This week, Mad in America explores three studies out of China around adverse childhood experiences (ACEs). The first finds parents’ ACEs are linked to higher rates of depression and anxiety in their children. The second links ACEs to depression and anxiety through perceived stress and self-hate. The third finds that ACEs are linked to higher levels of rumination, lower levels of resilience, and poorer overall mental health while positive childhood experiences can erase these associations.
Parents’ Difficult Childhood Experiences Linked to Mental Health Problems in Their Children
A new article published in Child Abuse & Neglect finds a link between parents having adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) and higher rates of depression and anxiety in their own children. This research, led by Qiaochu Zhang from Hong Kong Polytechnic University, reports that this link is strongest between fathers and male adolescents.
The goal of this study was to examine the effects of parents’ ACEs on their children’s mental health. The authors paid special attention to how parental stress, warmth, rejection, and overprotection affected these associations. The authors recruited parent-adolescent pairs from the Greater Bay Area in China. Initially, parents reported on their own ACEs, parenting stress, and mental health while the adolescents reported their perceptions of parenting styles. One year later, the adolescent participants reported on their own anxiety and depression symptoms. In total, the authors examined data from 2,249 parent-adolescent pairs.
Parents with more ACEs reported higher rates of parenting stress while their children reported higher rates of parental rejection. Parental rejection was linked to higher rates of anxiety and depression in adolescent participants. Parental warmth was linked to lower rates of anxiety and depression in adolescent participants. While parents’ ACEs were linked to parental stress, parental stress was not a direct predictor of adolescents’ depression and anxiety. The only factor that directly predicted anxiety and depression in adolescents was parental rejection. These associations were strongest between fathers and male children.
This study suggests that difficult experiences can be passed from one generation to the next, which may increase the risk of depression and anxiety in adolescents. However, parenting style appears to play a major role in this relationship.
Childhood Adversity Linked to Depression and Anxiety Through Stress and Self-Hate
A new article published in Frontiers in Psychology finds that adolescents with greater exposure to ACEs report higher levels of perceived stress, self-hate, and symptoms of depression and anxiety. This study, led by Bingjie Zhou from Chengde Medical University, also finds that female adolescents and those that performed poorly in school reported more ACEs and higher levels of self-hate, perceived stress, and depression/anxiety.
The goal of this study was to test if high levels of self-hate and perceived stress might explain the link between ACEs and higher rates of depression and anxiety symptoms in adolescents. The authors recruited 7,158 adolescents from the Shangdong Province in China. Each participant responded to four self-report surveys: the Adverse Childhood Experiences Scale, Perceived Stress Scale, Self-Hate Scale, and Patient Health Questionnaire-4 (a measure of depression and anxiety).
The authors identified three pathways that linked ACEs to higher levels of depression and anxiety. Higher levels of ACEs were linked to higher levels of perceived stress, which were associated with symptoms of depression and anxiety. This pathway accounted for 24.34% of the total association between ACEs and higher levels of depression and anxiety.
Higher levels of ACEs were associated with higher levels of self-hate, which were linked to higher levels of anxiety and depression. This pathway accounted for 39.15% of the total observed association between ACEs and depression/anxiety. The third pathway, ACEs-perceived stress-self hate-depression and anxiety, accounted for 7.71% of the association between ACEs and increased symptoms of depression and anxiety.
Female adolescents and those that performed worse in school reported higher levels of ACEs, self-hate, perceived stress, and symptoms of anxiety and depression. High-school students reported more ACEs and self-hate than middle school students. Only children reported more ACEs than children with siblings.
Positive Childhood Experiences May Protect Against the Effects of Childhood Adversity
A new study published in Frontiers in Psychology finds that higher exposure to ACEs was linked to more rumination, lower resilience, and poorer mental health in adolescents. This research, led by Yulong Li from Baise University in China, also finds that positive childhood experiences weakened these links, with higher levels erasing them.
The aim of this study was to test if high levels of rumination and low resilience might explain the link between ACEs and poor mental health in adolescents. The authors also wanted to explore whether positive childhood experiences weakened these links. They recruited participants from three secondary schools in China. Each participant was given a questionnaire that measured ACEs, positive childhood experiences, rumination, resilience, and overall mental health. In total, the authors examined data from 700 participants.
The authors identified three pathways that linked ACEs to poor mental health. Higher levels of ACEs were linked to higher levels of rumination over negative experiences, which were in turn associated with poorer mental health. The authors estimate that the ACE-rumination-poor mental health pathway accounted for 18% of the total association between ACEs and poor mental health.
Higher levels of ACEs were associated with lower levels of resilience, which were also linked to poorer mental health. The ACE-resilience-poor mental health pathway accounted for 30.2% of the total observed association between ACEs and poor mental health.
Higher levels of ACEs were linked to higher levels of rumination, which led to lower levels of resilience and poorer overall mental health. The ACE-rumination-resilience-poor mental health pathway accounted for 17.6% of the association between ACEs and poor mental health.
Positive childhood experiences significantly weakened the links between ACEs and poor mental health. This included weaker links between ACEs and rumination as well as ACEs and lower resilience. High levels of positive childhood experiences erased the link between ACEs and poor mental health.
These studies had four main limitations. Due to the design of the studies, these results can only speak to associations, not causes of poor mental health. The reliance on self-report measures could have biased the data due to participants reporting what was most socially acceptable rather than what was true. Some unmeasured factors could have affected the observed relationships. The participants all came from one area in China, significantly limiting generalizability to other populations.
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Li, Y., Cao, Y., Liao, L., Li, Q., & Chen, X. (2026). Adverse and positive childhood experiences in relation to Adolescent Mental Health: Sequential Indirect Associations. Frontiers in Psychology, 17. (Link)
Zhang, Q., Yu, L., Xu, Y., Zhang, H., Deng, C., Ren, Y., & Du, M. (2026). The inter-generational transmission of parental adverse childhood experiences on children’s depression and anxiety symptoms: The mediating effect of parenting factors. Child Abuse & Neglect, 177, 108096. (Link)
Zhou, B., Qi, M., Yu, Y., Fang, S., Zhou, S., Wang, L., & Chen, J. (2026). The relationship between adverse childhood experiences and depression and anxiety in adolescents: The chain mediating effect of perceived stress and self-hate. Frontiers in Psychology, 17. (Link)
This general pattern has been known about for a long time.
We don’t just have “problem children;” we are just as likely to have “problem families.”
Hubbard suggested a mechanism for this in his first book.
But more generally, speaking, it is simply less mentally and emotionally favorable to live around someone who has had unresolved difficulties in their own life.
Psychology today knows all about “triggers” but fails to realize how deep the triggered experiences may lie. In his first book, Hubbard discussed “prenatals” rather extensively. Later, he went on to discover past life experiences that could be triggered in this life.
Most psychologists and researchers act like they have never heard of this work and don’t want to hear about it. So I doubt their stated purpose of making people better. I think all they want to do is get published.
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