clinical stabilization. The material presented in the article may be used as the scientific base for implementing in Russian Federation early care system both at the hospital level and, later, in the family environment. It also constitutes new directions for research of preterm babies and their parents.

Maternal Labor Supply: Perceived Returns, Constraints, and Social Norms

We design a new survey to elicit quantifiable, interpersonally comparable beliefs about pecuniary and non-pecuniary benefits and costs to maternal labor supply decisions, to study how beliefs vary across and within different groups in the population and to analyze how those beliefs relate to choices. In terms of pecuniary returns, mothers' (and fathers') later-life earnings are perceived to increase the more hours the mother works while her child is young. Similarly, respondents perceive higher non-pecuniary returns to children's cognitive and non-cognitive skills the more hours a mother works and the more time her child spends in childcare. Family outcomes on the other hand, such as the quality of the mother-child relationship and child satisfaction, are perceived to be the highest when the mother works part-time, which is also the option most respondents believe their friends and family would like them to choose. There is a large heterogeneity in the perceived availability of full-time childcare and relaxing constraints could substantially increase maternal labor supply. Importantly, it is perceptions about the non-pecuniary returns to maternal labor supply as well as beliefs about the opinions of friends and family that are found to be strong predictors of maternal labor supply decisions, while beliefs about labor market returns are not.

Two Generations of Mother-Child Relationships: A Self-determination Theory Analysis of the Social Situation of Development.

This study used self-determination theory to examine the intergenerational continuity of the social situation of development with a focus on what determines a woman's basic psychological need support for her child. To assess the relationship between the basic need support a woman received from her own mother, the woman's basic need support toward her own child, and the quality of the woman-child interaction. The scales, "Parent-child interaction" and "Basic Psychological Needs," were administered. Eighty-seven women (29-40 years old) with children age 4-5 years assessed the basic need support provided for them by their mother in childhood and at present, and her estimate of the basic need support she herself provides to her own child. Analyses included descriptive statistics, Wilcoxon signed-rank tests, factor analysis, and multiple linear regression. The ratio of levels of basic need support demonstrated continuity across generations. Intergenerational continuity in the child's basic need support mainly concerns the needs for competence and relatedness: the more they were supported in childhood and are now supported by the woman's mother, the more the woman supports them in her own child today. Such continuity was not found for autonomy support. A woman's own basic need support by her mother, in childhood and currently, and the woman's provision of basic need support for her child predicted most of the woman-child interaction parameters. Intergenerational continuity with respect to provision of basic need support was shown. The woman-child interaction was predicted by basic need support across intergenerational relations.

Mother–child relationships at the Mosuo

The author, a psychoanalyst and anthropologist, describes her observations of Mosuo culture in regard to family arrangements and child-rearing. Her psychoanalytically informed fieldwork leads to observations about how a matriarchal culture without formal marriage or fatherhood deals with issues of attachment, sexuality, aggression, and socially flexible yet stable social structure. She concludes with observations on her own experience in a culture quite unlike the European culture in which psychoanalytic ideas have been developed.

Republication de : Accouchement normal : accompagnement de la physiologie et interventions médicales. Recommandations de la Haute Autorité de Santé (HAS) avec la collaboration du Collège national des gynécologues obstétriciens français (CNGOF) et du Collège national des sages-femmes de France (CNSF) – accueil du nouveau-né en salle de naissances

ObjectivesThe purpose of this literature review is to make recommendations regarding the first steps and care provided to the healthy newborn. MethodsConsultation of the Medline database, and of national and international guidelines. ResultsThe initial assessment of the newborn should quickly determine whether resuscitation is necessary or not. Any anomaly requires the help of the pediatrician (Consensus agreement). For a newborn with no cardiorespiratory adaptation, delayed cord clamping may be considered more as a physiological modality of delivery, which may help prevent iron deficiency in the first months of life, without deleterious effects for the child or his/her mother, apart from a slightly increased risk of neonatal jaundice (gradeC). In order to avoid separating a woman and her child, it is recommended to postpone routine postnatal procedures, to allow for skin-to-skin contact between the mother and the newborn, if she wishes, according to a defined/specified surveillance protocol (grade B). Breastfeeding should be encouraged, and supported, especially the first time (Consensus agreement). In the absence of suggestive clinical signs, aspiration of the upper airways and systematic verification of the permeability of posterior nasal apertures and of the esophagus are not recommended (Consensus agreement). The prevention of hemorrhagic disease of the newborn by the oral administration of vitamin K1 to all healthy term babies begins in the delivery room, preferably in the presence of the parents and after having obtained their consent (Consensus agreement). ConclusionRegarding the birth of a healthy newborn, it is strongly advised to avoid unnecessary technical actions and to favor the mother–child relationship in a safe environment.

