Mother-child Relationship Quality Research Articles

Kirogi Women’s Psychological Well-Being: The Relative Contributions of Marital Quality, Mother–Child Relationship Quality, and Youth’s Educational Adjustment

The current study is based on the responses of 153 married Korean mothers accompanying their youth in the United States or in New Zealand while their spouses remained in Korea. Kirogi means “wild geese” in Korean and has come to refer to split-family transnational living for the sake of children’s education. Spillover, or a positive correlation, between indicators assessing marital and parent–child relationship quality was tested within the transnational family context. It was also hypothesized that mother–child relationship quality and youth’s educational progress would be positively and uniquely predictive of indicators of maternal well-being when compared with marital quality due to education-focused Confucian values among Koreans. Results indicated positive correlations between indicators of marital and parent–child relationship quality; and only measures of marital quality had unique associations with maternal well-being.

Associations between mother–child relationship quality and adolescent adjustment

This study used a genetically controlled design to examine the direction and the magnitude of effects in the over-time associations between perceived relationship quality with mothers and adolescent maladjustment (i.e., depressive symptoms and delinquency). A total of 163 monozygotic (MZ) twins pairs (85 female pairs, 78 male pairs) completed questionnaires at ages 13 and 14. Non-genetically controlled path analyses models (in which one member of each twin dyad was randomly selected for analyses) were compared with genetically controlled path analyses models (in which MZ-twin difference scores were included in analyses). Results from the non-genetically controlled models revealed a) child-driven effects in the longitudinal associations between adolescent perceived maternal support and depressive symptoms, and b) parent-driven and child-driven effects in the longitudinal association between perceived maternal negativity and adolescent delinquent behaviors. However, results from the genetically controlled models revealed only child-driven effect, suggesting that, purported parent-driven effects were a product of error arising from potential gene-environment correlations (rGE).

The quality of mother-child relationship and borderline personality: The role of mediator object relations

Aim: Borderline personality characterized by the instability of interpersonal relationships, self-concept and mood swings is one the most common disorders in clinical settings. Scholars theorizing on object relations, as pioneers of borderline personality, consider borderline personality as a result of childhood trauma, and associated with initial objects. The present paper aims to explain the structural model of borderline personality based upon the quality of mother-child relationships through the mediator role of object relations. Methods: A total of 402 students (184 males and 218 females) at Islamic Azad University of Qom and University of Qom in the first semester of 2013–2014 were selected by stratified random sampling. They completed Borderline Personality Inventory, Bell Object Relations Inventory, and Parent-Child Relationship Scale–Mother. The data were analyzed using SPSS, LISREL, Cronbach's alpha coefficients, exploratory factor analysis, confirmatory factor analysis, and structural equation modeling. Results: The quality of the mother-child relationship directly explains 1.44% and through mediating object relations 14.31%, and a total of 15.75% of the variance of borderline personality. Conclusion: Based on these results, the quality of object relations plays a crucial role in mediating mother-child relationship and borderline personality.

The quality of mother-child relationship and borderline personality: The role of mediator object relations

The quality of mother-child relationship and borderline personality: The role of mediator object relations

Groupwork interventions for women and children experiencing domestic abuse: Do they work and do they last?

This paper draws selectively on the findings of a study exploring the impact of a concurrent groupwork programme for mothers and children (6-7 years of age) who have experienced domestic abuse. This group was delivered by statutory child and welfare services in Ireland in conjunction with a voluntary sector child support service. This paper illustrates how participation in the groupwork programme impacted positively on the relationship between the participating mothers and their children and also explores what benefits were sustained over time. Employing a mixed methods approach, both quantitative and qualitative data were collected from three distinct populations and at three points in time. The findings of this study confirm the usefulness of the group environment in helping participants share the full extent of their personal experiences in a therapeutic and supportive setting. Participant outcomes included pro-social modelling of positive parenting, awareness raising and information sharing regarding the impact of the experience of domestic abuse on both child development and parenting capacity. These factors were reported by participants to have impacted on the quality of the mother-child relationship. This paper concludes by highlighting the key features of the groupwork programme which were central to facilitating and sustaining these positive outcomes.

