Associations between family risk factors and toddlers' behavior problems and self-regulation

Although maternal depression has been thought to be a risk factor for young children's maladjustment, findings from empirical studies in the developmental psychopathology literature have been inconsistent. These mixed findings may be due to the limited investigation of other family risk factors that may accompany maternal depression, and may reflect the use of outcome measures in young children that may not predict maladjustment in older children. This paper examined associations among maternal depression, paternal psychopathology, marital conflict and maternal negative feedback, an aspect of maternal parenting. Simple and complex associations between these risk factors and toddlers' behavior problems and self-regulation were also investigated. One hundred and one mothers and their 33-month-old toddlers participated in this study. Half of the mothers in the sample (n = 51) had experienced an episode of clinical depression sometime during their toddlers' lives. Mothers provided information on their depressive symptoms, fathers' psychiatric symptoms and marital conflict. Maternal negative feedback was observed at home, during a semi-structured mother-toddler teaching task. The index of toddlers' behavior problems was based on maternal ratings on the Child Behavior Checklist (CBCL), and an index of toddlers' self-regulation was derived from toddlers' behavior during a delay of gratification task. Significant relationships among maternal depression, paternal psychopathology and marital conflict were found. Maternal depression, as a single risk factor, did not predict toddlers' behavior problems but in conjunction with other family risk factors was associated with maladjustment in young children. Results from the current study indicate that paternal psychopathology moderates the association between maternal depression and toddlers' behavior problems; toddlers who experienced both maternal depression and paternal psychopathology in their lives had higher ratings of behavior problems as compared to toddlers who had only one parent with psychopathology or to toddlers with two well parents. Paternal psychopathology and maternal negative feedback were the only two individual family risk factors that predicted increased behavior problems in toddlers; surprisingly, no significant associations were found between family risk factors and toddlers' self-regulation. These findings suggest the importance of studying paternal psychopathology and maternal negative feedback as risk factors for young children. Findings from this study support the use of multi-risk models when investigating associations between maternal depression and young children's maladjustment.