'My Mum and Dad said it Calms You Down': Children's Perceptions of Smoking as a Coping Strategy

While studies have shown that adults use smoking to deal with stress, little research has been carried out with children to explore their perceptions of smoking as a coping strategy. Qualitative questionnaire and interview data were generated with children aged 9–11 years. Participants perceived that adults smoked to relieve boredom and stress, and suggested that children might smoke for the same reasons. Children were more likely to know that adults smoked to deal with stress if they lived in a deprived area. Girls were more likely to believe that some children need to smoke as a coping strategy.     

Abused children and foster care—the need for specialist resources

Estimates vary on how many abused and neglected children are admitted to care and how many children in care are there because of abuse and neglect. Nevertheless, it is important to examine their special needs and the problems they present to carers. Although research findings are difficult to interpret, there is enough evidence to show that abused and neglected children in care have special needs in three particular areas: education, health and social behaviour. The evidence is available from research into children in care and research into child maltreatment. Children in care run the risk of disrupted educational careers; abused and neglected children have additional problems in school. Many children in care have a patchy and neglected medical history; abused and neglected children are seriously at risk of further ill-health. Abused and neglected children have been shown to have behaviour problems that jeopardize their relationships with peers and adults; they run the risk of placement breakdown. Foster care of abused and neglected children is a specialist and demanding task, requiring knowledge of, and sensitivity to special needs. Because many abused and neglected children return to their parents, foster carers also need to include the natural family in their task. High expectations of these foster carers, however, should not lead to exploitation but rather an enhancing of fostering assessment, preparation, support and training.     

Interaktion des <Emphasis Type="Italic">als ob</Emphasis>: Privatanleger und Anlageberater

Since the late nineties, stock market investments have become an attractive option for many who want to secure or improve their standard of living, although ?stocks“ are an obscure subject for most of them. They have to rely on investment consultants in banks. Until the stock market crash, there was no reason to complain about the consulting process — shares kept going up in value.But it is remarkable that following the crash, which caused many investors to lose a large amount of money, the relationship between private investors and investment consultants does not seem to have been damaged.In our paper we first show the legal requirements for investment consulting and how these requirements are implemented by banks, and we identify considerable discrepancies between the theoretical and the actual fulfillment of these legal requirements.We then show that it is impossible to meet these requirements in reality because they rely on unrealistic assumptions regarding a consulting process that both adequately covers investment options and addresses the needs of investors. We argue that both sides are more or less satisfied with the situation because they operate on an as if basis: consultant and client talk and behave as if they understood each other.As if the consultant had really informed the client and as if the client had really understood the consultant. This as if which both parties are aware of but which is not openly discussed is the condition of a successful consultancy process and for making the business happen.     

McCance‐Katz urges school reopenings

During a week when more and more schools decided not to open up classes for this fall, concerns about the welfare of children isolated at home, without the benefit of their peers or teachers, mounted as well. Elinore McCance‐Katz, M.D., Ph.D., assistant secretary for mental health and substance abuse of the Department of Health and Human Services, opined in USA Today that not opening schools would harm the mental health of children. In the limelight due to many changes in substance use disorder treatment due to the pandemic, McCance‐Katz sided with President Trump and Education Secretary Betsy DeVos in saying that ignoring these casualties would harm children more than the risks of COVID‐19. The schools should reopen, and parents should decide for themselves whether they want their children to attend, she wrote.     

From political opportunities to niche-openings: the dilemmas of mobilizing for immigrant rights in inhospitable environments

This article examines how undocumented immigrants mobilize for greater rights in inhospitable political and discursive environments. We would expect that such environments would dissuade this particularly vulnerable group of immigrants from mobilizing in high profile campaigns because such campaigns would carry high risks (deportation) and have little chance of success. However, we have witnessed many mobilizations by undocumented immigrants in both Europe and the United States over the past 20 years. This article uses the case of undocumented youths in the United States (DREAMers) to examine how a group of undocumented immigrants have overcome important barriers and become a powerful voice for immigrant rights in the country. The article suggests that while undocumented immigrants faced inhospitable contexts, cracks and “niche-openings” they continued to present themselves to groups with the right set of cultural, legal, and economic attributes. Immigrants in possession of these attributes (in this case, youth) could target a niche-opening and argue that they are particularly deserving of legalization. This article also highlights an important dilemma: In contexts characterized by general closure and hostility, narrow mobilizations targeting niche-openings provide the only path to legal status for some, but they can also differentiate (discursively and legally) between “deserving” and “undeserving” undocumented immigrants. Differentiation can contribute to stratifying the immigrant population, with those deemed more deserving facing greater rights and entitlements and those deemed less deserving facing greater restrictions and repression. This carries the risk of magnifying normative and legal inequalities between immigrant groups while introducing many points of conflict within the broader immigrant rights movement.     

