How do immigrant parents of children with complex health needs manage to cope in their daily lives?

Daily life with children who have complex health needs can be stressful for parents. Immigrant parents are vulnerable to stress because they may lack language skills and knowledge about the health care system and have limited social networks. In this study, we focus on how immigrant parents of children with complex health needs use emotion‐focused and problem‐focused coping strategies to manage their daily life, and how their self‐efficacy and the immigration process may affect their coping. This qualitative study had an exploratory design with individual and focus group interviews. The sample comprised 27 parents—18 mothers and 9 fathers—from Pakistan, Poland, and Vietnam. The findings indicated that the parents' love for their child helps them to cope in their daily life. Newly arrived migrants, single mothers with a severely ill child who lacked support and migrant parents with language difficulties struggle to cope. Some of the stress is related to personal, social and structural problems, and to the insufficient resources available to meet the child's needs. The parents used both emotion‐focused and problem‐focused coping strategies. The parents noted that access to both universal and selective welfare services is an important factor that contributed to their self‐efficacy and coping.     

Do Immigrant Minority Parents Have More Consistent College Aspirations for Their Children?*

Objective. Educational aspirations are an important predictor of eventual attainment. We examine if immigrant parents have higher aspirations for their children compared to native‐born parents and whether they are more likely to maintain high aspirations over time. Methods. Using data from the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study‐Kindergarten Cohort (ECLS‐K), we document differences in the formation and maintenance of white, black, Hispanic, and Asian parents' college aspirations for their children between kindergarten, third, and fifth grades. We also examine the role of acculturation in the stability of immigrant parents' aspirations. Results. We find that immigrant parents are more optimistic about their children's educational trajectories than are native‐born parents and that over time they are more likely to maintain consistently high aspirations for their children. Conclusion. Immigrant parents do not see their children's future as downwardly mobile, and instead remain optimistic, consistently reinforcing messages about college plans throughout childhood.     

Parent emotion socialization and children's socioemotional adjustment: when is supportiveness no longer supportive?

Parents' supportive emotion socialization behaviors promote children's socioemotional competence in early childhood, but the nature of parents' supportiveness may change over time, as children continue to develop their emotion‐related abilities and enter contexts that require more complex and nuanced social skills and greater autonomy. To test whether associations between parents' supportiveness of children's negative emotions and children's socioemotional adjustment vary with child age, 81 parents of 3‐ to 6‐year‐old children completed questionnaires assessing their responses to children's negative emotions and their children's emotion regulation, lability, social competence, and behavioral adjustment. As predicted, child age moderated the associations between parents' supportiveness and children's socioemotional adjustment. For younger children, parents' supportiveness predicted better emotion regulation and less anxiety/internalizing and anger/externalizing problems. However, for older children, these associations were reversed, suggesting that socialization strategies which were supportive for younger children may fail to foster socioemotional competence among 5‐ to 6‐year‐old children. These results suggest the importance of considering emotion socialization as a dynamic, developmental process, and that parents' socialization of children's emotions might need to change in response to children's developing emotional competencies and social demands.     

The Ecology of Family Guidance in Low-Income Mexican-American and European-American Families*

This two-part study applied an ecocultural perspective to socialization of daily and long-term goals in low-income Mexican-American and European-American families with children in third, fifth, and seventh grades. The first part of the study examined family members' participation and parents' socialization goals and guidance strategies for their children's daily household chores and homework activities. The second part of the study examined parents' long-term aspirations and guidance strategies for their children's educational, vocational, and moral development. For daily activities, results showed that in Mexican-American families both parents and siblings played important roles, whereas in European-American families parents were the primary socialization agents. As predicted, in both groups parents' expertise influenced their guidance strategies. Finally, Mexican-American and European-American parents differed in their relative endorsement of gender, relational, and self-reliance goals for household chores. For long-term goals, parents in both groups held high educational, vocational, and moral aspirations for their children. However, some parents of seventh-graders had lower educational and vocational aspirations than those of fifth- and third-graders. Although expertise consistently influenced Mexican-American parents' guidance strategies, the pattern for European-American parents was mixed. The discussion highlights between- and within-group differences in daily and long-term socialization practices with an emphasis on resources and vulnerabilities in the families.     

