Associations among mother-child communication quality, childhood maladaptive grief, and depressive symptoms

    Language

    English

    Publication Date

    8-27-2013

    Journal

    Death Studies

    DOI

    10.1080/07481187.2012.738771

    PMID

    24524545

    Abstract

    Mother-child communication may be an important factor in determining children's grief reactions following the death of the father. Using observational methods, the current study suggests that mothers' warm, sensitive, and engaged communication is associated with lower levels of maladaptive grief and depressive symptoms in children whose fathers have recently died. Further, mothers who showed a blunted emotional response to the loss, illustrated by unusually few depressive symptoms, were less effective at using these strategies than mothers with a more "normative" reaction. Findings suggest that mother-child communication may be an important intervention target for bereaved families.

    Keywords

    adaptation, psychological, adolescent, child, preschool, depression, female, grief, humans, male, mother-child relations, mothers, parental death

    Published Open-Access

    yes

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