14 to 18 Year Olds as “Children” by Law?

SUMMARY

The European Union Council Framework Decision 2004/68/JI of 22.12.2003 “on combating the sexual exploitation of children and child pornography” defines as “child” any person below the age of 18. Under Austrian law there are no children between the ages of 7 and 18. The author criticizes that, up to now, the development of age limits in legal history has taken a clearly different way in the various fields of law of the Austrian legal order. The Austrian legislator's tendency, which has evolved in the course of legal history, to grant rights and permits to young people between 14 and 18 years earlier but, at the same time, to impose on them more and more obligations arising from private and public law, to give them the opportunity to grow into adult life with full powers and responsibilities step by step, totally contradicts the Council Framework Decision.

Today, adolescents live in a cultural environment characterized by globalized pop culture and world-wide communication technology. Access to “extreme ideas” is offered everywhere and anytime. It is highly difficult to grow up without any interference and develop one's own personality and sexual orientation according to one's inherent nature under such circumstances of a world society, and this process may be seriously disturbed or even prevented by inappropriate prohibitions imposed by criminal law. However, the aim of any education is to accompany adolescents while they are growing up so that they become self-assured, self-responsible citizens with an understanding of how to work for peace and common welfare who know “how to walk upright” and do so, and who are informed about their civil rights and are able to exercise the same decidedly. We do not need only consumers but also citizens of the world! Repatriarchalization and criminalization are the wrong answers to the urgent questions of world society. The question how to combat child pornography commerce is certainly one of the most important concerns because it is abused children and adolescents for whom it is most difficult to develop their personalities and become citizens of the world.

Legally useful answers can only be expected by those who address precise questions to the law. In this respect Europe failed. Given the fundamental right to respect for one's private life and the prohibition of discrimination on the grounds of age the creation of new offencesinvolving a definition of the child as a person up to the age of 18, which contradicts well established law and is unrealistic-shoots past the mark in the author's opinion. Such provisions miss the target group of potential offenders, and infantilize and criminalize society instead. With the proposed legal means it will not be possible to attain the actual aims, i.e., to finally destroy the market for child pornography, and to punish its organizers, “wire-pullers” and users as offenders, and to eliminate them once and for all. The legal status of adolescents is weakened or at least serious curtailment of their claims arising from the fact that they have fundamental rights depending on personality and age; and the Council Framework Decision contradicts the equality guarantees in primary law of the European Union that they must not be discriminated on the grounds of age.     

Disparities in Access to Health Care Among Middle-Aged and Older Adults with Disabilities

Disability is increasing among middle-aged adults and, reversing earlier trends, increasing among older adults as well. Disability is experienced disproportionately by Black and lower socioeconomic status (SES) individuals. We used Medical Expenditure Panel Survey data to examine health care disparities in access to health care for middle-aged (31 to 64 years of age) and older (65+ years of age) adults with disabilities by race and ethnicity, education, and income (n = 13,174). Using logistic regression, we examined three measures of potential (e.g., usual source of care), and three measures of realized (e.g., counseling related to smoking) access. Middle-aged and older minority individuals with disabilities had lower relative risks of having usual sources of care and higher relative risks of having suboptimal usual sources of care (e.g., a place rather than a person) than White adults with disabilities. There were SES effects observed for middle-aged adults with disabilities across most measures that were, for certain measures, more pronounced than SES effects among older adults with disabilities. These findings are important, since health resources (e.g., a usual source of care) may mediate relations among disability, morbidity, and mortality. Policy actions that may mitigate the disparities we observed include financial incentives to support access to an optimal usual source of care and mechanisms to foster behavioral interventions related to smoking and exercise. Ensuring that these actions address the specific concerns of individuals with disabilities, such as physical accessibility and provider cultural competency, is essential.     

