Maternal Hope and Subjective Wellbeing As Promotive Factors for Early Social Emotional Development

Maternal mental health and wellbeing bears critical influence on developmental outcomes in children, yet the majority of existing research is disproportionately focused on poor maternal wellbeing, namely depression, and the related risks for negative effects in children. Given the significance of the relational nature of development during infancy and early childhood, promoting maternal wellbeing is of particular importance. This study aims to address gaps in existing research by investigating the role of subjective maternal wellbeing; including maternal hope, life satisfaction, and global happiness, as a protective factor for social emotional concerns in infants and toddlers. Each aspect of wellbeing is explored as a potential promotive factor that may be leveraged in the development of interventions to support positive social emotional outcomes in very young children. Conceptualizing hope as a relatively stable trait permits examination of how this enduring characteristic may shape parents’ decisions to engage in shared activities with their children, with consequences, over time, for children’s social emotional development. Given the potential benefits of engagement in parent-child activities to early developmental outcomes, further exploration of potential associations between maternal wellbeing, frequency of parent-child activities, and social emotional outcomes in young children can offer important contributions to the current knowledge base.

Methods: Secondary data analysis (N = 867) was conducted using data from the Age 1 & Age 2 follow up samples of the Baby’s First Years Study. Hierarchical multiple regression was performed to investigate the ability of maternal wellbeing to predict Brief Infant Toddler Social Emotional Assessment (BITSEA) problem total and competence total scores at age 2. Mediation analyses were conducted to determine associations between maternal hope, engagement in shared parent-child activities (PCA), and social emotional development at age 2.

Results: Although hope, life satisfaction and happiness measured at age 1 did not significantly predict social emotional concerns at age 2 (R2 Change = .004, F(3, 858) = 1.72, p = .162), maternal wellbeing was found to be significantly associated with age 2 child competence behaviors (F (3, 859) = 11.73, p <.001). The indirect effect of maternal hope on BITSEA problem scores through PCA was significant (b = -0.01, SE = .00, 95% CI [-0.016, -0.001]), indicating that PCA mediated the relationship between maternal hope and social emotional concerns. The indirect effect of maternal hope on competence scores through PCA was also found to be significant (b = 0.01, SE = .01, 95% CI [0.005, 0.024]), indicating that PCA partially mediate the relationship between hope and child competence scores.

Conclusions: Study results suggest that one aspect of maternal subjective wellbeing, hope, may significantly predict child competence behaviors. Further, findings provide support for the protective benefits of parent-child activities towards early social emotional development. Future research directed at building a more nuanced understanding of the role of specific aspects of maternal wellbeing as protective factors for early social emotional development is needed to build on these results, and to inform future intervention strategies as well as mothers’ own understanding of these relationships and the potential benefits to early development.