The outcomes of a longitudinal study of non‐organic failure‐to‐thrive

Individuals who had failed‐to‐thrive for non‐organic reasons received psychosocial intervention which was tailor‐made to their particular needs during childhood. Their progress was followed up over 20 years later, including their physical growth and social and cognitive functioning. Not all clients showed the same outcomes. The quality of the parental relationship and the reason for the growth‐faltering were found to be related to the outcomes at 20 years. Unless they experienced a positive and sustained change in their life or circumstances, individuals who had experienced abuse showed poorer outcomes than those whose growth‐faltering had been thought due to neglect, lack of parenting or feeding dif?culties. Abuse tended to be a contributing factor to growth‐faltering more frequently in families where the parents were observed to have a poor relationship with each other. However, a signi?cant change in the quality of care given to the child and the emotional environment experienced by them resulted in positive outcomes 20 years later despite experiencing abuse during childhood. Copyright © 2003 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

The Time Squeeze: Parental Statuses and Feelings About Time With Children

Policy makers, parents, and the public are concerned with perceived declines in parents’ time with children. Data from two national surveys (N = 1,159 and N = 821) used in this study show that nearly half of parents report feeling too little time with children. Work hours are strongly related to these feelings, even controlling for time spent with children, and explain why fathers more than mothers feel time strain. For fathers, those whose youngest child is an adolescent feel more strain than similarly situated mothers. Controlling for work hours, single parents are not more likely than married parents to feel that they spend insufficient time with children.     

Preschool Boys with Pervasive Hyperactivity: Early Peer Functioning and Mother–Child Relationship Influences

This study compared the peer functioning of a community sample of preschool boys with pervasive hyperactivity (N=33) and comparison boys (N=34), and examined the extent to which any differences in peer functioning between these groups could be explained by comorbid child conduct problems and parenting factors. The quality of boys’ peer relations was assessed on the basis of teacher and observer ratings of peer‐related behavior at preschool. The quality of parenting and boys’ behavior at home were assessed using the Parental Account of Children's Symptoms Interview, the Parenting Scale, and videotaped mother–son interactions. Boys with hyperactive behavior problems showed higher rates of aggressive, noncompliant, and nonsocial behaviors, and lower rates of prosocial behavior and peer acceptance than boys in the comparison group. These between‐group differences in social functioning remained significant following statistical control for the effects of conduct problems, highlighting the wide range of peer difficulties associated with preschool hyperactivity. Results of further analyses suggest that the quality of early mother–child interactions and the behavioral features of hyperactivity may make unique contributions to the 00development of peer relationship difficulties in preschool children with pervasive hyperactivity.     

父母教养方式对小学高年级学生学业拖延的影响：一个有调节的中介模型

摘 要：目的：为明确父母教养方式对小学高年级学生学业拖延的作用机制,本研究构建了一个有调节的中介模型,考察了自我概念在二者关系中的中介作用以及成就动机的调节作用。方法：以1181名小学生为被试,采用问卷法对其学业拖延程度、父母教养方式以及自我概念和成就动机进行调查。结果：1）在控制了性别、年级和独生与否后,父亲教养方式对学业拖延具有显著的负向预测作用,而母亲教养方式对学业拖延的预测不显著。2）自我概念能够在父母教养方式与拖延的关系中起中介作用;3）成就动机对中介路径后半段具有显著的调节作用。结论：自我概念很有可能是父母教养方式影响小学高年级学生学业拖延的重要中间环节,而上述中介效应会受到成就动机的调节。     

Parenting fostered adolescents: skills and strategies

This paper discusses findings from a recently completed study of adolescent foster care, which included a detailed assessment of the parenting approaches and strategies used by the foster carers of adolescents in long‐term placements. Sixty‐eight foster carers were interviewed at two points in time. The first interview was conducted two months after the start of a new adolescent placement and the second after the placement had been continuing for a year, or at the point of disruption if this occurred earlier. The interview schedules were designed specifically for this study and were based upon well‐established techniques developed in other studies of parenting. They enabled the researchers to make summary ratings for each carer on established dimensions of parenting such as control and discipline, responsiveness and the level of engagement with the child. The researchers assessed how these strategies changed and developed in relation to the young person's behaviour and whether these approaches influenced either the likelihood of placement disruption or the quality of the placement for the child. This paper describes the parenting strategies used by the foster carers, highlighting the areas of parenting that significantly affected the placement outcomes and the corresponding implications for policy and practice.     

