Sex differences in the longitudinal relations among family risk factors and childhood externalizing symptoms.

Despite potential sex differences in base rates, predictors, and maintaining processes for children's externalizing behaviors, little prospective research has examined sex differences in the relations between concurrent, proximal family risk factors and children's externalizing behaviors.The current study examined the relations among maternal depressive symptoms, maternal parenting behaviors (i.e., negativity and low warmth), and child externalizing symptoms at 24 months and first grade in a community-based sample of 1,364 children enrolled in the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development Study of Early Child Care and Youth Development.Structural equation modeling revealed that maternal depression and negative parental behaviors were associated with concurrent externalizing behaviors, though maternal depression may be differentially linked to boys' and girls' externalizing problems.The relation between depression and boys' externalizing symptoms was more pronounced at 24 months, and over time, the relation between maternal depression and boys' externalizing symptoms decreased in magnitude, whereas this relation increased among girls.Numerous lines of inquiry have examined the relations between contextual factors and children's externalizing behaviors.Although these contextual factors have been operationalized at various levels, the family environment has received the lion's share of attention (e.g., Barton & Figueira-McDonough, 1985;Eddy, Leve, & Fagot, 2001;Patterson, 1982;Rothbaum & Weisz, 1994;Webster-Stratton, 1996).Generally speaking, children who are exposed to harsh, insensitive, unsupportive, or inconsistent parenting are at greater risk for externalizing problems than their peers.Moreover, the presence of parental psychological problems likely increases the effects of high negative and low positive parenting behaviors on child externalizing behaviors (e.g., Davies & Windle, 1997;Essex, Klein, Cho, & Kraemer, 2003).Coercion theory (Patterson, 1982) provides a model for jointly considering these processes.Specifically, children who are exposed to aversive social environments may be more likely to model parental aggressive and irritable behaviors.In the context of parental requests, children's display of externalizing behaviors may result in