No evidence of parental mental health influencing children’s academic achievement: a within-family study
12 affiliations
- 1PROMENTA Research Center, Department of Psychology, University of Oslo, Oslo, Norway
- 2Department of Biological Psychology, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, Amsterdam, The Netherlands
- 3Research Institute LEARN!, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, Amsterdam, The Netherlands
- 4Amsterdam Public Health Research Institute, Amsterdam, The Netherlands
- 5Population Health Sciences, Bristol Medical School, Bristol, UK
- 6MRC Integrative Epidemiology Unit, University of Bristol, Bristol, UK
- 7Centre for Fertility and Health, Norwegian Institute of Public Health, Oslo, Norway
- 8PsychGen Center, Norwegian Institute of Public Health, Oslo, Norway
- 9Department of Educational Science, University of South-Eastern Norway, Notodden, Norway
- 10Department of Sociology and Human Geography, University of Oslo, Oslo, Norway
- 11Centre for Research on Equality in Education, University of Oslo, Oslo, Norway
- 12Department of Medical Epidemiology and Biostatistics, Karolinska Institutet, Stockholm, Sweden
Abstract
Children of parents with psychopathology generally perform less well in school than their peers. Parental symptoms might not, however, account for their lower achievement, as other familial factors might contribute. To examine the role of parental symptoms, we analyse data from 9,000 families in the Norwegian Mother, Father, and Child Study (MoBa). Parents reported their symptoms of anxiety, depression, ADHD, eating disorders, and alcohol use disorder during pregnancy and during their child’s childhood. Children in 5th grade (aged 10) completed nationally-standardised tests of mathematics, reading comprehension, and English (as an additional language). Comparing children who are cousins (children-of-siblings design), we controlled for unmeasured factors shared among family members that confound the relationship between parental mental health and children’s academic achievement. We found small associations between greater parental symptoms and lower scores in reading and mathematics (− 0.060 ≤ β ≤ −0.013). However, these associations were no longer significant when comparing cousins whose parents differ in mental health. Results suggest that parental symptoms do not exert a direct, clinically meaningful effect on children’s academic achievement. Although non-significant, associations with parental symptoms measured close to the child’s academic test are less attenuated than those measured during pregnancy. Notably, comparison between the overall MoBa sample and the children-of-siblings samples suggests ascertainment differences that hinder strong generalisations. Our findings underscore the importance of quasi-experimental family designs in identifying modifiable targets in intergenerational health and education research. Supporting parental mental health is crucial but its direct effect on children’s achievement may be smaller than often thought.
Supplementary Information: The online version contains supplementary material available at https://doi.org/10.1007/s00787-026-03100-9.
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BibTeX
@article{demange2026evidence,
title = {{No evidence of parental mental health influencing children’s academic achievement: a within-family study}},
author = {Perline A. Demange and Michel G. Nivard and Fartein A. Torvik and Espen M. Eilertsen and Rosa Cheesman and Magnus Nordmo and Torkild Lyngstad and Eivind Ystrom and Elsje van Bergen},
journal = {European Child \& Adolescent Psychiatry},
year = {2026},
month = jun,
doi = {10.1007/s00787-026-03100-9},
url = {https://doi.org/10.1007/s00787-026-03100-9},
note = {CC BY 4.0},
}
RIS
TY - JOUR
TI - No evidence of parental mental health influencing children’s academic achievement: a within-family study
AU - Perline A. Demange
AU - Michel G. Nivard
AU - Fartein A. Torvik
AU - Espen M. Eilertsen
AU - Rosa Cheesman
AU - Magnus Nordmo
AU - Torkild Lyngstad
AU - Eivind Ystrom
AU - Elsje van Bergen
PY - 2026
DA - 2026/06/24
JO - European Child & Adolescent Psychiatry
DO - 10.1007/s00787-026-03100-9
UR - https://doi.org/10.1007/s00787-026-03100-9
AB - Children of parents with psychopathology generally perform less well in school than their peers. Parental symptoms might not, however, account for their lower achievement, as other familial factors might contribute. To examine the role of parental symptoms, we analyse data from 9,000 families in the Norwegian Mother, Father, and Child Study (MoBa). Parents reported their symptoms of anxiety, depression, ADHD, eating disorders, and alcohol use disorder during pregnancy and during their child’s childhood. Children in 5th grade (aged 10) completed nationally-standardised tests of mathematics, reading comprehension, and English (as an additional language). Comparing children who are cousins (children-of-siblings design), we controlled for unmeasured factors shared among family members that confound the relationship between parental mental health and children’s academic achievement. We found small associations between greater parental symptoms and lower scores in reading and mathematics (− 0.060 ≤ β ≤ −0.013). However, these associations were no longer significant when comparing cousins whose parents differ in mental health. Results suggest that parental symptoms do not exert a direct, clinically meaningful effect on children’s academic achievement. Although non-significant, associations with parental symptoms measured close to the child’s academic test are less attenuated than those measured during pregnancy. Notably, comparison between the overall MoBa sample and the children-of-siblings samples suggests ascertainment differences that hinder strong generalisations. Our findings underscore the importance of quasi-experimental family designs in identifying modifiable targets in intergenerational health and education research. Supporting parental mental health is crucial but its direct effect on children’s achievement may be smaller than often thought. Supplementary Information: The online version contains supplementary material available at https://doi.org/10.1007/s00787-026-03100-9.
SN - 1018-8827
SN - 1435-165X
ER -