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

了解父母和照顾者如何对儿童的心理健康和发展产生积极和消极的影响，儿童精神健康问题的具体特征如何可能影响父母和照顾者以及他们随后为儿童提供的养育环境，如果要在当代家庭生活的背景下提供有效的政策和支助，促进儿童取得积极的发展成果，这些都是非常重要的问题。虽然过去的研究已将父母间矛盾的关系、敌对的育儿行为和消极的父母心理健康症状(如反社会行为、抑郁)与儿童心理健康问题症状的增加(如焦虑、抑郁、行为问题、多动症)联系在一起，但仍然存在疑问，即日常家庭环境经验(相对于潜在的遗传因素)是否真的与儿童的情感和行为发展有关。特别是，由于这方面的研究几乎都是与亲缘关系密切的父母和儿童进行的，父母和家庭因素通过什么可能的机制影响儿童的心理发展？仅对生物家庭进行的研究在解释儿童所经历的环境对其心理健康和福祉的可能影响的相对重要性方面提出了一个问题，因为与生物相关的父母和儿童共享基因，这可能解释这种联系的存在。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；英国试管受精研究)，拟议的项目将在美国和英国的两个父母和儿童(儿童年龄4-10岁)样本中，通过研究特定家庭和父母水平变量与儿童心理健康症状之间的相互作用，以及遗传相关和基因无关的母子和父子群体之间的相互作用，显著促进这一领域的知识。独一无二的是，这项研究将在三个主要领域增进理解。首先，通过利用父母和孩子在基因上没有血缘关系的两个样本，我们能够检查儿童适应负面家庭环境和父母心理健康问题的途径和过程，这些问题不会因共同的遗传因素而混乱；重要的是，我们可以确定影响单个孩子是否可能对儿童可能接触的不利环境具有弹性(或不具有弹性)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。这是一个明显不足的研究领域，但最近的研究表明，父子关系可能特别容易受到父母之间冲突的影响(例如，这种关系可能在父母分居/再婚的情况下具有重大的实际影响)。第三，我们将能够独一无二地解决一个与现代家庭生活背景下父母和孩子之间的相互作用有关的基本重要问题；相对于孩子的特征和行为可能影响育儿行为，在什么情况下，父母的行为最有可能影响孩子的行为？这一问题对理解何时以及在何种条件下可以采用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影响。通过使用本项目中建议的研究补充，我们将能够推进对这些问题的洞察，而不是目前通过英国任何其他资源提供的问题。

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.