Search

BackgroundWe examined maternal depressive symptoms (MDS) as longitudinal predictors of actigraphy-measured sleep; children's respiratory sinus arrhythmia (RSA) was tested as a moderator of these relations.MethodA total of 271 children (145 boys and 126 girls) participated in a three-wave study (M age at T1 = 9.38 years), with a 1-year lag between waves. Children wore actigraphs to derive sleep parameters. RSA reactivity was assessed during a social stress test.ResultsContrary to hypotheses, MDS were related to less sleep over time for children exhibiting greater RSA withdrawal. Consistent with hypotheses, MDS were related longitudinally to decreased sleep activity for children exhibiting less RSA withdrawal.ConclusionsFindings illustrate the importance of maternal influences and physiological regulation as predictors of children's sleep.

This study investigates associations between two types of control beliefs—self-efficacy for self-regulation and implicit theories of willpower—and undergraduate biology students' (N = 535) behavioral self-regulation and performance. Findings suggest that self-efficacy is the more proximally related motive for students to engage in academic self-regulatory behaviors, as it was directly related to both behavioral self-regulation and course grades. In contrast, implicit theories about willpower were indirectly associated with both outcomes through self-efficacy. Collectively, results support implicit theories about willpower as a potential influence on how students interpret mental effort, in turn raising or lowering self-efficacy, ultimately predicting their self-regulatory behaviors and grades. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study examines changes in college students' relationships with their grandparents during the COVID-19 pandemic and lockdown, and whether these relationship changes were associated with college students' coping with the pandemic and mental health. 441 college students (76% female) completed an online survey. The majority of participants reported changes to the grandparent-grandchild relationship. Reduced contact and closeness was the most commonly reported change and was related to greater participant COVID-19 concerns and anticipatory grief for grandparents. A small number of participants reported increased closeness, which was related to their lower anxiety and depression. For younger students, grandparent contracting COVID-19 was associated with lower COVID-19 concerns and greater negative reactions to lockdown restrictions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Adequate sleep is essential for child learning. However, school systems may inadvertently be promoting sleep deprivation through early school start times. The current study examines the potential implications of early school start times for standardized test scores in public elementary schools in Kentucky. Associations between early school start time and poorer school performance were observed primarily for schools serving few students who qualify for free or reduced-cost lunches. Associations were controlled for teacher-student ratio, racial composition, and whether the school was in the Appalachian region. Findings support the growing body of research showing that early school start times may influence student learning but offer some of the first evidence that this influence may occur for elementary school children and depend on school characteristics.

Objective: The current study aims to examine parenting anxiety and negative parenting practices as intervening variables in the relation between parental dispositional mindfulness and Chinese adolescents' externalizing problems. Background: Parental dispositional mindfulness is negatively associated with their adolescents' adjustment difficulties through both positive and negative parenting practices in Western samples. However, research does not support these same pathways of effects among Eastern samples. Therefore, there is a need to explore alternative mediators of the link between parental mindfulness and lower adolescent adjustment problems in Eastern cultures. The present study addresses this need by examining parenting anxiety as a mechanism linking parental dispositional mindfulness, negative parenting practices, and Chinese adolescents' externalizing problems. Methods: Participants were 624 adolescents (aged from 9 to 18 years, M = 12.69 years, SD = 2.30) and their parents from urban areas in Southeast China. Parents completed questionnaires on their dispositional mindful awareness, parenting anxiety, and negative parenting practices, and adolescents reported on their externalizing problems. Results: Structural equation modeling revealed that the indirect relation between parental dispositional mindful awareness and adolescents' externalizing problems was significant, with parenting anxiety and negative parenting practices as the first and second intervening variables. Conclusion: The results highlighted the importance of parenting anxiety in the relation between parental mindful awareness and parenting. Implications: It suggested that mindfulness‐based parenting interventions may help alleviate parenting anxiety, which may further improve parenting behaviors and indirectly decrease adolescents' externalizing problems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The personality characteristics of children of exposed to parental problem drinking have been of interest to clinicians and researchers for several decades, but personality research on this population often focuses on identifying a unique cluster of adult personality traits. The current study adopts a cutting-edge dimensional approach to understanding personality pathology as extreme variants of the five factor model, and examines pathways of risk to personality pathology through marital conflict and emotional insecurity. Participants were 199 two-parent families with a child between the ages of 6 and 12 years. Parents completed questionnaire measures of their problem drinking, marital conflict, child emotional insecurity (i.e., emotional reactivity to conflict), and child maladaptive personality traits. Structural equation models found an indirect pathway from mother and father problem drinking to pathological child disagreeableness, introversion, emotional instability, and compulsivity via greater mother destructive marital conflict behavior and child emotional reactivity to conflict. There was also some evidence that this pathway of effects was stronger for girls than for boys. Findings support the use of a dimensional approach to understanding maladaptive personality among individuals exposed to parental problem drinking. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Relations among parental depressive symptoms, overt and covert marital conflict, and child internalizing and externalizing symptoms were examined in a community sample of 235 couples and their children. Families were assessed once yearly for three years, starting when children were in kindergarten. Parents completed measures of depressive symptoms and children's internalizing and externalizing symptoms. Behavioral observations of marital conflict behaviors (insult, threat, pursuit, and defensiveness) and self report of covert negativity (feeling worry, sorry, worthless, and helpless) were assessed based on problem-solving interactions. Results indicated that fathers' greater covert negativity and mothers' overt destructive conflict behaviors served as intervening variables in the link between fathers' depressive symptoms and child internalizing symptoms, with modest support for the pathway through fathers' covert negativity found even after controlling for earlier levels of constructs. These findings support the role of marital conflict in the impact of fathers' depressive symptoms on child internalizing symptoms.

