Single Mothers,Nonresident Fathers,and Preschoolers’ Socioemotional Development: Social Support,Psychological Well-Being,and Parenting Quality

ABSTRACT

Using data from two waves of a short-term longitudinal study, the influences of mothers’ social support with respect to parenting from nonresident fathers and significant others on behavioral outcomes among poor and near-poor preschool-aged Black children were examined. The sample consisted of 99 single Black mothers—each with a preschool-aged child (ages 3 and 5 years old, respectively, at Time 1 and Time 2)—who were current and former welfare recipients. Results revealed protective effects of nonresident fathers’ presence in the context of mothers’ parenting stress and depressive symptoms at Time 1 that appeared to operate through decreases in the negative influences of these variables on the children's development of behavior problems 1.5 to 2 years later. Greater availability of instrumental support from significant others, including nonresident fathers, was associated with more adequate parenting at Time 1, and through the latter, with fewer child behavior problems at Time 2. Implications of these findings for program and policy interventions are discussed. Nonresident fathers are described in the Appendix.     

Battling parenting: The consequences of secure care interventions on parents

Secure care in Sweden is the most intrusive child welfare intervention, and children and their family members have restricted contact. For each child in secure care, there are at least twice as many affected family members and parents who must manage the consequences of this institutionalization. Clearly, it is just as important to understand how secure care affects parents as it is to understand how secure care affects children. To address this issue, we conducted in-depth interviews with 11 parents to eight children who had been placed in secure care during their childhood, focusing on the institutional and societal structures that affected these parents and their parenting. With a narrative approach, stories alluding to a metaphor of war are identified. These stories reveal how all parents (but especially single mothers) are affected by their diverse socio-economic positions and the rigid frames of family life presumed by child welfare interventions. In these narratives, parenting emerges as a social practice rather than a skill. Above all, the stories demonstrate a great deal of vulnerability and sensitivity of parenting. The findings raise critical questions about the meaning and overarching consequences of institutional interventions in a family life.     

‘Undeserving’ mothers? Practitioners’ experiences working with young mothers in/from care

Although teen pregnancy is on the rise in Canada, and while adolescent mothering in general has received considerable recent attention from researchers, there is a paucity of information about the particular experiences of young women who become mothers while in government care. Emerging out of a study guided by a grounded theory methodology to address this knowledge gap, this paper examines the experiences and perspectives of government‐based social workers who work with young mothers in/from care. Our findings indicated that social workers reflect prevailing middle class values, including norms about ‘good’ and ‘bad’ parenting, and centred around the belief that adolescent pregnancy is, in and of itself, bad. One of the most significant ramifications of workers’ values was their belief about the inevitability of ‘the cycle’: of children in care begetting children who ultimately came into care. Ironically, though workers and young mothers were both preoccupied by the concept of ‘the cycle’, and each were determined to break it, the two groups had very different ideas about what the cycle was all about and what perpetuated it. Unfortunately, this disjunction in perspectives, along with major recent shifts in the direction of child welfare policy and practice and related constraints in the resources at workers’ disposal, conjoined to create significant barriers to what workers and young women both recognized as supportive practice with youth in care.     

Parental self‐esteem,parent–child relationships,and authoritative parenting of Chinese migrant parents of left‐behind children: Implications for social policy and services

In this study, we aimed to examine whether and how parental self‐esteem and parent–child relationships interact and associate with the authoritative parenting of Chinese rural‐to‐urban migrant mothers and fathers of left‐behind children. Results from a cross‐sectional survey of 295 Chinese migrant parents living in Shenzhen revealed no statistically significant differences between migrant mothers and fathers in parental self‐esteem, parent–child relationships, and authoritative parenting. Both parental self‐esteem and parent‐child relationships had positive associations with authoritative parenting among two groups of respondents; however, the perceived parent–child relationship quality was a more important predictor than parental self‐esteem. There was also an interaction effect between parental self‐esteem and parent–child relationships on migrant mothers’ authoritative parenting. The findings indicate that migrant parents’ perception of their encounters with their children has a profound influence on their parenting behaviors. Social services should, thus, be provided to strengthen both virtual and face‐to‐face parent–child interactions via mobile phone parenting and periodic visits. New policies should be developed to provide migrant parents with more options regarding family reunion.     

