Parent Discipline Practices in an International Sample: Associations With Child Behaviors and Moderation by Perceived Normativeness

This study examined the associations of 11 discipline techniques with children’s aggressive and anxious behaviors in an international sample of mothers and children from 6 countries and determined whether any significant associations were moderated by mothers’ and children’s perceived normativeness of the techniques. Participants included 292 mothers and their 8- to 12-year-old children living in China, India, Italy, Kenya, Philippines, and Thailand. Parallel multilevel and fixed effects models revealed that mothers’ use of corporal punishment, expressing disappointment, and yelling were significantly related to more child aggression symptoms, whereas giving a time-out, using corporal punishment, expressing disappointment, and shaming were significantly related to greater child anxiety symptoms. Some moderation of these associations was found for children’s perceptions of normativeness.J.E.L. acknowledges support of NICHD Grant R01HD054805. K.A.D. acknowledges support of NIDA Grants K05DA015226 and P30DA023026.Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/99712/1/Gershoff Grogan-Kaylor et al.pd

Families' social backgrounds matter : socio-economic factors, home learning and young children's language, literacy and social outcomes

Parental support with children's learning is considered to be one pathway through which socio-economic factors influence child competencies. Utilising a national longitudinal sample from the Millennium Cohort Study, this study examined the relationship between home learning and parents' socio-economic status and their impact on young children's language/literacy and socio-emotional competence. The findings consistently showed that, irrespective of socio-economic status, parents engaged with various learning activities (except reading) roughly equally. The socio-economic factors examined in this study, i.e., family income and maternal educational qualifications, were found to have a stronger effect on children's language/literacy than on social-emotional competence. Socio-economic disadvantage, lack of maternal educational qualifications in particular, remained powerful in influencing competencies in children aged three and at the start of primary school. For children in the first decade of this century in England, these findings have equity implications, especially as the socio-economic gap in our society widens

Financial stress

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Pathways from parental AIDS to child psychological, educational and sexual risk: Developing an empirically-based interactive theoretical model

Increasing evidence demonstrates negative psychological, health, and developmental outcomes for children associated with parental HIV/AIDS illness and death. However, little is known about how parental AIDS leads to negative child outcomes. This study used a structural equation modelling approach to develop an empirically-based theoretical model of interactive relationships between parental or primary caregiver AIDS-illness, AIDS-orphanhood and predicted intervening factors associated with children's psychological distress, educational access and sexual health. Cross-sectional data were collected in 2009–2011, from 6002 children aged 10–17 years in three provinces of South Africa using stratified random sampling. Comparison groups included children orphaned by AIDS, orphaned by other causes and non-orphans, and children whose parents or primary caregivers were unwell with AIDS, unwell with other causes or healthy. Participants reported on psychological symptoms, educational access, and sexual health risks, as well as hypothesized sociodemographic and intervening factors. In order to build an interactive theoretical model of multiple child outcomes, multivariate regression and structural equation models were developed for each individual outcome, and then combined into an overall model.Neither AIDS-orphanhood nor parental AIDS-illness were directly associated with psychological distress, educational access, or sexual health. Instead, significant indirect effects of AIDS-orphanhood and parental AIDS-illness were obtained on all measured outcomes. Child psychological, educational and sexual health risks share a common set of intervening variables including parental disability, poverty, community violence, stigma, and child abuse that together comprise chain effects. In all models, parental AIDS-illness had stronger effects and more risk pathways than AIDS-orphanhood, especially via poverty and parental disability. AIDS-orphanhood and parental AIDS-illness impact child outcomes through multiple, interlinked pathways. The interactive model developed in this study suggests key areas of focus for interventions with AIDS-affected children

Hepatitis C infection: eligibility for antiviral therapies

peer reviewedBackground Current treatments of chronic hepatitis C virus (HCV) are effective, but expensive and susceptible to induce significant side effects. Objectives To evaluate the proportion of HCV patients who are eligible for a treatment. Methods In a database comprising 1726 viraemic HCV patients, the files of 299 patients who presented to the same hepatologist for an initial appointment between 1996 and 2003 were reviewed. Results Patients' characteristics were age 43.1 +/- 15.6 years, 53% male and 92% Caucasian. The main risk factors were transfusion (43%) and drug use (22%). Genotypes were mostly genotype 1 (66%), genotype 3 (12%) and genotype 2 (10%). These characteristics were not different from those of the whole series of 1726 patients. A total of 176 patients (59%) were not treated, the reasons for non-treatment being medical contraindications (34%), non-compliance (25%) and normal transaminases (24%). In addition, 17% of patients declined therapy despite being considered as eligible, mainly due to fear of adverse events. Medical contraindications were psychiatric (27%), age (22%), end-stage liver disease (15%), willingness for pregnancy (13%), cardiac contraindication (7%) and others (16%). Only 123 patients (41%) were treated. A sustained viral response was observed in 41%. The treatment was interrupted in 16% for adverse events. Conclusions The majority of HCV patients are not eligible for treatment. This implies that, with current therapies, only 17% of patients referred for chronic HCV become sustained responders. Some modifications of guidelines could extend the rate of treatment (patients with normal transaminases), but an important barrier remains the patients' and the doctors' fear of adverse events

Family structure and posttraumatic stress reactions: a longitudinal study using multilevel analyses

