Maternal and paternal sensitivity: Key determinants of child attachment security examined through meta-analysis.

Sensitive caregiving behavior, which involves the ability to notice, interpret, and quickly respond to a child's signals of need and/or interest, is a central determinant of secure child-caregiver attachment. Yet, significant heterogeneity in effect sizes exists across the literature, and sources of heterogeneity have yet to be explained. For all child-caregiver dyads, there was a significant and positive pooled association between caregiver sensitivity and parent-child attachment (r = .25, 95% CI [.22, .28], k = 174, 230 effect sizes, N = 22,914). We also found a positive association between maternal sensitivity and child attachment security (r = .26, 95% CI [.22, .29], k = 159, 202 effect sizes, N = 21,483), which was equivalent in magnitude to paternal sensitivity and child attachment security (r = .21, 95% CI [.14, 27], k = 22, 23 effect sizes, N = 1,626). Maternal sensitivity was also negatively associated with all three classifications of insecure attachment (avoidant: k = 43, r = -.24 [-.34, -.13]; resistant: k = 43, r = -.12 [-.19, -.06]; disorganized: k = 24, r = -.19 [-.27, -.11]). For maternal sensitivity, associations were larger in studies that used the Attachment Q-Sort (vs. the Strange Situation), used the Maternal Behavior Q-Sort (vs. Ainsworth or Emotional Availability Scales), had strong (vs. poor) interrater measurement reliability, had a longer observation of sensitivity, and had less time elapse between assessments. For paternal sensitivity, associations were larger in older (vs. younger) fathers and children. These findings confirm the importance of both maternal and paternal sensitivity for the development of child attachment security and add understanding of the methodological and substantive factors that allow this effect to be observed. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved).

Exploring the role of OXTR gene methylation in attachment development: A longitudinal study.

The current study explored longitudinally whether oxytocin receptor gene methylation (OXTRm) changes moderated the association between parental sensitivity changes and children's attachment changes over three waves. Six hundred six Flemish children (10-12 years, 42.8%-44.8% boys) completed attachment measures and provided salivary OXTRm data on seven CpG sites. Their parents reported their sensitive parenting. Results suggest that OXTRm changes hardly link to attachment (in)security changes after the age of 10. Some support was found for interaction effects between parental sensitivity changes and OXTRm changes on attachment changes over time. Effects suggest that for children with increased OXTRm in the promotor region and decreased methylation in the inhibitor region over time, increased parental sensitivity was associated with increased secure attachment and decreased insecure attachment over time.

Neural processing of cry sounds in the transition to fatherhood: Effects of a prenatal intervention program and associations with paternal caregiving.

This study examined whether neural processing of infant cry sounds changes across the transition to fatherhood (i.e., from the prenatal to postnatal period), and examined whether an interaction-based prenatal intervention modulated these changes. Furthermore, we explored whether postnatal activation in brain regions showing transition or intervention effects was associated with sensitive care and involvement. In a randomized controlled trial, 73 first-time expectant fathers were enrolled, of whom 59 had at least 1 available fMRI scan. Intervention and transition effects on cry processing were analyzed in the amygdala and superior frontal gyrus (SFG) using linear mixed effect models with all available data and with intent-to-treat analyses. Further, exploratory whole-brain analyses were performed. ROI analyses suggest that the transition to fatherhood is characterized by decreasing activation in response to cry vs control sounds in the amygdala but not SFG. Exploratory whole-brain analyses also show a decrease in activation over the transition to fatherhood in the sensorimotor cortex, superior lateral occipital cortex, hippocampus, and regions of the default mode network. In the putamen and insula, larger decreases were found in fathers with more adverse childhood caregiving experiences. In regions showing transitional changes, higher postnatal activation was associated with more concurrent parenting sensitivity. No effects of the intervention were found. The decrease in activation from the pre- to postnatal period may reflect fathers' habituation to cry sounds over repeated exposures. The positive association between postnatal neural activation and paternal sensitive care suggest that continued sensitivity to cry sounds may be conducive to parenting quality.

The role of emotion recognition in the intergenerational transmission of child maltreatment: A multigenerational family study.

