This study examined parental romantic attachment security as a mediator of prospective associations between hostile interparental conflict and parental discipline (i.e., power-assertive, permissive, and inductive discipline) for mothers and fathers of young children. Furthermore, this study utilized a novel, automatic assessment of romantic…

Conduct problems (CP) are common behaviour difficulties in young children. Poor parenting and caregiver-child attachment relationships are important risk factors of CP, but more research is required to understand their concurrent contribution to CP in the early childhood years. We examined the association of maternal-reported conduct problems (CP)…

An attachment-based, psychotherapeutic parent education course was created for incarcerated mothers and fathers to help improve their ability to provide positive parenting and a more stable home environment for their children. The current study assessed the effects of this parenting curriculum on parents' reported tendencies to be abusive, their…

The importance of warm and democratic parenting styles for optimal social, emotional and cognitive outcomes in children over the age of five is well established. However, there is a dearth of literature exploring variations in parenting styles during infancy, despite many popular parenting books aimed at this period. The primary aim of this study…

The quality of child-mother attachment relationships is context sensitive. Conflict and aggression in the marital relationship as well as aggressive discipline practices may diminish a child's confidence in her or his mother as a secure base. We investigated whether physical aggression against the mother, exposure of the child to it, and use of…

The objective of the present study was to examine associations between children's attachment behavior at early school-age, dimensions of narrative performance, and behavior problems as assessed in middle childhood. Children's attachment patterns with mother were assessed at age 6 (N = 127) using the Main and Cassidy (1988) separation--reunion…

Previous research was extended by connecting maternal attachment representations not only to maternal emotional support and task structuring, but also to maternal discipline. A total number of 62 mothers of preschoolers (M[subscript age] = 54 months) completed the adult attachment interview and a self-report measure of dysfunctional discipline.…

Used behavioral observation and maternal reports to examine the relationship of fearfulness/anxiety, attachment security, and maternal discipline with internalization in 103 toddlers. For relatively fearful/anxious children, gentle maternal discipline that deemphasized power predicted internalization. For relatively fearless children, security of…

The home-based intervention program Video-feedback Intervention to promote Positive Parenting and Sensitive Discipline (VIPP-SD) was tested in a randomized controlled trial with 237 families screened for their 1- to 3-year-old children's relatively high scores on externalizing behavior. VIPP-SD, based on attachment theory and coercion theory,…

This study examined associations between children's and mothers' perceptions of their relationships and children's biased appraisals of hypothetical negative divorce events. Such appraisals have been found to predict children's psychological adjustment. Subjects were 38 custodial, divorced mothers who had not remarried, and their children, of 8 to…