Rumination in Early Adolescent Girls: Interactive Contributions of Mother-Adolescent Relationship Quality and Maternal Coping Suggestions.

Research suggests that rumination places adolescents at risk for psychopathology. However, little is known about the association between parenting and rumination. Moreover, relevant theoretical models suggest that parents contribute to the development of rumination both explicitly through their suggestions about how to cope and implicitly through the context of the mother-adolescent relationship. However, prior work has not examined implicit and explicit factors within the same investigation, precluding exploration of their unique and interactive effects. To address these gaps, the present study examined links between mother-adolescent relationship quality, maternal coping suggestions, and adolescent rumination. Participants were early adolescent girls (M age = 12.41 years) and their primary female caregivers. Findings suggested that maternal disengagement suggestions and mother-adolescent relationship quality were each uniquely associated with adolescent rumination. Moreover, the effect of maternal disengagement suggestions depended on the level of maternal engagement suggestions and mother-adolescent relationship quality. Follow-up analyses revealed that these findings were specific to the maladaptive ruminative brooding component of rumination. Future directions for research were elaborated.