The Effects of Mothers' Depression on the Behavioral Assessment of Disruptive Child Behavior

ABSTRACT

Assessment issues with families of disruptive children ages 3 to 8 years, and depressed mothers are of significant clinical and research importance. Given the long-term deleterious effects that parenting styles of depressed mothers may have on children, and given that interventions for families with disruptive children frequently include behavioral family therapy, clinical assessment should include some evaluation of how parenting is related to the behavior of children of depressed mothers. Previous observational studies of depressed mothers and their disruptive children have failed to identify behavioral differences between these families and families of similarly disruptive children whose mothers are not depressed. This failure to identify differences presents a conundrum for clinicians: a widely reported parenting style, with well-reported child behavior sequelae has not yet been linked with identified moment-to moment interactions between mother and child. This paper investigates some characteristics of families with disruptive children and depressed mothers, and compares the observed behaviors of disruptive children of depressed and non-depressed mothers.

Fifty mother-child dyads: 14 depressed mothers with disruptive children, 17 non-depressed mothers with disruptive children, and 19 non-problem controls participated. Differences observed suggest that, while children of depressed mothers employed a similar range of disruptive behaviors to other disruptive children, the density of those behaviors differed. Implications for intervention are discussed.

KEYWORDS:

• Disruptive child behavior
• ages 3 to 8 years
• parents' depression
• assessment
• internalizing disorders
• behavioral observations