What it feels like to be a mother: Variations by children’s developmental stages.

Abstract

The central question we addressed was whether mothers’ adjustment might vary systematically by the developmental stages of their children. In an internet-based study of over 2,200 mostly well-educated mothers with children ranging from infants to adults, we examined multiple aspects of mothers’ personal well-being, parenting, and perceptions of their children. Uniformly, adjustment indices showed curvilinear patterns across children’s developmental stages, with mothers of middle-schoolers faring the most poorly, and mothers of adult children and infants faring the best. Findings based on children in mutually exclusive age groups -- e.g., mothers with only (one or more) infants, preschoolers, etc. -- had larger effect sizes than those based on the age of the mothers’ oldest child. In contrast to the recurrent findings based on children’s developmental stages, mothers’ adjustment dimensions showed few variations by their children’s gender. Collectively, results of this study suggest that there is value in preventive interventions involving mothers not just in their children’s infancy and preschool years, but also as their children traverse the developmentally challenging years surrounding puberty.

Associations Among Mothers’ Depression, Emotional and Learning‐Material Support to Their Child, and Children's Cognitive Functioning: A 16‐Year Longitudinal Study

“…Specifically, mothers’ low provision of support (both emotional verbal and learning material) was more strongly linked with maternal depression as children got older. The increase in this link across age might reflect a distancing between mother and child and is consistent with studies showing increases in maternal distress as children age into adolescence (Luthar & Cicolla, ). Children might also be seeking independence from their mothers, with less need for maternal support, which could also be distressing for mothers (Steinberg & Silk, ).…”

When Mothers and Fathers Are Seen as Disproportionately Valuing Achievements: Implications for Adjustment Among Upper Middle Class Youth

“…Parenting practices that directly or indirectly (i.e., modeling) encourage intrinsic versus extrinsic pursuits, and contribute to the satisfaction of children's needs for autonomy, competence, and relatedness, may help children adopt life goals that foster happiness and well-being (Dittmar et al, 2014; Lekes, Gingras, Philippe, Koestner, & Fang, 2010). Notably, our data suggest that perceptions of parental values are very salient and influential for early adolescents entering middle school, a developmental period that has been identified as tumultuous for both children and parents (Luthar & Ciciolla, 2016; Steinberg & Silk, 2002), as well as important for youth identity formation (Erikson, 1968). Our findings suggest that the entry into middle school may be a time to help parents understand the empirically demonstrated risks of disproportionately emphasizing achievement, and to promote the protective influence of prosocial values through modeling (in addition to parenting dimensions that are usually emphasized including warm, authoritative parenting, and appropriate limit-setting; Padilla-Walker, Carlo, Christensen, & Yorgason, 2012).…”

Drivers of human development: How relationships and context shape learning and development1

“…For example, adolescents may encounter a greater number and complexity of adversities compared to younger children (Grasso, Dierkhising, Branson, Ford, & Lee, 2016), and maternal distress can be highest during the middle school years, as mothers adjust to the many brain and hormonal changes that occur during adolescence and adjustments in the nature of the developmental relationship (Luthar & Ciciolla, 2016). Middle and high schools often are organized in ways that do not fit the developmental tasks or needs of adolescents, often de-emphasizing opportunities for ongoing, deep connections to adults and peers, healthy social networks, and opportunities to practice autonomous decision-making and higherlevel cognitive strategies, while emphasizing competition and social comparison (Eccles & Roeser, 2011).…”