Familism, Interparental Conflict, and Parenting in Mexican-Origin Families: A Cultural-Contextual Framework

The present investigation examined the relations between the cultural belief of familism and various aspects of family functioning and child adjustment, including interparental conflict, parenting, and children's attachment to school, in a sample of 549 two-parent Mexican-origin families. The results indicated that parents' familistic values were negatively associated with interparental conflict for both mothers and fathers. Parents' familistic values were also indirectly associated with parenting through the marital relationship. Interparental conflict was negatively associated with nurturant-involved parenting for both parents, but particularly for fathers. Interparental conflict had an indirect negative effect on children's attachment to school via mothers' and fathers' nurturant-involved parenting. Both paternal and maternal nurturant-involved parenting behaviors were positively associated with children's attachment to school across two time points. Child gender differences are also discussed.     

Social Resources and Psychosocial Adaptation of Homeless School Aged Children

This study examined social resources and psychosocial adaptation of 38 children between the ages of 6 and 12 (21 male, 17 female) who were currently experiencing a housing crisis. Results indicate that the impact of stressors depended on the informant: mother-reported stressors significantly predicted negative parenting, internalizing, and externalizing; and child-reported stressors were inversely associated with positive parenting and school adaptation, and positively correlated with child's negative affect. Mothers were nominated over three times more frequently than any other social network member, and almost half of the children did not identify any friends in their social network. Network size did not significantly predict children's psychosocial adaptation, but satisfaction with support was associated with less negative affect. Results suggest that social resources provide unique opportunities for the development of competence for children.     

Fathers' involvement and child behavior problems in poor African American single-mother families

The present study examined the effects of nonresident fathers' involvement-measured by the frequency of fathers' contact with their children and the quality of fathers' parenting-on their children's behavior problems. Using data from a subsample of African American single and non-cohabiting mothers from the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing study, results indicate that more frequent contact between fathers and their child and fathers' more adequate parenting were associated indirectly with fewer child behavior problems transmitted through more adequate parenting by mothers. The quality of mothers' parenting was associated positively with the quality of the mother-father relationship and with both the quality and the frequency of the fathers' contacts with their child. Policy and practice implications are discussed.     

The Drift Toward Problem Behavior During the Transition to Adolescence: The Contributions of Youth Disclosure,Parenting, and Older Siblings

Prospective associations of mothers’ parenting processes, youth disclosure, and youth problem behavior were examined in a longitudinal design following 244 adolescent sibling dyads over a 3‐year period. For both siblings, authoritative parenting was positively associated with youth disclosure and was negatively related to problem behavior, and coercive parenting was negatively associated with youth disclosure and was positively related to problem behavior. When the influence of older sibling problem behavior on younger sibling problem behavior was modeled, younger sibling disclosure accounted for the relationship of maternal parenting processes to problem behavior. Findings indicate the important role of sibling influence in the development of problem behavior, contextualizing the relative roles of maternal parenting and youth disclosure in the transmission of risk.     

Examining the Quality of Adolescent–Parent Relationships Among Chilean Families

The purpose of this study was to examine if adolescents’ reports of warm and harsh parenting practices by their mothers and fathers varied as a function of demographic, youth and their mothers or mother figures’ individual and family characteristics. Data are from 707 community-dwelling adolescents (mean age = 14, SD = 1.4) and their mothers or mother figures in Santiago, Chile. Having a warmer relationship with both parents was inversely associated with the adolescents’ age and positively associated with adolescents’ family involvement and parental monitoring. Both mothers’ and fathers’ harsh parenting were positively associated with adolescent externalizing behaviors and being male and inversely associated with youth autonomy and family involvement. These findings suggest that net of adolescent developmental emancipation and adolescent behavioral problems, positive relationships with parents, especially fathers, may be nurtured through parental monitoring and creation of an interactive family environment, and can help to foster positive developmental outcomes.     

