Elaborating on two main styles of multiple caretaking, this paper discusses those aspects of the mother-nanny relationship which influence the optimal care of the child. A caretaking style based in denial involves obliterating, denying, and distracting the child from his painful emotional experiences, fostering "the stiff upper lip," and…

The two studies reported here explore recent findings indicating that few relationships exist between environmental stimulation and cognitive development during the first 6 months of life. In the first study, three separate home visits (two 90 minutes and one 30 minutes long) were used to assess the physical and social environments of 100…

Working with the entire junior class of a suburban, middle-class high school, researchers investigated the effects of family stability on student performance, using the Iowa Test of Educational Development as an achievement measure. A statistical test was applied to two groups of students, representing stability or lack of stability in the family…

This paper discusses the stresses our society places on parents, the influence of fathers on their children's development, how parents can actively influence development, individual differences in temperament among children, and environmental as well as ecological factors that affect the development of children. Concluding remarks focus on the…

The Family Expedition is a federally funded program designed to foster healthy changes in families with troubled adolescents through multifamily adventure therapy experiences. Each Family Expedition cycle is 4 months long, consisting of six multifamily sessions and three home visits. Each 90-minute home visit gives families time to focus on…

The goal of this analysis was to examine gender differences in the experiences of children and adolescents found on city streets. It has been proposed that girls who leave home to seek their survival on city streets are from more disturbed families than boys, reflecting cultural factors that result in differential norms for male and female…

This paper presents findings of a study that examined relationships between several antecedent variables (student ability, family environment, and school climate) and student academic achievement. The research also examined the role of motivation as a moderator between ability and academic achievement, and as a mediating variable between family…

This study examined children's attention to formal features and other attributes during television viewing. Subjects were 40 children, ages 2, 5, 8 and 11 years old, who were videotaped watching television at home during a 10-day period. Among other attributes, children's visual attention to television was coded, along with television program…

Parents, teachers, and other caregivers need to be aware of certain fundamental concepts to protect children from assault, abuse, and neglect. Among other things, children need: to understand what being a "stranger" means; to have sources of self-esteem (that thrive when children are loved unconditionally); to have good communication…

One preschool-age child's literacy-oriented, self-initiated games and play are described in this report. Some of the games used decontextualized print, some focused on contextualized written language, some were number games, and some involved letters and words. Commercially produced games were used in addition to games constructed at home; these…

Research has shown that differences among ordinary people in intelligence and personality depend equally on individual genetic variability and on differences in the environments that siblings experience within the same family, not differences in the neighborhood, school, and community environments. As of yet, there are no adequate theories to…

In 1966, James Coleman's massive American schooling survey concluded that family background was principally associated with the existing inequities in cognitive achievement. Coleman's conclusion about schooling's minimal influence on academic performance violated an educational consciousness viewing school as the "great equalizer." Two…

Twenty families in the San Francisco Bay area (California) with new Atari home video game sets were studied from February through June 1981 to obtain data on how the game-playing affected family interaction. Records of play were kept for one week each month and each family member was interviewed at the beginning and the end of the study. It was…

The influence of the home environment on the original thinking of 66 Indian preschoolers was investigated. Subjects were 36 boys and 30 girls (mean age, 4.6 years) randomly selected from a pool of 127 children from 7 classrooms in a preschool run by a quasi-governmental corporation. Tests were given in the child's first language, which was either…

The purpose of this article is to review the problem of child abuse and neglect, discuss the implications of the abusive/neglectful environment, and present possible intervention strategies focused upon both parent and school or day care settings. The introductory section focuses briefly on the complexities of defining child abuse and neglect and…