An application of adolescent ego-development theory to a parenting model in the examination of failure to thrive.

Abstract

This dissertation examined the processes underlying mother-child relationship disturbances among families who had a child with failure to thrive. Belsky's (1984) model of the determinants of parenting was utilized to determine the constructs important in understanding the parenting process. These constructs included mothers' remembered developmental history, personal psychological resources, and the reported difficulty of their child. Adolescent ego-development theory was used to identify the personal psychological resources of the mother. Two samples were used to examine mother-child relationship disturbances, mothers of failure to thrive children (N = 26) and mothers of comparison children (N = 24). The findings were: (1) Remembered developmental history of respondents predicted psychosocial health and individuation in mothers from both groups; (2) Remembered developmental history predicted sense of identity in the failure to thrive group and autonomy in the comparison group; (3) Identity and psychosocial health predicted maternal distress in the failure to thrive group; and (4) Identity and child difficulty predicted mother-child relationship disturbances in both groups. Logistic regression revealed that mothers who rated their children as more difficult were 16 times more likely to have a child with failure to thrive.