Peer-reviewed article
Intergenerational impacts of trauma and hardship through parenting
Sarah K. G. Jensen, Vincent Sezibera, Shauna M. Murray, Robert T. Brennan, Theresa Stichick Betancourt ·
Summary
Written by AI, not yet AICS's view · claude-haiku-4-5-20251001This study followed 732 caregivers of young children in rural Rwanda to understand how caregiver trauma and daily hardships affect parenting behaviour. Caregivers who experienced more trauma and hardship showed higher levels of anxiety symptoms and post-traumatic stress, which in turn led them to be more rejecting and less accepting towards their children. The research identifies emotion regulation problems as a key pathway through which caregiver mental health difficulties harm parent-child relationships.
Key points
- Cumulative lifetime trauma and recent daily hardships are strongly associated with caregiver internalising symptoms and PTSD symptoms
- Caregivers with PTSD symptoms showed significantly more rejection of their children and less acceptance
- Both internalising and PTSD symptoms are strongly linked to poor emotion regulation in caregivers
- Emotion dysregulation appears to be a shared mechanism linking caregiver mental health problems to parenting behaviours
- Improving emotion regulation is suggested as a key intervention target to prevent adverse effects on child wellbeing
Limitations
The study is observational and cannot establish causation, only associations between variables. The findings are specific to extremely poor rural households in Rwanda and may not generalise to other contexts.
Abstract
BACKGROUND: Millions of people worldwide experience severe trauma in their lifetime. Trauma has immediate and long-term effects on emotional wellbeing. Moreover, the experiences of one generation may influence subsequent generations via social and biological pathways. Poor mental health and emotion dysregulation associated with trauma may affect parenting behaviours, which may have long-lasting effects on children's development. METHODS: We use longitudinal data from a unique sample of 732 caregivers of children aged 6-36 months living in extremely poor rural households in Rwanda to examine associations of caregiver lifetime trauma, recent daily hardships, mental health, and emotion dysregulation with parenting behaviours reflecting parental acceptance and rejection of their offspring. RESULTS: Cumulative trauma exposure (β = .234, p < .001) and recent daily hardships (β = .323, p < .001) are associated with higher levels of internalising symptoms. Trauma (β = .257, p < .001) and daily hardships (β = .323, p < 0.001) are also associated with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) symptoms. Internalising symptoms predict more rejection (β = .177, p = .001), but show no association with acceptance. Caregiver PTSD symptoms predict more rejection (β = .277, p < .001) and less acceptance (β = -.190, p = .003). Both internalising symptoms (β = .557, p < .001) and PTSD symptoms (β = .606, p < .001) are strongly associated with poor emotion regulation. Indirect effects suggest that caregiver trauma and hardships affect parenting indirectly via elevated caregiver internalising symptoms and PTSD and that some of these effects are accounted for by emotion dysregulation. CONCLUSIONS: Caregiver internalising and PTSD symptoms are important mechanisms through which caregiver trauma and hardship affect parenting behaviours. Emotion dysregulation is a shared mechanism linking caregivers' mental health problems with parenting behaviours that reflect acceptance and rejection of the child. Emotion regulation is indicated as a key target for prevention of adverse effects of caregiver trauma on mental health and child wellbeing.
Findings the Hub has extracted
Each claim below is labelled by its type of design and links back to this report.
- Intervention
- None evaluated; this is an observational study examining natural associations between caregiver trauma exposure, mental health, and parenting behaviours
- Population
- 732 caregivers of children aged 6-36 months in extremely poor rural households in Rwanda
Key finding
Cumulative trauma exposure associated with higher internalising symptoms (β = .234, p < .001)
Jensen et al. · Prof. Theresa S. Betancourt (OpenAlex works) · 7 Dec 2020