BACKGROUND: Understanding how child maltreatment is passed down from one generation to the next is crucial for the development of intervention and prevention strategies that may break the cycle of child maltreatment. Changes in emotion recognition due to childhood maltreatment have repeatedly been found, and may underly the intergenerational transmission of child maltreatment. OBJECTIVE: In this study we, therefore, examined whether the ability to recognize emotions plays a role in the intergenerational transmission of child abuse and neglect. PARTICIPANTS AND SETTING: A total of 250 parents (104 males, 146 females) were included that participated in a three-generation family study. METHOD: Participants completed an emotion recognition task in which they were presented with series of photographs that depicted the unfolding of facial expressions from neutrality to the peak emotions anger, fear, happiness, and sadness. Multi-informant measures were used to examine experienced and perpetrated child maltreatment. RESULTS: A history of abuse, but not neglect, predicted a shorter reaction time to identify fear and anger. In addition, parents who showed higher levels of neglectful behavior made more errors in identifying fear, whereas parents who showed higher levels of abusive behavior made more errors in identifying anger. Emotion recognition did not mediate the association between experienced and perpetrated child maltreatment. CONCLUSIONS: Findings highlight the importance of distinguishing between abuse and neglect when investigating the precursors and sequalae of child maltreatment. In addition, the effectiveness of interventions that aim to break the cycle of abuse and neglect could be improved by better addressing the specific problems with emotion processing of abusive and neglectful parents.

Maternal cognitive functioning and psychopathology predict quality of parent-child relationship in the context of substance use disorder: A 15-month longitudinal study.

This longitudinal study aimed to investigate the role of maternal cognitive functioning and psychopathology in parent-child relationship quality during residential treatment for mothers with Substance Use Disorder (SUD), in order to identify factors that may enhance or limit intervention effects.We assessed cognitive functioning (Esame Neuropsicologico Breve-2 [ENB-2]) and psychopathology (Symptom Checklist-90 Revised [SCL-90-R]) in 60 mothers diagnosed with SUD (Mage = 30.13 yrs; SD = 6.79) at treatment admission. Parent-child relationship quality was measured during free-play interactions using the Emotional Availability Scales every three months from admission (Child Mage = 17.17m; SD = 23.60) to the 15th month of the residential treatment.A main effect of maternal psychopathology and an interaction effect of time and cognitive functioning were found. More maternal psychopathology predicted lower mother-child relationship quality. Mothers with higher cognitive functioning presented a better treatment trajectory, with an increase in mother-child relationship quality, whereas mothers with lower cognitive functioning showed a decrease in relationship quality after initial improvement.These findings suggest that maternal psychopathology and cognitive functioning may influence the treatment of parent-child relationships in the context of SUD, although causality is not yet established. Implications for assessment and intervention are discussed.

The polygenic and reactive nature of observed parenting.

In Wertz et al. (2019), parents' polygenic scores of educational attainment (PGS-EA) predicted parental sensitive responses to the child's needs for support, as observed in a dyadic task (i.e., observed sensitivity). We aimed to replicate and expand these findings by combining longitudinal data, child genotype data and several polygenic scores in the Generation R Study. Mother-child dyads participated in two developmental periods, toddlerhood (14 months old; n = 648) and early childhood (3-4 years old, n = 613). Higher maternal PGS-EA scores predicted higher observed sensitivity in toddlerhood (b = 0.12, 95% CI 0.03, 0.20) and early childhood (b = 0.16, 95% CI 0.08, 0.24). Child PGS-EA was significantly associated with maternal sensitivity in early childhood (b = 0.11, 95% CI 0.02, 0.21), and the effect of maternal PGS-EA was no longer significant when correcting for child PGS-EA. A latent factor of PGSs based on educational attainment, intelligence (IQ) and income showed similar results. These polygenic scores might be associated with maternal cognitive and behavioral skills that help shape parenting. Maternal PGSs predicted observed sensitivity over and above the maternal phenotypes, showing an additional role for PGSs in parenting research. In conclusion, we replicated the central finding of Wertz et al. (2019) that parental PGS-EA partially explains parental sensitivity. Our findings may be consistent with evocative gene-environment correlation (rGE), emphasizing the dynamic nature of parenting behavior across time, although further research using family trios is needed to adequately test this hypothesis.

Facing ostracism: micro-coding facial expressions in the Cyberball social exclusion paradigm.