Creative connections: parenting capacity, reading with children and practitioner assessment and intervention

This paper presents some findings from a study of the views of 33 parents from a diversity of backgrounds with children between 0 and 12. Twenty‐two parents were using family support services. They were asked about their views on ‘parenting capacity’ based on the dimensions of The Framework for the Assessment of Children in Need and Their Families (Department of Health et al.) which are now incorporated into the Common Assessment Framework used in Every Child Matters (Department for Education and Skills). They were also asked about reading with their children and how this enhanced their parenting capacities. Their responses were analysed using the parenting capacity dimensions of The Framework for the Assessment of Children in Need and Their Families. It became apparent that this common activity (parent/child reading) contributed much to children's development and to the quality of the child/parent relationship. It also enhanced parenting capacity as described in the parenting capacity dimensions. This paper presents that part of the findings which illustrates the creative connections that exist between the activity of parents and children reading together and the parenting capacity dimensions social workers use in assessment and intervention. These findings are relevant to practitioners working within current policy and practice agendas in children's services, which promote multidisciplinary working and non‐stigmatizing assessments and interventions.     

‘Modern’ parenting and the uses of childcare advice in post-war England

In the post-war English media, ‘modern’ parenting referred to psychologically inspired styles of parenting drawn from professionals. Drawing on archived social-science interviews with over 600 families, this article considers what ‘modern’ parenting meant in the vernacular. It explores the emergence of a group of working-class parents who felt ‘modern’ because they had adopted whichever style of parenting they felt ‘right’ for their child, whatever its source. These parents personalized ‘modern’ ideas found in the mass media, using them to justify choices which they had already made. They came to identify as flexible, adaptive, parents, rather than as people who unquestioningly implemented someone else’s ideas. Using reflexive models of selfhood, they produced a syncretic amalgamation of ideas about parenting, which were drawn, simultaneously, from childcare professionals, members of their communities and their own intuitions. This allowed them to fashion unique styles of parenting, tailored to their children. Rethinking what was ‘modern’ and ‘traditional’ let them reconceive parenting as a personal matter, not as something which professionals or kin should dictate. The post-war fixation on the self was therefore consonant with the ‘reworking’ of class, rather than with its declining salience in English society.     

Maternal narration about parenting pride and regret is related to youth emotion regulation

As they respond to children's emotions, mothers socialize children's emerging emotion regulation. Mothers' own autobiographical narratives likely reflect in part habitual ways of expressing and managing emotions—ways that may in turn influence the way mothers respond to their children's emotions. We examined features of mothers' narratives about parental pride and regret experiences, and assessed whether these were associated with parental socialization of emotion and the emotion regulation repertoire of their children. Two hundred thirty‐seven mothers with children ranging from 8 to 17 years of age provided two narratives about parental pride and parental regret experiences. Parental emotion socialization and children's emotion regulation were assessed via self‐ and informant‐report using a multi‐measure, multi‐observer approach. We found that features of the way mothers narrated their experiences with a particular child related to their parenting of that child, and that child's emotion regulation. The findings are discussed in terms of their implications for emotion‐related parenting, and the potential importance of parent narratives.     

‘I want to be better than you:’ lived experiences of intergenerational child maltreatment prevention among teenage mothers in and beyond foster care

The growing body of research on teenage motherhood in foster care has largely focused on the risks involved for both mother and child, yet these mothers depict a much more complex picture of their own experience of becoming and being mothers. The current study employed interpretative phenomenological analysis to explore 18 in‐depth, qualitative interviews from six participants on the meaning and experience of motherhood among teenage mothers in foster care and in the years immediately after ageing out. This study focused on a particular dimension of motherhood: participants' efforts to break the cycle of child abuse and neglect with their own children. Two themes emerged as characteristic of these experiences: (i) treating children well/parenting differently and avoiding the system; and (ii) reducing isolation and enhancing support. Given the increased likelihood of the children of teen mothers – particularly those who have been maltreated – becoming involved with the child welfare system, study findings suggest possible strategies for disrupting cycles of intergenerational child welfare involvement generated by young mothers themselves. Practice implications for addressing possible substance abuse, mental health and relational and parenting needs are discussed.     

Co‐parenting quality among adoptive mothers: contributions of socioeconomic status,child demands and adult relationship characteristics

Despite the growing emphasis on co‐parenting in family life, little is known about the co‐parenting relationships of adoptive parents. This study examined the contributions of socioeconomic status (SES), child demands and couple relationship characteristics to reported co‐parenting quality among adoptive mothers. Mail questionnaires were administered to 94 adoptive mothers in a Midwestern state. Regression results revealed that SES and child demands were largely unrelated to co‐parenting quality, while couple relationship characteristics (dyadic coping, dyadic adjustment and conflict resolution) contributed significantly to co‐parenting quality. Further, the co‐parenting dimensions revealed different patterns of relatedness with the independent variables, providing support for the notion that co‐parenting is a multidimensional construct. Implications for social work research and practice are discussed.     

