You are a Mirror of My Childhood: Pathways Through Family Dyadic Interactions and Gender Preference in the Intergenerational Association of ODD Symptoms

Abstract

We examined the intergenerational association of ODD symptoms between parents and child offspring, elaborating a model whereby parental childhood ODD symptoms influence their children's ODD symptoms through dyadic interactions within the current family system. The sample included 731 children (aged 6-11, 64.3% boys) and their parents. In a sample of Chinese families, parents reported their childhood ODD symptoms and their marital quality, their negative parenting practices, and their children's ODD symptoms at T1 and T2, about half a year apart. Results indicated that parents' childhood ODD symptoms positively predicted children's T1 ODD symptoms, especially for boys. Path analysis revealed gender-based differences. That is, mothers' childhood ODD symptoms negatively predicted parental marital relationship quality at T1, which in turn positively predicted boys' ODD symptoms at T2. Yet fathers' childhood ODD symptoms were positive predictors of fathers' negative parenting practices at T1, which in turn positively predicted girls' ODD symptoms at T2. Our findings support a gender preference in the intergenerational association of psychopathology. In the current study, such a gender preference is mainly reflected in the stronger direct association between parental childhood ODD symptoms and the T1 ODD symptoms of male offspring than female ones.

Keywords: Intergenerational association; Marital quality; Oppositional defiant disorder; Parenting practices.