A positive parenting program to enhance positive affect in children of previously depressed mothers.

Cullum, Goodman, Garber, Korelitz, Sutherland, & Stewart (2022) published “A Positive Parenting Program to Enhance Positive Affect in Children of Previously Depressed Mothers in the Journal of Family Psychology. What I love about this study is that it acknowledges the collateral damage done when mothers are depressed but offers an intervention that may help both mothers and children.

Children of mothers with a history of depression are at heightened risk for developing depression and other maladaptive outcomes. Deficits in parenting are one putative mechanism underlying this transmission of risk from mother to child. The present study evaluated whether a brief intervention with mothers with a history of depression produced greater use of positive parenting behaviors and an increase in observed positive affect in their 8- to 10-year-old children. Mothers with a history of depression (n = 65) were randomly assigned to either a positive parenting intervention or an attention control intervention condition. In addition, a comparison group of 66 mothers with no history of depression was evaluated one time. Results revealed significant increases in positive parenting behaviors (e.g., active listening, praise) immediately postintervention in mothers randomized to the positive parenting intervention as compared to those in the attention control condition. Children of mothers in the positive parenting intervention showed increases in positive affect as compared to children of mothers in the attention control intervention. Increases in mothers’ active listening and smiling/laughing significantly predicted increases in children’s positive affect. The intervention did not increase the rate of children’s moment-by-moment positive affect contingent on mothers’ positive parenting behaviors. This study showed the short-term effectiveness of a brief parenting intervention for enhancing interactions between mothers with a history of depression and their children by directly targeting mothers’ positive parenting and, indirectly, children’s expressions of positive affect. 

While it is a short-term study, the inclusion of an alternative intervention and a non-depressed control group make its findings more promising. I also find interesting the lack of moment-by-moment contingency. It seems to me that it may be that children of previously depressed mothers are more wary than others and we should expect indirect effects until they are convinced that this is a real change in their mothers’ parenting behavior.