Caregiving Environmental Risk and Aggression From Infancy to Adolescence in a High-Risk Sample: An Examination of Between-Family and Within-Family Effects

The dynamic, longitudinal interplay between caregiving environmental risk (e.g., caregiver postnatal substance use and psychological symptoms, caregiving instability, exposure to violence) and child aggression is not well understood, particularly for substance-exposed children. A random intercept cross-lagged panel model was used to examine within- and between-family variability in the reciprocal relations between caregiving environmental risk and child aggression from infancy to kindergarten age, and their contribution to early adolescent aggression, with prenatal substance exposure as an exogenous predictor, controlling for maternal education, child sex, and peer delinquency. The sample included 216 mother–child dyads (49% boys; 57.6% African American). Multimethod assessments were conducted at infancy, toddlerhood, early-preschool, late-preschool, kindergarten, and early adolescence. Positive cross-lagged effects from child aggression to caregiving environmental risk revealed that after a temporary increase in aggression, children were exposed to more caregiving environmental risk a year later. Positive reciprocal paths from caregiving environmental risk at infancy and toddlerhood to child aggression a year later indicated that children had increased aggression at toddlerhood and early preschool when exposed to higher-than-expected levels of caregiving environmental risk the year prior. In contrast, caregiving environmental risk at early preschool and late preschool did not relate to child aggression a year later and caregiving environmental risk at kindergarten did not relate to early adolescent aggression. Findings highlight the ways in which child behavior impacts caregiving environmental risk and have implications for identifying and intervening with early childhood aggression and the contexts in which it occurs.