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Background.nParenting empathy, the understanding by parents, and the sharing in their child's perspective, represents an important element of competent parenting. The present study tested the hypotheses that maternal empathy might be lower where mothers or their children display symptoms of psychopathology.Method. Mothers (N=268) of school-aged children completed questionnaires on child-directed empathy and egoistic personal distress and their own and their child's symptoms of psychopathology across a number of broadly defined domains.Results. Child conduct problems were associated with decreased child-directed empathy and increased maternal egoistic distress. Maternal aggressive characteristics and maternal ADHD symptoms were each associated with increased egoistic personal distress.Conclusion.The findings indicate that symptoms of psychopathology in children and adults are associated with deficits in empathy and increased maternal egoistic personal distress. The implications of the findings for responsive parenting and child social behaviour are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Separate studies with clinical and community-based samples have identified an association between symptoms of attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and inhibitory control deficits and ADHD and weak effortful control. We tested whether differences in effortful control explained the associations between ADHD symptoms and inhibitory control deficits, controlling for conduct problems. In a community sample, parents rated ADHD symptoms, conduct problems, effortful control, surgency and negative affect in 77 4-7-year-olds (47 girls), who performed an inhibitory control task. ADHD symptoms, deficient inhibitory control and low effortful control were correlated. Controlling for conduct problems, path analysis showed the ADHD symptoms - inhibitory control link was mediated statistically by effortful control. This focuses attention on cognitive-energetic factors associated with ADHD-related executive deficits., (© 2022 The Authors. British Journal of Developmental Psychology published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd on behalf of British Psychological Society.)