Predicting Stability and Change in Toddler Behavior Problems : Contributions of Maternal Behavior and Child

This study examined the stability and continuity of early-identified behavior problems and the factors associated with this stability. Children and their mothers (N = 125) were seen when the children were 2 and 4 years of age. Maternal reports of child externalizing behavior and laboratory observations of child noncompliance were stable from age 2 to age 4. Early externalizing behaviors decreased over time; however, child noncompliance in the laboratory did not. Although few associations were found between maternal positive behavior and child behavior problems, maternal controlling behavior was related to increases in child behavior problems, particularly at high levels of both prior noncompliance and prior maternal control. Child noncompliance was predictive of increases in maternal controlling behavior over time. Article: Disruptive behavior problems in early childhood have been the focus of considerable developmental and clinical research. This concentration is due largely to the repeated observation that these problems are highly stable across childhood (Campbell, Pierce, Moore, & Marakovitz, 1996; Cohen & Bromet, 1992; Heller, Baker, Henker, & Hinshaw, 1996), predictive of other more serious kinds of behavioral problems (Campbell, 1991; Loeber, 1982), and implicated in disruptions in other domains such as social competence and academic functioning (Campbell, 2002; Moffitt, 1993). Moreover, different rates of these problems have been observed in girls and boys (Keenan & Shaw, 1997). Less is known about the implications of behavior problems that are observed in toddlerhood, a period when increases in negativity, noncompliance, and aggression are often viewed as normative but may also be important predictors of future adjustment (Belsky, Woodworth, & Crnic, 1996; Campbell, Shaw, & Gilliom, 2000; Rubin, Burgess, Dwyer, & Hastings, 2003). Family correlates of such problems have been investigated extensively in the preschool and childhood period but less so in the toddler period (Campbell et al., 2000). In addition, differential correlates and outcomes for boys and girls have not been examined extensively during this period (Rubin et al., 2003). Questions regarding the patterns, parenting correlates, and implications of toddler behavior problems may be examined from within a developmental framework with reference to the individual and dyadic processes that are observed during this critical developmental transition and that are theorized to be important for subsequent functioning. During toddlerhood, significant developments are occurring in child self-regulation that lay the foundation for the autonomous behavior necessary to make the transition to school and that create opportunities for individual differences in child functioning to emerge (Calkins, 1994; Kopp, 1982; Sroufe, 1995). From both a theoretical and an empirical standpoint, failures of self-regulation are core components of early behavior problems (Calkins & Dedmon, 2000; Gilliom, Shaw, Beck, Schonberg, & Lukon, 2002; Keenan, 2000), and caregiving behaviors are clearly influential in providing children with the appropriate support to practice autonomous and self-regulated behavior (Calkins, Smith, Gill, & Johnson, 1998). Both maturational differences and caregiver behavior may be expected to influence emerging selfregulation and to yield differential developmental pathways to problem behavior for boys and girls (Calkins, 2002; Keenan & Shaw, 1994). It is from within such a developmental framework that we examined the patterns and caregiving correlates of early behavior problems, using observational and parent report measures, in a community sample of children selected for both high and low levels of toddler