Grant: Project Grant

A safe and nurturing family environment is essential for infants' healthy development, yet parents with behaviour problems may struggle to provide such an environment. This study aims to test: (1) Whether parents with higher behaviour problems throughout their childhood experience more distress (i.e., stress, anxiety, and depressive symptoms) and engage in harsher parenting behaviours when they become a parent; (2) How do the child's irritability, the co-parent's adjustment, and the parents' relationship contribute to parental distress and harsh parenting; (3) Whether the risk is lower when the parents have higher income, used perinatal services, and receive social support, such as by grandparents. The participants come from two ongoing Canadian longitudinal studies initiated when participants were 5 months old and continuing up to young adulthood. We have information on participants' behavior problems from parents, teachers, and the youths themselves throughout development, and information about their early adulthood socioeconomic situation, relationship and parenthood status, and mental health. In this project, we will: (A) Follow-up the 2230 participants yearly to track new pregnancies and births; and (B) For the approximately 800 participants who are or will become parents, we will ask them and their co-parents about their adjustment, parenting behaviours, social and economic support, and we will ask for saliva samples to complete their genotyping. This project will set the stage for the first large-scale, 3-generation study in Canada. The results will help better understand the determinants of the quality of early family environments.