Cognitive readiness to parent and intellectual-emotional development in children of adolescent mothers.

Seventy adolescent mother-child dyads were assessed longitudinally to determine relationships among prenatal maternal knowledge and attitudes about parenting, evaluated in the 3rd trimester; postnatal maternal perceptions of parenting stress and child temperament as well as maternal inter-actional style, evaluated when children were 6 months of age; and intellectual, linguistic, and behavioral development at 3 years of age. Mothers who were more cognitively prepared for parenting had children who displayed better intellectual development and fewer internalizing and externalizing behavioral difficulties. Mothers who were less cognitively prepared for parenting prenatally perceived their parenting role as more stressful and their children as more difficult. Although maternal inter-actional style did not act as a mediator, perceptions at 6 months were found to mediate the relationship between prenatal cognitive readiness and child intelligence and internalizing behaviors.