Low-income, nonresident father involvement with their toddlers: Variation by fathers' race and ethnicity.

Using data from a racially and ethnically diverse sample of low-income mothers of 2-year-old children participating in the Early Head Start Research and Evaluation Project (N = 883), the authors examined fathers' education and employment, mother-father relationship, and mothers' relationships with kin in the household to explain variation in nonresident father involvement across racial and ethnic groups. Nonresident White fathers were less involved with their children than were African American and Latino fathers. This difference was explained by the status of mother-father relationships. White nonresident fathers were less likely than minority nonresident fathers to maintain romantic relationships with their child's mother. Mothers in the White father group were also more likely to re-partner, which negatively related to biological fathers' involvement. These findings suggest that approaches to strengthen nonresident father involvement in children's lives need to consider how father ethnicity and mother-father relations are associated with differential patterns of father involvement. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The role of fathers in child and adolescent psychopathology: Make room for daddy.

Summarizes research concerning the relation between paternal factors and child and adolescent psychopathology. When compared with mothers, fathers continue to be dramatically underrepresented in developmental research on psychopathology. However, findings from studies of children of clinically referred fathers and nonreferred samples of children and their fathers indicate that there is substantial association between paternal characteristics and child and adolescent psychopathology. Findings from studies of fathers of clinically referred children are stronger for fathers' effects on children's externalizing than internalizing problems. In most cases the degree of risk associated with paternal psychopathology is comparable to that associated with maternal psychopathology. Evidence indicates that the presence of paternal psychopathology is a sufficient but not necessary condition for child or adolescent psychopathology. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Coparenting, mother-infant interaction, and infant-parent attachment relationships in two-parent families.

Coparenting behavior and the quality of mothers' parenting behavior were examined in relation to parents' perceptions of their child's attachment in 60 two-parent families with 11- to 15-month-old infants (30 boys and 30 girls). Parent-child attachment was assessed using the Attachment Q-Sort. Competitive coparenting was associated with mothers' and fathers' perception of a less secure parent-child attachment relationship, whereas maternal responsiveness was associated with mothers' perception of a more secure mother-child attachment relationship. Families with mothers who were more restrictive and those with parents who were more competitive were less likely to have mothers and fathers with similar perceptions of the quality of parent-child attachment relationships. Findings support the proposal that different levels of family functioning affect the quality of parent-child relationships. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved)     

Discordant prolongation of the refractory period and repolarization time by a class III agent, E4031, in the healing phase of myocardial infarction

One hundred and ninety-eight adolescents and their mothers (N = 189) and fathers (N = 136) participated in a 4-year longitudinal study. Adolescent problem behaviour was assessed by the Youth Self-Report (YSR) and the Child Behavior Checklist (CBCL). In addition, parental stress and marital adjustment were determined. Results showed that mothers and fathers showed high agreement, especially about their daughters, whereas parents and adolescents showed little agreement. Agreement was higher for internalising than for externalising behaviours. In general, adolescents reported more symptomatology than their parents did. However, mothers' ratings of their children's behaviours were significantly correlated with adolescents' self-ratings, but fathers' ratings were not. Statistical tests of correlations showed that mothers experiencing stress caused by marital problems perceived more problem behaviours in their children. Fathers' perceptions were relatively unaffected by personal adjustment. However, poor marital adjustment perceived by both parents showed a significant negative relation to adolescent externalising problem behaviour.     

Adolescents' subjective distress over their emotional/behavioral problems.

This study analyzed the relations among 151 7th- and 8th-grade adolescents' self-evaluations of the occurrence of their behavior, their own subjective distress over their behavior, their perceptions of their personal competence, their perceptions of their mothers' and fathers' distress over these behaviors, and their parents' reports of the occurrence of adolescent behaviors. As hypothesized, adolescents' self-reports of occurrence of their behaviors were significantly but moderately correlated with their subjective distress about these behaviors, and adolescents made a distinction between the occurrence of a behavior and their distress about it. Externalizing behaviors were rated by adolescents as more distressing to mothers and to fathers than to adolescents themselves, and conversely, internalizing behaviors were rated as more distressing to self than to parents. Ratings of subjective distress were significantly related to self-perceptions of behavioral conduct and self-worth, whereas parents' ratings of the occurrence of behavior were not related to these self-perceptions. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Adolescent mothers' cognitions and behaviors as at-risk indicators.

