Any parent will tell you that raising a child isn't easy. While the experience can be filled with joy and love and fulfilment, emotional, financial and marital stress will present challenges to any family.
This can be especially true for parents of children with behavioural issues. A study by Concordia researchers found that these stressors are associated with lower capacity for self-regulation in parents, and that fathers are particularly vulnerable when marital tension is also present.
The study, published in the International Journal of Psychophysiology , examined 80 cohabitating heterosexual couples with preschool-aged children. In a lab session, the parents were fitted with electrocardiogram monitors (ECGs) that recorded their heart activity. Over the course of the session, they completed a checklist that assessed their child's behavioural problems and discussed the challenges their child's behaviour presented to their marriage.
The parents were also tasked with keeping a marriage diary and recording negative marital interactions over a six-day period.
The researchers paid particular attention to the effect of children's behaviours and marital stressors on high frequency heart rate variability (HRV) — very small fluctuations in the intervals between heartbeats.
Contrary to popular belief, these small fluctuations are desirable, as they indicate that the body is ready to react quickly in response to challenges. High frequency heart rate variability is influenced by the parasympathetic nervous system, the body's "rest and digest system," promoting calmness and recovery. It acts as a counterbalance to the sympathetic nervous system's "fight or flight" response, activated in response to stress.
"Higher heart rate variability indicates that the individual is better able to self-regulate to respond adaptively to stressors. It has been associated with several beneficial outcomes, such as lower depression, better coping with stress, better self-control and less negative interaction cycles with children," says lead author Sasha MacNeil , a former Vanier Scholar (PhD 2023) and now a postdoctoral fellow at McGill University.
Behaviour is a whole family issue
The researchers found that parents whose children exhibited more difficult behaviour, such as aggression, defiance or hyperactivity, tended to have lower HRV. This suggests they could have a harder time staying calm and responding adaptively under stress.
The link between child behavioural problems and lower heart rate variability was stronger when marital stress was also present. Fathers were especially sensitive to this effect. When their partners reported higher levels of marital stress, HRV decreases in fathers were exacerbated.
"For fathers, this means that having a child with more behavioural problems and a partner who is reporting more stress in the relationship is associated with worse self-regulation," MacNeil says. "Whereas with mothers, heart rate variability was associated with their children's behavioural problems, but that association was not amplified by marital stress.
"These results show the importance of considering the whole family dynamic when supporting parents, and not just the relationship with the child," MacNeil concludes. "It is important to consider what we can do to support parents in their interactions with each other in this critical time.
"This is especially pertinent for fathers, who may have been socialized to have fewer sources of support outside the relationship that they could turn to for help with self-regulation."
Jean-Philippe Gouin , a professor in the Department of Psychology , supervised the research. Chelsea da Estrela, PhD 2020, and Warren Caldwell (PhD 2020) currently at McGill University Health Center contributed to the study.
Funding for this study was provided by the Canadian Institutes of Health Research, the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council and the Canada Research Chair Secretariat.
Read the cited paper: " Child and marital stress are associated with a psychophysiological index of self-regulatory capacities among parents of preschool children ."
