Caregiver Insightfulness and Young Children's Violence Exposure: Testing a Relational Model of Risk and Resilience

Overview

Journal Attach Hum Dev

Publisher Informa Healthcare

Specialty Social Sciences

Date 2015 Oct 28

PMID 26503175

Citations 7

Authors

Sarah A O Gray

Danielle Forbes

Margaret J Briggs-Gowan

Alice S Carter

Affiliations

Soon will be listed here.

Abstract

This study employed a relational post-traumatic stress frame to explore the co-contribution of young children's exposure to violence and caregiver insightfulness on child behavioral outcomes in a high-risk, non-referred sample of caregivers and preschoolers (n = 64; mean age 3.83 years, SD = .77). Caregiver insightfulness did not have a main effect on child outcomes but did moderate the relation between violence exposure and child behavior across all observed outcomes. Violence-exposed children with non-insightful caregivers demonstrated higher caregiver-rated internalizing and externalizing behaviors and observer-rated negative affect than all other groups. Among children not exposed to violence, insightfulness was not related to children's behavior problems or negative affect, suggesting violence-specific processes. Though cross-sectional, results suggest that the effects of violence and caregiver insightfulness on child outcomes are contingent on one another and that caregiver insightfulness may play a protective role in contexts of violence.

Citing Articles

Parental Mentalizing during Middle Childhood: How Is the Adoption of a Reflective Stance Associated with Child's Psychological Outcomes?.

Charpentier Mora S, Bastianoni C, Koren-Karie N, Cavanna D, Tironi M, Bizzi F Int J Environ Res Public Health. 2022; 19(10).

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Using Drama Therapy to Enhance Maternal Insightfulness and Reduce Children's Behavior Problems.

Feniger-Schaal R, Koren-Karie N Front Psychol. 2021; 11:586630.

PMID: 33551907 PMC: 7854457. DOI: 10.3389/fpsyg.2020.586630.

Linking preschoolers' parasympathetic activity to maternal early adversity and child behavior: An intergenerational perspective.

Glackin E, Hatch V, Drury S, Gray S Dev Psychobiol. 2020; 63(2):338-349.

PMID: 32662198 PMC: 7855503. DOI: 10.1002/dev.22012.

Caregiver Self-Reports and Reporting of Their Preschoolers' Trauma Exposure: Discordance Across Assessment Methods.

Glackin E, Forbes D, Heberle A, Carter A, Gray S Traumatology (Tallahass Fla). 2019; 25(3):172-180.

PMID: 31507351 PMC: 6736598. DOI: 10.1037/trm0000179.

Adverse impact of multiple separations or loss of primary caregivers on young children.

Briggs-Gowan M, Greene C, Ford J, Clark R, McCarthy K, Carter A Eur J Psychotraumatol. 2019; 10(1):1646965.

PMID: 31489135 PMC: 6713136. DOI: 10.1080/20008198.2019.1646965.

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