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Description
Purpose: Studies indicate a distal association between mothers’ history of childhood abuse and emotional/behavioral problems in their children, though the pathways linking the two remain unclear. Utilizing a developmental cascade framework, this study extends prior research by prospectively examining the association between maternal history of child sexual and physical abuse to offspring internalizing/externalizing problems through maternal depressive symptoms and mother-child aggression. Participants: Data from 768 mother-child dyads were drawn from the Longitudinal Studies of Child Abuse and Neglect. Children (50.3% female) were identified as having a history of maltreatment and/or being at-risk for maltreatment prior to the age of 4 years. The sample was racially/ethnically diverse and predominantly from low-income backgrounds. Methodology: Data were collected through biannual interviews using caregiver reports and self-reports. Maternal history of childhood physical and sexual abuse and maternal depressive symptoms were assessed when the children were 4 years old. Maternal use of psychologically aggressive and physically assaultive discipline strategies were assessed when children were 4 and 6 years old, and mother-reported child internalizing/externalizing problems were assessed when children were 4 and 8 years old. Results: Structural equation modeling with bias-corrected confidence intervals based on 1000 boot-strapped samples was used to examine mediation paths. A path model, in which maternal childhood abuse predicted maternal depressive symptoms at age 4, both predicted mother-child aggression at age 6 (controlling for age 4 levels), and all three predicted child internalizing and externalizing problems at age 8 (controlling for age 4 levels), generally fit the data well. Maternal depressive symptoms and mother-child aggression significantly serially mediated the association between maternal history of child abuse and child externalizing problems but not for internalizing problems. However, the association between maternal depressive symptoms and mother child aggression was in the opposite direction expected. More maternal depressive symptoms did independently mediate the association between maternal history of child abuse and child internalizing problems, but not child externalizing problems. Conclusions: These findings underscore the importance of trauma-informed mental health services for mothers with a history of childhood abuse and provide a foundation for future longitudinal investigations of the developmental pathways in emotional/behavioral problems among at-risk youth.
