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Assessing the Coherence of Parents' Short Narratives Regarding their Child Using the Five-Minute Speech Sample Procedure
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Patterns of Associations Between Maternal Symptoms and Child Problem Behaviors: The Mediating Role of Mentalization,

Gizem Arikan1, Asiye Kumru2

  • 1Department of Psychology, Ozyegin University, Nisantepe Mah. Orman Sok. Cekmekoy, Istanbul, Turkey. gizem.arikan@ozyegin.edu.tr.

Child Psychiatry and Human Development
|August 28, 2020
PubMed

We examined how maternal depression, anxiety, hostility, mentalization, negative intentionality (NI), and unsupportive emotion socialization (UES) predict child internalizing and externalizing problem behaviors (CIEPB). Mothers (N = 537) of toddlers (Mage = 23.26 months, Range 10-44 months) completed the Brief Symptom Inventory, the Parental Reflective Functioning Questionnaire, the Infant Intentionality Questionnaire, the Coping with Children's Negative Emotions Scale, and the Child Behavior Checklist. All maternal symptoms negatively predicted mentalization and positively predicted NI, UES, and CIEPB. NI and UES mediated the relationship between maternal symptoms and CIEPB. Negative intentionality mediated the link between maternal hostility and internalizing behaviors, indicating a possible intervention area. Mentalization had an effect on externalizing behaviors only for high-SES, anxious mothers, underscoring the role of SES. Thus, the relationship between maternal symptoms, cognitive and behavioral parenting characteristics and CIEPB supports the multifinality principle for early childhood psychopathology development and shows the importance of screening for maternal symptoms and CIEPB.

Keywords:
Child problem behaviorsMaternal symptomsMentalizationNegative intentionalityUnsupportive emotion socialization

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