Psychiatric Disorders in the Mothers of Disturbed Children

Psychiatric Disorder in the Parents of Hyperactive Boys and Those With Conduct Disorder

“…The high prevalence of psychiatric disorder among the parents of our subjects is consistent with the earlier work of Robins (1966), Rutter (1966), Wolff and Acton (1968) and Britton (1969). Similarly, other observers have found that a high proportion of mothers attending a child psychiatry clinic are depressed (Fabian and Donahue, 1956) and that many of the fathers are antisocial or alcoholic (Robins, 1966).…”

Families with problem children

“…For the widest possible range of childhood disorders one does not have to look too far or too long to identify related family disturbances. Relationships between family functioning and such diverse child problems as hyperactivity (Stewart and others, 1980), antisocial and delinquent behavior (Alexander, 1973;Patterson, 1982), neurotic and anxiety reactions (Britton, 1969), autism (Cantwell and others, 1979), psychosomatic disorders (Garner and Wenar, 1959), learning disabilities (Chapman and Boersma, 1979), retardation and developmental delay (Buckhalt and others, 1978;Waisbren, 1980), depression (Cantwell, 1983), abuse (Mash and others, in press), and neglect (Aragona and Eyberg, 1981) have all been demonstrated.…”

Juvenile Offenders

“…For comparison: Britton (1969) found a 'psychiatric history' in 67 of the 100 mothers of children referred to his child guidance clinic in Miinster. He divided these mothers into three groups: (1) depressed, (2) neurotic, and (3) "a personality disorder group", and came to the conclusion that 'Lwomen with personality disorders more often had severely disturbed children than neurotic or depressive mothers".…”

“…Tuckman & R egun (1966) found in their study-of 'home and behavioural problems in children' that "all varieties of broken homes were over-represented in the clinic population" whilst "intact homes were under-represented". Britton (1969) used the term 'conduct disorders' for such symptoms as lying, steal- We classified certain such symptoms in our children as personality disorder and were inclined to see them as an indication of a later psychopathic personality. Of the R H girls about one-fourth had a normal personality, one-half showed various neurotic symptoms, such as anxiety, tension, moodiness, nailbiting, thumb-sucking, enuresis; 6 girls displayed such pre-psychotic symptoms as depression and schizophrenia-like withdrawal.…”