Depressive symptoms and developmental change in mothers' emotion scaffolding: Links to children's self-regulation and academic readiness.

This study examined whether the mechanism linking changes in Mexican-origin adolescent mothers' depressive symptoms to children's subsequent self-regulation and academic readiness was via their emotion scaffolding when their children were 2, 3, 4, and 5 years of age. Data included home interviews with adolescent mothers (N = 204), observations of mother-child interactions during a task that challenged children's abilities to manage their emotional arousal, and assessments of children's performance on measures of self-regulation and academic readiness. Adolescent mothers' higher depressive symptoms at child age 2 years were associated with a greater decline in mothers' emotion scaffolding from child age 2 to 5 years, which was subsequently linked to children's lower self-regulation and academic readiness at age 5. Possible implications from this line of work for adolescent mothers and their children are discussed. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2020 APA, all rights reserved).