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>There is limited research on the relevance of family structures to the development and maintenance of posttraumatic stress following disasters. We longitudinally studied the effects of marital and parental statuses on posttraumatic stress reactions after the 2004 Southeast Asian tsunami and whether persons in the same households had more shared stress reactions than others.</p> <p>Method</p> <p>The study included a tourist population of 641 Norwegian adult citizens, many of them from families with children. We measured posttraumatic stress symptoms with the Impact of Event Scale-Revised at 6 months and 2 years post-disaster. Analyses included multilevel methods with mixed effects models.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Results showed that neither marital nor parental status was significantly related to posttraumatic stress. At both assessments, adults living in the same household reported levels of posttraumatic stress that were more similar to one another than adults who were not living together. Between households, disaster experiences were closely related to the variance in posttraumatic stress symptom levels at both assessments. Within households, however, disaster experiences were less related to the variance in symptom level at 2 years than at 6 months.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>These results indicate that adult household members may influence one another's posttraumatic stress reactions as well as their interpretations of the disaster experiences over time. Our findings suggest that multilevel methods may provide important information about family processes after disasters.</p

Parental agreement of reporting parent to child aggression using the Conflict Tactics Scales

Objectives: This study examined mothers’ and fathers’ reporting congruency using the Parent–Child Conflict Tactics Scales. We asked if the mother’s report of the father’s parenting aggression was consistent with the father’s self-report of parenting aggression and if the father’s report of the mother’s parenting aggression was consistent with the mother’s selfreport of those same behaviors. We assessed moderators of parental reporting congruency: severity of the aggression, interparental conflict, child temperament, and child gender. Methods: Participants were from the Child Development Project, a longitudinal study beginning when children were in kindergarten. The analyses herein included 163 children for whom 2 parents provided data about their own and their spouse or partner’s behavior toward the child. Most parents (87%) were married. Mothers and fathers independently completed the Parent–Child Conflict Tactics Scale, both with respect to their own behavior toward the child and with respect to their partner’s behavior toward the child. Mothers completed the retrospective Infant Characteristics Questionnaire to assess child temperament. Mothers and fathers completed measures of interparental conflict. Results: Both fathers and mothers self-reported more frequently engaging in each behavior than the other parent reported they did. Parents were more congruent on items assessing harsher parenting behavior. Furthermore, there was more agreement between parents regarding fathers’ behavior than mothers’ behavior. Analyses of interparental conflict, child difficult temperament, and child gender as moderators yielded findings suggesting that mothers’ and fathers’ reports of their own and their spouses’ harsh parenting behaviors were more concordant in couples with low levels of conflict, for children with easy temperaments, and for boys versus girls. Conclusions: Prior studies indicate only a moderate level of agreement in couples’ reports of violence between intimate partners and suggest that perpetrators tend to underreport their use of aggression. The results of this study suggest that parents may be more consistent in their reports of parent to child violence using the Parent–Child Conflict Tactics Scales than they are when reporting intimate partner violence. The results suggest that parental reports of their spouse’s parent to child aggression are reliable.Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/106161/1/2012-Lee Lansford et al CTSPC.pd

Facilitative parenting and children's social, emotional and behavioural adjustment

Facilitative parenting (FP) supports the development of children’s social and emotional competence and effective peer relationships. Previous research has shown that FP discriminates between children bullied by peers from children who are not bullied, according to reports of teachers. This study investigates the association between FP and children’s social, emotional and behavioral problems, over and above the association with dysfunctional parenting (DP). 215 parents of children aged 5–11 years completed questionnaires about parenting and child behavior, and children and teachers completed measures of child bullying victimization. As predicted, FP accounted for variance in teacher reports of children’s bullying victimization as well as parent reports of children’s social and emotional problems and prosocial behavior better than that accounted for by DP. However for children’s reports of peer victimization the whole-scale DP was a better predictor than FP. Contrary to predictions, FP accounted for variance in conduct problems and hyperactivity better than DP. When analyses were replicated substituting subscales of dysfunctional and FP, a sub-set of FP subscales including Warmth, Supports Friendships, Not Conflicting, Child Communicates and Coaches were correlated with low levels of problems on a broad range of children’s adjustment problems. Parent–child conflict accounted for unique variance in children’s peer victimization (teacher report), peer problems, depression, emotional problems, conduct problems and hyperactivity. The potential relevance of FP as a protective factor for children against a wide range of adjustment problems is discussed

School Effects on the Wellbeing of Children and Adolescents

Well-being is a multidimensional construct, with psychological, physical and social components. As theoretical basis to help understand this concept and how it relates to school, we propose the Self-Determination Theory, which contends that self-determined motivation and personality integration, growth and well-being are dependent on a healthy balance of three innate psychological needs of autonomy, relatedness and competence. Thus, current indicators involve school effects on children’s well-being, in many diverse modalities which have been explored. Some are described in this chapter, mainly: the importance of peer relationships; the benefits of friendship; the effects of schools in conjunction with some forms of family influence; the school climate in terms of safety and physical ecology; the relevance of the teacher input; the school goal structure and the implementation of cooperative learning. All these parameters have an influence in promoting optimal functioning among children and increasing their well-being by meeting the above mentioned needs. The empirical support for the importance of schools indicates significant small effects, which often translate into important real-life effects as it is admitted at present. The conclusion is that schools do make a difference in children’s peer relationships and well-being