Both maternal and paternal supportive parenting (i.e., sensitivity, warmth, stimulation, and engagement) across early childhood have been found to be associated with multiple domains of children's positive socioemotional functioning. However, few studies have considered how maternal and paternal supportive parenting may interact to impact child…

A plethora of studies with parents and children who are biologically related has shown that the family environment plays an important role in child development. However, scientists have long known that a rigorous examination of environmental effects requires research designs that go beyond studies of genetically linked family members. Harnessing…

Family systems research has identified two key processes (spillover and compensatory), linking interparental relationship quality to the parent-child relationship. However, previous research has focused on the parent as the sole initiator and had not often considered the role of the child in these processes. The present study adds to the…

This study examined the interrelated and longitudinal impacts of parent-child shared book reading, parenting stress, and early relational health, as measured by both parental warmth and parent sensitivity, from infancy to toddlerhood. To extend findings from previous studies of collateral effects that have been conducted in parenting…

This study examines interactions of heritable influences, prenatal substance use, and postnatal parental warmth and hostility on the development of conduct problems in middle childhood for boys and girls. Participants are 561 linked families, collected in 2 cohorts, including birth parents, adoptive parents, and adopted children. Heritable…

Understanding the role of negative emotionality in the development of executive functioning (EF) and language skills can help identify developmental windows that may provide promising opportunities for intervention. In addition, because EF and language skills are, in part, genetically influenced, intergenerational transmission patterns are…

This study used a prospective adoption design to investigate effects of prenatal and postnatal parent depressive symptom exposure on child hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) activity and associated internalizing symptoms. Birth mother prenatal symptoms and adoptive mother/father postnatal (9-month, 27-month) symptoms were assessed with the Beck…

Socially disruptive behavior during peer interactions in early childhood is detrimental to children's social, emotional, and academic development. Few studies have investigated the developmental underpinnings of children's socially disruptive behavior using genetically sensitive research designs that allow examination of parent-on-child and…

Using a longitudinal, prospective adoption design, the authors of this study examined the effects of the environment (adoptive parents' depressive symptoms and responsiveness) and genetic liability of maternal depression (inferred by birth mothers' major depressive disorder [MDD]) on the development of fussiness in adopted children between 9 and…

The authors examined the longitudinal effects of the Family Check-Up (FCU) on parents' positive behavior support and children's school readiness competencies in early childhood. It was hypothesized that the FCU would promote language skills and inhibitory control in children at risk for behavior problems as an indirect outcome associated with…

Examined relation of emotional regulation strategies to angry affect during a frustration task in a sample of low-income boys. Found that shifting attention away from sources of frustration and seeking information about situation constraints were associated with decreased anger, and secure attachment and positive maternal control correlated with…

Mothers and infants were observed in the laboratory when the infants were 12, 18, and 24 months. Mothers reported their child's behavior at 36 months. Predictors of boys' externalizing behavior at two and three years were maternal unresponsiveness and infant attention seeking, aggression, and noncompliance. For girls, infant noncompliance was…

Applied a semiparametric mixture model to a sample of 284 low-income boys to model developmental trajectories of overt conduct problems from ages 2 to 8. Identified four trajectories: persistent problem, high-level desister, moderate-level desister, and persistent low. Initially high and low groups were differentiated in early childhood by high…

Examined the relation between destructive sibling conflict and conduct problems among 5-year-old boys and their close-age siblings from low-income families. Found that the interaction between destructive sibling conflict and rejecting parenting predicted aggressive behavior problems across time and informants. Sibling conflict was related…