Marital Satisfaction,Family Emotional Expressiveness,Home Learning Environments,and Children's Emergent Literacy

The current study investigates associations among marital satisfaction, family emotional expressiveness, the home learning environment, and preschool‐aged children's emergent literacy skills among 385 Midwestern mothers and their children. Path analyses examined how marital satisfaction related to emotional expressiveness in the home and whether this path was associated with the home learning environment and children's literacy skills. Higher maternal satisfaction was associated with higher levels of positive and lower levels of negative family emotional expressiveness. Additionally, family emotional environments characterized by mothers with higher positive expression were related to better home learning environments, which in turn were associated with higher literacy skills in children. Study findings underscore the importance of marital and family processes when considering young children's academic development.     

Post-Separation Conflict Trajectories: A Longitudinal Study

Although previous studies have shown that parental separation and parental conflict contribute independently to the adaptation difficulties of young people, there is, as of yet, no precise portrait of how post-separation conflicts evolve. Indeed, some fundamental questions remain unanswered: (1) Do parents who experience few conflicts during their break-up continue to enjoy a harmonious relationship afterward? (2) When parents have a conflictual relationship in the first years after separating, do problems eventually subside? (3) Are a family's characteristics associated with the way a post-separation conflict evolves? The present, exploratory study attempts to provide some answers to these three questions. The sample was composed of 123 boys and girls from 8 to 11 years old. The children and their parents were interviewed on two separate occasions at a 1-year interval. The first interview (time 1) took place 2.5 years after the separation on average. The children were notably asked to give their perception of the parental conflict. Four post-separation conflict trajectories were brought to light. Analysis also targeted three more-specific variables that distinguished these conflict trajectories, namely family income, quality of the relationship with the mother, and the degree of agreement at the time of separation.     

So Many Theories,So Little Time: An Examination of Theories on the Intergenerational Transmission of Relationship Instability

To examine theoretical perspectives on the intergenerational transmission of relationship instability 945 college students from intact and divorced homes participated. Participants were examined simultaneously and separately based on racial and ethnic background. Regression analyses tested evolutionary, social learning, life-course adversity, and father-absent theory. Evolutionary theory proved to be the best explanation as it was able to explain relationship behaviors when examining all participants simultaneously, and some behaviors when examining participants separately. Life-course adversity and father-absent theory were able to explain early reproductive behaviors among White participants. For Black participants, age at first boy/girlfriend could be explained by social-learning, life-course adversity, and father-absent theory. None of the remaining theories were able to explain the relationship behaviors of Hispanic participants.     

How Parents and Teachers View Their School Communities

ABSTRACT

This study examines the perceptions of more than 11,000 parents and 1,500 teachers about their schools, themselves, and their relationships with each other within their school communities. It provides insights into the health of our public schools, their reservoirs of social capital, and the context they provide for student learning. The nature and strength of relationships within school communities is assayed through examination of parents' and teachers' perceptions about their roles, the roles of students, school–home communication, the common experience and climate of the school, and their face-to-face association with one another. Teachers' perceptions are compared with those of parents, and the perceptions of White, non-Hispanic, Black, non-Hispanic, and Hispanic parents are compared with each other.     

Parental Divorce and Romantic Attachment in Young Adulthood: Important Role of Problematic Beliefs

In the current study 45 university students with either divorced or continuously married parents were surveyed about their romantic attachment, positive emotionality, depressive symptomology, self-esteem, and, when applicable, their retrospective beliefs about their parents’ marital dissolution. Findings revealed that parental divorce did not predict attachment insecurity, depression, or low self-esteem. In fact, adult children of divorced parents (ACDP) reported increased compassion, awe, enthusiasm, and perspective taking. Among ACDP, a composite factor representing increased fear of abandonment, peer rejection, and maternal blame was positively associated with adult attachment anxiety, even while controlling for parental conflict and divorce-related socioenvironmental disruption. Results are discussed in terms of their support of a complex understanding of the long-term effects of parental divorce, and in their inconsistency with a purely pathogenic model of parental divorce.     

