Maternal and paternal reactions to child sadness predict children's psychosocial outcomes: A family‐centered approach

Parents' reactions to children's emotions shape their psychosocial outcomes. Extant research on emotion socialization primarily uses variable‐centered approaches. This study explores family patterns of maternal and paternal responses to children's sadness in relation to psychosocial outcomes in middle childhood. Fifty‐one families with 8‐ to 12‐year‐old children participated. Mothers and fathers reported their reactions to children's sadness and children's social competence and psychological adjustment. Cluster analyses revealed three family patterns: Supportive (high supportive and low non‐supportive reactions from both parents), Not Supportive (low supportive reactions from both parents), and Father Dominant (high paternal supportive and non‐supportive reactions, low maternal supportive and non‐supportive reactions). Supportive families had children with higher social competence and more internalizing symptoms whereas Father Dominant families had children with lower social competence and fewer internalizing symptoms. Not Supportive families had children with average social competence and fewer internalizing symptoms. Findings are discussed in relation to the “divergence model” which proposes that a diverse range of parental responses to children's sadness, rather than a uniformly supportive approach, may facilitate children's psychosocial adjustment.     

Parental Divorce and Interpersonal Trust in Adult Offspring

It has been proposed that recent increases in parental divorce have inhibited the development of trust among offspring. This proposition is tested by examining whether parental divorce is associated with offspring trust in parents, intimate partners, and others. Data come from the Marital Instability Over the Life Course Study. Results reveal that although parental divorce is negatively associated with trust, these effects largely disappear once the quality of the past parent‐teen relationship is taken into account. The one exception is trust in fathers where children of divorce remain at higher risk of mistrust. Trust in parents, intimates, and others is strongly linked to positive parent‐teen relationships regardless of parental divorce. Contemporary relationship experiences also influence trusting intimates and others.     

Becoming Custodial Dads: Exploring Parenting Among Low‐Income and Working‐Class African American Fathers

The authors use an ecological framework and grounded theoretical analysis to explore the circumstances in which working‐class and low‐income custodial African American fathers gain custody of their children, their transition from part‐time to full‐time parents, and the role of support networks in enhancing or inhibiting these men's parenting. Twenty‐four men from an impoverished Midwestern urban area participated in the study. The findings suggest that these men, and perhaps others sharing their demographic profiles, generally become parents by default and are often reluctant to take on a full‐time, single parenting role. Adaptation to the role seems to be enhanced by these men's use of extended kin support networks and shared living arrangements. However, low wages, a lack of sufficient assistance from public assistance programs, and informal custody arrangements often inhibit their fathering.     

Acculturative stress in the adjustment of immigrant families

This study reviews the issue of acculturative stress in immigrant families. Acculturative stress includes behaviors experienced by immigrants that are a direct consequence of the process of acculturation and adaptation to a new society. A number of stressors impacting on the acculturation of immigrant families is discussed. These stressors include lack of English language skills, employment and economic status, educational background, family life, and sociopolitical and immigration status.     

Parent‐Adolescent Communication About Sex: Retrospective Reports by Latino College Students

Latina female (n= 97) and Latino male (n= 69) college students (M age = 21.4 years) completed self‐report surveys regarding family of origin experiences, including sexual communication with parents while growing up. Latino parents of this comparatively highly educated sample tended to use direct rather than indirect strategies for communicating about sexuality with their children. Young women reported higher levels of sexual communication with mothers while growing up than did young men, and respondents reported less communication with fathers than mothers. Among young women, sexual communication with mother was positively associated with non‐Mexican origin and negatively associated with having older brothers living at home. In contrast, maternal education was positively associated with mother‐son communication about sex. Paternal education and the absence of older brothers positively predicted communication with both sons and daughters. The analyses provide novel information regarding sexual communication in Latino families and suggest directions for future research.     

Do You Speak English? Language Barriers in Child Protection Social Work with Minority Ethnic Families

This paper critically evaluates research and literature on childprotection social work practice with minority ethnic familieswho speak little or no English. Though the focus is on childprotection, many of the themes raised should be transferableacross to other areas and disciplines. Specifically, the paperfocuses on the limitations and difficulties of using professionalinterpreters in child protection work and covers themes likethe availability of interpreters, the role of interpreters,suitability of interpreters, the interpretation of particularwords and phrases, and manipulating the interpreting process.The paper then moves on to address the important but often neglectedarea of using children as interpreters, and ends by consideringthe broader issue of how language barriers can exacerbate discriminationagainst minority ethnic families.     

Social Stratification and the Division of Household Labor in Japan: The Effect of Wives' Work on the Division of Labor among Dual-earner Families

Abstract:  This article explores the relationship between social stratification and the division of household labor by examining how the contribution to housework by husbands in dual-earner families varies across the Japanese social stratification structure. First, I review previous studies concerning the determinants of husbands' participation in housework and construct four hypotheses regarding the relative resources explanation, the time constraints explanation, the ideology/sex role explanation, and the alternative manpower explanation. Second, I examine the empirical support for these hypotheses in dual-earner couples and the effect of social stratification on husband's participation in housework, which has not been studied thus far. Third, I investigate the effect of social stratification in more detail. According to the results of TOBIT regressions and other supplementary analyses, the principal findings are as follows:

• 1) 

  the relative resources explanation is not supported;

       

Contre-exemple au théorème de P.C. Consul sur la factorisation des distributions de Poisson généralisées

This note exhibits two independent random variables on integers, X₁ and X₂, such that neither X₁ nor X₂ has a generalized Poisson distribution, but X₁ + X₂ has. This contradicts statements made by Professor Consul in his recent book.     

One parent or two? The intertwining of American marriage and fertility patterns

Marriage and fertility in the United States have become less firmly entwined as more women bear children without marrying and more couples with children divorce. Today a sizeable number of children are expected to spend a portion of their childhood in one-parent households. Despite the trends in illegitimacy and divorce, the actual effect of out-of-wedlock childbearing on the living arrangements of children has not been fully explicated. Using the National Survey of Family Growth Cycle III, this paper estimates the probability that children aged 0–13 in 1982 are living in two-parent households, controlling for their mothers' marital statuses at their births. We find that marital status at birth is an important predictor of household structure at later ages for both white and black populations; however, the childhood environment is actually quite elastic as women marry, divorce, remarry, and redivorce.