Clarifying the Association Between Mother–Father Relationship Aggression and Parenting

Although much research examines the association between fathers' relationship aggression and mothers' parenting, little attention is given to mothers' aggression, mutual aggression, or fathers' parenting. Using a sample of coresiding couples from the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Study (N = 973), the authors examine the association between mothers' and fathers' relationship aggression, measured as frequency and perpetration–victimization types (mutual, mother only, father only), and mothers' and fathers' parenting. Fixed effects regression models show that fathers' aggression is positively related to mothers' parenting stress, whereas father‐only or mother‐only aggression is related to fathers' stress. For both parents, aggression perpetration is negatively related to their own engagement with children. Mother‐only aggression is negatively related to mothers' spanking and positively related to fathers' spanking. These findings suggest the importance of examining both parents' aggression and perpetrators' as well as victims' parenting to better understand the link between relationship aggression and parenting.     

MOTHER'S EMPLOYMENT DEMANDS, WORK-FAMILY CONFLICT, AND ADOLESCENT DEVELOPMENT

This study revisited the old research question of whether or not maternal employment would adversely affect children's development. We reframed the question by asking how a mother's temporal employment demands might be linked to child development. We used longitudinal data from a sample of 340 white, lower- to middle-class, dual-earner families living in the rural Midwest of the United States. The data were obtained from questionnaires and videotaped observations, and were informed by the mother, the father, the adolescent child, and a trained observer. As predicted, we found a strong relationship between a mother's temporal employment demands and work-family conflict, which was significantly associated with her emotional distress. A husband's egalitarian gender ideology was found to reduce the mother's emotional distress. Maternal distress was then negatively associated with nurturant and involved parenting, which in turn predicted a reduction in the adolescent child's emotional and behavioral problems over time.     

Adolescent Fathers' Parenting Stress,Social Support,and Involvement with Infants

The present study examined the relationship between concurrent measures of adolescent fathers' parenting stress, social support, and fathers' care‐giving involvement with the 3‐month‐old infant, controlling for fathers' prenatal involvement. The study sample consisted of 50 teenage father–mother dyads. Findings from multivariate regression revealed that fathers' parenting stress was significantly and negatively related to fathers' care giving as perceived by both fathers and mothers. The relationship between support for father involvement provided by the young man's parents and father reported care‐giving involvement approached significance. Social support from both teenagers' parents buffered the negative influence of parenting stress on fathers' involvement with the baby. Policy and intervention implications are discussed.     

DISTANT PATRIARCHS OR EXPRESSIVE DADS? The Discourse and Practice of Fathering in Conservative Protestant Families

Despite the burgeoning research literature on paternal involvement, the relationship between religion and fatherhood has received remarkably little attention from empirical researchers. Our investigation illuminates this understudied dimension of fathering by examining how conservative Protestant gender ideologies impact paternal involvement in evangelical households. Our study begins with an examination of insider documents—nemely, gender and family advice manuals—written by conservative Protestant luminaries. One group of conservative Protestant advice authors argues that paternal involvement and masculine role modeling in the home is crucial to the proper formation of children's distinctive gender identities, while a rival coterie of authors advocates ungendered spousal roles and shared parenting responsibilities. We then turn to data from wave 1 of the National Survey of Families and Households to gauge the distinctiveness of parenting practices among conservative Protestant fathers. We find that conservative Protestant fathers are considerably more likely than their nonevangelical counterparts to engage in paternal supervision and affective parenting. Such findings underscore the complexity of fathering in conservative Protestant households and illuminate several fruitful directions for future research on the religious dimensions of paternal involvement.     

Immediate and Longer-Term Connections Between Support and Stress in Pregnant/Parenting and Non-Pregnant/Non-Parenting Adolescents

Despite the substantial amount of literature focusing on social support for pregnant and parenting adolescents, few studies have directly examined the relationships among stress and social support across their transition to parenting. The present study investigates the nature of the relationship between stress and support both before and after the birth of the baby. Two groups of adolescent females (one group facing parenthood and one not) completed measures of support and stress across a 7-month period (N = 231) to coincide with the transition to parenthood. In general, support and stress were negatively related when measured concurrently and positively related over time for parenting adolescents but not the non-parenting group. Understanding how long social support impacts stress will enable practitioners to identify when best to provide interventions for pregnant and parenting adolescents.     

HOW ARE FAMILY‐RESPONSIVE WORKPLACE ARRANGEMENTS FAMILY FRIENDLY?

