The impact of maternal lifetime stressor exposure on child effortful control in the preschool years: Findings from the Behavior Outlook Norwegian Developmental study

Jasmine Lee, Harald Janson, Ane Nærde and Eirini Flouri

Children and Youth Services Review, 2025, vol. 170, issue C

Abstract: We carried out this study to explore the role of maternal lifetime stressor exposure on child effortful control at age 4 years, using data from the Behavior Outlook Norwegian Developmental Study (n = 1,101). At child’s age 4 years the mother reported whether she had ever experienced any of the following: death of someone close, violence, abuse, bullying, serious financial problems, hunger or homelessness, and being a refugee. We did not find an impact of maternal lifetime exposure to stressors on child effortful control. Findings were null irrespective of operationalisation of adversity (i.e., whether a linear or threshold model of cumulative risk was tested or whether specific adversities were considered). Socioeconomic risk and gender were far stronger predictors and remained significant across models. Future research should explore how proximal experience of socioeconomic disadvantage impacts effortful control early in development.

Keywords: Stressful Life Events; Maternal Adversity; Effortful Control; Young Children (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2025
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0190740925000301
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:cysrev:v:170:y:2025:i:c:s0190740925000301

DOI: 10.1016/j.childyouth.2025.108147

Access Statistics for this article

Children and Youth Services Review is currently edited by Duncan Lindsey

More articles in Children and Youth Services Review from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().