Dietary Curcumin Promotes Resilience by Protecting Against Stress-Induced Anxiety in Mice

Early adverse caregiving is a major risk factor for mental health problems later in development across multiple species. Institutional caregiving, an extreme form of caregiving neglect, is a severely stressful environment for humans, such that exposure to institutional care has been associated with an elevated risk for behavioral problems in children and adolescents. Being adopted and raised by psychologically committed parents has been associated with significant rescue of behaviors in many children (Zeanah et al., 2003; Hodges & Tizard, 1989), however, whether parental interpersonal competence plays a significant role in moderating children’s behaviors remains unknown. In the present study, we collected data three times across a 3-year period from 167 youth (Previously Institutionalized n = 72, Comparison n = 95) and their parents, who completed both the Child Behavior Checklist (CBCL/4-18; Achenbach, 1991) and 2-minute videotaped observational sessions. A factor analysis and a three-way ANOVA were conducted to test whether individual differences in youth behavior outcomes could be predicted by parental interpersonal competence (defined as warm, interpersonally connected, and comfortable/relaxed demeanor during interaction), and a mixed linear model analysis was performed to investigate whether this parenting benefit would be observed more as children matured toward adolescence. The study found that high parental interpersonal competence was associated with lower total problems in adolescents, and when examined longitudinally, it predicted children’s behavioral problems 3 years later as they transitioned into adolescence. These results suggest that (1) good parental interpersonal competence can buffer against risks for child behavior problems, and (2) childhood is a sensitive period of increased plasticity for the development of regulatory processes.