Mother–Child Conversations of Emotionally Salient Events: Exploring the Functions of Emotional Reminiscing in European-American and Chinese Families

This study explores the functional variations in mother–child conversations of emotionally salient events in European‐American and Chinese families. Thirty Chinese and 31 European‐American 3‐year‐old children and their mothers participated. Mothers were asked to discuss with their children at home two specific one‐point‐in‐time events in which they both participated. One event was extremely positive to the child, one extremely stressful. American mothers initiated more interactive and elaborative conversations that focused on the child's roles and predilections in the story, and they employed a ‘cognitive approach’ to emotional regulation by providing explanations for the cause of children's feeling states. Chinese mothers took a directive role in posing and repeating memory questions and focusing on social interaction, and they used a ‘behavioral approach’ to emotional regulation by emphasizing discipline and proper conduct to their children. Findings are discussed in light of cultural influences on the functions of emotional reminiscing for self and relationship construction and emotional regulation.     

Hope and subjective well‐being among parents of children with special needs

The current study examined subjective well‐being (SWB) in parents who raise children with special needs. Previous studies that focused on parenting children with special needs stressed increased risk of depression. This study examined parental level of hope, the significance of being involved in a partner relationship and parental perception of the seriousness of their child's disability, each a factor that may influence parental SWB. A random sample of 92 parents raising children with special needs in Israel participated in the study. They completed three questionnaires, examining parent's perception of the severity of their child's disability, parental SWB and parents' level of hope. Results revealed that a high level of hope, being in a partnered relationship, and perception of the child's disability as having some positive influence on central aspects of the parents' life, are all significant contributors to raising parental SWB. Study findings show that ‘agency’, a component of the concept of ‘hope’, is a significant factor in predicting SWB in parents of a child with special needs. Perhaps awareness of how they can improve their SWB by using certain aspects of their lifestyle to their advantage can help improve quality of life for parents of children with special needs.     

Agreement and discrepancy between children,parents, and social workers on school‐based effort avoidance in child welfare services

A multiperspective approach is beneficial for obtaining reliable and multifaceted pictures of child behaviour problems. The goal of the present study is to examine interrater agreement on school‐based effort avoidance between children receiving child welfare services, parents, and social workers. Given previous findings, interrater agreement is expected to be low. Self‐reported data on school‐based effort avoidance were gathered for children and adolescents in child welfare services. Additionally, social workers (using the Teacher‐Report Checklist for social and learning behaviour) and parents (using the parallel version of the self‐rating questionnaire on school‐based effort avoidance) were asked to complete an external assessment tool to compare children's perspectives with the ratings of significant adults. The results confirmed significant discrepancies between parents' and children's ratings on effort avoidance tendencies. Furthermore, there were only small to moderate correlations between children's self‐ratings and the adults' assessments; however, the consensus between adults was higher than the interrater agreement between children and social workers. Discrepancies in ratings from multiple informants underline the importance of integrating multiple perspectives, especially children's perspectives, in the diagnostic process in order to plan and adapt appropriate care and treatment.     

Children's Self-esteem and Moral Self: Links to Parent–Child Conversations Regarding Emotion

The current study has two aims: (1) to examine associations between the emotional content of parent–child past event conversations and two aspects of children's self‐concept—moral self and self‐esteem; and (2) to examine the degree to which talk about past events is uniquely associated with self‐concept when compared with talk about ongoing events and situations. Fifty‐one five‐ and six‐year‐old New Zealand children and their parents discussed four emotional past events and two ongoing conflicts. Children's moral self, self‐esteem and language ability were also assessed. When parents referred to a greater number of positive emotions and evaluations, regardless of conversation type, their children had higher self‐esteem. Past event talk also uniquely predicted children's self‐esteem: Parents who used more explanations during conversations regarding past negative emotions, and more explanations and confirmations of past positive emotions, had children with higher self‐esteem. We discuss these results with respect to an autobiographical memory approach to self‐concept development.     

Worried,concerned and untroubled: antecedents and consequences of youth worry

Using a pattern‐based approach, worry was explored in relation to military youths' developmental and contextual characteristics, and pivotal outcomes (depressive symptoms, self‐efficacy, well‐being, coping styles, academic performance and deployment adjustment). Data were collected from parents and adolescents, age 11 to 18, living in the USA (n = 273 families). Variations in individual characteristics (age and gender), military family factors (rank, recent deployment, parents' resilient coping abilities) and family relational characteristics (parents' marital status, warm parenting, marital quality) were related to heterogeneous worry typologies. Depressive symptoms, self‐efficacy and well‐being, varied across the worry typologies. Implications are drawn from these findings for identifying potential interventions that can be accessed to modify these worry patterns and limit their harmful effects.     

Conflict Outcome as a Function of Parental Accuracy in Perceiving Child Cognitions and Affect.

