background Maternal characteristics and dysfunctional family interactions are related to the development of child disruptive behavior. However, the majority of studies on disruptive behavior are based on male samples and little is known about the relative predictive utility of maternal characteristics and parenting skills on the development of girls’ disruptive behavior.
aim The current study examines key maternal factors on the development of girls’ disruptive behavior in a large community sample. In addition, it investigates the clustering effect of adverse maternal characteristics by examining whether a dose-response relationship exists between the extent of adverse maternal characteristics and girls’ disruptive behavior.
method The current study is based on seven waves of parent and child-report data from the ongoing Pittsburgh Girls Study, and examines parent-child relationships in a community sample of 1,942 girls from age 7 to 12 years.
results Multivariate Generalised Estimating Equation (gee) analyses indicated that European American race, mother’s prenatal nicotine use, maternal depression, maternal conduct problems prior to age 15, and low maternal warmth explained unique variance in predicting girls’ behavior. Maladaptive parenting partly mediated the effects of maternal depression and maternal conduct problems. A predictive dose response curve showed that the higher the number of adverse maternal characteristics, the higher the probability of girls’ disruptive behavior.
conclusion Both current and early maternal risk factors have an impact on young girls’ disruptive behavior, many of which can be identified prior to, or during pregnancy. Importantly, practitioners should be aware of the doseresponse relationship showing that multiple, rather than single factors produced the strongest risk for girls’ disruptive behavior.