Mothers' Speech to Hearing‐Impaired Infants and Children With Cochlear Implants

This study investigated the effects of age, hearing loss, and cochlear implantation on mothers' speech to infants and children. We recorded normal‐hearing (NH) mothers speaking to their children as they typically would do at home and speaking to an adult experimenter. Nine infants (10–37 months) were hearing‐impaired and had used a cochlear implant (CI) for 3 to 18 months. Eighteen NH infants and children were matched either by chronological age (10–37 months) or hearing experience (3–18 months) to the CI children. Prosodic characteristics such as fundamental frequency, utterance duration, and pause duration were measured across utterances in the speech samples. The results revealed that mothers use a typical infant‐directed speech style when speaking to hearing‐impaired children with CIs. The results also suggested that NH mothers speak with more similar vocal styles to NH children and hearing‐impaired children with CIs when matched by hearing experience rather than chronological age. Thus, mothers are sensitive to hearing experience and linguistic abilities of their NH children as well as hearing‐impaired children with CIs.     

Constraining campaigning: the legal treatment of non-profit policy advocacy across 24 countries

This paper presents a comparative analysis of the findings of a 24 country study of the legal restrictions on the freedom of non-profit and charitable organisations to engage in public policy campaigning. The countries are divided into those which organise the legal status of non-profit bodies around the concept of a charity, and those that do not. The central finding is that all and only charity law countries have constraints on campaigning which are specific to non-profit bodies. The paper reviews a number of possible explanations for this, at the level of jurisprudential rationales which might show that it is necessary or at least rational for only the charity law countries to have developed such restrictions. To varying degrees, all are found wanting. It is suggested that no explanation based on an ‘inner logic of the law’ will serve to explain the phenomenon, and that future research might concentrate on comparative political history rather than on jurisprudence. Planning Officer, Social Services Department, Royal County of Berkshire. formerfy Acting Head of Policy Analysis and Research, National Council for Voluntary Organisations, London, United Kingdom. (Most of the research for this paper was conducted when this author was Head of Policy Analysis and Research at the National Council for Voluntary Organisations, London, UK.) Full information about the research summarised here is given in 6 and Randon, 1994. This research was conducted with the support of the National Council for Voluntary Organisations. We are grateful to all our respondents for their time in answering a difficult questionnaire, provision of documentation and alternative contacts, patience and advice. They are too numerous to list here: a full list is available from the authors. Some, to whom we are particularly grateful, must remain anonymous because they work in countries or in professional positions where campaigning is a sensitive subject. The Nuffield Foundation made available a small grant to cover our translation costs; PROFTRANS undertook most of the translations for us. Martin Knapp, Marilyn Taylor and Nigel Tarling helped to identify potential respondents. Tymen van der Ploeg, Jacques Defourny and Lindsay Driscoll assisted in piloting the questionnaire. Lindsay Driscoll and Bridget Phelps read and commented on early drafts of part of the paper. The editors and anonymous referees for this journal provided important additional information and advice. The usual disclaimer of responsibility for our errors applies to all of them.     

Working at the Weekend: Fathers' Time with Family in the United Kingdom

Whereas most resident fathers are able to spend more time with their children on weekends than on weekdays, many fathers work on the weekends spending less time with their children on these days. There are conflicting findings about whether fathers are able to make up for lost weekend time on weekdays. Using unique features of the United Kingdom's National Survey of Time Use 2000 (UKTUS) I examine the impact of fathers' weekend work on the time fathers spend with their children, family, and partners (N = 595 fathers). I find that weekend work is common among fathers and is associated with less time with children, families, and partners. Fathers do not recover lost time with children on weekdays, largely because weekend work is a symptom of overwork. Findings also reveal that even if fathers had compensatory time, they are unlikely to recover lost time spent as a family or couple.     

