Examined the utility of a 2-step ecological model in predicting externalizing behavior among 144 African American seventh and eighth graders. Found that parental work environment and parental social support had an indirect impact on externalizing by influencing the microsystem variables of parental warmth, parental use of restrictive control, and…

Examined the constructs of connectedness and autonomy in relation to 5-year-olds' relational competence, including socioemotional orientation, friendship, and peer acceptance. Found that connectedness was correlated with children's socioemotional orientations, number of mutual friendships, and peer acceptance, and that the relation between…

Examines signs of mental distress in the general population of normal adolescents. Results, based on 871 Israeli high school students, indicate that greater physical punishment was associated with higher levels of psychiatric symptoms and lower general well-being. Results persisted after controlling for parental attitudes and socioeconomic status.…

Examined parent-child interaction during toddlers'"terrible twos" stage. Found that families experiencing difficulty could be identified, troubled behavior could be predicted based on family ecology, and families at moderate and high contextual risk were more likely to experience troublesome behavior when the child experienced 20 or more hours per…

Examined influence of parental affective behavior and control behaviors on children's classroom acceptance. Videotapes of kindergartner/parent dyads and ratings of child social acceptance indicated that parents' expressed positive and negative affect were related to acceptance in kindergarten and in first grade. The most powerful and consistent…

Examines the relationship between parent-child interaction and a child's social status. Screened and rated third-grade children (n=82) as neglected, rejected, or average, by peer and teacher nomination. Observed children interacting with their mothers and cooperating on a task. Findings suggest a relationship between parent behavior and children's…

Studied Baumrind's approach to parenting style to examine the relations between parenting style and preschool children's social competence manifested through peer play. Found that mothers' and fathers' parenting style is related to children's play with peers, with an authoritative parenting style correlating to more complex levels of play. (SD)

Examined early childhood antecedents and behavior-problem correlates of monitoring and psychological control during early adolescence. Found that monitoring was anteceded by proactive parenting style and advantageous family-ecological characteristics. Psychological control was anteceded by harsh parenting and mothers' report of earlier child…

We conducted 2 studies to (a) establish the usefulness of the construct of home chaos, (b) investigate its correlates, and (c) determine the validity of the Confusion, Hubbub, and Order Scale (CHAOS) used to measure the construct in each study. Study 1 relied on a sample of European American preschoolers and their mothers and Study 2 on a sample…

This article argues that a culturally approved style of nonverbal parent-infant interaction influences the unfolding parent-child relationship and the child's social development. The author, an anthropologist, compares parenting styles in the "low-contact" culture of the United States with parenting in the "high-contact"…

The authors selected 58 mother-child dyads from divorced and intact families to participate in a study on the impact of divorce on preschoolers' attachment security. The authors explored pathways that lead to security of attachment. They found that mothers from divorced families were younger, had lower income levels, and had lower levels of…

The relations among maternal concern and restrictiveness, self-evaluated academic competence, and life satisfaction were explored in a short-term longitudinal study of 346 7th-grade students (126 males and 220 females) in Hong Kong. The authors found that perceived maternal concern, academic competence, and life satisfaction significantly declined…

Children's rights to nurturance and self-determination have been included in social policy agendas for many years. Children's and parents' attitudes concerning children's rights are likely an important determinant of whether rights on paper actually serve to protect the well-being of children, yet there is little research on factors associated…

The number of children who are adopted from foreign orphanages is on the rise in the U.S. Children who are reared in orphanages face a host of challenges to their healthy development and to their ability to form close, satisfying attachments with their new parents. The authors describe a group intervention used by the Yale International …

The study investigates everyday parental practices involved in the transmission of cultural values and extends current literature on parenting in Chinese families. Children aged 6, 8, and 10 years from 240 Beijing families, and both their parents, were asked about ways in which expectations of child responsibility are transmitted through routine…