Warmth and reciprocity with mothers, and young children's resilience to exposure to community violence in Colombia: findings from the La Sabana Parent–Child Study

Abstract

Background: Exposure to community violence is common worldwide and is associated with emotional and behavioural problems in children. Little is known about sources of resilience. Building on our previous work on the contribution of callous-unemotional (CU) traits to child aggression in Colombia, we examined whether positive parenting is protective for children whose families are exposed to community violence. Methods: Families were recruited from three demographically contrasting regions of Colombia. The sample comprised 235 children aged 3.5 years and their mothers, of whom 220 (93%) were followed up at age 5.0 years. Positive parenting was assessed as the average of maternal warmth and reciprocity, and as praise, and negative parenting as the average of negative affect and conflict seen in video recordings of standardized procedures. CU traits and oppositional defiant disorder were assessed by maternal report at ages 3.5 and 5.0 years, and mothers reported exposure to community violence over the 18 months between assessments. A range of potential confounds was included in adjusted analyses. Results: In the families who were exposed to community violence, but not in the unexposed, maternal warmth and reciprocity were associated prospectively with lower CU traits (interaction, p = .007). In the exposed group maternal warmth and reciprocity explained 10% of the variance (b = À.34, p = .001). Maternal praise was not associated with CU traits. Maternal negative parenting predicted higher CU traits as the main effect but not in interaction with community violence exposure. Conclusions: Maternal warmth and reciprocity with young children may promote resilience in the face of community violence. Programmes to enhance these protective processes may be needed especially where prospects for reducing community violence are limited. The centrality of parents for these children highlights the plight of those exposed to community violence, and also either separated from parents or orphaned.

Commentary: Global perspectives on resilience and callous‐unemotional traits – a reflection on Obando et al. (2022)

“…Likewise, relatively little is known about CU traits in those Western countries not classified as High Income, such as Colombia. Thus, the findings from the La Sabana Parent-Child Study reported by Obando et al (2022) not only make a particularly important contribution to international evidence regarding child resilience but also to that regarding child CU traits more broadly.…”

“…Also recognised is a pathway based largely on extreme environmental adversity alone, whereby CU traits emerge as an adaptive reactionary response to contexts including abuse, neglect and institutionalisation. As such, the environmental contributions predicted by this model include the parenting processes emphasised by Obando et al (2022), and future research integrating these child variables would serve to further inform such accounts.…”

“…Questions related to resilience have driven an emerging body of research into the processes that protect against the development of CU traits in children with such risk factors. As outlined by Obando et al (2022), positive parenting practices, high in warmth, reciprocity, and positive reinforcement of prosocial behaviour, have been found to protect against the emergence of CU traits in early childhood in numerous studies. This includes adoption and twin research in which children with biological risks for CU traits have been found to show reduced levels of CU traits prospectively, independent of conduct problems, when they receive parenting of this kind in infancy (for a review see Waller & Wagner, 2019).…”

“…The key findings of Obando et al (2022) related to community violence point to a need for research into the interplay between warm and responsive parenting, CU traits, and broader forms of adversity. Extensive research into adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) has highlighted that multiple forms of adversity commonly covary in the population and impact on a diverse range of outcomes through cumulative risk.…”

“…As highlighted by Masten (2014), questions concerning the developmental timing of adversity are integral to understanding resilience in children and youth. The findings of Obando et al (2022) regarding early childhood CU traits in the context of exposure to community violence raise key questions of this kind for future research. Only one previous study has examined interplay between parenting, community violence and CU traits in adolescence, which found that although community violence increased risk for CU traits in this period, the risk did not appear to be moderated by supportive parenting (Davis, Ammons, Dahl, & Kliewer, 2015).…”