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Background: Depression is a highly prevalent, debilitating disorder that runs in families. Yet, empirical support for bidirectional mechanisms linking mother–adolescent depression symptoms remains limited. This study examined longitudinal bidirectional relations among emotion regulation (ER) constructs and depressive symptoms among mother–adolescent dyads over time. Pathways for girls and boys were explored separately, given extant research on sex differences in the intergenerational transmission of depression. Methods: Adolescent (n = 232; M = 15.02 years, SD = 0.95; 44% female)‐mother dyads, drawn from a longitudinal study on the development of risky behaviors, completed annual assessments of depressive symptoms and facets of ER over 4 years. Panel modeling examined lagged and cross‐lagged effects of mother–adolescent depressive symptoms and ER constructs over time, in a multigroup model of boys and girls. Results: Among girls, higher baseline maternal depression scores predicted increased adolescent ER difficulties (std. est. = −.42, p <.001) in turn, predicting increased adolescent depressive symptoms (std. est. = −.33, p =.002) and subsequent maternal ER difficulties (std. est. =.39, p =.002). The indirect effect of maternal depressive symptoms→adolescent ER→adolescent depressive symptoms→maternal ER was significant (ind. eff. =.10, 95% confidence interval [>.001,.19]) for girls, but not boys. Conclusion: Implications for interrupting intergenerational cycles of depressive symptoms and emotion dysregulation are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective: Separate literatures have examined the associations between maternal ADHD symptoms and parenting and maternal emotion regulation (ER) and parenting. This study examined the effects of both maternal ADHD symptoms and ER on parenting. Method: This cross-sectional study used a multi-method evaluation of parenting behavior to examine the independent and interactive effects of maternal ADHD symptoms and ER on self-reported and observed parenting among 79 demographically diverse families of 5- to 10-year-old children. Results: There were significant main effects of maternal ER difficulties on negative parenting and of maternal ADHD symptoms on harsh responses to children's negative emotions. Maternal ADHD symptoms and ER were not significantly associated with positive parenting behavior. No interaction effects were observed. Conclusion: Maternal ADHD symptoms and emotion dysregulation may uniquely contribute to parenting difficulties. Maternal ADHD symptoms were associated with difficulties responding to children's negative emotions, whereas maternal ER was associated with difficulties with discipline practices. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective: The objective of this study was to compare children with ADHD with children without ADHD on frustration tolerance and to examine the role of oppositional defiant disorder (ODD) in frustration tolerance within the sample. Method: Participants included 67 children ages 10 to 14 years-old with (n = 37) and without (n = 30) Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (4th ed.; DSM-IV) ADHD who completed the Mirror Tracing Persistence Task (MTPT), a validated computerized behavioral measure of frustration tolerance. Results: Children with ADHD were more likely to quit this task than children without ADHD, demonstrating lower levels of frustration tolerance. There were no differences in frustration tolerance between children with ADHD + ODD and those with ADHD - ODD. Moreover, ODD did not moderate the relationship between ADHD and frustration tolerance. Conclusion: Our results suggest that low frustration tolerance is directly linked to ADHD and not better accounted for by ODD. This research highlights specific behavioral correlates of frustration in children with ADHD. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We examined the longitudinal relation between behavioral inhibition (BI) and social anxiety symptoms and behavior and the mediating role of emotion regulation (ER). Moreover, we investigated the influence of parenting behavior on the development of ER strategies. Participants were 291 children (135 male) followed longitudinally from 2 to 13 years. Mothers were predominantly well educated and non-Hispanic Caucasian. Children were screened for BI using maternal report and observational measures (ages 2 and 3), parenting behavior was observed while children and their mothers participated in a fear-eliciting task (age 3), ER strategies were observed while children completed a disappointment task (age 5), and socially anxious behavior was measured via multimethod assessment at 10 and 13 years. Children who exhibited high BI in early childhood exhibited more socially anxious behavior across ages 10 and 13, and there was a significant indirect effect of BI on socially anxious behavior through ER strategies. Children who were high in BI demonstrated less engaged ER strategies during the disappointment task, which in turn predicted more socially anxious behavior. Furthermore, parenting behavior moderated the pathway linking early BI and ER strategies to social anxiety outcomes such that children who exhibited high BI and who received more affectionate/oversolicitous behavior from their mother displayed less engaged ER strategies and more socially anxious behavior than children low in BI or low in oversolicitous parenting behaviors. These findings expand on our understanding of the role that ER strategies and parenting play in the developmental pathway linking early BI to future social anxiety outcomes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]