Alissa C. Huth-Bocks

Parenting Stress, Parenting Behavior, and Children’s Adjustment in Families Experiencing Intimate Partner Violence

Children exposed to intimate partner violence are known to experience a number of negative outcomes, including behavioral and emotional problems; however, possible mechanisms accounting for this relationship are unclear. There is considerable evidence that parenting stress has a direct effect on child adjustment problems and on parenting behaviors; parenting behaviors, in turn, have been repeatedly shown to be related to child outcomes. The hypothesis that parenting mediates the relationship between parenting stress and child behavioral and emotional problems according to Abidin’s (Journal of Clinical Child Psychology, 21:407–412, 1992) model was tested in a sample of 190 battered women and their 4-to12-year-old children. No support for mediation was found for either mother- or child-reported outcomes. Parenting stress had a strong direct effect on child behavioral and emotional problems. These findings have implications for the viability of Abidin’s model, as well as for interventions with battered women that address parenting stress.

Stability and change in mothers' internal representations of their infants over time

Abstract This study examined predictors of stability and change in womens maternal representations of their children. Participants were 180 women, recruited from the community, half of whom had experienced domestic violence during pregnancy. Maternal representations of were assessed with the Working Model of the Child Interview (WMCI; Zeanah, Benoit, Hirshberg, Barton, & Regan, 1994) during the last trimester of pregnancy and again at the childs first birthday. Results indicated that when collapsed into balanced and non-balanced categories, 71% of the sample was stable over time, and women who had balanced representations had significantly more stable representations than women who had non-balanced representations (p < .001). Income, single parenthood, abuse status, and depressive symptomatology predicted change. In addition, women who became non-balanced postnatally benefited from having balanced representations while pregnant to buffer the quality of their interactions with their children.

Maternal reflective functioning among mothers with childhood maltreatment histories: links to sensitive parenting and infant attachment security

This study examined relationships among maternal reflective functioning, parenting, infant attachment, and demographic risk in a relatively large (N = 83) socioeconomically diverse sample of women with and without a history of childhood maltreatment and their infants. Most prior research on parental reflective functioning has utilized small homogenous samples. Reflective functioning was assessed with the Parent Development Interview, parenting was coded from videotaped mother–child interactions, and infant attachment was evaluated in Ainsworth’s Strange Situation by independent teams of reliable coders masked to maternal history. Reflective functioning was associated with parenting sensitivity and secure attachment, and inversely associated with demographic risk and parenting negativity; however, it was not associated with maternal maltreatment history or PTSD. Parenting sensitivity mediated the relationship between reflective functioning and infant attachment, controlling for demographic risk. Findings are discussed in the context of prior research on reflective functioning and the importance of targeting reflective functioning in interventions.

The Effects of Domestic Violence on the Stability of Attachment from Infancy to Preschool

We hypothesized that trajectories of domestic violence (DV), maternal depression, and household income (from pregnancy to age 4) would be differentially associated with instability and stability of attachment, as measured by the Strange Situation at ages 1 and 4. Participants were 150 women and children. Women were first assessed during pregnancy and then yearly when the children were 1 to 4 years old. Overall, attachment was unstable for 56% of the sample from age 1 to age 4. Trajectories of DV and income both predicted attachment patterns. Positive outcomes (secure-secure and insecure-secure) were related to initially low levels of DV that stayed constant or became lower as well as initially high or low levels of income that increased over time.

Relational Trauma and Posttraumatic Stress Symptoms among Pregnant Women

Women experience remarkably high rates of relational trauma including childhood abuse and neglect and intimate partner violence (IPV) during adulthood, and the childbearing years are no exception. The meaning of past and current relational trauma perpetrated by primary caregivers and significant others may be unique during pregnancy, in particular, because pregnancy is a salient time when mothers important relationships are reworked and reorganized to make room for the relationship with the baby. The present study examined associations between different forms of relational trauma and posttraumatic stress symptoms in 120 women during the last trimester of pregnancy. Women were between the ages of 18 and 42 years and came from diverse economic and ethnic backgrounds. Results indicated that severity of childhood maltreatment was significantly related to severity of IPV during pregnancy, and both types of trauma made unique, significant contributions to posttraumatic stress symptoms. Furthermore, emotional/psychological violence had the largest associations with posttraumatic stress symptoms compared to other forms of violence. Findings indicate that it is critically important for clinicians working with pregnant women to conduct a thorough assessment of current and past relational trauma, including emotional/psychological trauma, in order to improve the well-being of the mother, the infant, and the mother-infant relationship.