A prospective study of adolescent mothers’ social competence,children's effortful control and compliance and children's subsequent developmental outcomes

Previous work has established that caregiver and child temperamental characteristics are associated with child compliance. Given the critical role that parents play in this process, and that children of teen mothers are at risk for poorer developmental outcomes, it is important to understand the development of compliance in the context of at‐risk parenting such as adolescent motherhood. The current study examined child compliance (Wave 5; W5) as a mediator of the association between adolescent mothers’ social competence (Wave 4; W4) and children's behavioral and academic outcomes (Wave 6; W6), and whether this mediation varied depending on children's effortful control (W4) in a sample of 204 Mexican‐origin adolescent mothers (M_age at W4 = 19.94, SD = .99) and their children (M_age at W4 = 36.21 months, SD = .45). Adolescent mothers reported on their own social competence and their children's effortful control and externalizing problems; compliance was assessed using observational methods; and academic readiness was assessed using standardized developmental assessments. Findings based on structural equation modeling revealed that adolescent mothers’ social competence was positively related to children's compliance among children with high effortful control, but not among those with low effortful control. Moreover, child compliance mediated the longitudinal association between adolescent mothers’ social competence and child externalizing problems and academic readiness. Discussion focuses on the importance of considering the role of child temperament in understanding how adolescent mothers’ social competence is subsequently associated with children's social and academic adjustment.     

Interpretations of Child Emotion Expressions and Coercive Parenting Practices Among Adolescent Mothers

This study examined the relation between adolescent mothers' interpretations of various child emotion expressions and coercive parenting practices (n = 4 mother-child dyads, child ages = 10–34 mos.). The more coercive mothers decoded a range of child emotion expressions as exhibiting greater anger, and attributed greater defiant intentions to the child, compared to less coercive mothers. The findings for attributions of defiance were robust, as they were independent of both emotion decoding and level of child difficulty. Findings are discussed with regard to (a) mothers' basic assumptions about the child; (b) the robust character of attributions of defiance in relation to coercive parenting; (c) the potential implications of this study for research with adult mothers; and (d) investigation of temporal precedence and developmental pathways in the interrelations among child behavior, maternal cognition, and parenting behavior.     

Recruitment and Retention in a Parenting Intervention: A Case Study with Parents Aging Out of the Child Welfare System

ABSTRACT

Parenting interventions are efficacious in reducing child maltreatment and negative child behaviors, yet the recruitment and retention of parents, especially vulnerable parents, in such interventions can be challenging. Prior research identifies several ways to improve recruitment and retention including laying the foundation for the intervention, fostering relationships with parents, ensuring fit of the intervention with the intended population, and identifying barriers to parents’ participation. This case study presents a process of recruiting and retaining a vulnerable group of parents, specifically parenting youth aging out of the child welfare system. In addition to outlining the strategies used, lessons learned are highlighted. Parents expressed interest in the parenting intervention, experienced significant needs, negotiated great instability in their lives, and valued the social connections facilitated by the group intervention. Despite the research team following best practices and investing significant time and resources, recruitment and retention remained challenging. Implications for future work in this area are presented.     

Parenting stress and behavior among single mothers of preschoolers: The mediating role of self‐efficacy

Abstract

This study examines the role of perceived self‐efficacy in mediating relations between mothers’ parenting behavior and variables such as maternal employment status, depressive symptoms, parenting stress, and child behavior problems. Subjects were 93 employed and 95 nonemployed, single, black mothers of a 3–5‐year‐old child who were current and former welfare recipients. Using linear structural relations modeling (LISREL), the findings support a model whereby (a) the more behavior problems the child is perceived to have, the more depressive symptoms the mother feels; (b) the more depressive symptoms the mother feels, the more likely she is to rate herself high in parenting stress; (c) the more depressive symptoms and parenting stress the mother experiences, the lower is the mother's estimate of her self‐efficacy; and (d) the lower the mother's self‐efficacy, the less competent is her parenting. The findings for employment status are similar; i.e., maternal employment predicted a trajectory leading to somewhat better parenting. In addition, child behavior problems were associated with less competent parenting both directly and indirectly through their effect on parenting stress and self‐efficacy. These results suggest that self‐efficacy has import as a mediator of the relations between maternal parenting and other psychosocial variables. There is no evidence, based on these findings, that employment in the low‐wage market is harmful either for single black mothers or their preschool children. However, job availability and an increase in the minimum wage are important policy considerations.     

