Emotionally supportive partners promote the well-being of teenage mothers and their children as they navigate sensitive developmental periods. Yet, having focused on young parents’ relationship dissolution, we know very little about benefits of partner supportiveness for the development of children’s psychological adjustment or processes that may explain this association. Using five waves of Fragile Families and Child Well-being Study data (N = 771) and parallel process latent growth curve modeling, this study tested whether trajectories of partner supportiveness (measured by maternal reports of fathers’ emotional support) directly mitigated trajectories of children’s externalizing and internalizing problem behaviors (measured by maternal reports of problem behaviors) and/or whether such effects were indirectly linked through lower levels of maternal harsh parenting (measured by observational ratings of mother-child interactions). Results suggest that higher levels of partner supportiveness at birth were associated with child externalizing and internalizing trajectories that started at lower levels and demonstrated slower improvements across time. Lower starting levels of maternal harsh parenting when children were three years old partially explained associations between partner supportiveness at birth and lower levels of child externalizing symptoms at age three. Lessons gleaned from this study are discussed in context of young families’ strengths and applied to practice-based settings.

中文翻译：

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伴侣情感支持和儿童问题行为：严苛养育对年轻母亲及其孩子的间接作用

情感支持的合作伙伴可以促进青少年母亲及其孩子在敏感的发育时期的幸福。然而，在关注年轻父母的关系解体后，我们对伴侣支持对儿童心理调整或可能解释这种关联的过程发展的益处知之甚少。使用五波脆弱家庭和儿童福利研究数据（N = 771）和平行过程潜在增长曲线模型，本研究测试了伴侣支持的轨迹（通过母亲对父亲情感支持的报告来衡量）是否直接减轻了儿童外化和内化问题行为的轨迹（通过母亲对问题行为的报告来衡量）和/ 或这种影响是否与较低水平的母亲严厉的养育方式间接相关（通过对母子互动的观察评级来衡量）。结果表明，出生时较高水平的伴侣支持与儿童外化和内化轨迹相关，这些轨迹从较低水平开始，随着时间的推移表现出较慢的改善。儿童三岁时母亲严厉养育的较低起始水平部分解释了出生时伴侣支持与儿童三岁时外化症状水平较低之间的关联。从这项研究中收集的经验教训在年轻家庭的优势背景下进行了讨论，并应用于基于实践的环境中。