Findings are presented on a U.K. study of 41 gay father families, 40 lesbian mother families, and 49 heterosexual parent families with an adopted child aged 3-9 years. Standardized interview and observational and questionnaire measures of parental well-being, quality of parent-child relationships, child adjustment, and child sex-typed behavior…

Coparenting is associated with child behavior in families with heterosexual parents, but less is known about coparenting among lesbian- and gay-parent families. Associations were studied among self-reported divisions of labor, coparenting observations, and child adjustment ("M[subscript age]" = 3 years) among 104 adoptive families headed…

Bronfenbrenner's (1979) ecological model proposes that events in higher order social ecosystems should influence human development through their impact on events in lower order social ecosystems. This proposition was tested with respect to ecological violence and the development of children's aggression via analyses of 3 waves of data (1 wave…

Guided by family systems theory, the present study sought to identify patterns of family functioning from observational assessments of interparental, parent-child, and triadic contexts. In addition, it charted the implications for patterns of family functioning for children's developmental trajectories of adjustment in the school context across…

This study examined childhood antecedents and developmental outcomes associated with trajectories of mild and harsh parental physical discipline. Interview, questionnaire, and observational data were available from 499 children followed from ages 5 to 16 and from 258 children in an independent sample followed from ages 5 to 15. Analyses indicated…

Examines the relationship between cognitive functioning (as measured by the Bayley Scales of Infant Development) and the symbolic play levels of Down's syndrome children. Symbolic play level was more highly correlated with mental age than with chronological age. Performance on the Infant Behavior Record was also highly correlated with symbolic…

Firstborn children's reaction to sibling birth assessed in 41 families via family interviews at 1 month prepartum and 1, 4, 8, and 12 months postpartum. Familial interaction patterns were observed in semistructured play sessions. Time since the birth of the sibling and sibling gender had significant effects on firstborn children's adjustment.…

Responses of 1- to 2 1/2-year-old children as bystanders to naturally occurring and simulated expressions of anger and affection by others were recorded by mothers trained as observers. Expressions of anger frequently caused distress in the children. Distress responses were significantly more likely when physical attack occurred. Overt signs of…

The single best predictor of maternal teaching, or child response, was ethnicity. Children in this study experienced different learning environments which may result in different skills and expectations brought by them into the classroom. (Authors)

Results indicate that the Home Observation for Measurement of the Environment (HOME) Inventory might be useful for screening Black children in order to identify those at risk for school failure. (Author/RH)

Examined environmental and gene-environment processes linking parenting (affect, control, responsiveness) and preschoolers' behavioral adjustment difficulties (noncompliance, conduct problems). Found that estimates of shared environmental variance and mediation were greatest for observational data, and estimates of child genetic variance and…