Maternal childhood maltreatment history and current parenting behaviors

Abstract

This study examined the moderating role of maternal emotion dysregulation on the relationship between retrospectively reported maternal childhood maltreatment history and emotion and behavioral parenting behaviors. Data were collected from 103 caregiver-child dyads with children ages 3-5. Results indicated maternal emotion dysregulation did not moderate the relationship between retrospectively reported maternal childhood maltreatment and emotion parenting behaviors, nor did it moderate the relationship between retrospectively reported maternal childhood maltreatment and maternal structure and limit setting. Exploratory post hoc analyses indicated maternal emotion dysregulation mediated the relationship between retrospectively reported maternal childhood maltreatment and emotion parenting behaviors but not between retrospectively reported maternal childhood maltreatment and maternal structure and limit setting. Results addressed the importance of emotion regulation in understanding the risk of increased unsupportive emotion parenting and decreased supportive emotion parenting among parents with sustained childhood maltreatment histories.