Maternal Harshness and the Mother-Child Relationship in the Toddler Years: Associations with Behavior Problems at School Entry

Both harsh parenting and insecure attachment have been identified as potential risks for behavior problems in young children. Previous research, however, has typically investigated these factors separately and has tended to focus on the development of externalizing rather than internalizing problems. This study examined relations between observed maternal harshness and attachment insecurity in the toddler/preschool years, as well as associations among these same early parenting and relationship variables and their interaction with child negative affect, and child behavior problems in early grade school (Grade 1/Grade 2) and investigated whether associations differed for girls and boys. Participants consisted of a subset (N = 111) of families from the Pittsburgh site of the on-going, multi-site study of child development, the NICHD Study of Early Child Care. Mothers and their children participated in two laboratory interactions when children were 2 and 3 years, a shared snack and a semistructured play task, and observed maternal harshness and child negative affect were coded from these videotaped interactions. At 3 years, a modified Strange Situation was used to assess the degree to which the child's attachment relationship was observed to be insecure or secure, rated qualitatively on a 9-point scale. Teachers completed questionnaires when the children were in first/second grade to assess internalizing and externalizing symptoms. Results showed that early maternal harshness predicted child internalizing symptoms 5 years later even after controlling for demographic risk and child negative affect. Early maternal harshness also predicted teacher-rated externalizing problems but only in conjunction with child negative affect: higher levels of child negative affect were only associated with increased risk for externalizing problems when paired with increased maternal harshness. Furthermore, mother-child attachment security moderated the association between harshness and internalizing in a manner suggesting that attachment security was not protective in the context of early maternal harshness. Results examining associations as a function of child sex revealed a complex pattern of interactions, giving some indication that boys may be differentially susceptible to the rearing environment and suggesting the need to consider the interplay between parenting, attachment and behavior problems separately for boys and girls