Positive parenting and children's prosocial behavior in eight countries.

Research supports the beneficial role of prosocial behaviors on children's adjustment and successful youth development. Empirical studies point to reciprocal relations between negative parenting and children's maladjustment, but reciprocal relations between positive parenting and children's prosocial behavior are understudied. In this study reciprocal relations between two different dimensions of positive parenting (quality ofthe mother-child relationship and the use of balanced positive discipline) and children's prosocial behavior wereexamined in Colombia, Italy, Jordan, Kenya, the Philippines, Sweden, Thailand, and the United States. Mother-child dyads (N=1105) provided data over 2years in two waves (Mage of child in wave 1=9.31years, SD=0.73; 50% female). A model of reciprocal relations between parenting dimensions, but not among parenting and children's prosocial behavior, emerged. In particular, children with higher levels of prosocial behavior at age 9 elicited higher levels of mother-child relationship quality in the following year. Findings yielded similar relations across countries, evidencing that being prosocial in late childhood contributes to some degree to the enhancement of a nurturing and involved mother-child relationship in countries that vary widely on sociodemographic profiles and psychological characteristics. Policy and intervention implications of this study are discussed.

How Parents Still Help Emerging Adults Get Their Homework Done: The Role of Self-Regulation as a Mediator in the Relation Between Parent–Child Relationship Quality and School Engagement

Although parents are increasingly involved in their college students’ academic lives, scholars have yet to investigate parents’ role in their college students’ school engagement. We hypothesized that college students’ self-regulation would mediate the relation between parent–child relationship quality and school engagement. For the 790 undergraduates who completed questionnaires online, self-regulation mediated the relation between mother–child relationship quality and school engagement for men, and an indirect effect was found for the relation between father–child relationship quality and school engagement by way of self-regulation. Therefore, parents continue to matter in promoting their college students’ academic success.

Maternal response to child affect: Role of maternal depression and relationship quality

BackgroundMaternal depression is associated with negative outcomes for offspring, including increased incidence of child psychopathology. Quality of mother–child relationships can be compromised among affectively ill dyads, such as those characterized by maternal depression and child psychopathology, and negatively impact outcomes bidirectionally. Little is known about the neural mechanisms that may modulate depressed mothers' responses to their psychiatrically ill children during middle childhood and adolescence, partially because of a need for ecologically valid personally relevant fMRI tasks that might most effectively elicit these neural mechanisms. MethodsThe current project evaluated maternal response to child positive and negative affective video clips in 19 depressed mothers with psychiatrically ill offspring using a novel fMRI task. ResultsThe task elicited activation in the ventral striatum when mothers viewed positive clips and insula when mothers viewed negative clips of their own (versus unfamiliar) children. Both types of clips elicited activation in regions associated with affect regulation and self-related and social processing. Greater lifetime number of depressive episodes, comorbid anxiety, and poor mother–child relationship quality all emerged as predictors of maternal response to child affect. LimitationsFindings may be specific to dyads with psychiatrically ill children. ConclusionsAltered neural response to child affect may be an important characteristic of chronic maternal depression and may impact mother–child relationships negatively. Existing interventions for depression may be improved by helping mothers respond to their children's affect more adaptively.

Family‐of‐origin experience and emotional health as predictors of relationship self‐regulation in marriage

The purpose of this study was to understand differences in one's ability to implement relationship self‐regulation (RSR) in marriage based on the family‐of‐origin variables of parent–child relationship quality, parental marital satisfaction and current emotional health. The participants were 484 married couples who completed the relationship evaluation. Structural equation modelling was used to test a model that showed that the actor and partner's emotional health were associated with RSR in marriage, while most family‐of‐origin factors were not directly associated with RSR. However, the perceived mother–child relationship quality was associated with RSR for wives, but not husbands, when controlling for the other variables in the model. There were no significant relationships between father–child relationship quality or parental marital satisfaction and RSR. Implications for couple therapists and educators are discussed.Practitioner points Relationship self‐regulation (RSR) involves recognizing one's own positive and negative contribution to the relationship. Emotional health affects RSR and should be attended to in work with couples. Helping partners address emotional health issues may increase a couple's ability to collaboratively work on their relationship. Open expression of emotions and positive communication skills may decrease emotional health symptomology and increase the couples' use of RSR.

