Parental Post-Traumatic Stress and Overreactive Parenting As Risk Factors for Toddler Internalizing Behavior

Introduction: Toddlers who are raised in secure and supportive environments tend to be relaxed and sociable, whereas those who experience a great deal of early life stress may already show signs of internalizing behaviors, or the tendency towards emotional reactivity, anxiety, depression, somatization, or withdrawal. Parents who themselves are emotionally compromised by factors such as significant trauma histories and subsequent post-traumatic stress might be particularly vulnerable to transmitting these dysregulated tendencies to their children during the stressful years of early parenthood, especially in the context of an overreactive parenting style. The purpose of this study is to understand how parents’ experiences with trauma and post-traumatic stress may impact the development of toddler internalizing symptoms, as well as to understand how parenting style might moderate this risk.

Method: A community sample of 98 couples in the third trimester of pregnancy with their first biological child was recruited from Vancouver Island, British Columbia. Couples completed questionnaires during the third trimester of pregnancy, and then again at one and two years postpartum. At the first wave, men and women were 32 and 30 years old, respectively.  Couples had lived together an average of 4.5 years and 69% were legally married. The current study examined data from the second and third waves, with a retention rate of 90% of women and 81% of men at the second wave and 78% of women and 76% of men at the third wave.

Results: Mother’s and father’s trauma histories, as well as mother’s symptoms of post-traumatic stress, at one year postpartum significantly predicted children’s’ internalizing behaviors at age two. In addition, mother’s trauma histories and post-traumatic stress both interacted with their own overreactive parenting style to further increase the risk of internalizing symptomatology when children were two.

Conclusion: The results of this study underscore the important role of parental trauma and post-traumatic stress as risk factors for the development of internalizing symptomatology in the early years of child development, and also highlight the way in which overreactive parenting style might interact with these vulnerabilities to further exacerbate this risk. Prevention programs aimed at enhancing parenting in new mothers and fathers should consider the role of trauma histories and post-traumatic stress as potential vulnerability factors and possibly also as targets of intervention.