BACKGROUND: Social exclusion is often measured with the Cyberball paradigm, a computerized ball-tossing game. Most Cyberball studies, however, used self-report questionnaires, leaving the data vulnerable to reporter bias, and associations with individual characteristics have been inconsistent. METHODS: In this large-scale observational study, we video-recorded 4,813 10-year-old children during Cyberball and developed a real-time micro-coding method measuring facial expressions of anger, sadness and contempt, in a multi-ethnic population-based sample. We estimated associations between facial expressions and self-reported negative feelings, explored associations of child characteristics such as sex and parental national origin with observed and self-reported feelings during social exclusion, and tested associations of observed and self-reported feelings during social exclusion with behavior problems at age 14. RESULTS: Facial expressions of sadness and anger were associated with self-reported negative feelings during the game, but not with such feelings after the game. Further, girls reported to have had less negative feelings during the game than boys, but no such sex-differences were found in total observed emotions. Likewise, children with parents of Moroccan origin reported less negative feelings during the game than Dutch children, but their facial expressions did not indicate that they were differently affected. Last, observed emotions related negatively to later internalizing problems, whereas self-report on negative feelings during the game related positively to later internalizing and externalizing problems. CONCLUSIONS: We show that facial expressions are associated with self-reported negative feelings during social exclusion, discuss that reporter-bias might be minimized using facial expressions, and find divergent associations of observed facial expressions and self-reported negative feelings with later internalizing problems.

Parents' secure base script knowledge predicts observed sensitive caregiving and discipline toward twin children.

The present study investigated associations between parents' secure base script knowledge and parental sensitivity and sensitive discipline in 461 families with 922 same-sex twin children (Mage = 7.00, SD = 2.18). In addition, we explored whether the strength of the associations between parents' secure base script knowledge and parental sensitivity and sensitive discipline were similar for mono- and dizygotic twin siblings. Parental sensitivity was observed during a computerized version of a structured cooperative drawing task (Etch-A-Sketch). Sensitive discipline was observed during a "Don't touch task" or during a "Do-Don't task". Parental sensitivity and discipline strategies were observed twice, once with each twin sibling. Parents' knowledge of the secure base script was measured with the Attachment Script Assessment. Linear mixed model analyses showed that parents with more secure base script knowledge interacted with their twin children in a more sensitive manner and showed more sensitive discipline. These findings show for the first time that parents' secure base script knowledge predicts not only parental sensitivity but also sensitive discipline. Associations between parents' secure base script knowledge and parental sensitivity and sensitive discipline were not impacted by children's similarity in genetic makeup. Future longitudinal studies utilizing multiple measures of sensitivity and discipline across the infancy, childhood, and early adolescence periods could provide more insight into the continuity of relations between secure base script knowledge and parental sensitivity and sensitive discipline. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved).

Sensitive responsiveness in expectant and new fathers.

Fathers have an increasingly important role in the family and contribute through their sensitive responsiveness to positive child development. Research on parenting more often included fathers as caregivers in the past two decades. We present a neurobiological model of sensitive responsive parenting with a role for fathers' hormonal levels and neural connectivity and processing of infant signals. We tested this model in a research program ("Father Trials") with correlational and randomized experimental studies, and we review the results of these studies. So far, interaction-focused behavioral interventions seem most promising in supporting fathers' sensitive responsiveness, even though the mechanisms are still uncharted.

Development of the virtual-VIPP and a systematic review of online support for families during the COVID-19 pandemic.

During the COVID-19 pandemic lockdowns made it impossible for parenting coaches to reach the families without digital means of communication. Several studies were initiated to transform existing parenting interventions into hybrid or fully online versions and to examine their feasibility, acceptability and efficacy. We present one such transformation in detail, the Virtual-VIPP which is based on Video-feedback Intervention to promote Positive Parenting and Sensitive Discipline (VIPP-SD). Furthermore, we report a systematic review of 17 published trials with online versions of parenting programs. Overall, online parenting interventions seem feasible to implement, are well-received by most families, and to show equivalent effects to face-to-face approaches. Careful preparation of technicalities and monitoring of fidelity are prerequisites. Advantages of online parenting interventions are their potentially broader reach, more detailed process documentation, and better cost-utility balance. We expect that online parenting interventions are here to stay, but their efficacy needs to be rigorously tested.

Grandparental Support and Maternal Postpartum Mental Health : A Review and Meta-Analysis.

Support from grandparents plays a role in mothers' perinatal mental health. However, previous research on maternal mental health has mainly focused on influences of partner support or general social support and neglected the roles of grandparents. In this narrative review and meta-analysis, the scientific evidence on the association between grandparental support and maternal perinatal mental health is reviewed. Searches in PubMed, EMBASE, MEDLINE, Scopus, and PsycINFO yielded 11 empirical studies on N = 3381 participants, reporting on 35 effect sizes. A multilevel approach to meta-analysis was applied to test the association between grandparental support and maternal mental health. The results showed a small, statistically significant association (r = .16; 95% CI: 0.09-0.25). A moderator test indicated that the association was stronger for studies reporting on support from the maternal grandmother in particular (r = .23; 95% CI: 0.06-0.29). Our findings suggest that involved grandparents, in particular mother's own mother, constitute a protective factor for the development of maternal postpartum mental health problems. These findings have clear implications for interventions. Future studies should examine whether stimulating high-quality support from grandparents is a fruitful avenue for enhancing maternal postpartum mental health.

