This week I read an article for my psychology class about the
behavioral developmental of children who are born into a family with one or two
parents that have been diagnosed with mental disorders, such as major
depressive. This article was written by several professors at Harvard
University who discuss the negative affects of mentally-ill parents interacting
with their children. The article states that children may learn to cope
by making close relationships with friends and other family members rather than
a questionably detrimental one with their parent. However, this is still
an issue effecting the behavioral development of children (known as affective disorder) and is shown
through a longitudinal study conducted by Harvard University.
The sample taken for this longitudinal study was composed of 172 children, 11 to 19 years of age, from 101 families (75 girls and 97 boys). In this study, I found it interesting that adolescent girls were more resilient to affective disorder. The article suggests that this is because girls tend to be more sociable. This sociability leads to more outside relationships, compensating for their lack of parental relationship.This study is important in showing how interpersonal relationships between mentally-ill parents and their children may negatively affect their behavioral and learning development. With this combative solution, this shouldn't be too big of a problem should it? The article and longitudinal study's main purpose was to have an understanding of the long-term effects in order to tell whether or not parents recovering from mental illnesses are capable of raising children through various coping methods such as creating active sociability in their children. By creating this sociability with others, this aids in the child's behavioral learning.
As expected, most of the serious psychopathology resulted from parents who were diagnosed with mental disorders. 38% of adolescence in the experimental group were diagnosed with past or current affective disorder vs 2% in the control group. Also, the study showed that the diagnosed parents show a negative correlation between socioeconomic status and the duration of the parent's illness (the longer the duration, the lower their status). Therefore, a parent's depression directly affects their child later in life throughout different dynamics.
So with these findings, should mentally-ill parents be able to have full responsibility of raising their children? Well, I believe it depends on the severity of the situation of the individual. However, this study shows that if the situation is very serious, than a parent who cannot raise themselves should not be seen as fit to raise a child, considering the affects on the child's behavioral development.
