Family functioning and children's adjustment: associations among parents' depressed mood, marital hostility, parent-child hostility, and children's adjustment.
Relations between parents' depressed mood, marital conflict, parent-child hostility, and children's adjustment were examined in a community sample of 136 ten-year-olds and their parents. Videotaped observational and self-report data were used to examine these relations in path analyses. A proposed model was tested in which mothers' and fathers' depressed mood and marital hostility were associated with children's adjustment problems through disruptions in parent-child relationships. Results showed that both mothers' and fathers' marital hostility were linked to parent-child hostility, which in turn was linked to children's internalizing problems. Fathers' depressed mood was linked to children's internalizing problems indirectly through father-child hostility. Fathers' depressed mood was directly linked to children's externalizing problems and indirectly linked through father-child hostility. For mothers, marital hostility was directly linked to children's externalizing problems, and marital hostility in fathers was indirectly linked to children's externalizing problems through father-child hostility.
Low
Sabina M
SM
Department of Psychology, University of Denver, Denver, CO, USA. smlow@u.washington.edu
Stocker
Clare
C
D000223:Adaptation, Psychological / Q000502:physiology*; D002648:Child; D016241:Child of Impaired Parents / Q000523:psychology; D003863:Depression / Q000523:psychology*; D005195:Family Relations; D005260:Female; D006791:Hostility; D006801:Humans; D007389:Internal-External Control; D008297:Male; D008393:Marriage / Q000523:psychology*; D008960:Models, Psychological; D010287:Parent-Child Relations; D011569:Psychiatric Status Rating Scales; D012650:Self Disclosure; D012737:Sex Factors; D014743:Videotape Recording / Q000379:methods