The interlocking trajectories between negative parenting practices and adolescent depressive symptoms

Previous studies have shown strong evidence of the association between negative parenting practices and adolescents' depressive symptoms. However, most of these findings are based on cross-sectional data, which can only detect the association from a static perspective. They are not able to detect the dynamic relationship between parents' harsh parenting and adolescents' depressive symptoms. The interlocking trajectories between negative parenting practices and adolescent depressive symptoms may serve as the core of a theoretical framework that can better capture the origins of adolescents' behavioural development. This article incorporates a life course perspective to discuss how mothers' negative parenting practices and depressive symptoms among the adolescent generation interlink. Using data from a panel design longitudinal study across a three-year period, and employing latent growth curve (LGC) analysis, which was used to estimate trajectories of change in adolescents' depressive symptoms and their mothers' harsh parenting, this study traces the links between negative parenting practices and adolescents' depressive symptoms in a dynamic manner. In general, the findings of this study support the hypothesis that there is an interlocking relationship between mothers' negative parenting practices and adolescents' depressive symptoms.