OBSERVATIONAL ASSESSMENT OF PARENT AND CHILD FROM TODDLERHOOD TO LATE CHILDHOOD

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The objective of these analyses is to identify interacting influences of family relationships and conditions that enter into the child's early experience. Of special interest are the mutual contributions of mother and child to relationships that damage or facilitate the child's development. Outcomes of children with early secure and insecure attachments were significantly modified by the other coexisting stressful or nonstressful relationships. In stressed contexts of maternal psychopathology and losses of significant persons, secure attachment was not a sufficient buffer against the child's later development of affective problems. Losses of significant persons had a main effect on children's subsequent depressed affect and disruptive behavior. When relationships between severely depressed mothers and their young children were characterized by very high mutual investment and dependence on each other, children were more likely to exhibit depressed affect in later years.