Article summary with Parents’ experiences of childhood abuse and neglect are differentially associated with behavioral and autonomic responses to their offspring by Buisman a.o. - 2019

Introduction

Childhood maltreatment experiences are associated with a range of negative consequences like emotional and behavioural dysregulation in childhood and subsequent adverse mental health outcomes in adulthood. They have also been shown to compromise adults’ interpersonal functioning including their parenting behaviour. But little is known about what happens in terms of physiological responses and regulation when parents with a history of childhood maltreatment interact with their offspring. In an effort to expand the knowledge regarding childhood maltreatment and subsequent parenting behaviour, the present research examines how parents’ childhood experiences of neglect are associated with their physiological reactivity and parenting behaviour – specifically warmth, negativity, and emotional support, during a parent-offspring conflict interaction task.

Theoretical Perspectives

Multiple perspectives may be useful to explain the association between childhood maltreatment and later maladaptive parenting behaviour.

1. Developmental psychopathology suggests that early childhood trauma impacts the quality of caregiving behaviours through stress or trauma-related symptoms that undermine caregiving capacities. Childhood maltreatment has been associated with heightened attentional and affective responses to fearful and angry faces, deficits in emotion recognition, and reduced responsiveness to reward in children and adults.
2. Attachment theory posits that children develop “internal working models” (i.e., mental representations) of the self and others through repeated interactions with their primary caregiver(s), from which they then interpret and experience other relationships, including relationships with their own offspring.
3. Social learning theory holds that behaviour is learned in large part through observation, imitation, and reinforcement. It postulates that violence is learned through role models provided by the family directly or indirectly, is reinforced in childhood, and continues in adulthood as a coping response to stress or as a method of conflict resolution.
4. Allostatic load theory suggests that the autonomic nervous system (ANS) attempts to maintain stability through change during stressful conditions in order to maximize survival, a process called allostasis. When the system is exposed to repeated or chronic stress, including maltreatment, physiological responses may become dysregulated, a process referred to as allostatic load.

Empirical Research

Various empirical studies have investigated the association between childhood maltreatment and later parenting. Studies using self-report measures of parenting behaviour showed that child maltreatment is associated with maladaptive parenting outcomes including lower perceived parenting competence, more parenting stress, more role reversal, decreased responsivity, more harsh physical discipline, and more abusive and neglectful parenting behaviours. As opposed to self-reports of parenting, observational measures of parenting are considered to be less influenced by bias and have been shown to be stronger and more consistent predictors of offspring outcomes.

Vaillancourt et al. (2017) identified fourteen studies on the association between maternal experiences of physical and sexual abuse and observed parent-infant interactions. Generally, it was shown that childhood abuse experiences were, directly or indirectly, associated with maternal interactive behaviour, including hostile, intrusive, and inconsistent behaviour toward infants. It was revealed that mothers’ history of maltreatment was associated with less sensitive, more hostile, and more self-focused behaviour. Majority of studies didn’t include any fathers, whereas fathers’ involvement in childcare has continuously increased in the past decades. Most studies investigated the impact of physical abuse, leaving open whether the effects hold true for other types of maltreatment like emotional or physical neglect. The current study examines the impact of childhood abuse and neglect in maternal and paternal interactions with offspring spanning a wide age range.

Continuity in parent-offspring interactions

Research also points to continuity in parent-offspring relationships. For example, social learning theory and attachment theory assume that interaction patterns learned and enacted during childhood and adolescence will continue to manifest themselves in young adults’ relationships. Parent-offspring relationships during childhood are predictive of parent-offspring relationships during adolescence and adulthood. Conversely, more conflict with parents during adolescence is associated with conflict with parents during young adulthood. To a certain extent, parental interactions with their underage offspring therefore show continuity in their interactions with their adolescent and adult offspring.

Child maltreatment history and autonomic reactivity

Studies including ANS activity measures may provide insight into the mechanisms underlying the effects of childhood maltreatment experiences on parenting behaviour. Studies focusing on this association and ANS reactivity to psychosocial stressors reveal physiological hyper-reactivity in response to stressors following childhood maltreatment, but hypo-reactivity has also been found. More insight into what happens when parents with a history of childhood maltreatment interact with their offspring can help researchers and practitioners to understand how maladaptive parenting behaviours are transmitted from one generation to the next.

Method

Sample

The current sample was part of a larger sample form the 3G parenting study, a family study on the intergenerational transmission of parenting styles, stress, and emotion regulation. The final sample consisted of 395 participants from 63 families with two to four generations and an average of 6.27 family members per family. Eventually this sample reduced to 229 participants. Nuclear families were invited for a lab visit at the Leiden University medical Center, which involved questionnaires, computer tasks, family interaction tasks, and collection of saliva and hair samples, and during specific tasks, skin conductance and heart rate were measured.

Measures

• Childhood maltreatment was measured using subscales of the Conflict Tactics Scales: Parent-child (CTSPC) and the Childhood Trauma Questionnaire (CTQ).
• Parental behaviour was measured ruing a parent-offspring conflict interaction task (revealed differences task). The patterns of interaction between parents and offspring were investigated and coded with the Supportive Behaviour Task Coding Manual, version 1.1.
• Autonomic (re)activity was measured by recording electrocardiogram (ECG) and impedance cardiogram (ICG) signals using an ambulatory monitoring system before and after the conflict task.
• Physical exercise/condition and smoking were taken into consideration as this may influence heart rate.
• Analyses was done by computing Pearson correlations between maltreatment, parental interactive behaviour, and autonomic (re)activity. Subsequently a structural model was computed to estimate the associations between experienced maltreatment, parental interactive behaviour, and autonomic reactivity during the interaction task. Age, gender, and SES were included as covariates.

Discussion & Conclusion

This study is the first to investigate the role of childhood abuse and neglect in parents’ autonomic and behavioural responses during a conflict interaction task. Findings showed that experiences of childhood neglect were uniquely associated with autonomic hyper-activity responses, whereas experiences of childhood abuse were uniquely associated with behavioural responses while discussing conflict. Thus, there may be unique consequences of the two types of maltreatment.

The present study suggests that behavioural and physiological systems respond differentially to childhood abuse and neglect. When discussing conflict with their offspring, parents who experienced higher levels of childhood abuse responded more strongly on a behavioural level but not on an autonomic level, whereas the opposite pattern was observed for parents who experienced more childhood neglect. Both response patterns, however, may indicate maladaptive emotion regulation and responding that may contribute to the transmission of dysfunctional caregiving. Results support previous suggestions that individuals with maltreatment experienced could benefit from interventions aimed at physiological and behavioural-based stress regulation.

Though different types of maltreatment often co-occur, findings of this study suggest that they do represent different experiences, highlighting the need to measure different types of maltreatment and to compare their separate influences. This will promote effective targeting of intervention and preventive efforts and understanding of the developmental pathways form unique experiences to adaptive parenthood.