Examined how qualities of adolescent mothers (AMs) are related to their child's socioemotional development and the relationship between maternal characteristics and the AM's ratings of her child's behavior. Ss included 39 AMs (mean age 17.9 yrs) and their children (aged 4–22 mo). Multiple measures of parental characteristics were used, including self-report measures of parenting expectations and mood orientation, and a qualitative behavioral measure of involvement. Analyses compared these measures with ratings of the child's coping behavior by trained observers and mothers' ratings of their child using the Parenting Stress Index (PSI). Findings indicate that parenting expectations had a unique and differential power in explaining both objective child observation ratings and the mothers' PSI ratings of their children. Interactions involving maternal positive behavior were related significantly to mothers' PSI ratings of the child's acceptability or reinforcement. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Interaction behaviors of primary versus secondary caretaker fathers.

A comparison was made between the videotaped behaviors of primary caretaker mothers and both primary and secondary caretaker fathers during face-to-face interactions with their 4-mo-old infants. The sample consisted of 36 infants, 12 observed with their primary caretaker mothers, 12 with primary caretaker fathers, and 12 with secondary caretaker fathers. Fathers in general tended to engage in significantly more game playing and less holding of their infants. Primary caretaker fathers and mothers engaged in significantly more smiling, imitative grimaces, and high-pitched imitative vocalizations than did secondary caretaker fathers. These differences were related to the primary caretaker mothers' and fathers' greater familiarity with their infants. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Work, parenting, and the socialization of children.

Examined how adults' investments in work and parenting impinge on socialization practices and perceptions of children's behavior. One hundred ninety-four employed mothers and 104 employed fathers, each with an employed spouse and a 3- to 4-year-old child, completed questionnaires about work and parenting, socialization practices, and perceptions of their children's behavior. Among the findings of particular interest: (a) Parental investment was a stronger predictor of fathers' and mothers' demands for mature behavior than was work investment; (b) women with high commitments to both work and parenting were more likely than others to engage in authoritative parenting; (c) parenting styles were related to mothers' ratings of their children's behavior; and (d) differences in involvement in parenting were associated with differences in how favorably fathers and mothers described their children. Taken together, the results suggest that men's and women's degree of investment in parenting is more consequential for their socialization practices and views of their children than is their degree of investment in work. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Marital Adjustment, Child-Rearing Disagreements, and Overreactive Parenting: Predicting Child Behavior Problems.

Using structural equation modeling, the authors evaluated the hypothesis that the relation between marital adjustment and children's behavior problems is mediated by child-rearing disagreements, whose effects are mediated by parents' overreactive discipline. In a community sample, fully or partially mediated models of internalizing and externalizing behavior problems of 3- to 7-year-old boys (N = 99) and girls (N = 104) were supported for mothers and fathers in 7 of 8 cases. Child-rearing disagreements always mediated the relation of marital adjustment and child behavior problems, and overreactive discipline was a final mediator in 3 cases. More variance was accounted for in mothers' than fathers' ratings. For mothers' ratings, the most variance was accounted for in boys' externalizing and girls' internalizing behavior problems. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Neoplastic association of enhanced type V collagen production in rat fibrosarcoma

This study investigated hospitalized adolescents (57 girls; 46 boys; mean age = 14 years, 8 months) and their fathers and mothers to ascertain the degree of correspondence (by gender of parent and child) on ratings of total symptoms and of internalizing and externalizing psychopathology. Parents (especially mothers) reported higher levels of symptom severity than their offspring; girls' ratings were more severe than boys'. Whereas interparent correspondence was essentially the same in ratings of daughters, mother-son convergence was generally higher than father-son correspondence. Boys and their parents did not differentiate internalizing from externalizing disorders; girls and parents were better able to discriminate between these types of psychopathology.     

Understanding child-based effects on parenting: Temperament as a moderator of genetic and environmental contributions to parenting.

