Parent-Infant
Interactions Among Families
with Alcoholic Fathers
Rina Das Eiden,
Ph.D., Felipa Chavez, Ph.D., and
Kenneth E. Leonard, Ph.D.
University at
Buffalo’s Research Institute on Addictions
and Medical School
Abstracted from Development
and Psychopathology, 11, 745-762, 1999.
Are alcoholic
families characterized by negative interactions between parent and
child as early as infancy? They may well be, according to Rina
Das Eiden, Ph.D. of UB’s Research Institute on Addictions.
“In this study,
we looked at the relationship between father’s alcoholism and the
quality of interactions between each parent and infant,” Eiden explained.
“Several previous studies with older children of alcoholics found
chaotic home environments, when compared with non-alcoholic homes,
often characterized by negative parenting behaviors. This study looked
at negative interactions as early as infancy, with the hope of targeting
these families for early parenting interventions.”
Who were
the families involved in this study?
Two hundred
and four families with 12-month old infants were recruited for the
study. Felipa Chavez, Ph.D., post-doctoral associate on this
project, provided a brief description of the participants. “Families
were classified as being in one of two major groups: the control group,
consisting of parents with no or few current alcohol problems, and
the father alcoholic group. Within the father alcoholic group, 85
mothers were light drinking or abstaining and 19 mothers were heavy
drinking or had current alcohol problems.”
It should
be noted that women who reported drinking moderate to heavy amounts
of alcohol during pregnancy were excluded from the study in order
to control for potential fetal alcohol effects. Because a large pool
of families were potentially eligible for the control group, control
families were matched to the alcoholic father families with respect
to race or ethnicity, maternal education, child gender, parity, and
marital status.
Families were
asked to visit the Institute at four different infant ages (12, 18,
24, and 36 months), with three visits at each age. The primary focus
of the 12- and 18-month visits was on parent-infant interactions and
attachment. The major focus of the 24- and 36-month visits was on
parenting and toddler self-regulation (behavior problems, empathy,
compliance, and internalization of parental rules).
The majority
of the participants were European American with approximately 5% comprised
of African Americans, Hispanic Americans, or Native Americans. Parental
education levels ranged from less than high school to master’s degree.
A little more than half had received some post-high school education
or had a college degree. All of the mothers were residing with the
father of the infant in the study at the time of recruitment, with
88% married to each other.
Research
on mothers and infants
Kenneth
E. Leonard, Ph.D., Eiden’s colleague on the study, provided some
background. “In 1996, Dr. Eiden and I studied interactions between
mothers and their 12 to 24 month old infants and found that having
a heavy-drinking partner was associated with lower maternal sensitivity,”
Leonard said. Sensitivity refers to the extent to which parents were
able to read their infant’s cues and respond appropriately to their
infant’s initiations in consistent ways. “Further, among mothers with
light-drinking partners,” he continued, “those with higher marital
satisfaction and lower depression were the most sensitive during interactions
with their infants. Thus, family context and maternal personality
characteristics were significantly associated with maternal sensitivity
only when fathers were not heavy drinkers. The impact of the fathers’
alcoholism on the quality of father-infant interaction had not yet
been studied.”
The father-infant
connection
With this
study, Eiden, Chavez, and Leonard examined the relationship among
paternal alcoholism, associated negative behaviors (i.e., depression,
aggression), and parent-infant interactions during play. Families
came to the labs at the Research Institute where parents were asked
to interact with their infants as they normally would for five minutes
in a room filled with toys. The interactions were videotaped and subsequently
rated. The investigators focused on three major areas of parental
behavior during interactions: negative affect, positive affect, and
sensitivity. “We considered negative parental affect to include the
degree to which parents talked with their infants in an angry or hostile
tone of voice, made critical or disapproving remarks, or were irritable
during interactions,” Eiden explained. “Positive parental affect reflected
parental engagement or involvement with the infant, and the amount
and intensity of pleasure they displayed during interactions with
their infants.” The child’s responsiveness to the parents also was
observed.
Measures in
this study included parental alcohol use, antisocial behavior by the
parents, parents’ depression, parents’ verbal and physical aggression,
infant temperament, and parent-infant interactions. The results of
this study indicated that, on the whole, alcoholic fathers displayed
lower sensitivity, lower positive affect, and higher negative affect
in their interactions with their infants than did nonalcoholic fathers.
In addition, the study demonstrated that several risk factors associated
with paternal alcoholism — paternal depression, antisocial behavior,
and aggression — were associated with lower paternal sensitivity.
Interestingly,
the parenting behavior of women married to the alcoholic men did not
differ from the parenting behavior of women married to nonalcoholic
men, suggesting that at this early age, the father’s alcoholism is
not influencing the mother’s behavior toward her child. It may be
that the impact of paternal alcoholism on mother’s behavior toward
the infant is cumulative in nature, and will begin to emerge as the
child develops and parenting demands increase.
Although mother’s
behaviors were not influenced by the father’s alcoholism, the mother’s
own problems were important predictors of her sensitivity to her child.
Replicating previous findings, maternal alcohol problems and maternal
depression were associated with lower levels of sensitivity when playing
with her child.
As to the
child’s responsiveness to the parents, the infants of alcoholic fathers
were, on average, less responsive to their fathers than were children
of nonalcoholic fathers. Further analyses suggested that paternal
alcoholism was related to reduced child responsiveness primarily because
of the low levels of sensitivity displayed by the alcoholic father.
Future
Considerations
In conclusion,
the results of the present study suggest that the origins of risk
for later maladjustment among children of alcoholic fathers can be
apparent as early as 12 months of age. One pathway to lower sensitivity
among alcoholic fathers is through the association between fathers’
alcohol problems and fathers’ depression. Similarly, both maternal
alcohol problems and maternal depression were associated with lower
maternal sensitivity.
“These results
have several implications for the prevention of problem behaviors
among children of alcoholics,” according to Eiden. “First, risk for
later problems can be seen in the form of father’s parenting behavior
as early as 12 months of age, though the extent that father’s parenting
behaviors will predict later problems is uncertain. This is a critical
area for further research. Second, this risk appears to be centered
on the depressive symptoms of the father. It is important to recognize
that this does not necessarily negate the importance of the father’s
alcoholism, because the alcoholism may be a causal factor in the development
of depression and aggression. It does stress the importance of targeting
the multiproblem nature of alcoholism in intervention work in order
to have a long-term impact on parenting behavior. Further research
in these areas could have a long-term impact on both parenting behaviors
and child outcomes.”
The authors
thank parents and infants who participated in this study and the research
staff who were responsible for conducting numerous assessments with
these families. Special thanks to Erica West for coding a substantial
number of the parent-infant interactions, and to Jay Belsky for help
with the composites for parent-infant interaction scales. Address
correspondence to: Rina Das Eiden, 1021 Main Street, Buffalo, NY 14203;
e-mail: Rina
Das Eiden. This research was made possible by grants from NIAAA
(1R01 AA 10042-01A1) and NIDA (1K21DA00231-01A1).
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