Strong Military Families Intervention Enhances Parenting Reflectivity and Representations in Families With Young Children

Abstract

Military families face many challenges due to deployment and parental separation, and this can be especially difficult for families with young children. The Strong Military Families (SMF) intervention is for military families with young children, and consists of two versions: the Multifamily Group, and a Home-based psychoeducational written materials program. The Multifamily Group was designed to enhance positive parenting through both educational components and in vivo feedback and support during separations and reunions between parents and children (n = 78 parents). In the present study, we examine parenting reflectivity and mental representations in mothers versus fathers in military families, service members versus civilian spouses/parenting partners, and before versus after participation in the SMF Multifamily Group and Home-based interventions. Parenting reflectivity and mental representations were coded from the Working Model of the Child Interview (WMCI; C.H. Zeanah & D. Benoit, 1995). Results suggest that neither parenting reflectivity nor WMCI typology differs between mothers and fathers in military families, or between service members and civilian parenting partners. Furthermore, there was substantial stability in parenting reflectivity and WMCI typology from baseline to posttest, but participation in the Multifamily Group, relative to Home-based, was associated with improvements in both parenting reflectivity and WMCI ratings from baseline to postintervention. Keywords: military families, parenting reflectivity, interventionRESUMEN: Las familias militares enfrentan muchos retos debido a las distantes asignaciones de servicio y la separación de los padres, lo cual puede ser específicamente difícil para familias con niños pequeños. La intervención Familias Militares Fuertes (SMF) es para familias militares con niños pequeños y consta de dos versiones: un Grupo Múltiple de Familias y un programa sicoeducativo de materiales escritos con base en casa. El Grupo Múltiple de Familias se diseñó para mejorar la crianza positiva tanto a través de componentes educativos como de reacciones y apoyo en vivo durante las separaciones y reuniones entre padres y niños (n = 78 padres). En el presente estudio, examinamos el poder de reflexión sobre la crianza y las representaciones mentales en mamás vs. papás en familias militares, miembros del servicio militar vs. cónyuges civiles/parejas conyugales en la crianza, y antes vs. después de la participación en el Grupo Múltiple de Familias SMF y en las intervenciones con base en casa. El poder de reflexión sobre la crianza y las representaciones mentales se codificaron usando el Modelo de Trabajo de la Entrevista del Niño -WMCI-(Zeanah y Benoit, 1995). Los resultados sugieren que ni el poder de reflexión ni la tipología del WMCI difieren entre mamás y papás en familias militares, o entre miembros del servicio militar y sus parejas conyugales civiles en la crianza. Es más, se dio una estabilidad de importancia en el poder de reflexión y la tipología WMCI entre el p...

Minding the Baby®: Enhancing parental reflective functioning and infant attachment in an attachment-based, interdisciplinary home visiting program

“…Thus, when an individual's survival mode, namely, fight, flight, or freezing, is triggered by threat, resulting in the overactivation of the limbic system, reflective processes believed essential to creating a secure and safe base for one's child are impaired. It is for this reason that enhancing parental RF is a goal of many attachment-based interventions aimed at improving outcomes in highly stressed populations (Camoirano, 2017; Julian, Muzik, Kees, Valenstein, & Rosenblum, 2017; Pajulo et al, 2012; Powell, Cooper, Hoffman, & Marvin, 2013; Schechter et al, 2006; Steele, Steele, Bonuck, Meissner, & Murphy, 2018; Suchman, DeCoste, Castiglioni, et al, 2010; Suchman et al, 2017; Suchman, Ordway, de las Heras, & McMahon, 2016). A small number of noncontrolled studies of vulnerable mothers have reported significant (Pajulo et al, 2012; Schechter et al, 2006; Suchman et al, 2016) or trend-level (Muzik et al, 2015) changes in RF over the course of an intervention.…”

Intervention effects on reflectivity explain change in positive parenting in military families with young children.

“…While the mediation effect for Emotional Responsiveness also had a small effect size, it did not reach statistical significance, and the pathway from posttest reflective parenting to post-Test Emotional Responsiveness was marginal; future work with larger samples is necessary to elucidate this result. Prior work demonstrated that the SMF Multifamily Group intervention (Julian et al, 2017) and some other therapeutic interventions (Katznelson, 2014) are associated with benefits to parenting reflectivity. Parenting reflectivity is known to relate to parents' behavioral sensitivity (Rosenblum et al, 2008) and children's attachment security (Zeanah et al, 1994), but it was not known whether intervention-related changes in reflective capacity explain improvements in observable parenting behavior.…”

“…The current study utilized the WMCI Parenting Reflectivity Scale, which is a single-item 5-point scale (1 = extremely limited , 2 = limited , 3 = moderate , 4 = high , 5 = very high ) assessing the parents’ ability to take into account their child’s mental states and motivations. This scale has previously been found to relate to parents’ behavioral sensitivity and mind-minded comments during interactions with their child, and changes from pre- to post- a parenting intervention (Julian et al, 2017; Muzik et al, 2015; Rosenblum et al, 2008). In this study, two independent WMCI coders who were blind to intervention condition were trained to code the Parenting Reflectivity Scale, and obtained strong interrater reliability (intraclass correlation coefficient; ICC = .85) on a set of 20 WMCI transcripts.…”

“…Parents’ ability to reflect on their child’s internal state and motivations (“parenting reflectivity”) is associated with their behavioral sensitivity (Rosenblum, McDonough, Sameroff, & Muzik, 2008), and a related construct of mothers’ representations of their infants is also related to their child’s attachment security (Zeanah, Benoit, Hirshberg, Barton, & Regan, 1994). A parent’s reflective function (i.e., a broader construct representing an individual’s ability to think about one’s own and others’ mental states) is associated with his or her own attachment history (Slade, Grienenberger, Bernbach, Levy, & Locker, 2005), can change in response to later experiences or interventions (Bretherton & Munholland, 2008; Julian, Muzik, Kees, Valenstein, & Rosenblum, 2017), and is often a major target of therapeutic work with parents of young children (Slade, 2007).…”

“…Previous work suggests that the parent intervention program, Mom Power, is associated with improvements in mental health symptoms and parenting stress, a shift toward more “balanced” maternal representations (Rosenblum, Lawler, et al, 2017), as well as activation of brain circuitry relevant to parental empathy (Swain et al, 2017; Swain, Ho, Rosenblum, Morelen, & Muzik, 2016). Further, the Strong Military Families Multifamily Group is associated with improvements in parenting reflectivity (Julian et al, 2017). It is not yet known whether observed parenting behavior and affect changes as a function of participation in the Strong Military Families program.…”