Early childhood predictors of mothers' and fathers' relationships with adolescents with developmental disabilities.
Lowering early parenting stress and child behavior problems can build stronger parent-teen bonds years later for families of children with developmental disabilities.
01Research in Context
What this study did
The team asked parents of teens with developmental disabilities to look back. They wanted to know what shaped the mom-dad bond with the teen today.
They checked early stress, early behavior problems, money, and disability type. Then they saw which items still mattered 12 years later.
What they found
Only two things stood out: high early parenting stress and big early behavior problems. These predicted a weaker parent-teen bond later.
Family income, exact diagnosis, and teen skills did not add extra punch.
How this fits with other research
Petrovic et al. (2016) extends the story. They show that when one parent is stressed today, the whole family feels it. The 2010 paper says early stress seeds future trouble; the 2016 paper shows stress keeps spreading.
Seltzer et al. (2010) looks at the same age group and also links teen behavior problems to mom stress. They measure stress with daily spit-cortisol, not surveys. Same link, different ruler.
Freeman et al. (2015) pools many studies and finds parents of kids with DD report poorer health. The 2010 finding fits inside that bigger picture: early stress may start both bad health and weak bonds.
Lotfizadeh et al. (2020) flips the timeline forward. They track stress before any diagnosis. Together the papers draw one long arc: stress is high in toddler years, stays high, and still shapes the teen years.
Why it matters
You can act early. When you cut child problem behavior and coach parents to manage stress, you are not just helping today. You are protecting the parent-teen bond for the next decade. Add marital check-ins and health screens, as later papers suggest, and you build a full family shield.
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02At a glance
03Original abstract
BACKGROUND: The importance of positive parent-adolescent relationships is stressed in research on adolescents, although very little is known about this relationship when a teen has developmental disabilities (DD). We investigated the relationships of adolescents with disabilities with their mothers and their fathers in order to answer a number of questions regarding these relationships. In particular, we asked: are there differences in the relationships of mothers and fathers with their adolescent with DD? Are there early childhood predictors of the parent-teen relationship and are those based on variables that are amenable to intervention? Finally, do these predictors differ for mothers and fathers? METHODS: This study focused on the relationships of 72 mothers and 53 fathers with their 15-year-old teens with DD and their predictors from the early childhood years. Data were collected from parents through interviews and self-administered questionnaires, and from their children with disabilities through structured assessment when children were age 3 years and again at age 15 years. RESULTS: Analyses indicated that both mother-teen and father-teen relationships were predicted by earlier parenting stress. The father-teen relationship was also predicted by early behaviour problems, but this relation was mediated by parenting stress. Socio-economic status, type of disability and the child's level of functioning were not predictive of later relationships between parents and teens. Mothers and fathers did not differ significantly in their reports of perceived positive relationships with their teens. CONCLUSIONS: The findings from this study suggest two important points of potential intervention during the early intervention years. First, parenting assistance and support to reduce stress during the early childhood years can benefit both mothers and fathers. Second, helping families and children cope with and diminish problem behaviours is likely to yield multiple advantages for parents and children and deserves emphasis in early intervention and pre-school programmes.
Journal of intellectual disability research : JIDR, 2010 · doi:10.1111/j.1365-2788.2010.01268.x