Utilising Adoption-Based Research Designs to Examine the Interplay Between Family Relationship Processes and Child Developmental Outcomes

如果要提供有效的政策和支持，在当代家庭生活的背景下促进儿童的积极发展成果，就必须了解父母和照料者如何积极和消极地影响儿童的心理健康和发展，儿童心理健康问题的具体特点如何影响父母和照料者以及他们为儿童提供的养育环境。虽然过去的研究将冲突的父母间关系，敌对的养育行为和负面的父母心理健康症状联系起来，（如反社会行为、抑郁症）与儿童精神健康问题症状加重之间的关系（如焦虑、抑郁、品行问题、多动症），问题仍然是日常的家庭环境体验（相对于潜在的遗传因素）对儿童的情感和行为发展真的很重要。特别是，由于几乎所有的研究在这一领域已经进行了与生物相关的父母和儿童，是什么可能的机制，通过父母和家庭因素影响儿童的心理发展？仅对生物学家庭的研究在解释儿童所经历的环境的相对重要性方面提出了一个问题，因为生物学上相关的父母和儿童共享基因，这可能解释了这种关联的存在。通过采用一系列新颖的基于收养的研究设计，（美国出生时收养研究;英国试管婴儿研究），拟议的项目将通过研究特定的家庭和父母层面的变量与儿童心理健康症状之间的相互作用，反之亦然，在遗传相关和遗传无关的母子和父子分组中，在美国和英国的父母和孩子（4-10岁的孩子）的两个样本中。独特的是，这项研究将促进对三个主要领域的理解。首先，通过利用两个样本的父母和孩子的基因无关，彼此，我们能够检查的途径和过程，儿童的适应负面的家庭环境和父母的心理健康问题，不混淆共享的遗传因素;重要的是，我们可以确定影响个体儿童是否可能适应（或不适应）儿童可能暴露于的不利环境的因素。这可以直接为干预工作提供信息。第二，我们能够促进对母子关系和父子关系对儿童心理健康的相对作用的理解。这是一个明显代表性不足的研究领域，但最近的工作表明，父亲与子女的关系可能特别容易受到父母间冲突的影响（例如，在父母分居/再婚的情况下，这种关联可能具有重大的实际意义）。第三，我们将能够独特地解决一个与现代家庭生活中父母和子女之间的相互作用有关的至关重要的问题;相对于儿童的特点和行为影响父母行为的潜力，在什么条件下父母行为最有可能影响儿童行为？这一问题对于了解何时以及在何种条件下可以采取特定的干预和支助目标，以促进儿童、父母和家庭的积极发展成果具有重大意义。通过采用本项目中提出的补充研究，我们将能够推进对这些问题的深入了解，超越目前通过英国任何其他资源提供的。

Understanding how parents and caregivers positively and negatively affect children's mental health and development, how specific features of children's mental health problems may affect parents and caregivers and the rearing environments that they then provide for children, are questions of significant importance if effective polices and supports are to be provided that promote positive developmental outcomes for children in the context of contemporary family life. While past research has linked conflicted inter-parental relationships, hostile parenting behavior, and negative parent mental health symptoms (e.g. anti-social behaviour, depression) to elevated symptoms of mental health problems for children (e.g. anxiety, depression, conduct problems, ADHD), questions remain as to whether everyday family environmental experiences (versus underlying genetic factors) really matter in relation to children's emotional and behavioural development. In particular, as nearly all research in this area has been conducted with biologically related parents and children, what are the possible mechanisms through which parent and family factors affect children's psychological development? Studies of only biological families pose a problem in interpreting the relative importance of the environments children experience as a possible influence on their psychological health and well-being because biologically related parents and children share genes, which may explain the presence of such associations. By employing a complement of novel adoption-based research designs (US based adoption-at-birth study; UK IVF study), the proposed project will significantly advance knowledge in this area by examining the interplay between specific family and parent level variables and child mental health symptoms, and vice versa, among genetically related and genetically unrelated mother-child and father-child groupings, across two samples of parents and children in the US and the UK (child age 4-10 years). Uniquely, the study will advance understanding in three primary areas. First, by utilising two samples of parents and children genetically unrelated to each other, we are in a position to examine pathways and processes that underlie children's adaptation to negative family environments and parent mental health problems that are not confounded by shared genetic factors; and importantly, we can identify factors that influence whether an individual child is likely to be resilient (or not) to adverse environments the child might be exposed to. This can directly inform intervention efforts. Second, we are in a position to advance understanding of the relative role of the mother-child and father-child relationships on child mental health. This is a distinctly under-represented realm of research, yet very recent work suggests that the father-child relationship might be particularly susceptible to inter-parental conflict (an association that may have significant practical implications in the contexts of parental separation/remarriage, for example). Third, we will be able to uniquely address a question of fundamental importance in relation to the interplay between parents and children in the context of modern family life; under what conditions is parent behaviour most likely to influence child behaviour, relative to the potential for child characteristics and behaviour to influence parenting behaviour? This question has substantial implications for understanding when and under what conditions particular intervention and support targets may be engaged to promote positive developmental outcomes for children, parents and families. By employing the complement of studies proposed in the present project, we will be able to advance insight into these questions beyond that presently available through any other resource in the UK.