As the prevalence of Cannabis Use Disorder (CUD) in late adolescence increases, understanding the etiology of CUD is paramount. Consistent with resilience frameworks, the current study examined whether parent cannabis use and genetic risk predicted offspring cannabis use and CUD symptoms in late adolescence. Parental positive behavior support in early childhood was considered as a possible buffer of intergenerational transmission and genetic risk for CUD.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThe importance of the parent-child relationship during early childhood (i.e., 0-5 years) on children's socioemotional functioning has been extensively documented in the literature.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFIntroduction: Over the last two decades, drug use epidemics have occurred across the world, including in countries with well-funded services for treatment and recovery, underscoring the need to bolster primary prevention. Moreover, substance use (SU) and SU disorders (SUDs) contribute to the etiology and exacerbation of many medical and psychiatric illnesses. The first step in providing selective/indicated prevention for SU/SUD is identifying high liability (overall risk).
View Article and Find Full Text PDFChild Psychiatry Hum Dev
June 2025
The goal of the present study was to identify patterns of daily disruptive child behavior and parental responses to this behavior, as well as investigate the occurrence of these patterns over 14 days. We examined daily parental reports on disruptive child behavior, harsh parental responses, and giving in to children's demands from 156 families (M = 5.88; 47% girls) collected over 14 days (2,067 assessments).
View Article and Find Full Text PDFObserved parental sensitivity during a parent-child teaching task and free-play task was tested as mediators of the association between family socioeconomic risk and child receptive language at 48 months, consistent with family investment theory. Parents (n = 881 mothers; 624 fathers, data collected between 2006-2008) and their 5-month-old children (52% male) were recruited from public health clinics in Norway. Both maternal sensitivity (measured at 24 months) and paternal sensitivity (measured at 36 months) during the teaching task mediated the association between family socioeconomic risk and child language, controlling for sensitivity during free play, which was not significantly associated with child language.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: Childhood family income may impact men's cardiovascular health (CVH), partly through exposure to neighborhood advantages and disadvantages experienced across childhood.
Methods And Results: One hundred thirty-one boys (52.7% Black or bi/multiracial) born into low-income households in an urban environment were followed throughout childhood and completed a health assessment in adulthood.
There is limited research on racial socialization and its potential protective effect on youth mental health within Multiracial families. With a sample of Multiracial families ( = 209; 46% female youth), we investigated associations between adolescent experiences of racial discrimination (parent and youth reports at ages 14 and 16) and racial socialization (observational task at age 14) on depressive symptoms (youth report at age 16). Multiracial youth with more experiences of discrimination had more depressive symptoms.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFObjective: Little is known about how parenting interventions might influence families' access to related health care services during early childhood. This study describes the effects of a parenting intervention, Smart Beginnings (SB), on referrals to early intervention (EI) or early childhood special education (ECSE) after evaluation within a predominantly Black/Latine sample with low incomes. SB is a tiered intervention integrating a universal parenting program delivered in primary care clinics (PlayReadVIP) with a targeted home-visiting program (Family Check-Up).
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThis study presents findings captured in the first 1.5 years of the Virus Monitoring in Denmark (VMD) surveillance system. It describes trends in respiratory viruses, related symptoms, and participant demographics and behaviors.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFParenting in very early childhood (0-2 years) provides important context for children's socioemotional development. The present study aims to address limitations of extant parenting literature, namely the reliance on white, middle-class samples and use of variable-centered approaches that often mask the rich heterogeneity of parenting styles. Using data from an efficacy trial of a tiered parenting program to promote school readiness, the current study examined parenting styles across three waves when children were 6, 18, and 24 months with a sample of Black/African American and Latina mothers with low incomes using person-oriented, latent class analysis.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFParents bring their preparenthood experiences into their family relationships, which may have a persistent impact on family dynamics. One such significant experience is infertility, often shared by both partners but differentially experienced by women and men. Using a prospective longitudinal study of adoptive parents with a history of infertility challenges who later adopted a child ( = 461, 91% White), we aimed to (a) examine the impact of preparenthood infertility distress on heterosexual couples' perceived marital instability trajectories in the 11 years of parenthood and (b) test whether social support from their partner and other sources would moderate the impact of infertility distress.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFActivation parenting (AP) is a parenting construct derived from research and theory on paternal caregiving that includes behaviors that challenge children to approach novel situations, explore their environments, and take physical and socioemotional risks through a balance of encouragement and limit-setting. Although components of AP have been linked to different domains of children's self-regulation skills, comprehensive measures of AP and longitudinal research on families from low socioeconomic backgrounds are lacking. These limitations greatly constrain our understanding of the potential benefits of paternal AP for children's self-regulation development, including the maturation of inhibitory control (IC) in early childhood.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFParenting has long been a topic of research based on its importance for family and child outcomes. Recent methodological advances in person-centered approaches suggest that our understanding of parenting could be further advanced by examining parenting typologies across various parenting behaviors longitudinally. Accordingly, the current study aims to examine latent transitions in parenting practice patterns across four annual assessments during early childhood and examine whether individual- and family-level factors at baseline discriminate parenting transition patterns.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThe COVID-19 pandemic increased maternal depression and anxiety, imperiling both mothers' own wellbeing and that of their children. To date, however, little is known about the extent to which these increases are attributable to economic hardships commonly experienced during the pandemic: income loss, job loss, and loss of health insurance. Few studies have examined the individual impacts of these hardships, and none have lasted beyond the first year of the pandemic.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFUnderstanding the factors contributing to adolescent antisocial behavior is crucial for effective interventions. Protracted development of cognitive control systems supporting inhibitory control may be linked to increases in adolescent antisocial behavior, suggesting the promotion of inhibitory control as a potential preventative strategy. Concurrently, social contextual factors, including peer relationships, parent-child dynamics, and the neighborhood environment, may exacerbate or buffer the risk posed by low inhibitory control.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFObjective: To test the feasibility of implementing The Pittsburgh Study's (TPS) Early Childhood Collaborative, a population-level, community-partnered initiative to promote relational health by offering accessible preventive parenting program options for families with young children.
