Socialization of emotion and offspring internalizing symptoms in mothers with childhood-onset depression

This study examines how mothers with and without a history of childhood-onset depression respond to their 3–9 year-old childrenʹs emotions. Mother–child dyads included 55 offspring of mothers with a history of childhood-onset depressive disorders and 57 offspring of never-depressed mothers. Mothers with a history of childhood depression were less likely than control mothers to respond in supportive ways to their childrenʹs negative emotions and were more likely to magnify, punish, or neglect their childrenʹs negative emotions. Magnification, neglect, and punishment of childrenʹs negative emotions were concurrently associated with childrenʹs internalizing symptoms, and neglect and punishment were associated with internalizing over a one year follow-up. Maternal neglect of childrenʹs negative emotion was positively associated with later internalizing symptoms for children who already had higher internalizing symptoms at the initial assessment. Findings suggest that atypical socialization of emotion may be one mechanism in the development of internalizing disorders.