Eliciting children’s recall regarding home life and relationships

Abstract

Child interviews form an important component of custody evaluations. Yet, research on children’s responses to questions about home life and relationships is lacking. In the present study, children (N?=?47) aged 6 to 10?years were interviewed about their daily routines and family relationships. Responses to four categories of questions were compared: open and specific questions about routines, and negative and positive aspects of family relationships. Responses were coded for amount of information, informativeness, topic pertinence, and refusals to answer. Results suggested that questions about everyday routines and relationships elicit relevant and informative responses from children. It is suggested that interviewers begin with open-ended questions regarding daily routines to structure family law interviews with children.     

The meaning of frailty according to Dutch older frail and non-frail persons

Frailty is a term often used by researchers and clinicians to describe a state in which older persons are at risk for adverse outcomes such as falls, disability, institutionalization and mortality. However, no study so far examined what frailty means to older persons. Therefore the aim of this study was to describe the meaning that older community-dwelling persons attach to frailty. Twenty-five semi-structured interviews were conducted. The interviews were analyzed using the grounded theory method. Frailty was described as being in poor health, having walking difficulties, feeling down, being anxious, having few social contacts and not being able to do the things one likes to do. Men described in more detail the physical dimension whereas women elaborated in more depth on the psychological and social component. Existing definitions of frailty should be adjusted to better reflect the meaning of frailty for older persons.     

Children's response to the medical visit for allegations of sexual abuse: maternal perceptions and predicting variables

This study examined maternal perceptions of their child's response to the medical evaluation for alleged sexual abuse. A total of 50 mothers were interviewed 6 months after a visit to a Child Protection Clinic for a medical evaluation of alleged sexual abuse. The mothers answered a questionnaire on their child's reactions to the medical visit. More than 60% of children were perceived as being reassured about physical integrity. The degree of psychological distress was independent of perpetrator's identity and severity of the abuse. Mothers considered that a hypothetical second visit would generate in their child a level of anxiety that increased with perceived intensity of fear of the examination and decreased with perceived kindness of the physician. These results suggest that the physician's behaviour during the medical evaluation for alleged sexual abuse has an influence on the child's degree of distress that is independent of type and severity of abuse. Copyright © 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Who, What, Where, and When? Specifying the Impact of Educational Attainment and Labour Force Participation on Family Formation

This article studies the impact of educational attainment and labour force participation on the timing of entering a union, marriage, and parenthood, using data from Flemish and Dutch young adults born between 1961 and 1965. This impact is hypothesized to be contingent on sex, the event under consideration, the societal context in which family formation occurs, and the age of young adults. As expected, educational attainment has a stronger negative effect on women's entry into parenthood than on their entry into a union, a stronger negative effect on women's entry into marriage and parenthood in the Netherlands than in Flanders, and a stronger effect during the early stages of young adulthood than later on. Men's educational attainment did not show the expected positive effect on family formation. Enrollment in full-time education delays family formation, but more so in Flanders than in the Netherlands. Unemployment delays family formation among men, but only in Flanders.     

Aristophanes on Bawds in the Boardroom: Comedy as a Guideline to Gender Relations in Antiquity

By exploring the links between the notion of public secrets and popular imaginaries of sovereign power in Burundi, this article demonstrates the shortcomings of the pervasive Foucauldian perception of power as mere relations. Through conspiracy theories about the secret machinations of power, people in Burundi attempt to make sense of domination and sovereignty and to locate the evasive kernel of power. They try to pinpoint the sovereign, assuming that he is hiding behind the scenes, pulling the strings of ‘true power’. While conspiracy theories and rumours attempt to reveal the secret, they also reconfirm its existence and hence strengthen sovereign power which depends not only on the spectacle but also on the assumption that it has a hidden supplement. In this manner, secrecy—located at the summit of forces—becomes the irreducible element of political ontology.

The article also explores the relationship between secrecy and ethnicity. It argues that the very ambiguous relationship of ethnic identities in Burundi—allowing friendship and intermarriage on the one hand while leading to ethnocide on the other—is expressed through the lens of secrecy. The perception of hiding true identities leads to conspiracy theories that search for the other's hidden agendas. This in turn means that nobody dares expose his or her true identity for fear of what ‘the other’ might do.     

State attachment variability across distressing situations in middle childhood

Contemporary research suggests that attachment has both a trait‐like, stable component, and a state‐like component that varies across contexts. In the current study, we assessed state attachment variability across comparably distressing situations in middle childhood. In two samples, children reported their expectations of maternal support in each situation. Additionally, we administered trait attachment and psychological well‐being measures. Results indicated that, overall, children varied in their expectations across situations: more than half of the variance was explained by intra‐individual differences across situations. Results revealed two components underlying variability: a Signal‐and‐Support component reflecting expectations of support‐seeking and receiving, and a Back‐on‐Track component reflecting expectations of stress reduction and comfort. State attachment variability was related to individual differences in trait attachment: children who are more securely attached at the trait level, overall appear to vary less in their state attachment, likely due to their high mean state attachment scores across situations. When the mean state attachment scores are accounted for, more securely attached children seem to vary more, suggesting that their state attachment expectations are more sensitive to contextual fluctuations. Importantly, degree of state attachment variability explained psychological well‐being over and above trait attachment.     

Turning irritation into teaching: professional responses to disputes amongst adolescents in Dutch family homes

ABSTRACT

In this article, we have focused on irritation as a discourse marker for professional foster parents to intervene in adolescents’ disputes. We were interested in how irritation leads to responses from people who are not the object of irritation themselves, but who intervene in the dispute, thus entering and changing the social situation. Four types of responses could be distinguished: 1) responding to the content of the dispute, 2) responding to the process of the dispute, 3) responding to the emotion of the adolescent or 4) ignoring the dispute. Although most cases in our sample seem to exhibit a main strategy that fits this categorisation, in 10 cases different strategies are combined. We showed that in these combined responses professional foster parents do not intervene merely for disciplinary reasons, although they do so when things threaten to get out of hand. They also use these occasions as teachable moments.