Family-responsive workplace arrangements, including schedule flexibility, reduced hours, and workplace social support, are often touted as important to employed parents' abilities to balance the simultaneous demands involved in work and childrearing. Empirical evidence regarding this supposition has most often focused on employed parents' perceptions of work-family incompatibility, leaving little understanding of (1) which arrangements are associated with parenting and children's well-being and (2) the process through which these arrangements may be related to these aspects of family life. A stress perspective on the work-family interface suggests that work-family arrangements might be related to parenting and children through the mechanisms of parents' psychological well-being. I use data from a regional sample of employed mothers to investigate this proposition. Findings from path models show that most relationships between arrangements and parenting are direct and unmediated by mothers' well-being and that work-family arrangements are only indirectly associated with children's socioemotional well-being.     

Structured Voluntary Youth Activities and Positive Outcomes in Adulthood: An Exploratory Study of Involvement in Scouting and Subjective Well-Being

This study explores whether youth involvement in Scouting has positive consequences later in life. We examine whether the number of years of participation in Scouting is positively associated with human and social capital and recreational lifestyles in adulthood, and whether these are linked to subjective well-being: relational, emotional, and physical health. To explore this potential relationship, we estimated a structural equation model, analyzing data from a national sample of adult males. We found that youth involvement in Scouting is positively related to subjective well-being indirectly via the positive adult outcomes.     

Parent-Child Synchrony and Adolescent Adjustment

This study of 984 children and their parents examined the correlates of adolescent psychosocial adjustment. Based on previous research, it was expected that parental involvement and limit-setting would predict conduct disorder scores and that variables associated with the parent-child relationship, particularly parent-child synchrony, would be more closely related to emotional adjustment and social relationship measures. Contrary to expectations, parenting practices were unrelated to adolescent conduct disorder, but family harmony and adult-child synchrony predicted all measures of adolescent adjustment. It is concluded that positive parenting is not something adults do to children, but a quality of the parent-child relationship characterized by family harmony and parental empathy. Implications for social work practice with adolescents and their families are identified.     

Interparental Relations,Maternal Employment,and Fathering in Mexican American Families

This study examined independent and interactive relations between the interparental relationship and maternal employment in predicting fathering within low‐income, Mexican American two‐parent families (N = 115). Interparental conflict was negatively related to quality fathering, and these relations were noted only for single‐earner families. The parenting alliance was positively related to quality fathering irrespective of maternal employment. Fathering was associated with lower levels of child depression and conduct problems. Results suggest that bolstering quality fathering is a useful avenue for improving child well‐being and that strengthening the interparental relationship can support quality fathering and child mental health within Mexican American families.     

Marital Violence: Impact on Children's Emotional Experiences, Emotional Regulation and Behaviors in a Post-Divorce/Separation Situation

This study examined the mediating effects of children's emotional experiences and regulation strategies on the relationship between marital violence and children's behavioral problems following divorce/separation. Findings indicated marital violence as reported by the mothers was associated with children's internalizing problems as measured by the Achenbach Behavior Checklist. Marital violence was also associated with children's reported experience of negative emotions, with sadness and anger emerging as statistical predictors of children's behavioral problems. A weak relationship was found between emotional regulation strategies and children's behavioral problems, with the exception that direct intervention and the range of strategies used by children were positively associated with behavioral problems. Children's reported anger was also found to mediate the relationship between marital violence and children's total behavioral problems. Implications of findings for treatment of children and adolescents from separated, conflicted homes are discussed.     

Maternal and Paternal Parenting Style Patterns and Adolescent Emotional and Behavioral Outcomes

The purpose of this study was to extend current research to examine the relationship between parenting style combinations and adolescent emotional/behavioral outcomes to further understand affective functioning in adolescents. Previous research solely analyzed mothers, without including fathers and/or both parents. The roles of temperament and adolescent and parent gender were also examined. Participants were 12- to 18-year-old students (n = 195) in 7th to 11th grade in a rural school district in southeast Michigan. Temperament characteristics (i.e., mood, flexibility-rigidity, and eating rhythmicity) explained nearly half of the variance in adolescent outcomes. Parenting styles contributed a smaller but significant role. When both parents were authoritative, it was associated with more optimal outcomes in adolescents' personal adjustment than any other parenting style combination. Having one authoritative parent, which was expected to be a protective factor, was related to high personal adjustment for girls but higher levels of school maladjustment for boys. Mixed associations were found for parenting style combinations and adolescent outcomes. Overall, when both parents were permissive and neglectful, these parenting styles were associated with poorer adolescent outcomes. Study findings confirm that parenting style patterns are important; however, adolescent temperament plays a much larger role, overall, in adolescent affective functioning.     