Understanding the Mental Health Implications of Emotion Regulation: A Journey Through Authenticity Emine Yücel, Derya Karanfil, Emine İnan DOI :10.26650/SP2019-0042 Research ArticleENP. 477-512 Resilience as the Mediator of the Relationship between Emotional Availability of Fathers and Subjective Well-Being of Emerging Adults

Healthy, functional relationships between parents and children are essential and important for an individual’s development not only in early childhood but also in adulthood. In this context, the quality of the mother-child relationship has been discussed extensively in the literature, but the quality of the father-child relationship has rarely been evaluated. In the present study, the quality of fatherchild relationships is operationalised as an emotional availability. The present study, which is based on Attachment Theory, aimed to investigate the mediating role of resilience in the association between the retrospective perception of university students’ emotional availability of their fathers and their subjective well-being at emerging adulthood. For this purpose, 257 university students with a mean age of 22.42 (SD = 2.08) in North Cyprus participated in the study. Participants completed the Brief Resilience Scale, the Lum Emotional Availability of Parents Scale and the Subjective Well-Being Scale. The Structural Equation Modelling (SEM) was used to examine the potential relationships between study variables as well as examine the mediating effect of resilience in the link between the emerging adults’ retrospective perceptions of the emotional availability of fathers and their current subjective well-being. The results provide support for the hypothesised model. The results indicated that resilience may act as a full mediator in the relationship between the retrospective perceptions of emerging adults’ emotional availability of their fathers and their current subjective well-being. Findings imply that the retrospective perceptions emotional availability of fathers increase the subjective well-being of emerging adults throughout the mediation of the resilience. These findings shed a first light on the mediating role of resilience in the association between the retrospective perception of emerging adults’ emotional availability of their fathers and their subjective well-being. Moreover, the findings of the present study may help counsellors working in universities to improve resilience interventions that could lead to an improvement in the subjective well-being of students. The study also points out that practitioners who are working with parents should focus on effective parenting interventions and these interventions should also target fathers.

Associations between quality of parent–child relationships and children's gender typicality: A 4‐year longitudinal study

AbstractLittle is known about influences on gender typicality. To address this issue, the present study examined developmental antecedents of preadolescents' gender typicality. Using a longitudinal multi‐method design, we investigated the prospective associations between the quality of parent–child relationships in childhood and preadolescents' subsequent gender typicality. It was hypothesized that feelings of gender typicality would be positively related to quality of relationship with the corresponding‐gender parent. Sixty‐eight families (40 girls) participated in two home visits. The quality of mother–child and father–child relationships was assessed by observation at age 7 and youths reported on their gender typicality at 11 years. Results indicated that girls who had higher‐quality relationships with their mother at age 7 felt more similar to other girls 4 years later. This finding suggests that mother–child relationships might be a contributing factor in the development of girls' gender typicality.Highlights This paper examines the role that parents play in their children's gender typicality development. The results revealed that parent–child relationships were associated with subsequent gender typicality in girls but not in boys. Girls who had higher‐quality relationships with their mother at age 7 felt more similar to other girls 4 years later.

Maternal differential treatment and child socioemotional competencies: A multi-informant longitudinal study of Chinese families

Research based on Western communities indicates that parents’ differential treatment may be linked to their children’s psychological and behavioral problems. Very little is known, however, about the potential implications of parental differential treatment for child socioemotional competencies or in non-Western communities. Focusing on families from Hong Kong, China, this multi-informant study tested the longitudinal associations of mothers’ differential warmth and conflict with their children’s socioemotional competencies and examined whether sibling dyad gender composition and age spacing moderated these associations. On two occasions about 12 months apart, data were collected from two children in each of 189 families and the mothers and class teachers of these children. At Time 1, older and younger children averaged 10.06 ( SD = 1.07) and 7.82 ( SD = 0.95) years of age, respectively, and 31% of older and 48% of younger children were boys. At Time 1, mothers provided demographic information and rated their warmth and conflict with each of their two children. At Times 1 and 2, teachers rated children on their emotion regulation, peer exclusion, and prosocial behaviors, and children rated their own empathy. Multilevel models revealed that, controlling for demographic factors, average mother-child relationships, and prior levels of competencies of children and their siblings, children who received less favorable treatment relative to their siblings exhibited decreases in socioemotional competencies over time. Sibling dyad gender composition and age spacing did not emerge as significant moderators, however.

Dispositional mindfulness is cross-sectionally predicted by interactions between interparental conflict and parent-child relationships

Theory emphasizes the importance of the family environment for the development of dispositional mindfulness, but past research has focused exclusively on parent-child attachment relationships as family-level predictors of mindfulness. Our goal was to examine unique and joint associations of both interparental conflict and parent-child relationship quality with dispositional mindfulness. Participants were 150 youth (14–21 yrs) who reported the warmth and support in their relationships with mothers and fathers separately, as well as their appraisals of the properties of their parents' conflict, how threatening that conflict is, and how responsible for it they feel, in addition to dispositional mindfulness. Results indicated consistent interactions between conflict properties and mother-child relationship quality in relation to dispositional mindfulness. Dispositional mindfulness was lowest for youth who reported low levels of frequent/intense interparental conflict and poor-quality relationships with mothers. In contrast, either self-blame/threat or poor-quality relationships with mothers predicted lower levels of dispositional mindfulness. Implications for theory and practice are discussed.