The degree to which child temperament moderates genetic and environmental contributions to parenting was examined. Participants were drawn from the Nonshared Environment and Adolescent Development project and included 720 sibling pairs, ages 13.5 + 2.0 years (Sibling 1) to 12.1 + 1.3 years (Sibling 2). The sample consisted of 6 sibling types: 93 monozygotic twin pairs, 99 dizygotic twin pairs, and 95 full sibling pairs from never-divorced families and 182 full-sibling, 109 half-sibling, and 130 unrelated-sibling pairs residing in stepfamilies. Composite child temperament ratings (negative emotionality, activity, shyness, and sociability) were derived from mothers' and fathers' reports. Composite parenting ratings (negativity, warmth) for mothers and fathers were generated from children's and parents' reports. Analyses indicated that at higher levels of negative emotionality and sociability, child-based genetic contributions to mothers' and fathers' negativity increased, whereas the contributions of environmental factors declined. The opposite pattern was observed for child shyness. These same characteristics had less impact on parental warmth. For fathers only, nonshared environmental contributions to fathers' warmth increased in the presence of high child activity and sociability but declined when children were very shy. Overall these findings indicate that child-based effects on negative parenting are enhanced when children demonstrate potentially challenging characteristics but are weaker in the absence of such characteristics. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved)     

Mothers' and fathers' perceptions of child deviance: Roles of child behavior, parental depression, and marital satisfaction.

Investigated relationships among parental adjustment, parental perception of child behavior, and an independent measure of child behavior, using 61 consecutive referrals to a university psychology clinic of 5–14 yr olds with home or school problems. 61 mothers (41 of whom were married) and 41 fathers completed the Beck Depression Inventory, the Marital Adjustment Test, and the Conners Parent Rating Scale. Children's teachers completed the Conners Teacher Rating Scale. Mothers' ratings of their children's behavior were significantly correlated with teachers' ratings, but fathers' ratings were not. A stepwise multiple regression analysis showed that teachers' ratings accounted for the greatest amount of variance in the prediction of mothers' ratings of child externalizing problems, followed by maternal depression. Results confirm earlier findings of a relation of maternal depression to maternal perception of child externalizing behavior problems but indicate a stronger correlation between maternal ratings and independent measures of child behavior. (20 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Perceptions of fatherhood: Longitudinal reciprocal associations within the couple.

This longitudinal study examines reciprocal associations between maternal perceptions of paternal involvement and paternal perceptions of themselves as a father and of their relationship with the mother over the first 18 months after the birth of a first child, that is, during the transition to parenthood. Both members of intact heterosexual couples (n = 183) completed self-report questionnaires when their first child was two, five, and 18 months of age. Each assessment period included measures of fathers' perceptions of the importance of their parental identity, their parental self-efficacy, and their marital satisfaction, as well as mothers' perceptions of the quality and quantity of paternal involvement in child care. Results of cross-lag path analyses indicate that fathers' greater parental self-efficacy at two months predicts mothers' perceptions of greater paternal involvement at five months. Conversely, mothers' perceptions of greater paternal involvement at two months predict greater parental self-efficacy and marital satisfaction in fathers at five months. This study highlights the importance of the first few months after the birth of a child for perceptions of fatherhood within the couple. Results suggest that when couples become parents, new mothers and fathers mutually influence their respective perceptions relative to fatherhood. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved)     

Cognitive triad: relationship to depressive symptoms, parents' cognitive triad, and perceived parental messages

Evaluating the relationship between children's depressogenic thinking, children's depressive symptoms, parents' depressogenic thinking, and perceived parental messages about the self, world, and future was the primary objective of this investigation. Children (n = 133) from grades 4 to 7 completed measures of depression and anxiety, including a semistructured clinical interview, a measure of their cognitive triad, and a measure of perceived parental messages about the self, world, and future. Mothers (n = 112) and fathers (n = 95) completed a measure of their own cognitive triad. Results of a series of regression analyses revealed that (1) children's views of self, world, and future (cognitive triad) are related to severity of depression; (2) mothers' but not fathers' cognitive triads are related to their children's cognitive triads; (3) perceived parental messages to the children about the self, world, and future are predictive of the children's cognitive triads and ratings of depression; and (4) the relationship between perceived parental messages and depression is completely mediated by children's cognitive triads. Analyses of covariance indicated that the obtained mediational relationship between children's views of self, world, and future, perceived parental messages, and children's depressive symptoms was specific to depressive versus anxious symptomatology. Implications for existing theory and research are discussed.     