Variations in parenting stress in African-American battered women : Implications for children's adjustment and family intervention

The negative consequences of childrens exposure to intimate partner violence (IPV) have been well documented; however, less is known about the effects of contextual factors such as parenting stress, parenting behaviors, and mothers psychological functioning on exposed children. A total of 172 African-American mothers and their children (4 to 12 years of age) were recruited from battered womens shelters for the present study. Mothers filled out questionnaires assessing family violence, family contextual variables, and childrens outcomes, and children reported on their own depressive symptoms. Results from a cluster analysis indicated substantial variability in womens experiences of parenting stress with regard to both type and quantity. Across each of the six clusters, women significantly differed in parenting behaviors and general psychological distress, and their children varied concomitantly in severity of internalizing and externalizing problems. These patterns suggest the need for individualized interventions, with a particular focus on parenting stress, to better serve the needs of women and children experiencing IPV.

A social-contextual understanding of concordance and discordance between maternal prenatal representations of the infant and infant–mother attachment

This prospective study examined the relationship between maternal prenatal representations of the infant and later infant-mother attachment, including contextual factors related to concordance and discordance among dyads over time. Participants were 173 pregnant women between the ages of 18 and 40 who were interviewed during their last trimester of pregnancy and 2 and 13 months after birth. Maternal representations were assessed by the Working Model of the Child Interview during pregnancy (WMCI; C.H. Zeanah, D. Benoit, L. Hirshberg, M.L. Barton, & C. Regan, 1994), and infant-mother attachment was assessed through the Strange Situation procedure (M.D.S. Ainsworth, M. Blehar, E. Waters, & S. Wall, 1978) when infants were 13 months old. There was substantial discordance between maternal and infant classifications, although a significant concordance rate was found when classifications were collapsed into balanced/secure and nonbalanced/insecure groups based on prenatal representations and postnatal infant attachment groups (60%; χ2 = 6.90, p < .01; κ .20). As expected, discordance between maternal representations and infant-mother attachment was meaningfully related to contextual risk factors, maternal depression, and infant behaviors.

Secure base scripts are associated with maternal parenting behavior across contexts and reflective functioning among trauma-exposed mothers

There is growing evidence that “secure-base scripts” are an important part of the cognitive underpinnings of internal working models of attachment. Recent research in middle class samples has shown that secure-base scripts are linked to maternal attachment-oriented behavior and child outcomes. However, little is known about the correlates of secure base scripts in higher-risk samples. Participants in the current study included 115 mothers who were oversampled for childhood maltreatment and their infants. Results revealed that a higher level of secure base scriptedness was significantly related to more positive and less negative maternal parenting in both unstructured free play and structured teaching contexts, and to higher reflective functioning scores on the Parent Development Interview-Revised Short Form. Associations with parent–child secure base scripts, specifically, indicate some level of relationship-specificity in attachment scripts. Many, but not all, significant associations remained after controlling for family income and maternal age. Findings suggest that assessing secure base scripts among mothers known to be at risk for parenting difficulties may be important for interventions aimed at altering problematic parental representations and caregiving behavior.

Romantic Attachment as a Moderator of the Association Between Childhood Abuse and Posttraumatic Stress Disorder Symptoms

Childhood abuse can have significant negative effects on survivors that often last into adulthood. The purpose of this study was to explore the role of romantic attachment in understanding the relationship between childhood abuse and posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) symptoms in adulthood. Data for this study were taken from the first wave of a five-wave longitudinal study. The sample included 120 mothers in their third trimester of pregnancy. Regression analyses were conducted in order to examine adult romantic attachment as a possible protective or vulnerability factor. Main effects of attachment anxiety and attachment avoidance on PTSD symptoms were found, such that higher levels of attachment anxiety and attachment avoidance were related to more PTSD symptoms. Attachment avoidance moderated this relationship, such that child abuse was significantly related to greater PTSD symptoms in those with high attachment avoidance. Implications for attachment-based interventions are discussed.

The Influence of Interpersonal Aggression on Maternal Perceptions of Infant Emotions: Associations With Early Parenting Quality.

The current study tested the hypothesis that mothers who have experienced child maltreatment and aggression within their adult relationships may be at particular risk for misinterpreting infant emotions, leading to less sensitive parenting behaviors. Participants were 120 pregnant women recruited for a larger, longitudinal study investigating the role of psychosocial and environmental risk on women and their young children. Data were collected during the third trimester of pregnancy, and when children were 1 and 2 years of age. Participants completed a projective test designed to elicit individual differences in perceptions of infant emotions and an observer-rated assessment of parenting behaviors was conducted in the family home. Using structural equation modeling, we tested associations between maternal interpersonal aggression exposure and perceptions of infant emotion and parenting behaviors. Results demonstrated that a history of child abuse and intimate partner conflict were associated with a maternal tendency to view ambiguous infant facial expressions as negative (i.e., negative attribution bias), and in turn, with less parenting sensitivity over time. Findings suggest that negative attributions of infant emotion may be 1 mechanism by which a history of trauma and violence exposure contributes to less sensitive parenting for some mothers. Implications for intervention include the need for trauma-informed clinical services and psychoeducational methods that help mothers more accurately read and respond to infant emotional expression and bids for connection. (PsycINFO Database Record