Research Findings: Despite the fact that the universal two-child policy had a significant impact on family structure and parenting behaviors, there is still a paucity of study on the mechanisms underlying this policy's effects. This study explored the role of social competence and sibling presence in the relationship between maternal warmth and…

As children spend more time in the digital world, numerous researchers have studied access to and use of the internet. They pointed out the positive and negative consequences of that. However, despite the importance of children's conscious use of the internet and parental guidance, the awareness and needs of parents in this area have not been…

Background: There is an established link between depression and drug use among adolescents. This relationship holds true for Hispanic youth, for whom familial relationships are especially impactful toward health outcomes. Purpose: Our purpose was to examine the relationships between family functioning and adolescent and parent depressive symptoms,…

Feeling loved by one's parents is critical for children's health and well-being. How can such feelings be fostered? A vital feature of loving interactions is reciprocal self-disclosure, where individuals disclose intimate information about themselves. In a proof-of-concept experiment, we examined whether encouraging reciprocal self-disclosure in…

Risky sexual behaviors in adolescence continue to be a social problem that impacts individuals, families, and communities across the United States. Previous research showed that parents who actively talk with their adolescents about sex and intimacy topics reduce their likelihood of engaging in these behaviors. Still, less is known about what…

Book distribution or book provision programs that provide free books to families with young children have become increasingly popular approaches to promote home literacy practices. This qualitative study aimed to understand parents' perceptions of the implementation of a book provision program and its impact on their families' literacy practices…

Feeding difficulties occur at a high rate in children with normal development and at a disproportionally high rate in children with developmental disabilities. Prolonged problematic eating, categorized as Pediatric Feeding Disorder (PFD), can result in poor physical growth and jeopardize overall health. Extant research on applied behavior analysis…

Communication is an indispensable element for the individual to exist in society. The individual has his first communication experiences in the family. The communication an individual establishes with his or her parents in early childhood shapes his or her entire life. The positive and effective communication process established in the family…

We examined parent activation in families with autistic children over time. Activation is one's belief, knowledge, and persistence in obtaining and managing one's care (e.g., patient activation) and others (e.g., parent activation) and is associated with better outcomes. Four aims were examined: the associations between baseline parent activation…

A successful transition into adulthood is marked by occupational identity. From the developmental perspective, it is vital to examine the occupational perceptions of college students who grew up in distinct social and psychological environments from previous generations. To bridge the research gap, this study is to examine college students'…

While previous studies have demonstrated correlations between children and adolescents' evaluations of lies and lie-telling behaviors, the temporal order of these associations over time and changes across this developmental period remain unexamined. The current study examined longitudinal associations among children and adolescents' (N = 1128;…

Prior theoretical and empirical research has highlighted links between positive parenting and the socioeconomic characteristics of the family's neighborhood, but has yet to illuminate the etiologic origins of this association. One possibility is that the various predictors of parenting outlined by Belsky (1984; e.g., characteristics of the child,…

Perceived parenting is a crucial and complex factor for the psychological well-being of adolescents. The Adolescent Family Process Short-Form (AFP-SF) investigates the perception of adolescents' maternal and paternal parenting across six dimensions: closeness, support, communication, monitoring, peer approval, and conflict. This was the first…

This study reports feasibility, fidelity and acceptability of a pilot of START; a 12-week parent-toddler, group-based, neurodiversity-affirming programme aiming to support executive function development in toddlers at elevated likelihood of autism or ADHD. After 4 days' training, community early years practitioner pairs delivered START to 13 UK…

Infant pointing is predictive of later language development, but little is known about factors enhancing the development of pointing. The current study investigated two possible social learning mechanisms in the development of pointing. Given that infants observe their caregivers' pointing gestures from early on, one possibility is learning via…