Role of Maternal Childhood Trauma on Parenting Among Depressed Mothers of Psychiatrically Ill Children

Abstract

Background Independently, maternal depression and maternal history of childhood abuse confer risk for impaired parenting. These associations may be compounded when depressed mothers with histories of childhood abuse are faced with the challenge of parenting offspring who themselves struggle with mental health problems. This study examined the relationships among maternal history of childhood abuse, maternal depression, and parenting style in the context of parenting a psychiatrically ill child, with an emphasis on examining maternal emotional abuse and neglect. We hypothesized that maternal childhood emotional abuse would be associated with maladaptive parenting strategies (lower levels of maternal acceptance and higher levels of psychological control), independent of maternal depression severity and other psychosocial risk factors. Method Ninety-five mother-child dyads (children ages 7–18) were recruited from child mental health centers where children were receiving treatment for at least one internalizing disorder. Participating mothers met DSM-IV criteria for major depressive disorder. Mothers reported on their own childhood abuse histories and children reported on their mothers’ parenting. Results Regression analyses demonstrated that maternal childhood emotional abuse was associated with child reports of lower maternal acceptance and greater psychological control, controlling for maternal depression severity, and other psychosocial risk factors. Conclusions When treating psychiatrically ill children, it is important for a child’s clinician to consider mothers’ childhood abuse histories in addition to their history of depression. These mothers appear to have additional barriers to effective parenting.

The Relationship between Maternal Childhood Emotional Abuse/Neglect and Parenting Outcomes: A Systematic Review

“…Seven studies explored the impact of mothers' emotionally abusive and neglectful childhood experiences on the way in which they related to their children, using measures of parenting stress (Lang et al ., ; Pereira et al ., ), prenatal attachment (Siddiqui et al ., ), acceptance and psychological control (Zalewski et al ., ), maternal representations of the infant (Malone et al ., ), perceptions of infant behaviour (Lang et al ., ), parenting style (Bert et al ., 1999), maternal sensitivity (Pereira et al ., ) and engagement with play/praise (Fujiwara et al ., ).…”

“…Zalewski et al . () found that mothers who self‐reported childhood emotional abuse were rated by their children as being significantly lower in acceptance and higher in psychological control. This relationship was independent of maternal depression and other parental risk factors (i.e.…”

“…Papers included in this review described mixed evidence for a relationship between mothers’ reported histories of emotionally abusive/neglectful experiences and parenting self‐efficacy and competence (Caldwell et al ., ; Lang et al ., ; Zuravin and Fontanella, ). Tentative associations were found between mothers’ childhood experiences and subsequent dysfunctional parent‐child interactions (Lang et al ., ; Pereira et al ., ); lower empathy (Bert et al ., ); lower acceptance (Zalewski et al ., ); greater psychological control (Zalewski et al ., ); increased child maltreatment potential (Bert et al ., ); use of infant spanking (Chung et al ., ); and attitudes toward punishment (Bert et al ., ; Chung et al ., ) and punitiveness (Haapasalo and Aaltonen, ). Maternal perceptions of childhood experience of more emotional warmth were reported to be related to greater prenatal attachment (Siddiqui et al ., ), suggesting that the emotional dimensions of the parent‐child relationship may have a transgenerational impact on the formation of key attachment relationships between focal generation parents and their own children.…”

Maternal response to child affect: Role of maternal depression and relationship quality

“…Conceptual models (Hammen et al, 2004) and empirical findings from behavioral studies (Lovejoy et al, 2000) suggest that one putative mechanism for disease transmission across generations is maladaptive parent-child relationships in dyads with a depressed parent. Altered responses to child affect and maladaptive relationship patterns may be especially apparent in depressed mothers with psychiatrically ill children (Zalewski et al, 2013). Specifically, maternal neural function in emotional processing circuits is altered in depression (Barrett and Fleming, 2011) and may be associated with disruptions in parent-child relationships previously observed in depressed mother-child dyads.…”

“…Parental capacity to enjoy the rewarding aspects and manage the difficult aspects of parenting may be attenuated by parental depression (Zalewski et al, 2013). Depressed individuals show blunted ventral striatal (VS) activation in response to positive stimuli (Zhang et al, 2013), suggesting diminished pleasure in response to reward, and heightened response in the amygdala and insula to negative stimuli (Hamilton et al, 2012), indicating heightened negative affect in response to threatening stimuli.…”