Decline in the Quality of Family Relationships Predicts Escalation in Children's Internalizing Symptoms from Middle to Late Childhood.

An integration of family systems perspectives with developmental psychopathology provides a framework for examining the complex interplay between family processes and developmental trajectories of child psychopathology over time. In a community sample of 98 families, we investigated the evolution of family relationships, across multiple subsystems of the family (i.e., interparental, mother-child, father-child), and the impact of these changing family dynamics on developmental trajectories of child internalizing symptoms over 6years, from preschool age to pre-adolescence. Parent-child relationship quality was observed during lengthy sessions, consisting of multiple naturalistic, carefully scripted contexts. Each parent completed reports about interparental relationship satisfaction and child internalizing symptoms. To the extent that mothers experienced a steeper decline in interparental relationship satisfaction over time, children developed internalizing symptoms at a faster rate. Further, symptoms escalated at a faster rate to the extent that negative mother-child relationship quality increased (more negative affect expressed by both mother and child, greater maternal power assertion) and positive mother-child relationship quality decreased (less positive affect expressed by both mother and child, less warmth and positive reciprocity). Time-lagged growth curve analyses established temporal precedence such that decline in family relationships preceded escalation in child internalizing symptoms. Results suggest that family dysfunction, across multiple subsystems, represents a driving force in the progression of child internalizing symptoms.

Adolescent disclosure of information about peers: the mediating role of perceptions of parents' right to know.

Following the important insight that what parents know about their adolescent offspring depends primarily on what the child tells them, this study examines how attitudes about what parents have a right to know mediate the associations between several factors (quality of parent-child relationships, time spent with family and peers, levels of antisocial and prosocial behaviors, and gender and age) and adolescents' disclosures about peer relations. In two studies of early and middle adolescents (Ns=231, 249; M ages=14.5, 13.0; 62.3, 51.8% female; 53.7, 67.5% European American), a new measure of right-to-know attitudes is derived and then applied to four facets of adolescents' experiences with peers: details of activities with peers, issues in specific relationships, and positive and negative peer characteristics. The findings indicate that adolescents are more inclined to disclose certain aspects of their peer relations than others, but these inclinations are related to several factors-especially the quality of mother-child relationships and involvement in antisocial behavior-and mediated by adolescents' attitudes regarding what parents have a right to know about peers. The results are related to autonomy development and parental oversight of adolescent peer interactions.

Deflected Pathways: Becoming Aggressive, Socially Withdrawn, or Prosocial with Peers During the Transition to Adolescence.

Although research has suggested strong continuity in children's adaptive or maladaptive behavior with peers across the transition to adolescence, less is known about deflected developmental pathways of peer social competence across this transition. This study investigates how mother-child and best friend relationship quality predict the deflection of youth from adaptive to maladaptive behavior with peers or the reverse. Using data from the NICHD Study of Early Child Care and Youth Development (N=1055), high-quality friendships were associated with changes in peer social competence from 3rd to 6th grade. More positive and fewer negative interactions with a friend were linked with becoming more prosocial with peers, whereas less positive interactions with a friend were linked to becoming aggressive or withdrawn.

Emotional Disclosure Through Journal Writing: Telehealth Intervention for Maternal Stress and Mother-Child Relationships.

