Paternal and maternal rejection and Chinese children's internalizing and externalizing problems across the transition to siblinghood: A developmental cascade model of family influence

This longitudinal study examined the reciprocal associations between paternal and maternal rejection and firstborn children's (M-age = 49.9 months; 55% boys) behavior problems across the transition to siblinghood in a sample of 120 families recruited from 2016 to 2018 from Shanghai, China. Parental rejection and behavior problems were assessed before (prenatal) and 1, 6, and 12 months after the birth of a baby sibling. Random intercept cross-lagged panel models revealed positive relations between internalizing problems and both maternal and paternal rejection, and between externalizing problems and paternal rejection at the between-person level (rs = .32-.37), but only cross-lagged effects from children's internalizing and externalizing problems to maternal rejection at the within-person level (beta s = .30-.54).