Parental protection in fathers with negative caregiving experiences: Heightened amygdala reactivity to infant threatening situations.

Parental protection is an important, yet understudied, aspect of parenting behavior. Predictors of the quality of protection and potential underlying neural mechanisms are still unknown. In this study, we examined whether negative caregiving experiences in fathers' own childhood are related to protective behavior and neural reactivity to infant threatening situations. Paternal protective behavior was measured with self- and partner-reported protective behavior and behavioral observations in an experimental set-up (auditory startling task) in 121 first-time fathers (mean age child = 19.35 weeks, SD = 11.27). Neural activation during exposure to videos of infant-threatening (vs. neutral) situations was measured with functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). We found a significant and positive association between negative caregiving experiences and amygdala reactivity to infant-threatening situations. A history of negative caregiving experiences was not significantly related to reported or observed paternal protective behavior. Our findings suggest that fathers with negative caregiving experiences show emotional hyperreactivity to cues of infant threat.

Fathers' sensitive parenting enhanced by prenatal video-feedback: a randomized controlled trial using ultrasound imaging.

BACKGROUND: The aim of this study was to evaluate an interaction-based prenatal parenting intervention program aimed at promoting parental sensitivity and involvement in expectant fathers using ultrasound images: Prenatal Video-Feedback Intervention to Promote Positive Parenting (VIPP-PRE). METHODS: In this randomized controlled trial, 73 first-time, healthy expectant fathers were enrolled. Participants were randomly assigned to the VIPP-PRE intervention (n = 39) or a dummy intervention (n = 34). Parental sensitivity was coded from video-recorded 10-min interactions with an infant simulator at a prenatal pretest and with fathers' own infant at a postnatal posttest. Prenatal and postnatal involvement was assessed via an application on participants' smartphones. RESULTS: Fathers receiving VIPP-PRE demonstrated increased sensitivity across the perinatal period, relative to fathers receiving a dummy intervention. Fathers' involvement with the infant increased significantly from the prenatal to postnatal period, regardless of the intervention. CONCLUSIONS: Prenatal video-feedback using ultrasound imaging of the unborn child has the potential to promote the quality of parenting in an important, but understudied, population and period: men in the transition to fatherhood. Future research should examine the long-term effectiveness of VIPP-PRE and its effectiveness in increasing parenting quality in at-risk families. IMPACT: This study identifies a brief and focused prenatal intervention using assisted interactions between the father and his baby by means of ultrasound imaging as a promising strategy to improve sensitive fathering in the early postnatal phase. Our study shows that pregnancy provides a window of opportunity for promoting prenatal involvement and bonding in expectant fathers, with potential long-term benefits for the future father-child relationship. Ultrasound measures are currently used to monitor fetal growth and development, but our results suggest that they may also create an opportunity for stimulating father-infant interaction to promote postnatal caregiving quality.

Exploring the meaning of unresolved loss and trauma in more than 1,000 Adult Attachment Interviews.

Unresolved states of mind regarding experiences of loss/abuse (U/d) are identified through lapses in the monitoring of reasoning, discourse, and behavior surrounding loss/abuse in response to the Adult Attachment Interview. Although the coding system for U/d has been widely used for decades, the individual indicators of unresolved loss/abuse have not been validated independently of the development sample. This study examined the psychometric validity of U/d, using individual participant data from 1,009 parent-child dyads across 13 studies. A latent class analysis showed that subsets of commonly occurring U/d indicators could differentiate interviewees with or without unresolved loss/abuse. Predictive models suggested a psychometric model of U/d consisting of a combination of these common indicators, with disbelief and psychologically confused statements regarding loss being especially important indicators of U/d. This model weakly predicted infant disorganized attachment. Multilevel regression analysis showed no significant association between ratings of unresolved other trauma and infant disorganized attachment, over and above ratings of unresolved loss/abuse. Altogether, these findings suggest that the coding system of U/d may have been overfitted to the initial development sample. Directions for further articulation and optimization of U/d are provided.

Improving parenting, child attachment, and externalizing behaviors: Meta-analysis of the first 25 randomized controlled trials on the effects of Video-feedback Intervention to promote Positive Parenting and Sensitive Discipline.