This study examines emotional disclosure through the activity of journaling as a means of coping with maternal stress associated with parenting a child with disruptive behaviors. Through a randomized control and pre-test post-test study design of an online journal writing intervention, change to maternal stress and quality of mother-child relationship for children with ASD, ADHD and SPD was addressed. Behavioral symptoms were found to be the primary source of parenting stress for mothers and a significant relationship between child characteristics and maternal stress was identified. Emotional disclosure through the online journal writing program (especially in the presence of high disclosure of negative emotions) was shown to reduce maternal stress and improve the quality of mother-child relationship. These findings suggest cost-effective telehealth interventions may support maternal health. Important clinical implications are discussed.

Crossover Effects Among Parental Hostility and Parent-Child Relationships During the Preschool Period.

Parental hostility may have widespread effects across members of the family, whereby one parent's hostility might disrupt the other parent's ability to maintain a positive relationship with his or her children. The present study prospectively examined crossover effects of parental hostility on parent-child relationship quality in a sample of 210 families. At child ages 3, 4, and 5, mothers and fathers completed questionnaires assessing feelings of hostility. In addition, mother-child and father-child dyadic relationship quality were coded at each age during naturalistic home observations. Results from structural equation analyses indicated that mother and father hostility were relatively stable over the two year period. Further, results were consistent with notions of fathering vulnerability, such that the father-child relationship might be especially susceptible to parental hostility. Possible compensatory processes, wherein mothers may compensate for father hostility, were also explored. Child and parent gender add further complexity to the results, as the father-son relationship appears most susceptible to crossover effects of parental hostility, whereas the father-daughter relationship might be somewhat protected in the early childhood period. Findings from the current investigation highlight the need for broader perspectives on family functioning, considering influences across family subsystems and the effects of both parent and child gender.

Comparison between family power structure and the quality of parent-child interaction among the delinquent and non-delinquent adolescents.

Background:Few studies indicate that most behavioral problems are due to family dysfunction and inappropriate family environment. It seems that the family of the delinquent adolescent is unbalanced in the power structure and parenting style.Objectives:The present study compares the family power structure and parent-child relationship quality in delinquent and non-delinquent young subjects in Tehran.Patients and Methods:Eighty students of secondary schools aged between 15 and 18 in Tehran were enrolled with cluster sampling method and 80 delinquent adolescents of the Correction and Rehabilitation Centers aged between 15 and 18 were chosen with a convenience sampling method. They responded to an instrument of family power structure (Child–parents relationship inventory). Data was compared between these two groups by utilizing the independent and dependent t-test and Levene’s test.Results:The findings indicated there is a significant difference between delinquent and non-delinquent adolescents in family power structure and its subscales (P < 0.001) and father-child relationship quality (P < 0.005). Also, there is no statistically significant difference between these two groups in mother-child relationship quality (P < 0.005). Besides, the results revealed that delinquent adolescents were significantly different regarding the quality of parent-child relationship (P < 0.001).Conclusions:These results emphasize that an inappropriate decision making process pattern in a family has a significant effect on deviant behavior in adolescents. The fathers’ parenting is more strongly linked to their sons’ delinquency. So, family power structure and parent-child relationship can be considered in therapeutic interventions (prevention and treatment) for adolescents’ delinquency.

Spillover between marital quality and parent-child relationship quality: parental depressive symptoms as moderators.

Using a daily diary method, this study examined concurrent and time-lagged relations between marital and parent-child relationship qualities, providing a test of the spillover and compensatory hypotheses. In addition, this study tested both mothers' and fathers' depressive symptoms as moderators of these daily linkages. Participants were 203 families, in which mothers and fathers completed daily diaries for 15 days. At the end of each reporting day, parents independently rated the emotional quality of their relationship with their spouse and with their child that day. Controlling for global levels of marital satisfaction, marital conflict, and parenting, a positive association was found between mothers' and fathers' daily ratings of marital quality and their ratings of parent-child relationship quality, supporting the spillover hypothesis. When considering time-lagged relations, support was found for the compensatory hypothesis for mothers: lower levels of marital quality were related to increases in mother-child relationship quality from one day to the next. Furthermore, both maternal and paternal depressive symptoms moderated the link between marital quality and the other parent's relationship quality with their child. Whereas maternal depressive symptoms strengthened spillover relations for fathers on the next day, paternal depression was related to less spillover for mothers on the same day. Alternative models did not find evidence for parent-child relationship quality as a predictor of changes in marital quality on the next day. The findings underscore the importance of the quality of the marital relationship for predicting the quality of other family relationships.

