Parent's anxiety links household stress and young children's behavioral dysregulation.
Dev Psychobiol
; 63(1): 16-30, 2021 01.
Article
en En
| MEDLINE
| ID: mdl-32671835
ABSTRACT
Young children rely heavily on their caregivers to gain information about the environment, especially during times of duress. Therefore, considering parental assessments of behavior in the context of stressful environments may better facilitate our understanding of the longstanding association between early environmental stressors and changes in child behavior and physiology. Confirming many previous reports, a higher degree of household stress exposure was associated with elevated mental health symptoms in 2- to 6-year-old children (N = 115; anxiety and externalizing behaviors), which were verified in a subset of children with laboratory-based behaviors (N = 46). However, these associations were mediated by parental anxiety symptoms, which were also associated with increased cortisol levels in children. A closer look at the stressors indicated that it was the adult-targeted, and not the child-targeted, stressors that correlated most with children's behavior problems. These results highlight the importance of considering the mediating effect of parents, when examining associations between household stress and young children's behavioral development.
Palabras clave
Texto completo:
1
Colección:
01-internacional
Banco de datos:
MEDLINE
Asunto principal:
Padres
/
Problema de Conducta
Límite:
Adult
/
Child
/
Child, preschool
/
Humans
Idioma:
En
Revista:
Dev Psychobiol
Año:
2021
Tipo del documento:
Article
País de afiliación:
Estados Unidos