Child temperament as a longitudinal predictor of mother –adolescent interaction quality: are effects independent of child and maternal mental health?

AbstractAdaptive parent –child interaction plays a major role in healthy child development. Caregiver mental health problems can negatively impact parent–child interaction. In turn, interactional quality is often studied as a predictor of child outcome. However, child characteristics supposedly shape parent–child int eractions as well. Given associations between child and caregiver mental health and child temperament, this study aimed at differentiating their effects on dyadic interaction quality in adolescence. Child temperament and character at age 5 were investigated as longitudinal predictors of observed mot her–adolescent interactional quality at age 14 in a community sample (N = 76). It was examined whether these effects were independent of maternal and child mental health and earlier dysfunctional interaction. Lower novelty seeking, higher reward dependence, and higher cooperativeness separately predicted higher dyadic interactional quality at age 14. Controlling re gressions for dysfunctional interaction at age 5, which was a significant negative predictor of later interactional quality, cancelled out the effects of novelty seeking and cooperativeness. Past or concurrent maternal or child psychopathology did not explain variance in mother–adolescent interact ion. Applying backward selection, a model including reward dependence and dysfunctional interaction at age 5 and concurrent maternal stress showed the best fit for explaining dyadic interaction quali...
Source: European Child and Adolescent Psychiatry - Category: Psychiatry Source Type: research