Trauma-Sensitive Parenting in the Context of Intergenerational Trauma and Resiliencies: Associations Between Adverse and Benevolent Childhood Experiences, Parenting Practices, and Depression in Parents and Adult Children

This study identified trauma-sensitive parenting practices – safety, choice, collaboration, trustworthiness, and empowerment – as conditional pathways linking parents’ cumulative adverse and benevolent childhood experiences (ACEs and BCEs, respectively) to children’s ACE exposure, with indirect effects varying depending on parents’ and children’s depressive symptoms. In a sample of 1,187 parent-young adult child dyads, results from Hayes’ PROCESS Model 29 indicated that safety, choice, and collaboration functioned as significant conditional indirect pathways. Parent ACEs predicted child ACEs, with effects strengthened by both parent and child depressive symptoms; children with elevated depressive symptoms exhibited the strongest ACE transmission under conditions of low trauma-sensitive parenting. Parent BCEs predicted modest reductions in child ACEs and were generally less sensitive to parent and child depressive symptoms. Overall, these results highlight the conditional nature of intergenerational ACE transmission and suggest that trauma-sensitive parenting may serve as a context-dependent relational pathway, the effectiveness of which varies based on parent and child depressive symptoms.