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Parenting Behavior and Early Childhood Mental Health: Cortisol Awakening Response as a Moderator of Child

Nicole E Mahrer1, Gabrielle R Rinne2, Christine M Guardino3

  • 1University of La Verne, Psychology Department, 1950 Third Street La Verne, CA 91750, USA.

OBM Integrative and Complimentary Medicine
|May 5, 2025
PubMed

Insights

Responsive parenting promotes better child mental health. Harsh parenting increases internalizing behaviors and externalizing behaviors in children with low cortisol awakening response (CAR), highlighting biological sensitivity

Area of Science:

  • Child Psychology
  • Developmental Psychology
  • Behavioral Science

Background:

  • Parenting behaviors significantly influence child mental health outcomes.
  • Children's individual characteristics, such as biological sensitivity, moderate parenting effects.
  • Cortisol Awakening Response (CAR) serves as a biomarker for biological sensitivity to environmental influences.

Purpose of the Study:

  • To investigate the impact of responsive and harsh/rejecting parenting on child internalizing and externalizing behaviors.
  • To examine the moderating role of child cortisol awakening response (CAR) in the relationship between parenting and child mental health.
  • To understand how child biological sensitivity influences susceptibility to adverse parenting.

Main Methods:

  • Longitudinal study design involving 100 mostly low-income White and Latina/Hispanic mother-child dyads.
  • Measurement of responsive and harsh/rejecting parenting behaviors and child cortisol awakening response (CAR) during home visits at ages 4-6.
  • Assessment of children's internalizing and externalizing behaviors one year post-parenting and CAR assessment.

Main Results:

  • Responsive parenting was associated with fewer child internalizing and externalizing behaviors.
  • Harsh/rejecting parenting predicted increased child internalizing behaviors.
  • An interaction effect revealed that harsh/rejecting parenting predicted more externalizing behaviors specifically in children with low CAR, not high CAR.

Conclusions:

  • Parenting behaviors have a direct impact on child mental health.
  • Child's biological sensitivity, indicated by CAR, moderates the impact of harsh parenting on externalizing behaviors.
  • Interventions should consider child's biological sensitivity when addressing negative parenting effects on mental health.

Keywords:
Parentingcortisol awakening responseearly childhoodexternalizinginternalizing

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