Publication year
2016
Citation Title
Parent-child relationship quality and family transmission of parent posttraumatic stress disorder symptoms and child externalizing and internalizing symptoms following fathers' exposure to combat trauma.
Journal Name
Development and Psychopathology
Journal Volume
28
Issue Number
4
Page Numbers
947-969
DOI
10.1017/S095457941600064X
Summary
The effects of parent combat exposure and posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) symptoms can impact families long after deployment. Relationships between family members' emotion regulation, parents' PTSD symptoms, child internalizing and externalizing symptoms, and family interaction behaviors were examined. Parents and children reciprocally impact one another's trajectories of well-being and adjustment, both positively and negatively, across time during the years following parent deployment.
Key Findings
Fathers’ and mothers’ higher levels of PTSD symptoms predicted greater internalizing and externalizing symptoms among their children one year later.
Children’s greater internalizing symptoms predicted higher PTSD among mothers, whereas greater externalizing symptoms predicted higher PTSD among fathers one year later.
Parents’ positive engagement with their child was related to fewer child internalizing symptoms, and parent coercive behavior when interacting was related to greater externalizing symptoms.
Implications for Program Leaders
Provide workshops to educate military parents about ways to discuss deployment and PTSD with their children
Disseminate information to school staff and parents about symptoms and difficulties children may have following a parental deployment
Offer parent-child classes to teach healthy interaction skills to all military families
Implications for Policy Makers
Encourage programs that help military families to adjust and communicate post-deployment long-term, even several years after a family experiences deployment
Recommend professional development courses for teachers and other school staff about the impact of parent deployment on child internalizing and externalizing symptoms
Promote the integration of a family systems perspective when providing education and skills in existing programs for military families
Methods
Male National Guard and Reserve members deployed during OEF/OIF/OND and their partners and 4-13 year old children, were recruited via presentations, mail, flyers, and family events.
Family members completed measures of emotion regulation, PTSD symptoms, and child internalizing and externalizing symptoms at baseline and one- and two-year follow-up; interaction behaviors were also coded.
Relationships between family members’ emotion regulation, parents’ PTSD symptoms, child internalizing and externalizing symptoms, and family interaction behaviors were examined.
Participants
The 552 participants included 184 male National Guard or Reserve Service members (M = 37.2 years, SD = 6.5), their intimate female partners (M = 35.6, SD = 6.0), and their children (53% female; M = 8.3, SD = 2.4).
Service members were primarily White (85%), married (94%), Army National Guard or Reserve members (73%), and enlisted or warrant officers (76%).
On average, Service members had been deployed two times, with 24 total deployment months.
Limitations
Deployed fathers in the current sample were National Guard or Reserve members and older than most deployed OEF/OIF/OND Service members, potentially limiting generalizability.
Give the wide age range of children, there were large developmental differences across these participants that were not measured and may have impacted results.
Families that dropped out of the study (22% at one-year follow-up; 31% at two-year follow-up) may have differed from those who remained in the study.
Avenues for Future Research
Investigate the impact of child emotional development on adjustment following parent deployment
Explore whether families who participate in military family post-deployment education programs report better parent and child outcomes at one- and two-year follow-ups
Examine family interactions and well-being among families where children have been diagnosed with internalizing or externalizing disorders prior to parent deployment
Focus
Multiple Branches
Target Population
Population Focus
Military Component
Abstract
Transactional cascades among child internalizing and externalizing symptoms, and fathers’ and mothers’ posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) symptoms were examined in a sample of families with a male parent who had been deployed to recent military conflicts in the Middle East. The role of parents’ positive engagement and coercive interaction with their child, and family members’ emotion regulation were tested as processes linking cascades of parent and child symptoms. A subsample of 183 families with deployed fathers and nondeployed mothers and their 4- to 13-year-old children who participated in a randomized control trial intervention (After Deployment: Adaptive Parenting Tools) were assessed at baseline prior to intervention, and at 12 and 24 months after baseline, using parent reports of their own and their child's symptoms. Parents’ observed behavior during interaction with their children was coded using a multimethod approach at each assessment point. Reciprocal cascades among fathers’ and mothers’ PTSD symptoms, and child internalizing and externalizing symptoms, were observed. Fathers’ and mothers’ positive engagement during parent–child interaction linked their PTSD symptoms and their child's internalizing symptoms. Fathers’ and mothers’ coercive behavior toward their child linked their PTSD symptoms and their child's externalizing symptoms. Each family member's capacity for emotion regulation was associated with his or her adjustment problems at baseline. Implications for intervention, and for research using longitudinal models and a family-systems perspective of co-occurrence and cascades of symptoms across family members are described.
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