Study Design: TPS partnered with healthcare and community agencies serving families in Allegheny County, Pennsylvania, to enroll and screen 878 parents of 1040 children 4-years-old and under. Participants were assigned to 1 of 4 tiered groups based on identified needs: (1) universal, (2) targeted/universal, (3) secondary/tertiary, or (4) tertiary programs.
Dev Psychol
September 2025
Both longer term developmental changes (increases in hostility, decreases in warmth) and lability (year-to-year fluctuations) in parent-child relationship quality across childhood and adolescence have been linked to adolescent externalizing behaviors. Using a prospective longitudinal study of 561 children who were adopted into nonrelative families at birth (57% male, 56% White, 19% multiracial, 13% Black, 11% Hispanic) where parental warmth and hostility reflect environmental influences or child-evoked reactions, we examined associations between parent-child relationship measures and externalizing behaviors at age 11 and across adolescence (i.e.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFObjective: To examine associations between cognitive stimulation in the home at 6 months and maternal feeding styles at 24 months, direct intervention effects of Smart Beginnings (SB) on feeding styles, and potential indirect effects of SB on feeding styles via earlier intervention effects on cognitive stimulation.
Methods: Single-blind, two-site randomized clinical trial (RCT) of the SB intervention. SB integrates PlayReadVIP, a universal, pediatric primary care-based program, and Family Check-Up (FCU), a targeted secondary home-based parenting intervention.
Psychopathology is intergenerationally transmitted through both genetic and environmental mechanisms via heterotypic (cross-domain), homotypic (domain-specific), and general (e.g., "p-factor") pathways.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFIntroduction: People with cystic fibrosis (CF) are living longer and healthier lives with a growing number considering and pursuing parenthood. The decision of whether to become a parent is complex for people with CF, and CF is a major factor in reproductive decision-making. Unfortunately, in people with CF who become parents, there are no prospective studies of disease trajectory, no data on the impact of parenthood on mental health, disease self-management, or quality of life, and no research regarding non-genetic parenthood.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThis study utilized the Early Growth and Development Study (N = 561 adoptive children; 57.2% male, 55.3% White), a study of children adopted at birth, to examine heritable (birth parent psychopathology) and prenatal risk (prenatal maternal distress and smoking during pregnancy), infant negative affectivity, adoptive parent over-reactivity and warmth as independent predictors of childhood externalizing symptoms.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFAlthough the adoption rate among same-sex couples has been increasing, limited research has focused on factors influencing decision making related to placing children with such couples, particularly from the standpoint of birth mothers. Additionally, there is a gap in the literature regarding how biases may influence birth mothers' decision to place their child with a same-sex couple. This study sought to examine the association between birth mothers' racial ideologies and their decision to voluntarily place their children with same-sex couples ( = 29) or mother-father couples ( = 354) during the adoption process.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFOpioid use disorder (OUD) among pregnant people has increased dramatically during the opioid epidemic, affecting a significant number of families with young children. Parents with OUD commonly face significant challenges as they are often balancing the stress of caring for young children with maintaining recovery and co-occurring psychosocial challenges (e.g.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFUsing a sample of linked adopted children, adoptive and birth parents (N = 561), and biological siblings residing in the birth parent home (N = 191), we examined the role of genetics within family stress processes. We tested parental hostility (7 years) as a mediator of the associations between socioeconomic strain and rearing parent psychopathology (4 years) and adolescent externalizing behaviors (11 years) in adoptive and biological parent homes. Next, we examined parent social support (4 years) as a moderator of paths from socioeconomic strain and parent psychopathology to parental hostility.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThis study examined gene-environment correlation (rGE) in intellectual and academic development in 561 U.S.-based adoptees (57% male; 56% non-Latinx White, 19% multiracial, 13% Black or African American, 11% Latinx) and their birth and adoptive parents between 2003 and 2017.
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