Transactional Associations Between Maternal Depressive Symptoms and Pre-Adolescent Children’s ADHD Symptoms During the COVID-19 Pandemic.

Publication date: Jun 22, 2026

Maternal depression has been consistently linked to child ADHD symptoms, though much of this research is cross-sectional, single informant, and focused on prenatal or early postnatal depression. Consequently, the direction and temporality of this association is poorly understood. We used Random-Intercepts, Cross-Lagged Panel models (RI-CLPM) to examine bidirectional and transactional associations between maternal depression and child ADHD across pre-adolescence. Mothers and children (n = 1,806; 52% male, 77% White) participated across four waves during the COVID-19 pandemic (ages 10-13). At each timepoint, mothers self-reported depressive symptoms and children self-reported hyperactivity and inattention symptoms. Mothers also reported children’s symptoms at the latter three waves. Parallel RI-CLPMs were estimated separately by informant and symptom dimension. Across both informants, maternal depression was associated with child hyperactivity and inattention at the between-dyad level (correlations ranging from .27 to .39). The clearest evidence of within-dyad association emerged for child-reported hyperactivity: higher child-reported hyperactivity at age 10 predicted higher maternal depressive symptoms at age 11, which in turn predicted higher child hyperactivity at age 12. Indirect effect analyses supported this transactional pathway. Maternal-reported models provided more limited but broadly convergent evidence for within-dyad effects on hyperactivity. Within-dyad effects were not observed for maternal- or child-reported inattention. Sociodemographic factors did not moderate cross-lagged parameters. Findings support transactional models of child development, with reciprocal associations between maternal depressive symptoms and child ADHD symptoms appearing most evident for hyperactivity. However, substantial overlap across ADHD symptom dimensions warrants caution in drawing strong conclusions about symptom-specific differences.

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