Patterns of adverse childhood experiences among Chinese preschool parents and the intergenerational transmission of risk to offspring behavioural problems: moderating by coparenting quality

Abstract

Background: Although intergenerational transmission of ACEs among parents and their offspring have been extensively studied in the West, few studies have been conducted in China on preschool children and their parents, and explore the protective fact for the intergeneration transmission. Objective: Using latent class analysis and moderation model, this study examined the associations between patterns of adverse childhood experiences of Chinese preschool parents and behavioural problems in their children and whether coparenting quality plays a protective role in this relationship. Method: A retrospective study was conducted on 3091 parent–child dyads from 11 kindergartens in the northern, central, and southern Anhui provinces in China. Online questionnaires were used to collect the data. Parents reported adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) and provided information on their children's behavioural problems and perceived coparenting quality. Latent class analysis and a moderating model were used to examine the associations between patterns of adverse childhood experiences of Chinese preschool parents and behavioural problems in their children, and the moderating role of coparenting quality. Results: Four classes were identified: a high ACEs group, a violent victimisation group, a child abuse and physical neglect group, and a low ACEs group. Increasing levels of co-parenting quality were associated with reduced parent-reported child behaviour problems for all classes, and that potentially buffering effect was significantly stronger for the low ACEs class than for children whose parents in high ACEs class. Conclusions: Exposure to high ACEs increases the risk of developing behavioural problems in offspring, and coparenting quality may serve as a protective mechanism for intergenerational transmission. Future research should develop and implement interventions to support disadvantaged, at-risk parents and promote coparenting quality.

Intergenerational associations of adverse and positive maternal childhood experiences with young children’s psychosocial well-being

“…The gross domestic product (GDP) of Anhui province in 2020 was CNY 3,868.1 billion, representing moderate level in China (National Bureau of Statistics of China, 2021 ). The detail of study design and participants also can be found in our previous study (Zhu et al, 2022 ). Of the total sample, the average age of mothers were 34.38 years (SD = 4.89).…”

“…Child age (months), child sex (1 = male, 2 = female), mother’s age (years), and family socioeconomic status (SES) were included as covariates (Zhu et al, 2022 ). Five indicators were used for SES: father and mother’s occupation, education level, and family income.…”

Adverse Childhood Experiences, Resilience, and Emotional Problems in Young Chinese Children

“…The majority of reports on the questionnaire were completed by the preschoolers’ mothers (76.5%), while others were reported by fathers (22.8%) and other relatives (0.7%). The preschoolers’ annual family income ranged from below ¥50 k to above ¥300 k, with an average income between ¥100 k and ¥150 k; 95.3% of the families received 50,000 yuan per year as their family income, which showed the economic level of our sample was higher than the Chinese average poor family income level [ 24 ]. Table 1 shows the descriptive statistics for all study variables.…”

“…The SES consisted of five indicators: the father’s occupation, education level, the mother’s occupation, education level, and the family’s annual income. The average standardized score of five indicators was calculated as the family SES in our study [ 24 ].…”

Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) and the Link to Antisocial, Delinquent, and Criminal Behaviors

“…Adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) do not have a single cause, it takes on several causes and forms, as many factors contribute to ACEs, ranging from parents, family environments, personality traits, socioeconomic circumstances, the school, peers, mental health issues, physical health problems, to community/neighborhood characteristics [1][2][3][4][5][6][7][8][9][10][11][12][13][14][15]. The crux is ACEs facilitate, simulate, and play significant roles in the maltreatment and trauma of ACEs' victims' lives [3,4,7,10,12,16,17].…”