Early Childhood Precursors of Gender Differences in Depressive Symptoms: Integrating Contributions of Child Emotion Regulation and Maternal Distress

Our predictive model integrated constructs of early emotion regulation and maternal distress as predictors of children’s later depressive symptoms in our sample of 218 3-year-old boys and girls reassessed during middle and late school-age years. Findings suggest poor emotion regulation skills are the best predictor of early onset internalizing problems.