Parental mental health: disruptions to parenting and outcomes for children

The association between parental mental health problems and negative outcomes for children has been long known. This paper addresses three issues in relation to this. First, the scale of the problem is outlined, in terms of both the prevalence of mental health problems in parents and the likelihood of children exhibiting negative outcomes in these circumstances. Secondly, the specificity, or lack of it, of particular outcomes in the child in relation to different parental mental health problems is explored. Thirdly, the paper focuses on the importance of disruptions to parenting as a mechanism in the transmission of mental health problems to negative impacts on the child. Examples are given of how parenting is disrupted in non‐clinical community populations, and the subsequent impacts on the child. The case is made for the preventative importance of parenting and family support in mediating between parental mental health problems and negative impacts on the child.     

Parenting capacity

We describe an approach to the assessment of parenting for families in which child abuse has been established to have occurred. Neither the category of abuse nor its physical severity adequately predicts the future wellbeing or safety of an abused child. The critical variable in determining the child's future is the level of disturbance in parenting. We argue against the most common approach to assessments of parenting, which is to generate a non‐hierarchical list of issues with the emphasis on relatively concrete and readily measurable dimensions such as social support, parental knowledge about parenting and the child's developmental status. We enhance the standard approach to assessment by organizing it around parenting capacity. We do not attempt to operationalize parenting capacity, de?ning it as the parents' ability to empathically understand and give priority to their child's needs. Adequate parenting requires that the parents be able to meet the challenges posed by their particular child's temperament and development (which may be shaped by the abusive experience) and also to accept and be prepared to address their own intrinsic characteristics which impede their parenting capacity. Parenting capacity is more dif?cult to assess than the more concrete and commonly measured aspects of parenting, but we argue that its assessment should be central to child protection management decisions. Copyright © 2004 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Maternal Emotional Styles and Child Social Adjustment: Assessment, Correlates, Outcomes and Goodness of Fit in Early Childhood

The goals of the present research were to develop a modified version of an existing self‐assessment questionnaire designed to measure parents’ emotional style and to examine how the aspects of child regulation may moderate the relation between the emotional styles and social outcomes in childhood. Participants in Study 1 were 140 mothers and children (73 males, 67 females, M_age=56.0 months). The mothers completed the Maternal Emotional Styles Questionnaire (MESQ) to assess maternal emotional styles, and the Child Behavior Vignettes to assess parental goals across two scenarios. Participants in Study 2 were 50 mothers who were interviewed regarding their emotional styles using the Meta‐emotion Interview, and who also completed the MESQ. In Study 3, 100 mothers and children (41 males, 59 females, M=58.0 months) participated. The mothers completed the MESQ and the Child Behavior Questionnaire to assess the children's emotion and behavior regulation. Teachers completed the Child Behavior Scale to measure the indices of preschool adjustment. Results from Studies 1 and 2 indicated a two‐factor scale for the MESQ, with good psychometric properties (including stability, convergent validity, and construct validity). Results from Study 3 indicated different patterns of associations between maternal emotional styles, and child adjustment for well‐regulated versus dysregulated children.     

Predicting Spouses’ Perceptions of Their Parenting Alliance

This study used marital‐ and individual‐level variables to predict spouses’ perceived parenting alliance. One hundred married couples completed measures of parenting alliance, marital consensus, marital power, and depression. Analyses revealed that marital consensus was a significant predictor of parenting alliance for both parents, and that depression also was a significant predictor for wives. Analyses using both spouses’ data indicated that wives’ perceptions of consensus and depression significantly predicted both spouses’ parenting alliance, suggesting that wives are the barometer of the marital relationship ( Floyd & Markman, 1983 ) and of the parenting relationship as well. Implications for research are discussed.     

Children's Perceptions of Family Relationships as Assessed in a Doll Story Completion Task: Links to Parenting, Social Competence, and Externalizing Behavior

This study was designed to examine the links between parenting, children's perceptions of family relationships, and children's social behavior. Seventy‐four children (M age=6.01 years; 39 boys; 35 girls) and their parents took part in the study. Children completed relationship‐oriented doll stories that were coded for coherence, prosocial themes, and aggressive themes. Parents completed a report of their child's social behavior, a parenting scale, and a number of demographic items. Teachers also completed measures of children's social competence and externalizing behavior. Warm parenting predicted both a child's representation of prosocial themes in the doll stories and social competence, whereas harsh parenting predicted both a child's use of aggressive themes in the doll stories and a child's externalizing behavior. These findings support the idea that children are constructing models of relationships out of the early interactions with caregivers, and that they use these representations to guide their social behavior.