Realities of life and future prospects within two cultures: unaccompanied minor refugees from South East Asia in the Federal Republic of Germany

From August 1979 on, more than 30,000 refugees from South East Asia were accepted in the Federal Republic of Germany as quota refugees in a special program; among them were 1600 unaccompanied minor refugees. About 1500 were accompanied Vietnamese children and youths who had fled their home country as 'boat people' across the South China Sea. Unaccompanied minor refugees have, like all other recognized refugees, a legal claim to family reunion in the Federal Republic. Today, only parents can join their children and vice versa, and spouses their spouses. The 1st phase of socialization in the lives of the unaccompanied minor refugees evolved in the cultural traditions of their South East Asian country of origin up to the age of 10 to 15 years. In the 2nd phase of socialization--the enculturation--the child establishes its culturally specific emotionality, language, mentality, and patterns of behavior through interaction and verbal communication with the people nearest him. The 3rd phase of socialization begins at school age and reaches full significance at the age of starting to work, with the accompanying expectations of society. Most of the minor unaccompanied refugees from South Asia had already completed their enculturation--the establishment of their cultural identity. The realities of life the young single refugees as foreigners in German society are determined by 4 special factors: 1) the great cultural differences between their country of originin South East Asia and the resettlement country, 2) the young people left their homes as refugees and their resettlement in the Federal Repulic was determined by chance events, 3) they have to live there alone and without the emotional support of their families in a situation of cultural change, and 4) because of their Asian physiognomy they will always appear as foreigners even if they have integrated well. The future prospects of the young South East Asian refugees in German society will be determined primarily by to what extent they will be able to find a satisfactory place within both cultures.     

'Doing Motherhood': some experiences of mothers with physical disabilities

In this paper, we discuss the experiences of physically disabled mothers. We interviewed 30 women in the age group 28-49 with medical diagnoses such as: multiple sclerosis, neuromuscular diseases, cerebral palsy and spinal cord injury Becoming a mother implied for many 'capturing' a gender or 'recapturing' a lost gender. They women felt they had to go to great lengths to 'present' themselves and their children as managing 'normally' in order to be accepted as 'ordinary' mothers. Eventually, they feared that their children might be taken away from them if they did not live up to other people's expectations. One possible explanation for what they experienced as other people's scepticism might be that disabled people on the whole are primarily still looked upon as being dependent on other people's help and care. In short, they are often looked upon by professionals and lay people as receivers, and not as carers.     

Children's interaction with urban play spaces in Tabriz,Iran

While children have the least influence on their physical environment they are deeply affected by it. Play areas for children have been increasingly limited in third‐world cities. In many developing countries population growth has encroached on play areas as low‐density housing and open space are transformed into high‐rise apartment complexes; the availability of urban open space for children is being constricted. While adults design the urban to meet their requirements, they tend to give too little thought to the needs of children. This essay reports on a visual study of urban open spaces for children in Tabriz, a city in northwestern Iran. Children between 6 and 12 years of age were asked to paint pictures of their ideal play spaces. The children's imaginary spaces are contrasted with photographs of actual playgrounds and open spaces in Tabriz. The goal is to understand why children's active use of existing urban playgrounds and open space is on the decline.     

Subsequent child protection contact for a cohort of children reported to child protection prenatally in one Australian jurisdiction

Repeated reporting to child protection is common. One approach to early intervention is for jurisdictions to receive and respond to child protection concerns raised before children are born. Despite this, little research has comprehensively examined subsequent child protection contact for those first reported prenatally. This study aimed to examine the subsequent child protection contact for up to a two-year period for a cohort of children who were reported about prebirth. Child protection administrative data were extracted for 640 children reported for a concern about an unborn child in a single jurisdiction during 2014. Data about child protection contacts included reports, investigations, substantiations and out-of-home placements for children reported prenatally. Of the 640 children, 79% reported about prenatally also had contact with child protection between birth and age two. From birth and up to age two, children reported prenatally had between zero and 21 reports. Twenty-two per cent of the children reported prenatally were removed from their birth parents and placed in out-of-home care prior to age two. These findings highlight the importance of intervening and supporting families prior to and during pregnancy to reduce harm to children and reduce the need for contact with child protection.     

