Parent Internalizing Symptoms Associated with Parenting Behaviors and Children's Symptoms in a National Sample of Parents of School-Age Children (5-12 years).

Abstract

The effects of parenting behaviors on children's internalizing symptoms are influenced by numerous factors. Across prior studies, there is evidence that parental internalizing symptoms (anxiety and depression) are associated with less consistent and structured parenting behaviors as well as higher child internalizing symptoms. Factors such as familial socioeconomic status and cultural identity have also been shown to interact with parental internalizing symptoms and parenting behaviors. Prior studies of these associations often do not include fathers and are not typically population representative. The goal of the present study was to leverage a nationally representative sample of U.S. parents to examine how parents' self-reported internalizing symptoms relate to their parenting behaviors and reports of their child's symptoms, accounting for familial factors (socioeconomic status, child age, sex, race, and ethnicity) known to influence parenting. Parents of 5-12-year-old children (N = 1570, 36% fathers) completed self-report measures of their parenting (inconsistent discipline and poor supervision and monitoring), their depression and anxiety symptoms, and their children's internalizing symptoms. Results from structural equation modeling demonstrated that maternal and paternal internalizing symptoms were associated with less consistent parenting behaviors and with greater child internalizing symptoms. Paternal internalizing symptoms were also indirectly associated with child symptoms via less consistent parenting. Associations among family sociodemographic factors and parenting behaviors varied across parents. Results are consistent with findings from previous studies in smaller samples, focused primarily on mothers. Findings support the generalizability of associations among parental internalizing symptoms, parenting behaviors, and child internalizing symptoms to fathers and to nonclinical samples of parents.