Parents' Spontaneous Attributions about their Problem Child: Associations with Parental Mental Health and Child Conduct Problems.

Parents' Spontaneous Attributions about their Problem Child: Associations with Parental Mental Health and Child Conduct Problems.
J Abnorm Child Psychol. 2019 Mar 30;:
Authors: Palm SME, Sawrikar V, Schollar-Root O, Moss A, Hawes DJ, Dadds MR
Abstract
Parents' attributions about their child's personality and behaviour are known to predict the quality of parent-child interactions and outcomes for the child, including those from parenting interventions. Nothing is known, however, about the quantity and quality of attributions parents use during free speech about their children referred for treatment of behavioural and emotional problems. We tested hypotheses about the types of attributions and associations among parental attributions, parental psychopathology and child conduct problems, using 504 five-minute speech samples (FMSS) coded using the Parent Attribution Speech Sample (PASS) coding system. Both mothers and fathers talked about their thoughts and feelings regarding their children with disruptive behaviour problems (N = 295; 74% male; 3-8 years old). The assessment of spontaneous parental attributions via the PASS coding system was shown to be valid and reliable. Mothers made more negative, dispositional attributions than fathers, however, parents of either gender made, on average, more positive than negative attributions about their children. Parents' natural attributions about these children with emotional and behavioura...

Source: Journal of Abnormal Child Psychology - March 29, 2019 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Authors: Palm SME, Sawrikar V, Schollar-Root O, Moss A, Hawes DJ, Dadds MR Tags: J Abnorm Child Psychol Source Type: research