It is usually maintained that positive family functioning and internalization of parental values are promoted by parents' consistent use of particular discipline strategies or styles of childrearing. In this paper a different position is presented, viz., that parents who can accurately perceive their children's thoughts and feelings during a disagreement will have the most successful outcomes because they can tailor their disciplinary interventions to the particular states of their children at the time. Adolescents and their parents were interviewed about recent disagreements and asked to rate themselves and their partner on measures of anger, blame, acceptability of their own and their partner's behavior, and satisfaction. In families where fathers were accurate in their perceptions of their adolescent's cognitions and affect there were fewer conflicts per week. Accurate perception on the mothers' parts was related to their satisfaction with the outcomes of the disagreements. There was no relation between adolescents' perceptual accuracy and number of conflicts or their satisfaction with the outcomes.     

Parental emotion regulation strategies and parenting quality predict child internalizing symptoms in families experiencing homelessness

Adaptive emotion regulation (ER) in parents has been linked to better parenting quality and social–emotional adjustment in children from middle‐income families. In particular, early childhood may represent a sensitive period in which parenting behaviors and functioning have large effects on child social–emotional adjustment. However, little is known about how parent ER and parenting are related to child adjustment in high‐risk families. In the context of adversity, parents may struggle to maintain positive parenting behaviors and adaptive self‐regulation strategies which could jeopardize their children's adjustment. The current study investigated parents' own cognitive ER strategies and observed parenting quality in relation to young children's internalizing and externalizing problems among families experiencing homelessness. Participants included 108 primary caregivers and their 4–6‐year‐old children residing in emergency shelters. Using multiple methods, parenting and parent ER were assessed during a shelter stay and teachers subsequently provided ratings of children's internalizing and externalizing difficulties in the classroom. Parenting quality was expected to predict fewer classroom internalizing and externalizing behaviors as well as moderate the association between parent ER strategies and child outcomes. Results suggest that parenting quality buffered the effects of parent maladaptive ER strategies on child internalizing symptoms. The mediating role of parenting quality on that association was also investigated to build on prior empirical work in low‐risk samples. Parenting quality did not show expected mediating effects. Findings suggest that parents experiencing homelessness who use fewer maladaptive cognitive ER strategies and more positive parenting behaviors may protect their children against internalizing problems.     

Bad Days Don't End When the School Bell Rings: The Lingering Effects of Negative School Events on Children's Mood, Self-esteem, and Perceptions of Parent–Child Interaction

Each day for five days, 79 fifth‐grade children reported on events that occurred at school and they and their parents described their interactions with each other each evening. Consistent with previous research, it was found that on days when children reported more academic or peer problems during the day at school, they later described more aversive interactions with their parents. As hypothesized, increases in anxiety and drops in children's state self‐esteem partially mediated this link. However, parents did not report any differences in their interactions with the target child on days when the child experienced problems at school. This study suggests that negative events experienced by children while at school lead to short‐term changes in mood and self‐esteem, which influence their perceptions of subsequent interactions at home with parents.     

“It's like he just goes off,BOOM!”: mothers and grandmothers make sense of child‐to‐parent violence

Child to parent violence (CPV) involves continual and cumulative abusive actions perpetrated by children and adolescents towards their parents or caregivers. This abuse produces short‐term distress and ongoing long‐term harmful consequences for parents and their families. Practitioners, researchers and policy‐makers are increasingly challenged to identify, conceptualize and respond to this form of family violence. A major challenge is that parents and caregivers under‐report this abuse so there is a lack of awareness and understanding of their psychological experiences in relation to CPV. This research adopts an interpretative phenomenological approach to explore the psychological experience of CPV. Interviews were conducted with six New Zealand mothers and two grandmothers who all experienced CPV. This abuse was experienced as an ‘emotional bloody roller coaster’ of unconditional love through to hatred; as ‘judgement’ – self‐blame and others' blame of their parenting skills; and the ‘absent father’ in their adolescents' lives was drawn on as an explanation for the abuse. Taken together, these psychological experiences identify the silencing of CPV is related to parents' conflicting emotions towards their children, their thoughts and feelings about themselves and how other people view them, and the impact of an absent father figure in their children's everyday lives.     

Child involvement in treatment planning and assessment in Israel

What can facilitate at‐risk children's involvement in treatment planning and assessment? We examine this question by investigating the perceptions, attitudes, and characteristics of Israeli social workers. We examine whether their seniority, views on the importance of children's participation, and their attitudes toward parents are related to their report of at‐risk children's involvement in treatment planning and placement decisions. At‐risk children's involvement includes preparing them to appear before the committees that handle placement decisions for youth and the social workers' willingness to consider children's opinions. Eighty coordinators of these committees in social services departments in Israel participated. Our findings indicate that, based on the coordinators' answers, at‐risk children are more likely to be involved in treatment planning and assessment committees when the child protection officers prepare parents prior to participating in the committee meetings, and when the coordinators assigned the case are more senior. The influence of children's opinions on the decisions of the committees was predicted by the weight their parents' opinions carried and whether their parents received any relevant materials prior to the committee meetings. Our findings highlight the importance of involving parents in treatment planning and assessment committees' decision making.     

