Intergenerational effects of childhood maltreatment: The relationships among parental childhood emotional neglect, emotional expressiveness and children's problem behaviors

Childhood maltreatment has a severe impact on both the health and parenting styles of abused individuals in adulthood, and it even has a negative impact on the offspring of abused individuals. Although studies have confirmed the intergenerational effects of childhood maltreatment, relatively few have emphasized emotional neglect and its mechanism of intergenerational effects. Additionally, few studies have examined the unique role of fathers and how mothers and fathers interact with one another. The current study aimed to employ the actor–partner interdependence mediation model to investigate the relationship between parental childhood emotional neglect and children's problem behaviors, as well as whether parents' positive and negative emotional expressiveness plays a mediating role. In total, 397 dyads of mothers and fathers of children aged 6–9 were recruited and reported their childhood emotional neglect experience and emotional expressiveness, and mothers also rated their children's problem behaviors. The findings revealed that (a) maternal childhood emotional neglect was associated solely with mothers' own negative emotional expressiveness, followed by their children's problem behavior and (b) paternal childhood emotional neglect showed no effect on children's problem behavior through fathers' own or their spouses' positive and negative emotional expressiveness. The findings of this study suggest that childhood emotional neglect has intergenerational effects and that mothers' parenting behaviors are relatively important in preventing adverse effects on their children.