Maternal symptoms and emotional availability predicting children's behavior problems: A longitudinal study

The longitudinal research focusing on the effects of maternal mental health on parenting capacity and child behavior problems during COVID-19 is still limited. Therefore, we examined how maternal symptoms of anxiety, depression, stress, and COVID-19-related stress affect maternal emotional availability at a 2-month follow-up and behavior problems at a 4-month follow-up. The mothers (N = 443) with pre-schoolers (Age Range = 30-80 months) responded to questionnaires at three time points. Maternal depression and stress positively predicted maternal hostility and negatively predicted maternal mutual attunement. Maternal hostility and mutual attunement mediated the associations between maternal depression and child externalization, as well as maternal stress and child externalization. Only hostility mediated the associations between maternal depression and stress with child internalization. We highlighted the role of maternal depression and stress in both positive and negative aspects of emotional availability that could possibly shape child externalization. For internalization, maternal hostility adopted the mediator role.