Women are at greater risk of exposure to interpersonal violence during pregnancy. The influence prenatal violence has on children's behavioral adjustment is generally understood to stem from its impact on mothers, but there is a dearth of prospective research to test these models. The current study evaluated the influence of interpersonal violence…

Preterm birth consequences may lead to developmental deficits, psychiatric disorders and may also cause parental mental health problems. Our aim was to describe quality of life and internalizing-externalizing behaviours of preterm children at 2 years regarding parental mental health. 112 mothers of preterm children provided the following…

Maternal depressive symptoms predict negative child behaviors, including internalizing problems. However, protective factors, such as positive emotionality and positive parenting behaviors, may play an important a role in attenuating associations between maternal depressive symptoms and child behavior problems. This article presents two studies…

Problem-solving skills training is an intervention designed to teach coping skills that has shown to decrease negative affectivity (depressive symptoms, negative mood, and post-traumatic stress symptoms) in mothers of children with cancer. The objective of this study was to see whether mothers of children recently diagnosed with autism spectrum…

This study demonstrates the unique contributions of perinatal risk and genetic and environmental influences on child behavior using data from 561 domestic US adoption triads (birth mothers, adopted child, and adoptive parents). Findings show distinct patterns of associations among genetic (birth mother psychopathology), prenatal (six maternal…

Child hypothalamic pituitary adrenal (HPA) activity was investigated as a moderator of parental depressive symptom effects on child behavior in an adoption sample ("n" = 210 families). Adoptive parents' depressive symptoms and child internalizing and externalizing were assessed at 18, 27, and 54 months, and child morning and evening HPA…

The authors identified trajectories of teacher-child relationship conflict and closeness from Grades 1 to 6, and associations between these trajectories and externalizing and internalizing behaviors at 11 years old among low-income, urban boys (N = 262). There were three main findings. Nagin cluster analyses indicated five trajectories for…

Background: Research on parents of children with intellectual disability (ID) has identified a range of risk and protective factors for parental well-being. In family research, the association between marital quality and depression is a vital field of investigation. Still little research has addressed how aspects of the couple relationship affect…

The current prospective study investigated transactional relations between maternal depressive symptoms and children's depressive and externalizing symptoms. Participants included 240 children (M age = 11.86 years, SD = 0.56; 53.9% female) and their mothers who were part of a 6-year longitudinal study. Measures of maternal depression (Beck…

Home visiting is a child abuse prevention strategy that seeks to optimize child development by providing mothers with support, training, and parenting information. Research has consistently found high rates of depression in mothers participating in home visiting programs and low levels of obtaining mental health treatment in the community.…

The present study investigated reciprocal relationships between adolescent mothers and their children's well-being through an analysis of the coupling relationship of mothers' depressive symptomatology and children's internalizing and externalizing behaviors. Unlike studies using discrete time analyses, the present study used dynamical systems to…

Parental locus of control refers to parents' perceived power and efficacy in child-rearing situations. This study explored parental locus of control and its correlates in 160 mothers of children ages 8 to 14 cross-sectionally and 1 year later. Maternal depression, maternal expressed emotion, and child internalizing and externalizing behavior were…

We examined mediators and moderators of change in conduct problems, in a multiagency randomized trial of the Incredible Years parenting program. Preschoolers (n = 153) at risk for conduct problems were randomly assigned to intervention (n = 104) and wait-list (n = 49) groups. Boys and younger children, and those with more depressed mothers, tended…

Objective: The Strategies to Enhance Positive Parenting (STEPP) program was developed to address putative factors related to poor engagement in and outcomes following traditional behavioral parent training (BPT) for single mothers of children diagnosed with ADHD. Method: Twelve single mothers of children with ADHD were enrolled in an initial…

This study examined maternal sadness and adolescents' responses to stress in the offspring (n = 72) of mothers with and without a history of depression. Mothers with a history of depression reported higher levels of current depressive symptoms and exhibited greater sadness during interactions with their adolescent children (ages 11-14) than…