Improving parenting, child attachment, and externalizing behaviors: Meta-analysis of the first 25 randomized controlled trials on the effects of Video-feedback Intervention to promote Positive Parenting and Sensitive Discipline (VIPP-SD). VIPP-SD combines support of parental sensitive responsiveness with coaching parents in sensitive limit setting. Here, we present meta-analyses of 25 RCTs conducted with more than 2,000 parents and caregivers. Parents or children had various risks. We examined its effectiveness in promoting parental cognitions and behavior regarding sensitive parenting and limit setting, in promoting secure child-parent attachment, and reducing externalizing child behavior. Web of Science, MEDLINE, PubMed, and recent reviews were searched for relevant trials (until May 10, 2021). Multilevel meta-analysis with META, METAFOR, and DMETAR in R took account of the 3-level structure of the datasets (studies, participants, measures). The meta-analyses showed substantial combined effect sizes for parenting behavior (r = .18) and attitudes (r = .16), and for child attachment security (r = .23), but not for child externalizing behavior (r = .07). In the subset of studies examining effects on both parenting and attachment, the association between effect sizes for parenting and for attachment amounted to r = .48. We consider the way in which VIPP-SD uses video-feedback an active intervention component. Whether VIPP-SD indeed stimulates secure attachment through enhanced positive parenting remains an outstanding question for further experimental study and individual participant data meta-analysis.

Exploring everyday state attachment dynamics in middle childhood.

The current study explored dynamics of secure state attachment expectations in everyday life in middle childhood, specifically state attachment carry-over and reactivity to experiences of caregiver support in the context of stress. In two independent samples (one community sample, N = 123; one adoption sample, N = 69), children (8-12 years) daily reported on their state attachment for respectively 14 and 7 consecutive days. Additionally, they reported daily on their experiences of distress and subsequent experiences of caregiver support. Results in both samples indicated that secure state attachment on a day-to-day basis is characterized by a significant positive carry-over effect, suggesting that state attachment fluctuations are (partially) self-predictive. In Study 1, experiencing no support following distress significantly related to intraindividual decreases in secure state attachment; in Study 2, experiencing effective support during distress related to intra-individual increases in secure state attachment. Taken together, the current studies provide novel and important insights into how state attachment temporally evolves on a day-to-day basis in middle childhood.

Conduct Problems and Hair Cortisol Concentrations Decrease in School-Aged Children after VIPP-SD: A Randomized Controlled Trial in Two Twin Cohorts.

The Video-feedback Intervention to promote Positive Parenting and Sensitive Discipline (VIPP-SD) is effective in increasing parental sensitivity and sensitive discipline, and aims to decrease child behavior problems. Changes in quality of parenting may be accompanied by effects on child stress levels. However, studies of VIPP-SD effects on child behavior problems have shown mixed results and there are no studies to date of the effect of the intervention on children's stress levels, as measured by hair cortisol concentration (HCC). Furthermore, differences in intervention effectiveness may be explained by differential susceptibility factors. We hypothesized that the effects of the VIPP-SD on child behavior problems might be moderated by currently available child polygenic scores of differential susceptibility (PGS-DS). In the current pre-registered trial, we randomly assigned 40% of n = 445 families with school-aged twin children to the intervention group. The VIPP-SD was successful in decreasing both children's conduct problems and HCC. Effects were not moderated by available child PGS-DS. We conclude that a brief, home-based video-feedback parenting intervention can decrease child behavior problems and affect the child's stress-related neuroendocrine system as assessed with hair cortisol. In future studies, more specific PGS-DS for externalizing behaviors should be used as well as parental PGS-DS.

No robust evidence for an interaction between early-life adversity and protective factors on global and regional brain volumes.

Childhood adversity is associated with brain morphology and poor psychological outcomes, and evidence of protective factors counteracting childhood adversity effects on neurobiology is scarce. We examined the interplay of childhood adversity with protective factors in relation to brain morphology in two independent longitudinal cohorts, the Generation R Study (N = 3008) and the Mannheim Study of Children at Risk (MARS) (N = 179). Cumulative exposure to 12 adverse events was assessed across childhood until age 9 years in Generation R and 11 years in MARS. Protective factors (temperament, cognition, self-esteem, maternal sensitivity, friendship quality) were assessed at various time-points during childhood. Global brain volumes and volumes of amygdala, hippocampus, and the anterior cingulate, medial orbitofrontal and rostral middle frontal cortices were assessed with anatomical scans at 10 years in Generation R and at 25 years in MARS. Childhood adversity was related to smaller cortical grey matter, cerebral white matter, and cerebellar volumes in children. Also, no buffering effects of protective factors on the association between adversity and the brain outcomes survived multiple testing correction. We found no robust evidence for an interaction between protective factors and childhood adversity on broad brain structural measures. Small interaction effects observed in one cohort only warrant further investigation.