Caught in a vicious cycle? Explaining bidirectional spillover between parent-child relationships and peer...

Area of Science:

• Developmental Psychology
• Child Socialization
• Family Studies

Background:

• Parent-child and peer relationships are vital for child development.
• The reciprocal influence between these relationships is not fully understood.
• Spillover theory provides a framework to examine cross-domain effects.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate the bidirectional relationship between parent-child dynamics (rejection, warmth) and peer victimization.
• To determine if children's maladjustment symptoms mediate these cross-domain effects.
• To understand the interplay between family and peer domains in childhood.

Main Methods:

• Longitudinal study with five waves of data from 9,770 children.
• Employed random intercept cross-lagged panel models.
• Analyzed data from the KiVa study.

Main Results:

• Parental rejection and warmth significantly predicted changes in peer victimization over time, and vice versa.
• Spillover effects were partially mediated by children's depressive symptoms and bullying perpetration.
• Peer victimization spillover to parent-child dynamics was mediated by social anxiety, depressive symptoms, conduct problems, and bullying perpetration.

Conclusions:

• Children's adjustment issues can create a cycle of problems in both family and peer relationships.
• Parental and peer domains mutually influence each other through child maladjustment.
• Integrated family and school interventions are recommended to disrupt negative cycles.