Background

Children living with parents who have childhood maltreatment histories tend to develop compromised behavioral health outcomes, suggesting the intergenerational effects of child maltreatment.

Objective

Driven by attachment theory, this study aims to identify the pathways from parents' childhood maltreatment to their child's behavioral problems and functioning.

Participants and Setting

The sample of parent participants (N = 202) was recruited from an online data collection platform – Amazon Mechanical Turk.

Methods

Structural equation modeling with the estimator of maximum likelihood was used to examine the intergenerational effects of child maltreatment.

Results

This study identified two important mediators, i.e., parents' emotion regulation and parental mentalization. Parental childhood maltreatment had a positive association with parents' difficulties in emotion regulation (β = 0.45, p < 0.001), which in turn was positively associated with parental prementalizing mode (β = 0.47, p < 0.001). Parental prementalizing mode was then positively associated with child behavioral problems (β = 0.32, p < 0.001). The second significant path was from parental childhood maltreatment to their child functioning, which was mediated directly through parents' difficulties in emotion regulation (β = - 0.26, p < 0.05) without any sequential mediation through parental mentalization.

Conclusion

This study advances our existing understanding of the complexities of child maltreatment and informs an intergenerational approach in terms of screening and intervention, so professionals can effectively work for families to alleviate the enduring negative effects of child maltreatment, to reduce prohibitive social expenditures of mental health services, and to promote social justice.

中文翻译：

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童年虐待的代际影响：父母情绪调节和心理化的作用

背景

与有童年虐待历史的父母一起生活的孩子往往会发展出受损的行为健康结果，这表明虐待儿童的代际影响。

客观的

在依恋理论的推动下，本研究旨在确定从父母童年虐待到孩子行为问题和功能的途径。

参与者和设置

家长参与者的样本（N = 202）是从在线数据收集平台——Amazon Mechanical Turk 中招募的。

方法

使用最大似然估计量的结构方程模型来检验虐待儿童的代际影响。

结果

本研究确定了两个重要的中介因素，即父母的情绪调节和父母的心理化。父母童年虐待与父母情绪调节困难呈正相关（β = 0.45，p < 0.001），而后者又与父母心理前化模式呈正相关（β = 0.47，p < 0.001）。父母预心理模式与儿童行为问题呈正相关（β = 0.32，p < 0.001）。第二个重要路径是从父母童年虐待到他们的孩子功能，这直接通过父母情绪调节困难（β = - 0.26，p <0.05）来调节，而没有通过父母心理化的任何顺序调节。

结论

这项研究加深了我们对虐待儿童复杂性的现有理解，并为筛查和干预方面的代际方法提供了信息，因此专业人员可以有效地为家庭工作，以减轻虐待儿童的持久负面影响，减少心理健康服务的高昂社会支出，并促进社会正义。