Parent–Child Relationships, Parental Psychological Control, and Aggression: Maternal and Paternal Relationships

Few studies have examined both maternal and paternal parenting practices in the prediction of child outcomes despite evidence that underscores the salience of fathers throughout their children's development. This study examined the role of the quality of mother-child and father-child relationships in buffering the influence of ineffective parenting practices on subsequent adolescent aggression. Measures of parental psychological control, the quality of the parent-child relationship, and youth aggressive behavior were completed by 163 (49% female) mostly White and Asian adolescents and their parents during the eighth and ninth grades. Paternal psychological control predicted aggression when adolescents perceived low-quality relationships with their mothers. Similarly, maternal psychological control predicted aggression when adolescents perceived low-quality relationships with their fathers. Maternal psychological control was also associated with lower levels of aggression among adolescent males who reported a high-quality relationship with their father. These findings indicate that, when one parent exerts psychological control, the low-quality relationship the adolescent shares with the opposite gender parent increases risk for adolescent aggression. The findings also suggest that, as mothers exert psychological control, the high-quality parent-child relationship a son shares with his father decreases risk for adolescent aggression.

Bullying, Victimization, School Performance, and Mother-Child Relationship Quality: Direct and Transactional Associations

The current investigation examines longitudinal differences between bullies, victims, and bully victims in terms of the quality of their relationship with their parents and school performance. We also investigate the transactional association between the quality of the parent-child relationship and bullying behavior, after taking into account the longitudinal association among bullying, victimization, and school performance. The sample consisted of 895 mothers and their children who participated in the NICHD Study of Early Child Care. According to the findings, children in the cooccurring bully victim group were at higher risk to experience continuous conflict with their mothers and to perform worse academically. The findings also offer support for the hypothesized transactional association between bullying and parent-child conflict and closeness. Further, a positive longitudinal transactional association between victimization and parent-child closeness was identified. Finally, school performance was positively related to victimization but was unrelated to bullying behavior.

Maternal and paternal perceptions of coparenting as a link between marital quality and the parent–toddler relationship.

The aim of this study was to examine coparenting perceptions of support and trust as a link between marital quality and parent-child relationship quality. Mothers and fathers with 33-month-old children (n = 122, 61 girls) independently reported on coparenting support and trust, marital quality, and attachment-relevant aspects of the parent-child relationship. Additionally, child-mother attachment security was assessed observationally. Marital quality was related to higher quality mother-son relationships (self-reported and observed) via more positive maternal coparenting perceptions, and marital quality was related to greater father-son and father-daughter relationship quality via more positive paternal coparenting perceptions. For partner effects, marital quality was related to higher mother-son relationship quality via fathers' perceptions of coparenting. Results highlight perceptions of coparenting of both mothers and fathers as a link between marital quality and mother-child relationship quality for families with toddler-aged boys. Further, findings suggest that marital quality fosters more positive paternal coparenting trust and support, which in turn has positive implications for father-son and father-daughter relationships during toddlerhood.

Associations of Mothers' Friendship Quality with Adolescents' Friendship Quality and Emotional Adjustment

Little research has examined the association of parents' friendships with adolescent's well-being, perhaps because the association was considered too distal. However, developmental theories suggest that contexts in which parents, but not their children, are situated may be related to child development (Bronfenbrenner, 1979; 1986). The current work examined associations between the quality of mothers' own friendships and their adolescent children's friendship quality and emotional adjustment. Fifth-, eighth-, and eleventh-graders (N = 172) whose mothers' friendships were characterized by conflict and antagonism reported having friendships that were high in negative friendship qualities as well as elevated internalizing symptoms. These associations held after controlling for mother-child relationship quality, suggesting that mothers' friendships may have a unique association with adolescents' adjustment.