Between the maternal and the professional: the impact of being a child welfare officer on motherhood

Child welfare officers experience stress from exposure to child neglect and abuse and the burden of responsibility for children's well‐being. This qualitative study addresses the question: How do social workers who are child welfare officers perceive and cope with the influence of their professional occupation on their relationships with their own children? The research is based on in‐depth interviews with a purposive sample of 10 child welfare workers who are mothers (of 2–4 children aged 2–23 years). The data analysis illustrates how the professional identity and the maternal identity of the child welfare officer fluctuate between two positions. The first is ‘anxious motherhood’ in which anxiety is the prism through which the welfare officer views the world as dangerous for her children, stimulating protective, control‐enhancing actions. The second position is reflective motherhood in which the welfare worker struggles with her own stresses and conflicts as a mother and searches for an experience of meaningful, positive motherhood. The findings reinforce the need to raise the consciousness of child welfare officers regarding the impact of encountering distress and trauma on their own well‐being as parents. In this way, they can prevent secondary traumatization and enhance professional and maternal growth.     

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.     

The relation between children’s task‐specific competence and mothers’ controlling practices

In the guided learning domain of socialization, studies examining the antecedents of controlling parenting suggest that children’s lack of competence in a task could trigger controlling practices in that task. However, a stringent test of this relation remains to be conducted. This study examined this relation using a sample of 101 children (M_age = 10.21 years) and their mothers, a standardized measure of children’s competence in a task that was unfamiliar to the participants, and multi‐informant observational measures of maternal controlling practices during a mother–child interaction involving that task (rated by an independent coder and the children). Path analyses showed that children’s initial lack of competence in a task was related to higher levels of coded maternal controlling practices during a subsequent mother–child interaction involving that task, which in turn were positively linked to children’s perceptions of their mothers’ practices as controlling. A bootstrap analysis also confirmed that the indirect link from children’s competence to perceived maternal controlling practices through coded maternal controlling practices was significant. These effects were observed while controlling for mothers’ self‐reported controlling parenting style and perceptions of their children’s academic skills. Implications of these findings for the promotion of optimal parenting and future research directions are discussed.     

Mothers' Cognitions about Relational Aggression: Associations with Discipline Responses, Children's Normative Beliefs, and Peer Competence

Prior research has shown that parental social cognitions are associated with child outcomes such as aggression. The goal of this study was to examine mothers' cognitions about relational aggression, and to explore linkages between mothers' attributions and normative beliefs about aggression and children's competence with peers. Participants included 103 mothers and children in grades 3 through 6. Results showed that mothers viewed relational aggression as more acceptable and normative than physical aggression, and they attributed less responsibility to children for using relational aggression. Maternal cognitions also predicted levels of sternness and disapproval in response to child relational aggression, and children's beliefs about the acceptability of relational aggression, which were associated with children's teacher-rated peer competence. Sex differences in the patterns of associations between maternal cognitions, discipline responses, child norms and peer competence were found. Applications of these results to parent education programs that are focused on relational aggression are discussed.     

Conditions of mothering: The bio-politics of falling in love with your child

This article discusses and deconstructs the myth of ‘motherly love’ by contrasting it with fieldwork on Israeli parents' reactions to their appearance-impaired child. The ethnography of these reactions presents a common pattern of rejection—alternatively consisting of both the abandonment of the child at the hospital and of various forms of abuse at home. The article concludes by re-thinking the issue of ‘motherly love’ and ‘bonding’ as conditioned on some deeply-ingrained parental expectations regarding the appearance of their child.     

Maternal and Paternal Mental‐state Talk and Executive Function in Preschool Children

The present study examined the relationship between parents’ mental‐state talk and preschoolers’ executive function. Seventy‐two children participated in the present study, as well as their mothers and fathers. When children were enrolled in the second preschool year, mothers’ and fathers’ use of mental‐state references were assessed during a shared picture‐book reading task with the child. Later, four months before admission to the first grade, preschoolers’ executive function was measured. Hierarchical regression analysis revealed that maternal, but not paternal, mental‐state talk was a significant predictor of children's executive function composite, even after accounting for child gender, age, verbal ability, and parental education. When looking at each of the EF components, maternal mental‐state talk proved to be a predictor of set‐shifting whereas no significant relations emerged with inhibitory control or working memory. These findings add to prior research on parenting quality and executive function in preschoolers.