The longitudinal relationship between maternal warmth, hostility, inductive reasoning and externalising behaviours in Australian adolescents

The mental health of Australian children is a major public health issue, with 12-14% of children experiencing clinically significant externalising problems. Externalising behaviours in early childhood are of concern due to their association with poor academic achievement, unemployment, delinquency, and mental health disorders. There is strong evidence for the relationship between parenting practices and child externalising behaviours. However, studies have failed to understand the longitudinal nature of this relationship and have not examined how adolescents perceive parenting practices. We aimed to identify whether maternal warmth, hostility, and inductive reasoning, as rated by mothers and adolescents predicted adolescent externalising outcomes. Secondary data analysis was conducted using data from 3688 mother-child dyads from the Longitudinal Study of Australian Children. Maternal self-reported hostility was the strongest predictor of maternal reported adolescent externalising behaviour. However, adolescent reported maternal warmth was the strongest predictor of adolescent self-reported externalising behaviour. These results indicate that adolescents provide important insight into the effects of maternal parenting practices and should be included as respondents in future research. Additionally, early interventions aimed at supporting parents in the domains of warmth, hostility and inductive reasoning may be successful in the prevention of later adolescent externalising behaviours.