Parenting and families in Australia

Using Wave 1 of the Longitudinal Study of Australian Children (LSAC) dataset, this paper examines parenting styles and family functioning; factors influencing parents\u27 feelings and perceptions about the way they parent their children; the roles and contributions of parents who do not live with their children; feelings of stress and sources of social support for parents; and the relationship of parenting practices to child outcomes

Is parent disciplinary behavior enduring or situational? A multilevel modeling investigation of individual and contextual influences on power assertive and inductive reasoning behaviors

This research examined individual difference and contextual effects on the disciplinary behavior of a representative sample of 296 parents. Both the use of power assertion and inductive reasoning were found to be higher when the child's behavior violated a moral compared to a conventional principle, and in response to deliberate versus accidental behavior. Power assertion was also higher and reasoning lower when parents were in a bad compared to good mood. Multilevel modelling revealed that the pattern of change across contexts was not homogeneous. Threat oriented and stressed parents were more likely to react with more power assertion when in a bad mood, when their child violated a moral principle and when the behavior was deliberate. Change in parental reasoning however, was not associated with stress or threat orientation. The implications for attribution and goal directed theories are discussed, along with the need for practitioners to recognise that the determinants of disciplinary behavior are complex and multifaceted

How do parents and teenagers get along together?

The article focuses on the relationship between parents and teenagers. It presents a study on developing children based on the Australian Temperament Project (ATP), which examines the contribution of personal, family, and broader environmental factors to adjustment and well-being. It explores how Australian teenagers and parents view their relationship, to what extent they do agree, and the differences among adolescents with good, poor or discrepant perceptions of their relationships on personal characteristics, family, and school functioning. It is found out that difficult parent-adolescent relationships are atypical and that community perceptions of the relationship are out of order.<br /

Sometimes it\u27s good to be short: the serotonin transporter gene, positive parenting, and adolescent depression

In threatening environments, the short (S) allele of 5-HTTLPR is proposed to augment risk for depression. However, it is unknown whether 5-HTTLPR variation increases risk for depression in environments of deprivation, lacking positive or nurturant features. Two independent longitudinal studies (n = 681 and 176, respectively) examined whether 5-HTTLPR moderated associations between low levels of positive parenting at 11-13 years and subsequent depression at 17-19 years. In both studies only LL homozygous adolescents were at greater risk for depression with decreasing levels of positive parenting. Thus, while the S allele has previously been identified as a susceptible genotype, these findings suggest that the L allele may also confer sensitivity to depression in the face of specific environmental challenges

The Development and Validation of Australian Indices of Child Development-Part I: Conceptualisation and Development

The Longitudinal Study of Australian Children (LSAC) is a major national study examining the lives of Australian children, using a cross-sequential cohort design and data from parents, children, and teachers for 5,107 infants (3–19 months) and 4,983 children (4–5 years). Its data are publicly accessible and are used by researchers from many disciplinary backgrounds. It contains multiple measures of children’s developmental outcomes as well as a broad range of information on the contexts of their lives. This paper reports on the development of summary outcome indices of child development using the LSAC data. The indices were developed to fill the need for indicators suitable for use by diverse data users in order to guide government policy and interventions which support young children’s optimal development. The concepts underpinning the indices and the methods of their development are presented. Two outcome indices (infant and child) were developed, each consisting of three domains—health and physical development, social and emotional functioning, and learning competency. A total of 16 measures are used to make up these three domains in the Outcome Index for the Child Cohort and six measures for the Infant Cohort. These measures are described and evidence supporting the structure of the domains and their underlying latent constructs is provided for both cohorts. The factorial structure of the Outcome Index is adequate for both cohorts, but was stronger for the child than infant cohort. It is concluded that the LSAC Outcome Index is a parsimonious measure representing the major components of development which is suitable for non-specialist data users. A companion paper (Sanson et al. 2010) presents evidence of the validity of the Index