Chinese Parenting Behaviors,Adolescent School Adjustment,and Problem Behavior

The present research examined the relationship between supportive and controlling dimensions of parenting behaviors and Chinese adolescent outcomes (school adjustment and problem behavior). Researchers collected self-report data from 589 adolescents in Hangzhou, China. Results showed the factor structure for the Parent Behavior Measure in the Chinese sample was different from the factor structure based on Western research. Specifically, paternal support did not emerge as a viable factor. Parental monitoring and involvement predicted positive adolescent outcomes, whereas punitiveness and permissiveness predicted negative outcomes. Surprisingly, maternal support predicted more adolescent problem behavior, especially for boys. Guilt induction, love withdrawal, and positive induction did not predict any significant adolescent outcomes when other parenting behaviors were controlled. School adjustment mediated and gender moderated the relationship between parenting and adolescent problem behavior. The importance of considering parenting behaviors, adolescent school adjustment, gender, and cultural norms when examining adolescent problem behavior was discussed.     

Perceptions of Parental Intimate Relationships and Their Affects on the Experience of Romantic Relationship Development Among African American Emerging Adults

The quality of romantic relationships that parents maintain has an impact on their children. Emerging adult children base their relationships on similar values and/or opposing beliefs of their parental romantic relationships. This phenomenological study aimed to identify how African American emerging adults experience their parental romantic relationships and how they find meaning in the romantic relationships of their parents. Results suggest that African American emerging adults develop both positive and negative perceptions about romantic relationships from their parents’ relationships, which affect the way these adults perceive, develop, and maintain their own romantic unions. African American emerging adults also find meaning in their parental couple relationships as they share similar experiences in their relationship quality, mate choice, and/or personal or mate characteristics and personality traits as their parents.     

The Impact of Marital Quality,Divorce, and Remarriage on the Relationships Between Parents and Their Children

SUMMARY

This paper examines data from a panel study on the long-term effects of parental marital quality and divorce on relationships between parents and adult children. Attention is focused on whether these effects vary by age and gender of child as well as the theoretical explanations linking mother-father and parent-child relations. The relational quality between adult children (18-31 years old) and both mothers and fathers is examined from the perspective of both children and parents. Among intact families, parental marital quality has long-term effects on father-child relations, regardless of gender, whereas short-term effects are characteristic of mother-child relations and only perceived by mothers. Further, although divorce without remarriage hurts sons' relationships with both fathers and mothers, it hurts father-daughter relations even more. Mother-daughter bonds appear to be improved by divorce, with declines in income explaining a large portion of the tendency for divorce to affect father-child relations.     

Understanding Sheng Nu (“Leftover Women”): the Phenomenon of Late Marriage among Chinese Professional Women

In the past few decades, there has been a rise in the number of single, unmarried Chinese professional women, which is known as the sheng nu or “leftover women” phenomenon. Through an interactionist grounded theory method, this study has located the interactional constraints faced by 50 single Chinese professional women that were issued by their male romantic partners and parents, respectively. “Discriminatory” and “controlling” gendered constraints issued by the women's male suitors and partners reflected the persistence of the Chinese patriarchal structure, and this was found to be the leading cause of the women being “leftover” in the marriage market. Parents' traditional views continued to exert strong influences on the women's marital choices, but this was seen to conflict with their more “modern” views toward advocating and supporting the women's strong economic achievements. The four different types of Chinese professional women that were constructed based on their different partner choice strategies not only gave rise to an in‐depth and nuanced understanding of the sheng nu phenomenon in China, but could also be generalized toward understanding the marital choices of single professional women in other patriarchal societies who faced similar dilemmas in reconciling interactional constraints imposed by men and parents alike.     

Change,Resources and Self-Esteem in a Community of Women Religious

The effect of change and resources to cope with that change on self-esteem is explored in a study of a community of Catholic women religious. These middle-aged and elderly women are highly educated with life long attachment to the workforce. In addition, they have all experienced a high degree of change in their lives. The amount of change was found to be related to self-esteem as were specific social and psychological coping resources. A sense of being in control of one's life was an important predictor of selfesteem, and was itself affected by the amount of change experienced. The number of close friends that could be identified was related to self-esteem. Age and physical disability were not directly related to self-esteem when other variables were controlled, but rather affected self-esteem indirectly throu h feelings of control over one's life. Similarities between these f indings and studies of elderly women in the general population are emphasized and implications for the future are presented.