Harsh parental discipline, negative automatic thoughts, and depressive symptoms among Chinese children: Cross-lagged panel networks by gender.

BACKGROUND

Harsh parental discipline is a common form of child maltreatment and has been consistently associated with increased negative automatic thoughts and children's depressive symptoms. However, the longitudinal symptom-level associations of these factors remain unclear, particularly with respect to gender-specific patterns.

OBJECTIVE

This study employed a cross-lagged panel network analysis to examine the symptom-level temporal associations among harsh parental discipline, negative automatic thoughts, and depressive symptoms in children, and to investigate the role of gender in these relationships.

PARTICIPANTS AND

SETTING

Participants were 836 Chinese children recruited from three elementary schools. Children completed self-report questionnaires assessing harsh parental discipline, negative automatic thoughts, and depressive symptoms at two time points over a one-year interval.

METHODS

Cross-lagged panel network analysis was used to estimate temporal associations among the study variables, and network structures were compared between boys and girls.

RESULTS

The overall network analysis indicated that personal failure emerged as a central node connected to depressive symptoms. Paternal psychological aggression and paternal corporal punishment were both associated with personal failure, whereas maternal corporal punishment was linked to somatic symptoms and interpersonal relationship difficulties. Gender-specific network analyses revealed that depressive symptoms were primarily associated with paternal psychological aggression in girls and with personal failure in boys.

CONCLUSIONS

Harsh parental discipline, negative automatic thoughts, and depressive symptoms exhibited complex associations with gender-specific patterns in the cross-lagged network, providing insights into the emergence and development of depressive symptoms in children.