Relations between children's sleep and cognitive functioning were examined over 2 years, and race and socioeconomic status were assessed as moderators of effects. Third-grade African American and European American children (N = 166; M = 8.72 years) participated at Time 1 and again 2 years later (N = 132). At both Time 1 and Time 2, sleep was examined via self-report and actigraphy. Children were administered selected tests from the Woodcock-Johnson III Tests of Cognitive Abilities, and Stanford Achievement Test scores were obtained from schools. Children's sleep was related to intellectual ability and academic achievement. Results build substantially on an emerging literature supportive of the importance of sleep in children.

This study extends the investigation of family process models of parental dysphoria and child adjustment, by examining depressive symptoms in both fathers and mothers, and by examining children's representations of family relationships as possible explanatory mechanisms. Participants were 232 children (Time 1 mean age: 5.99; 105 boys, 127 girls) and their cohabiting parents, who participated for three consecutive years. Children's internal representations of multiple family relationships were assessed by means of a story stem completion task. Structural equation modeling indicated that children's inter-parental and attachment representations are part of the process whereby parental depressive symptoms influence child externalizing symptoms. Maternal depressive symptoms also predicted changes in children's representations of marital and attachment relationships over time. The implications for family process models of relations between parental depressive symptoms in community samples and child development are discussed.

We explored the hypotheses that adolescents have more negative obesity stereotypes than children and that age differences in obesity stereotypes are mediated by weight attributions, body esteem, and appearance idealization. Hispanic- and Caucasian-American children completed measures of appearance idealization, body esteem, and attributions about the causes of obesity. Participants later made generalizations from and attributions to "target" children, whose pictures varied by weight, gender, and ethnicity. Despite modest variations by participant ethnicity, age-related increases in obesity biases were (a) found across both stereotyping measures, (b) evident for both Hispanic and Caucasian targets, and (c) most pronounced for female targets. Although the association between age and obesity biases was partially mediated by appearance idealization and body esteem, these variables did not entirely explain the observed age-related increases in biases. Discussion focuses on the psychosocial atmosphere of adolescence, a "thin is in/fat is out" heuristic, and the development of implicit and explicit processing systems. (Contains 5 tables and 1 figure.)

Skin conductance level reactivity (SCLR) was examined as a longitudinal mediator and moderator of relations between parental marital conflict and psychopathology among children and young adolescents. Participants were 157 boys and girls (M age at T1 = 9.31 years; SD = 1.97); there was a 2-year lag between T1 and T2 assessments. At T1, participants' SCLR was assessed in response to lab challenges. Parents completed measures of aggressive marital conflict and child adjustment at T1 and T2. Supportive of moderation effects, T1 marital conflict interacted with T1 SCLR and gender in the prediction of changes in maladjustment. The link between marital conflict and increased internalizing and externalizing symptoms was stronger for girls with higher SCLR than girls with lower SCLR. Marital conflict predicted increased externalizing behaviors for boys with lower SCLR but not higher SCLR, although levels of externalizing behaviors were similar among boys with lower and higher SCLR especially at higher levels of marital conflict. Findings build on the literature by illustrating the importance of examinations of both family risk and youth biological vulnerability for the prediction of psychopathology.