Factors mediating problem drinking and mothers' personal adjustment.

Used analysis of structural relations to evaluate a stress process model in which family stress and family system resources (mothers' marital adjustment and positive mother–child relationships) were tested as mediators of the relationship between fathers' and mothers' problem drinking and mothers' personal adjustment. Data from 120 fathers and mothers of 4th–6th graders were used. Fathers' problem drinking was linked to higher family stress, whereas mothers' problem drinking was not. Higher family stress negatively affected both family system resources. Lower family system resources predicted reduced maternal personal adjustment. Thus, family stress (related to fathers' problem drinking) and family system resources functioned as perfect mediators. There were no direct relationships between problem drinking and either family system resources or mothers' personal adjustment. Implications for intervention are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Bridging the divide: Openness in adoption and postadoption psychosocial adjustment among birth and adoptive parents.

Using 323 matched parties of birth mothers and adoptive parents, this study examined the association between the degree of adoption openness (e.g., contact and knowledge between parties) and birth and adoptive parents' postadoption adjustment shortly after the adoption placement (6 to 9 months). Data from birth fathers (N = 112), an understudied sample, were also explored. Openness was assessed by multiple informants. Results indicated that openness was significantly related to satisfaction with adoption process among adoptive parents and birth mothers. Increased openness was positively associated with birth mothers' postplacement adjustment, as indexed by birth mothers' self-reports and the interviewers' impression of birth mothers' adjustment. Birth fathers' report of openness was associated with their greater satisfaction with the adoption process and better postadoption adjustment. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Parents' job insecurity affects children's academic performance through cognitive difficulties.

The authors developed and tested a model in which children who perceive their parents to be insecure about their jobs are distracted cognitively, which in turn affects their academic performance negatively. Participants were 102 female and 18 male undergraduates (mean age?=?18 years), their fathers (mean age?=?49 years), and their mothers (mean age?=?47 years). Students completed questionnaires measuring perceived parental job insecurity, identification with parents, and cognitive difficulties; 3 months later, they also reported their midyear grades. Fathers and mothers each completed questionnaires assessing their job insecurity. Support for the model was obtained using LISREL 8, and as predicted, children's identification with their mothers and fathers moderated the relationship between their perceptions of their mothers' and fathers' job insecurity and their own cognitive difficulties. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Parents' beliefs about their children's cognitive abilities.

Examined mothers' judgments of their children's cognitive abilities and the relation between such judgments and the child's developmental level. 49 1st-grade children responded to tasks drawn from either the Piagetian literature or the Stanford-Binet IQ tests. Ss also completed a vocabulary test drawn from the Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test (PPVT). Subsequently, each S's mother was asked various questions about probable response, both for her own child and for children in general. Results reveal that mothers were more accurate in predicting their child's success or failure on the IQ items than on the Piaget items. In both conditions, overestimations of ability were more common than underestimations. Estimates of age of mastery also showed overestimation, in some cases by several years. Data collected from 12 fathers indicate that fathers' patterns of response were similar to those of their wives. The correlations between accurate predictions by the mother and correct answers by the child were .85 in the Piaget condition and .49 in the IQ condition. Findings are compatible with the match hypothesis, which posits that the mother's knowledge of her child enables her to create an optimally challenging environment. (11 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The Intergenerational Transmission of Perfectionism: Parents' Psychological Control as an Intervening Variable.

The present study investigated the role of parental (adaptive and maladaptive) intrapersonal perfectionism as a predictor of parental psychological control and the role of parents' psychological control in the intergenerational transmission of perfectionism in a sample of female late adolescents and their parents. First, parental maladaptive perfectionism, but not parental adaptive perfectionism, significantly predicted parents' psychological control even when controlling for parents' neuroticism. This relationship was found to be stronger for fathers than for mothers. Second, a significant direct relationship was found between mothers' and daughters' maladaptive perfectionism but not between fathers' and daughters' maladaptive perfectionism. Third, process analyses showed that, for both mothers and fathers, psychological control is an intervening variable in the relationship between parents' and daughters' maladaptive perfectionism. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)