College of Education, Northern Arizona University, Flagstaff, AZ, USA.
Fam Process. 2022 Mar;61(1):375-390. doi: 10.1111/famp.12663. Epub 2021 Apr 28.
Emotionally supportive partners promote the well-being of teenage mothers and their children as they navigate sensitive developmental periods. Yet, having focused on young parents' relationship dissolution, we know very little about benefits of partner supportiveness for the development of children's psychological adjustment or processes that may explain this association. Using five waves of Fragile Families and Child Well-being Study data (N = 771) and parallel process latent growth curve modeling, this study tested whether trajectories of partner supportiveness (measured by maternal reports of fathers' emotional support) directly mitigated trajectories of children's externalizing and internalizing problem behaviors (measured by maternal reports of problem behaviors) and/or whether such effects were indirectly linked through lower levels of maternal harsh parenting (measured by observational ratings of mother-child interactions). Results suggest that higher levels of partner supportiveness at birth were associated with child externalizing and internalizing trajectories that started at lower levels and demonstrated slower improvements across time. Lower starting levels of maternal harsh parenting when children were three years old partially explained associations between partner supportiveness at birth and lower levels of child externalizing symptoms at age three. Lessons gleaned from this study are discussed in context of young families' strengths and applied to practice-based settings.
情绪支持型伴侣在青少年母亲及其子女经历敏感发展阶段时，促进了他们的幸福。然而，我们过于关注年轻父母的关系破裂，而对伴侣支持对儿童心理适应发展的益处，以及可能解释这种关联的过程知之甚少。本研究使用五波脆弱家庭和儿童福利研究数据（N=771）和并行过程潜在增长曲线模型，检验了伴侣支持（通过母亲报告的父亲的情感支持来衡量）的轨迹是否直接缓解了儿童外化和内化问题行为（通过母亲报告的问题行为来衡量），以及这种影响是否通过较低水平的母亲严厉教养（通过观察母亲与孩子互动的评分来衡量）间接联系。结果表明，出生时伴侣的支持程度较高与儿童外化和内化轨迹相关，这些轨迹起点较低，随着时间的推移改善速度较慢。当孩子三岁时，母亲严厉教养程度较低，部分解释了出生时伴侣支持与三岁时儿童外化症状水平较低之间的关联。从这项研究中吸取的经验教训，将在年轻家庭的优势背景下进行讨论，并应用于基于实践的环境中。
