Parsing Alcohol-Dependent Mothers’ Insensitivity to Child Distress: Longitudinal Links With Children’s Affective and Anxiety Problems

Prior work suggests that substance-dependent mothers insensitively respond to their child’s emotional needs, which can increase children’s risk for psychopathology. However, the mechanisms and processes underlying these associations remain unclarified. Mothers’ insensitivity to children’s distress is an especially unique predictor of child maladjustment, yet no study has examined whether or how different types of insensitivity to child distress uniquely affect the development of internalizing problems in children of alcohol-dependent mothers. To bridge these gaps, this study examined longitudinal mediational pathways between maternal alcohol dependence symptoms, 2 types of maternal insensitivity to child distress (disengagement and intrusiveness), and 2 types of child internalizing symptoms (affective and anxiety problems) in a majority Black and Latinx sample of young children (Mage = 2.14 years) and their mothers. Results revealed that maternal disengagement mediated associations between maternal alcohol dependence symptoms and child internalizing problems such that alcohol dependence predicted increased disengagement to children’s distress, which subsequently predicted increases in children’s affective problems. Maternal alcohol dependence symptoms were not associated with intrusiveness to child distress; however, increased intrusiveness predicted later increases in child anxiety problems.