Pathways between Parent–Child Interactions and Peer Acceptance: The Role of Children's Social Information Processing

This study examined the links among parents' interaction styles, their children's social information processing, and peer acceptance. Fourth‐grade children (N = 159) and their parents were observed during family discussions. One year later peer acceptance and children's information processing choices (goals, strategies, and attributions) in response to social dilemmas involving their parents and peers were assessed. Fathers' interaction styles with their children predicted both girls' and boys' information processing in regard to their fathers and peers, which, in turn, were related to peer acceptance. Mothers' interactive styles with their children predicted children's social information processing in regard to parents and peers and peer acceptance in similar ways, but only for girls. This study provided evidence that parent–child interaction is linked to children's information processing concerning their relationships with parents and peers and in turn with children being liked by peers. The implications of a social information processing approach for understanding family–peer links are emphasized.     

What children want to know about in‐ and out‐groups,and how knowledge affects their intergroup attitudes

One of the key factors contributing to the development of negative attitudes toward out‐groups is lack of knowledge about them. The present study investigated what type of information 3‐ to 4‐ and 5‐ to 6‐ year‐old Jewish Israeli children (N = 82) are interested in acquiring about unfamiliar in‐ and out‐group individuals, and how providing children with the requested information affects their intergroup attitudes. Children were shown pictures of individuals from three groups—an in‐group (“Jews”), a “conflict” out‐group (“Arabs”), and a “neutral” out‐group (“Scots”)—and were asked what they would like to know about them. The experimenter responded by either answering all of children's questions, half of the questions, or none. Children's attitudes toward the groups were also assessed. It was found that children asked the most questions in regard to conflict out‐group individuals. Moreover, the older age group asked more questions regarding the psychological characteristics, and fewer questions regarding the social identity, of the conflict out‐group than of the other two groups. Finally, full provision of information improved attitudes toward the groups, especially among 3‐ to 4‐year olds, and especially regarding the conflict out‐group. These findings have implications for understanding the sources of intergroup biases, and for developing interventions to reduce them.     

Negotiating deficiency: Exploring ethnic minority parents' narratives about encountering child welfare services in Norway

Evaluating the participatory opportunities for service users within social welfare institutions is a pressing issue. In this article, we explore a group of ethnic minority parents' experiences with child welfare services (CWS) in Norway. A strong narrative theme was deficiency positioning—how lacking a Norwegian normative set of knowledge and skills challenged the parents' opportunities to participate. We analysed how deficiency positioning was perceived, negotiated, and contested in the parents' accounts, and 4 themes emerged: (a) learning to parent, (b) contesting expert knowledge, (c) learning to be a client, and (d) constructing CWS deficiency. Nancy Fraser's concept of “participatory parity” was applied to explore how current institutional structures may enable and limit parents' participation. The analysis provides insight into agencies and informants' sense‐making processes as well as the diverse resources and strategies that parents draw upon in the CWS encounter. Furthermore, we argue that an interplay between a strong focus on “parenting skills” and bureaucratic and economic structures positions ethnic minority parents as deficient, thus providing powerful mechanisms for marginalization. Implications for case work and institutional levels are discussed.     

How parents' income,time and job quality affect children's health and development

The advent of the Global Financial Crisis reminds us that modern epidemiological research has consistently demonstrated links between the socio‐economic circumstances of families and children's health and development. Drawing on data from the Longitudinal Study of Australian Children, this article firstly examines the evidence for intergenerational transmission of socio‐economic disadvantage from parents to young children. It then examines parents' jobs as another source of social inequality. Results confirm that children's healthy development is affected by family income, by parents' hours of work and by the quality of parents' jobs. Job combinations that include long work hours of mothers and fathers and poorer quality jobs are associated with elevated rates of parental mental health problems, less time spent in developmentally important activities with children, and socio‐emotional developmental difficulties for children. The evidence suggests that these effects are greater within low income families. These findings highlight the need for social and economic policies to move beyond simplistic notions of promoting parental workforce participation as a way of reducing the adverse effects of social disadvantage. A more nuanced approach is required that considers the additional impacts of the quality and characteristics of jobs, especially for the parents of young children.