Maternal history of parentification, maternal warm responsiveness, and children's externalizing behavior

Abstract

Destructive parentification occurs when children are expected to provide instrumental or emotional caregiving within the family system that overtaxes their developmental capacity. According to parentification theory, destructive parentification in family of origin poses a risk to child development in subsequent generations; however, there is a paucity of empirical research examining the impact of a maternal history of destructive parentification on parenting quality and child outcomes in subsequent generations. The present study examined the potential risk of maternal history of parentification on child adjustment by hypothesizing that a maternal history of parentification in family of origin would have a negative impact on quality of maternal warm responsiveness at 18 months of age which would, in turn, be associated with increased children's externalizing symptoms at 36 months. Results indicated that there was a significant indirect effect of maternal history of destructive parentification in family of origin on child externalizing behavior in the next generation through maternal warm responsiveness, supporting the hypothesized model. This finding suggests that facilitating the development of maternal contingent responsiveness among mothers with a history of destructive parentification may promote more adaptive child development in the next generation.