Emotional and behavior problems in adopted children - The role of early adversities and adoptive parents' regulation and behavior.

BACKGROUND: Early adversity and negative experiences in the adoptive family can put adopted children at risk for emotional and behavior problems. OBJECTIVE: This study analyzes the influence of children's preadoptive history and adoptive parents' characteristics on the psychosocial adjustment of nationally and internationally adopted children in Germany. PARTICIPANTS AND SETTING: The survey included 172 adopted children aged between 24 and 145 months and their adoptive parents. METHODS: Parents provided information about preadoptive history. Information about emotional and behavior problems was obtained from the parental version of the Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire (SDQ). Parental well-being was obtained through a composite score of three standardized measures (self-efficacy questionnaire, Perceived Stress Scale PSS-4, Brief Symptom Inventory BSI); parenting behavior was assessed with the Alabama Parenting Questionnaire (DEAPQ). RESULTS: 12.5% of the adopted children scored in the clinical range of the SDQ. In a multiple regression analysis, the experience of maltreatment and neglect was the most important predictor of emotional and behavior problems at time of assessment, followed by pre- and perinatal risk and parental stress regulation difficulties, R² = .423, F(4, 128) = 28.539. Increases in the number of risk factors present were associated with a greater odd of children scoring in the clinical range of the SDQ. CONCLUSIONS: Most of the nationally and internationally adopted children in this sample were well-adjusted. Prenatal and preadoptive risk as well as stress regulation capacities of the main caregiver contributed to the child's development. An accumulation of risks increased the likelihood of adjustment problems in adopted children.

Interoceptive awareness and perceived control moderate the relationship between cognitive reappraisal, self-esteem, and cardiac activity in daily life.

Cognitive reappraisal has been discussed to dampen emotional experience and foster health and well-being. Recent theorizing suggests that the benefits of reappraisal might depend on the feasibility to exert control in a given situation and the ability of an individual to sensitively attend to organismic cues (interoception). This study examined the interplay of habitual reappraisal, interoceptive awareness and perceived control on psychological (self-esteem) and physiological (heart rate variability) adjustment in daily life. A sample of 111 participants was monitored throughout 12 h. Habitual reappraisal was assessed via the emotion regulation questionnaire and interoception via a heartbeat detection task (method of constant stimuli). An ecological momentary assessment protocol was used to record short-term heart rate variability (HRV) as an indicator of cardiac vagal tone, self-esteem and perceived control in daily life. Higher use of reappraisal was associated with higher self-esteem particularly in good heartbeat detectors when perceived control in daily life was low. Conversely, habitual reappraisal was unrelated to momentary self-esteem in poor heartbeat detectors. Moreover, habitual reappraisal predicted higher HRV in daily life when perceived control was low, and reappraisal tended to be positively related with HRV in good, but not in poor heartbeat detectors. Together the findings suggest that the benefits of habitual reappraisal in daily life may depend on perceived control and interoceptive accuracy, thus supporting the assumption that the effects of reappraisal in daily life are more complex.