Maternal depressive symptoms and teens’ academic performance
Bechtiger et al. (2021) published “Pathways from Maternal Depressive Symptoms to Children’s Academic Performance in Adolescence: A 13-year prospective-longitudinal study” in Child Development. They collected longitudinal data from 389 participants (roughly half male, 70% White) on maternal depressive symptoms (age 2-5), cumulative parenting risk (age 7), child functioning (age 10), and adolescent academic performance.
They document research on maternal depressive symptoms noting that as many as 20% of children may be exposed to such symptoms, and such exposure is “linked to poorer well-being and social functioning in their children—including emotional and behavioral problems (e.g., Campbell et al., 2009) and poorer academic performance (Mensah & Kiernan, 2010).” They then describe cumulative parental risk, documenting the sequelae of depression, including failure to provide material, emotional, and cognitive support, as well as increased negativity.
They add that, “A cumulative approach to parenting risk can (1) account for the pervasiveness of maternal depressive symptoms on parenting behaviors, and (2) capture the heterogeneity of impaired parenting behavior in the context of maternal depressive symptoms.” The direct path from maternal depression to teen academic performance is through impaired parenting behaviors. They add, however, that “cumulative parenting risk in the context of maternal depressive symptoms could have long-lasting downstream associations with children's functioning, which we define to encompass adaptive school behaviors, behavioral regulation, and mental health. First, parental involvement in school and a stimulating home environment have been associated with indicators of adaptive school behaviors. . . . Second, parenting, such as inconsistent discipline, has also been associated with children's self-regulation problems. . . . Third, harsh and inconsistent parenting and a chaotic home environment, have been shown to mediate the association between maternal depression and child depressive symptoms.”
They recruited three cohorts of children at risk for developing future externalizing behavior problems. They find that, “the accumulation of parenting risk in second grade following elevated maternal depressive symptoms was associated with three markers of child functioning: adaptive school behaviors, behavioral regulation, and depressive symptoms. Elevated depressive symptoms may impede mothers’ efforts to facilitate the development of child functioning in fifth grade through an accumulation of parenting risk behavior. Importantly, our results show that the accumulation of parenting risk is associated with poorer child functioning. In other words, mothers do not have to excel at every single parenting behavior to promote their children's academic development. Children's high levels of adaptive school behaviors and behavioral regulation and low levels of depressive symptoms likely enable children to master the educational transitions of adolescence by helping them to adapt to the rules of different teachers, focus on relevant coursework, and remain engaged with school despite the new demands and stressors of secondary school.
“In addition, we identified several unique indirect effects. First, we found a significant indirect path from cumulative parenting risk following maternal depressive symptoms to children's academic performance through adaptive school behaviors in children. When parents are unable to be involved in their children's education or to provide a stimulating home environment and allow the home to become physically chaotic, children may not adequately learn the importance of focusing on and organizing their school work or following teachers’ rules.... Second, we found a significant indirect path from maternal depressive symptoms to higher parenting risk to child depressive symptoms.… Third, we also found an indirect path from maternal depressive symptoms to adolescent standardized achievement, but not GPA, via cumulative parenting risk, independent of any of the hypothesized mediating roles of child functioning.
“The indirect associations of maternal depressive symptoms and adolescent academic performance could not be explained by the continuity of maternal depressive symptoms across childhood nor the stability of academic performance, as shown in two post hoc analyses. First, no additional indirect paths from maternal depressive symptoms in preschool to adolescent academic performance through the continuity of maternal depressive symptoms were identified. These findings further highlight the importance of the family and home environment early in development for child adjustment.” (Bechtiger et al. 2021)
They also acknowledge that the effects are small, which “also suggest that mothers’ depressive symptoms do not inevitably contribute to children's poorer academic development.” Obviously, early intervention is the most important response to this research, but it also suggests data that may help professionals better understand children’s struggles in school.