Integration of Childhood Immigrants in the Short and Long Run – Swedish Evidence1

Immigrant children are often at a disadvantage at school while they adjust to their new environment. It has been found that the age at immigration of 7 or above represents a sensitive period as regards these children’s school performance for two main reasons: they have passed their prime age for language learning, and their acquisition of subject skills is less efficient while they learn to master the new language. Using Swedish administrative data, we track childhood immigrants born between 1972 and 1976 over time from adolescence (at 16) to adulthood (at 30), and study the role of age at immigration for educational and labor market outcomes. We find that immigration at a sensitive age (compared to a very young age) has a strong negative impact on compulsory school performance, but that the same individuals catch up strongly in terms of final educational attainment. In spite of this educational catching up, however, we find a considerable negative impact on earnings for men. We are able to rule out two potential mechanisms behind this puzzling result: It cannot be explained either by an impact on the chosen field of study or on completion time.     

Has Welfare Reform Created “Chilling Effects” for Refugees in the United States?

The welfare reform legislation of 1996 significantly reduced noncitizens' access to public benefits. Research has indicated that welfare reform has had unintended “chilling effects,” whereby even those noncitizens who remain eligible for benefits do not utilize them because of fear and confusion. Although refugees were exempted from the benefit restrictions for a certain period following arrival, recent research has suggested that they too may have experienced chilling effects. This study was conducted to more accurately determine whether this has occurred, through the use of time‐series data for a sample of refugees who remain eligible for public benefits. The findings did not provide strong evidence that welfare reform has created chilling effects for refugees, although the possibility cannot be ruled out.     

Smoking education and prevention: a developmental model.

A developmental approach to smoking education and prevention for children and adolescents is proposed. Literature is reviewed concerning the most appropriate agent, content, and presentation, of anti-smoking education for each of three age groups: children to age ten, pre/early adolescents eleven to fifteen, and adolescents fifteen to eighteen. For children to age ten, it is suggested that parents are the best agents of education, with teachers, peers, and the mass media, also playing some role. For pre/early adolescents, peers are suggested as the best agents of education, building onto the earlier and ongoing work of the agents mentioned above. For adolescents, the role of the media hero-figure is discussed. It is emphasized that sources of influence may function additively in affecting the child or adolescent's decisions about smoking, and that education in each stage must build on the stage before.     

Giving to the Good and the Needy: Parental Support of Grown Children

Parents may provide many types of support to their grown children. Parents age 40 to 60 (N = 633) reported the support they exchange with each child over age 18 (N = 1,384). Mothers and fathers differentiated among children within families, but provided emotional, financial, and practical help on average every few weeks to each child. Offspring received most assistance when they (a) had greater needs (because of problems or younger age) or (b) were perceived as more successful. Parents received more from high achieving offspring. Findings support contingency theory; parents give more material and financial support to children in need. Motivation to enhance the self or to assure support later in life may explain support to high achieving offspring.     

Multigenerational Punishment: Shared Experiences of Undocumented Immigration Status Within Mixed‐Status Families

Estimates suggest that approximately 16.6 million people in the United States are members of mixed‐status families composed of undocumented immigrants and U.S. citizens or documented immigrants. Drawing on interviews with 32 undocumented 1.5‐generation parents, the author explores how immigration laws affect undocumented parents and their citizen children. She finds that U.S. citizen children and their undocumented parents often share in the risks and limitations associated with undocumented immigration status. She conceptualizes this phenomenon as multigenerational punishment, a distinct form of legal violence wherein the sanctions intended for a specific population spill over to negatively affect individuals who are not targeted by laws. Though not restricted to familial relationships, multigenerational punishment tends to occur within families because of the strong social ties, sustained day‐to‐day interactions, and dependent relationships found among family members. This sheds light on how laws can further the reproduction of inequality within families and over generations.     

Child custody placement outcomes for mothers

Internationally there is a broad literature on risks for child custody placements. In contrast, very little is known about their outcomes on parents. The topic is relevant not only for parents themselves but also for children placed outside their homes, as many children keep contact with their birth parents or return to live with them. In a retrospective cohort study setting we analyze child custody placement outcomes (social assistance receipt, unemployment and work disability) for mothers whose children had been taken into custody between 1997 and 2004 in Finland. Data from a child placement register were merged with several administrative social insurance registers. Comparison groups of population mothers are included in the study. The procedure yielded an internationally unique database. According to the results of our study, mothers whose children are taken into custody are more often unemployed and in need of social assistance than mothers in the comparison group. Furthermore, they are also more often on a disability pension, due to mental health problems in particular, than mothers in general. While considering the results, we examine family policy and general welfare policy implications of support to families whose children have been taken into custody.