From Bidirectional and Transactional Associations to Developmental Systems: Understanding the Relationships Between Parental Burnout and Child Internalizing and Externalizing Behaviors
(2026)
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- (en) Although developmental psychology has long established that parents and children continuously influence one another over time, empirical research has more often focused on how parents shape children's development than on how children shape parents' psychological functioning. Whether similar reciprocal developmental processes characterize the relationships between parental burnout and child internalizing and externalizing behaviors has remained largely unexplored. The present dissertation sought to address this gap by determining whether these relationships are better understood as parent-driven, child-driven, or reciprocal, while also exploring the mechanisms through which they unfold over time. Three complementary empirical studies, combining cross-sectional, longitudinal, and exploratory approaches, were conducted to address these objectives. The findings support reciprocal and transactional associations between parental burnout and child internalizing and externalizing behaviors while highlighting their substantial developmental continuity. They further suggest that these associations cannot be explained by a single pathway but instead, reflect multiple interacting processes embedded within the evolving dynamics of parent-child relationships. Beyond its empirical findings, this dissertation argues for a broader developmental perspective. Rather than viewing parental burnout and child internalizing and externalizing behaviors as isolated characteristics of parents or children, the findings support understanding them as interdependent processes emerging within continuously evolving relational systems. In doing so, this work contributes to shifting from predominantly parent-centered explanations toward developmental systems perspectives that recognize the dynamic, contextual, and reciprocal nature of parent-child relationships and family functioning.
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Woine, A. (2026). From Bidirectional and Transactional Associations to Developmental Systems: Understanding the Relationships Between Parental Burnout and Child Internalizing and Externalizing Behaviors. https://hdl.handle.net/2078.5/282172