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Resilience and Family Psychosocial Processes Among Children of Parents with Serious Mental Disorders

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Abstract

Resilience involves successful adaptation despite adverse circumstances, and is operationalized in this study as a multidimensional construct which consists of both positive and negative indicators of adaptation. Previous research has emphasized the importance of parental psychopathology in predicting child adaptation among children of parents with serious mental disorders. In contrast, we hypothesized five family psychosocial processes as common sequelae to serious parental mental disorder that are central to child adaptation beyond that predicted by parental psychiatric status. These are diminished family financial resources, social network constriction, impaired performance of parenting tasks, increased familial stress, and disruption of the parent-child bond. We examined the relationship of these processes to child adaptation independently through hierarchical regression analyses after taking into account parental psychiatric symptoms and functioning as well as the child's age and gender. One hundred seventy-seven children of mothers with serious mental disorder, ages 2–17 years old, were assessed on measures of adaptation. Results indicated that family psychosocial processes are a more consistent and powerful predictor of child adaptation than parental psychopathology. Results also indicated that, for these children, adaptation is predicted most consistently by parenting performance, and to lesser extents, by the parent-child bond and familial stress. We discuss our results in terms of their implications for theory and intervention with children of parents with serious mental disorders and for the study of resilience.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Psychiatry and Child Study Center, Division of Prevention & Community Research, and The Consultation Center, Yale University School of Medicine, New Haven, CT

    Jacob Kraemer Tebes (Associate Professor)

  2. Department of Psychiatry, Division of Prevention & Community Research, and The Consultation Center, Yale University School of Medicine, New Haven, CT

    Joy S. Kaufman (Assistant Clinical Professor)

  3. Child Study Center, Yale University School of Medicine, New Haven, CT

    Jean Adnopoz (Associate Clinical Professor)

  4. Department of Psychiatry and Child Study Center, Yale University School of Medicine, New Haven, CT

    Gary Racusin (Assistant Clinical Professor)

Authors
  1. Jacob Kraemer Tebes
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  2. Joy S. Kaufman
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  3. Jean Adnopoz
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  4. Gary Racusin
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Tebes, J.K., Kaufman, J.S., Adnopoz, J. et al. Resilience and Family Psychosocial Processes Among Children of Parents with Serious Mental Disorders. Journal of Child and Family Studies 10, 115–136 (2001). https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1016685618455

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