Background: Research suggests that children exposed to parental drinking problems are at risk for maladjustment. However, the potential impact of drinking problems in a community sample and the processes involved in the relationship between parental drinking and child outcomes have rarely been examined. Method: A community sample of 235 mothers and fathers of kindergarten children completed measures of problem drinking symptoms, family functioning and child adjustment. Results: Model tests indicate that problem drinking was associated with greater marital conflict, and that marital conflict was related to ineffective parenting which was in turn related to poorer child adjustment. Conclusions: Even in a community sample, parental problem drinking behaviors are associated with reduced family functioning that relates to child outcomes.

Background: Research has focused on maternal dysphoria and child adjustment. However, family process models indicate gaps in the study of paternal dysphoria, broader family functioning, and diverse child outcomes. Method: A community sample of 235 mothers and fathers of kindergarten children completed measures of depressive symptoms, family functioning and child adjustment. Teachers also provided measures of child adjustment. Results: Supportive of pervasive effects even in a community sample, increased parental depressive symptomatology was related to increased marital conflict, insecure marital attachment, less parental warmth, more psychological control in parenting, and multiple child problems. Child gender moderated child outcomes differently for paternal and maternal dysphoria. Marital relations, but not parenting, mediated child outcomes. Conclusions: Marital problems may be especially reactive to parental depressive symptomatology, so that mediational processes affecting child functioning become evident even in family contexts of relatively low risk.

The present study investigates factors associated with anxiety, depression, and stress in children being reared by their grandparents in rural Appalachia. Grandparent-headed households, in which grandparents have primary responsibility for care of children, are increasing in number. However, research is needed on child risk for internalizing symptoms in this context. Participants included 35 children aged 5–18 years and one of their custodial grandparents. Interviewers read questionnaires to grandparents and children assessing family functioning and child mental health and participants indicated their answers. Mean scores for child internalizing symptoms and stress were on the higher end of the scale of measurement. Lower grandparent positive parenting, grandparent not having formal custody of children, greater grandparent mental health issues, lower grandparent education, and lower financial status were correlated with greater child anxiety, depression, and stress. Results also indicated that correlates of children's internalizing symptoms differed based on child sex and age. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study examines changes in salivary cortisol and alpha-amylase among grandparents rearing grandchildren in rural Appalachia. Grandparent-caregivers experience greater stress than non- grandparent-caregivers. Participants included 20 grandparent-caregivers and a child for which they cared, who completed questionnaires assessing family functioning and mental health via interview. Grandparent-caregivers provided morning saliva samples once a year for two years. For grandparent-caregivers low in social support and religiosity, grandparent-caregiver depressive symptoms, child depressive symptoms, and child stress were associated with increased grandparent-caregiver salivary alpha-amylase. For grandparent-caregivers high in social support and religiosity, child depressive symptoms, child stress, and child aggression were associated with increased grandparent-caregiver cortisol. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study examines skin conductance level (SCL) trajectories and childhood exposure to intimate partner aggression (IPA) committed between parents in a sample of college students. Although IPA among parents does not directly involve children, children frequently see or are exposed to IPA first‐hand when it occurs. This exposure to IPA increases risks for psychopathology and emotional or behavioral difficulties for children or adolescents later in life. However, research has not yet examined the stress response patterns of individuals exposed to IPA, nor how reactivity to stress may be altered based on this exposure. Participants included 161 college students who completed questionnaires assessing demographics, mental health, and exposure to IPA, and also reported on family functioning and parental drinking habits. Additionally, participants completed a three‐minute mirror tracing task followed by a three‐minute recovery period while SCL was monitored. Multilevel modeling was used to assess whether frequency or level of exposure to IPA was related to trajectories of SCL. Neither variable was related to SCL trajectories during the mirror‐tracing task. However, both frequency and level of exposure were related to SCL trajectories during the recovery period, such that for participants reporting higher levels of either IPA exposure variable, SCL trajectories during recovery declined less rapidly and did not decline to as low of a level compared to participants reporting lower levels of IPA exposure. This blunted SCL recovery may be due to wear and tear from repeated innervation, or a calibrating of the SCL response to adapt to a volatile home environment. Greater childhood exposure to intimate partner aggression between parents (IPA) was related to less recovery of skin conductance level (SCL) following stress in early adulthood. SCL trajectories during stress or recovery have rarely been examined, and findings suggest childhood exposure to IPA may account for individual differences in these trajectories. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]