Discusses the role that parents, schools, and mental health professionals can play in helping children cope with violence. Examines the factors associated with child vulnerability and resilience, posttraumatic stress disorder, the role of parental support in mediating the effects of trauma, obstacles to parental support, school-based…

Discusses efforts to criminalize fetal abuse, harm caused from a pregnant woman's use of illegal drugs. Such efforts have typically failed to withstand judicial scrutiny. Suggests that criminal prosecution for fetal abuse relies on questionable procedures, is unevenly applied, and may keep women from seeking drug treatment or prenatal care. (LKS)

Discusses the growing use of mediation in U.S. juvenile justice. Identifies the goals of youth mediation programs. Describes prevention and intervention program models and school, parent-child, victim-juvenile offender, and youth corrections mediation efforts. Argues that communities must be proactive in building citizen participation and forming…

Takes the position, contrary to that of Sandra Scarr, that the details of socialization patterns are crucial to an understanding of normal and deviant development. Research is cited to support the argument that better than adequate parenting optimizes the development of both normal and vulnerable children and that parents' belief in their own…

Assesses the effectiveness of a mother-focused, neonatal hospital-based intervention program in which 12 low socioeconomic group mothers in Boston participated in a structured developmental and behavioral assessment of their premature infants, with the goal of enhancing their ability to provide appropriate interactions and environmental…

Parents' childrearing behaviors are guided by schemas of the caregiving role, their functioning in that role, what children need in general, and what their own children are like in particular. Sometimes, however, parenting schemas can be maladaptive because they are too rigid or simple, involve inappropriate content, or are dominated by negative…

This paper aims to explore factors influencing the parenting of adolescents and investigate what constitutes a helpful therapeutic intervention for a parent whose adolescent refuses or fails to engage in therapeutic treatment. Three areas of research and theory are explored: findings from the socialization approach to parenting and from attachment…

Background: Behavioural and emotional problems occur at a high rate in children and adolescents with intellectual disability, often from a young age. Some studies have indicated that children and adolescents with autism present with even higher rates. Less is known about the presentation, development and family impact of these difficulties in…

Lifestyles of parents of autistic children were assessed through volunteer participation in a telephone survey, and comparisons were made between responses of mothers (N=21) and fathers (N=12). Almost half of the fathers contacted did not answer the survey. The study examined a variety of therapy-related and demographic variables, including…

In contrast to research models that allude to the deficiencies of children whose parents are characterized as at-risk, this literature review focuses on the potential achievements of these children. The review attempts to heighten awareness of the efforts of researchers to provide a theoretical basis for advancing programs that foster a positive…

This newsletter issue emphasizes the ways in which adolescence and its associated stages provide windows of opportunity for programmatic intervention and prevention strategies. Articles in the newsletter include the following: (1) "Developing Support Programs for Families with Adolescents"; (2) "Communicating with Your…

Activities and accomplishments of the Napa (California) program for disabled infants, birth to 5 years old, are summarized; and forms and program materials are presented. Components of the program, which served 25 children (birth to 3 years old) in 1981-1982, are discusssed as follows: early identification of children at risk; developmental…

Developed by an outreach project for handicapped children 0 to 5 years of age and their parents in rural Maine, these 18 bulletins address topics related to living with a handicapped child. Directed toward parents, the bulletins touch on the following topics: parents' feelings, handicapped children's needs to be treated as normally as possible,…

This study evaluates the impact of the Parent Linking Project III (PLP III) on its participants. The PLP III is a comprehensive program for teenage mothers which offers workshops in parenting, mother-child interaction, and vocational awareness, and provides day care services that allow teen mothers to take the opportunity to complete their high…

The prevention of child abuse is bound up in the joining together of social nurturance and social control, which flow directly from the concept of support systems. Families involved in maltreatment are likely to be cut off from prosocial support systems. In contrast to psychiatric approaches, more recent behavioristic methods concentrate on…