Maternal Neurobiological Processing of Negative Adolescent Stimuli: Relations With Positive Parenting and Relationship Quality

We examined associations between maternal affective neurobiology and positive parenting in a study of 20 mothers of adolescents. Mothers underwent functional magnetic resonance imaging during an emotion image task, rated parent‐adolescent relationship quality, and completed an adolescent interaction task in which positive parenting behaviors were observed. Maternal structure was associated with lower responsivity in emotional processing regions in the general negative image contrast and was related to greater dorsolateral prefrontal cortex activation to negative adolescent images. Parent‐adolescent relationship quality was associated with lower precuneus activation to negative adolescent images. Findings are among the first to connect functional brain processing with observed parenting behaviors for parents of adolescent children, and underscore the relative importance of affective processing in parenting older children.     

An analysis of the relationship between parenting self-efficacy,the quality of parenting,and parental and child emotional health

ABSTRACT

The relationship between parenting self-efficacy, the quality of parenting, and parental and child emotional health has been conducted with Caucasian families and young children. The purpose of this study was to examine these relationships in ethnically diverse and impoverished families with children who have behavior problems. We examined the relationships between parenting self-efficacy, parenting practices, child externalizing problems, and caregiver depression. Participants included 213 caregivers of children with Oppositional Defiant Disorder (ODD), who rated their parenting self-efficacy and completed questionnaires on parenting practices (APQ and FAD); child externalizing behaviors (Iowa Connors Inattention and ODD subscales); and caregiver depression (CESD). Data were examined using Chi-Square tests, a Linear Regression, and a One-Way ANOVA. Results demonstrate parenting self-efficacy was positively associated with positive parenting and inversely associated with inconsistent discipline. Among parents who perceived themselves as being a “better than average parent,” there was a greater percentage of youth who met cutoff for inattention problems as compared to youth who did not meet this cutoff. Lastly, depression scores were lowest for caregivers identifying as below average parents. This study underscores the need for involving parents and enhancing parenting self-efficacy in interventions targeting Disruptive Behavior Disorders.     

Accounting for Patterns of Father Involvement: Age of Child, Father-Child Coresidence, and Father Role Salience

This study examines the extent to which fathers are involved in parenting their children under several conditions, using a multivariate regression model. The model includes the age of the child, father role salience, and the father and child's coresidential status as predictors of father involvement. Although nonresidential fathers tend to be less involved than residential fathers under most conditions, this is not the case for fathers of adolescents who find the father role to be at least moderately salient. Explanations for their greater involvement are proposed, focusing specifically on the unique characteristics of the parent-child relationship involving an adolescent child and a nonresidential parent.     

African American Adolescent Girls in Impoverished Communities: Parenting Style and Adolescent Outcomes

The relationship between parenting style and adolescent functioning was examined in a sample of 302 African American adolescent girls and their mothers who lived in impoverished neighborhoods. Although previous research has found that authoritative parenting, as compared with authoritarian, permissive, and disengaged parenting, is associated with positive adolescent outcomes in both European American, middle‐class and large multiethnic school‐based samples, these parenting categories have not been fully explored in African American families living at or near poverty level. Data were collected from adolescent girls and their self‐identified mothers or mother figures using in‐home interviews and self‐administered questionnaires. Parenting style was found to be significantly related to adolescent outcome in multiple domains including externalizing and internalizing behaviors, academic achievement, work orientation, sexual experience, and pregnancy history. Specifically, teens whose mothers were disengaged (low on both parental warmth and supervision/monitoring) were found to have the most negative outcomes.