(PS6-11) Examining the Role of Maternal Emotion Regulation in the Relationship Between Maternal Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs), Negative Parenting, and Child Externalizing Behaviors

Adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) are aversive events that an individual experiences before eighteen years old that can have negative effects on lifelong behaviors and well-being. The literature has shown the impacts that ACEs, particularly maltreatment ACEs, can have on mothers’ emotional and psychological well-being and behaviors. Maltreatment ACEs includes events such as physical, emotional, or sexual abuse and neglect (Negriff, 2020). Studies have shown that maternal ACEs may also influence their child’s display of externalizing behaviors (e.g., aggressive, impulsive, or defiant behaviors), specifically in preschool-aged children. Due to the saliency of externalizing behavioral problems in preschool children and their susceptibility to influence from their environment, much of the literature has focused on this age group (Arslan et al., 2021; Piche et al., 2017). Previous research has identified Negative parenting practices (NPP) as a mechanism through which maternal ACEs relate to child externalizing behavior (Piche et al., 2017). However, additional research is needed to understand the mechanisms through which ACEs can impact parenting practices. Maternal difficulty in emotion regulation is one factor shown to be associated with a greater engagement in NPP and child externalizing behaviors (Crandall et al., 2016; Yoon et al., 2019). Few studies have examined the impacts of maltreatment ACEs on the factors mentioned or considered the role of DER in the relation between ACEs, NPP, and child externalizing behaviors. This study sought to examine the possible mediating roles DER and NPP in the relationship between maternal ACEs and child externalizing behaviors in a sample of mothers with preschool aged children.  

Mothers of children (n = 96) aged three to five years were recruited from local preschools to participate in a survey.  A serial mediation analysis was conducted using OLS regression and bias-corrected bootstrap confidence intervals based on 5,000 samples in PROCESS (Model 6; Hayes 2022). The indirect effect of maternal ACEs on child externalizing behaviors though DER and NPP was significant (B = .03, SE = .02, CI [.001, .08]). The direct effect (B = -.05, SE = .10, p = .63) and the total effect (B = .07, SE = .05, CI [-.02, .19]) were both non-significant. These results indicate that mothers who endorsed more ACEs Maltreatment reported having more difficulty with emotion regulation and engaged in more negative parenting practices, which was associated with more child externalizing behaviors. These results have implications for more targeted interventions specifically focused on emotion regulation and underscore the risk that maltreatment ACEs may have on mother’s emotional regulation and parenting practices.