Children's resilience in the presence of mothers' depressive symptoms : examining proximal regulatory processes related to active agency

Abstract

Using a large sample from the NICHD Study of Early Child Care, the current study examined the processes through which children's agentic processes promoted their resilience in the face of mothers' depressive symptoms at first grade. Children's resilience in the presence of mothers' depressive symptoms was demonstrated to be homogeneous across domains of academic performance, social competence, internalizing behavior, and externalizing behavior. Children's effortful control, self-assertion, and mastery motivation predicted their resilience in these domains to a varying degree. The agentic processes mediated the relation of different patterns of individual (i.e., child intelligence, temperament), relational (i.e., attachment security), and environmental (i.e., maternal sensitivity, childcare quality) factors to children's resilience across domains. Interrelations among child individual, relational, and environmental characteristics were also observed. Moreover, findings from two analytic approaches converged in terms of underscoring the importance of the agentic system in promoting child resilience in the face of mothers' depressive symptoms. Children's agentic processes promoted their resilience via additive main effects rather than interactive effects.