Mothers with clinical depression have been discovered as one of the causes of future depression in children. In a study, children of mums diagnosed with clinical depression are three times more likely to develop the said mental state.
In this article, you’ll read:
- Maternal connection shaping the child’s brain activity
- How parental depression affects children
- Comparing mums with depression to those without a history of mental illness
- How to measure parental socialisation
Maternal Connection Shaping Child Brain Activity
Believe it or not, mothers with clinical depression have a big impact on the mental state of growing children. Biology is not the one that shapes a child’s brain activity but maternal socialisation.
Recent research has found that kids with mums diagnosed with clinical depression are three times more likely to develop depression themselves.
Additionally, kids with mentally ill mums have a higher risk of developing depression than their low-risk peers. At present, researchers are working to understand the neural underpinnings of these risks.
Meanwhile, some studies have found that children aged six and below exhibit abnormal reward processing in their brains.
Child Brain Activity Associated With Depression in Adults
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An individual’s brain area called the ventral striatum (VS) is associated with motivation and goal-directed behaviours. With that said, researchers discovered changes in child brain activity associated with depression in adults. They mainly focused on the ventral striatum to closely monitor an individual’s emotional and mental aspects.
Meanwhile, some studies found that during puberty, there is a decrease in trial reactions to a pleasant event. These are the effects of being influenced by clinically depressed mums. They also indicate that children would possibly suffer depression later in life.
However, several recent research studies show that brain changes can emerge long before your child’s adolescence years. The brain changes can develop as the risk for depression typically increases.
Mothers with Clinical Depression vs Mums With No Psychiatric History
Dr Judith Morgan from the University of Pittsburgh led the study surrounding mothers with clinical depression. She recruited 49 children ages 6 to 8 years old without a history of psychiatric illness.
According to the findings, half the kids’ mums had a history of clinical depression. The other half had no psychiatric history.
As an experiment, researchers asked the children to play video games to measure their reward-related activity. While playing, children needed to guess which of the two doors contained a hidden token. In turn, the researchers involved used magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to measure each kid’s brain activity.
After the study, they learned that depression may disrupt parents’ capacity for emotional socialisation. This affects how kids learn from their parents’ reactions to their emotional responses.
Positive socialisation responses indicate acknowledgement, imitation, and elaboration. Additionally, negative or emotional dampening indicates parental responses may be dismissive, invalidating, or punitive.
Measuring Parental Emotional Socialisation
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Mums who participated in the study have completed an extensive questionnaire. They needed to answer a series of questions designed to measure parental emotional socialisation.
In it, researchers present several scenarios of children’s displays of positive emotions. Afterwards, they collect and analyse the parents’ reactions.
According to the results, children with a maternal history of depression were more likely to have reduced reward-related brain activity. However, the effects were only applicable to mums who reported less enthusiastic responses to their children’s positive emotions.
“In our study, mothers’ own history of depression by itself was not related to altered brain responses to reward in early school-age children,” said Dr Morgan.
“Instead, this history had an influence on children’s brain responses only in combination with mothers’ parenting behaviour, such as the ability to acknowledge, imitate, or elaborate on their child’s positive emotions,” she added.
Encouraging positive emotion in their children could is essential. It could be the best thing you can do to positively impact your child’s brain and reward-related development.
Dr Morgan stated, “This is hopeful news as interventions geared at coaching parents to encourage positive emotions in their children may have a powerful impact on child reward-related development.”
Her statement especially applied to children who come from families with a history of depression.
How Parental Depression Affects Children
As you read on, you must understand that mothers with clinical depression are not the only problem. We also need to address parental depression as a big concern. Several studies indicated that it may also provide a major risk for challenges that your children will face in the future.
Recovering from this mental state may shape your worldview. With this, you can also shape your child’s experience in a better manner. Additionally, parents who experience depression are found to make interaction with their children differently.
“Depressed mothers have been found in some studies to use less emotion and expressivity in their language with their babies. And they make less eye contact,” said Smith, co-director of the Parenting Center at the Yale Medicine Child Study Center.
Moreover, parenteral depression can impact many activities of parenting. A depressed parent may not be as lively or as expressive as other parents. Studies also link parental depression (including prenatal depression) with a wide range of difficulties, some lifelong.
Depression not only makes it difficult for parents to bond and nurture their children. It also makes it more difficult for them to do the necessary things to keep their children safe and healthy.
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