Child rearing

The purpose of this nursing research study was to gain a deeper understanding of the grandmother's experience of raising grandchildren when parents are substance abusers. The question guiding the study was: What is it like to be a grandmother raising grandchildren? Using van Manen's (1990) phenomenological approach, three grandmothers described their experience of raising grandchildren during tape recorded conversational interviews. Following hermeneutical thematic analysis of the transcribed texts, one overarching metatheme emerged: Transcending the Struggle of Becoming A Mother the Second Time Around. Five essential themes descriptive of the phenomenon emerged: (1) Undergoing a Change in Lifestyle; (2) Struggling Day to Day; (3) Bonding With Grandchildren; (4) Providing Guidance to Grandchildren; and, (5) Maintaining A Positive Attitude. This research study's findings portrayed the grandmother raising grandchildren as intentionally focusing on the positive aspects of her lived experience.

The purpose of this study was to explore relations between maternal childrearing styles and children's coping styles during mother-child conflict. Mothers reported on six parenting style dimensions: coercive control, overprotective control, emotional control, constructive control, responsiveness, and positive interaction. Children (mean age 12.01 years) reported on seven dimensions of coping during conflict with their mothers: idealization of parent, endorsement of submission, endorsement of aggression, self-blame, self-efficacy, anger reaction, and fear reaction. Few relations between the maternal variables and the child variables were significant, but those that were made sense. For example, positive interaction with the mother predicted low endorsement of aggression toward her, and maternal emotional control predicted self-blaming coping. Further research should examine whether the effects of maternal styles on children's behavior problems (e.g., aggression, depression) are mediated by children's coping styles.

This phenomenological study reveals the meaning of the experience of parenting a child with attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder. The research participants were six parents who were contacted through a local community based support group or by professional referral. The methodology used for this study was a descriptive qualitative research process with a phenomenological design. Hermeneutic phenomenology as described by van Manen (1990) provided the method of inquiry and analysis for this study. Participants were asked to participate in open-ended, audiotaped interviews describing their subjective experience of parenting. Five essential themes emerged from the analysis of the participants' narrative descriptions.

In A General Theory Of Crime Gottfredson and Hirschi (1990) suggest that "low self-control" is an enduring individual characteristic that is the product of inadequate child-rearing. Sampson and Laub's (1993) Crime In the Making: Pathways and Turning Points Through Life somewhat supports this contention. However, the latter authors also suggest that later life experiences might change the direction of the life path (and self-control). This thesis examines whether adequate child-rearing is the key causal determinant of low self-control in later life. It further tests whether later life-course transitions might alter and/or impact low self-control. The results suggest that the impact of early child-hood experiences continue to have an influence on self-control in later life. However, they also suggest that later life-course events (or transitions) can alter the proposed stability of such control. The implications of these findings are discussed.

The purpose of this study is to investigate the relation between specific measures of child temperament and parent-child interaction in a problem-solving task. One prediction is that children's behavior in a problem solving task will be dictated by their unique temperamental characteristics. It is also thought that child temperament will be related to parental sensitivity to child's emotional cues and understanding as well as teaching strategies and joint decision making. Another prediction is that temperament affects joint attention between children and their parents. Previous research using aggregated dimensions of temperament have found a relation between child temperament and parent-child interaction, however, the relations between specific temperament variables and child attention and parent-child interactions have not been assessed. The aim of this study is to test the hypothesis that child temperament will be related to child behavior, parental behavior and to the level of joint attention between parent and child in the context of a task activity.

The relation of child temperament to parent and child behavior was examined in the context of a problem-solving task. The participants included 8 mothers and 1 father and their children (4 males, 5 females) between the ages of 28 and 32 months who were videotaped as they worked with puzzles in a laboratory playroom. Child temperament was assessed using the Toddler Behavioral Assessment Questionnaire (TBAQ), a parental report instrument. The parent behaviors measured were the use of directives, praise and encouragement, and negative corrections. The child behavior measured was compliance to parental directives. Parent and child behaviors were coded from videotapes of observational sessions. Children's scores on two dimensions of the TBAQ were associated with parenting behavior: Children's scores on the pleasure dimension of temperament were positively associated with parental use of directives, and children's scores on the interest dimension of temperament were negatively associated with parental use of negative corrections. These findings suggest that parents' perceptions of their children's temperaments are associated with their parenting behavior toward their children.

The current study examined changes in mother-child and father-child relationships of 210 participants in a 3-year longitudinal study during the 6th through the 8th grade. In each relationship, latent growth curve models found that negativity had a gradual increase over the course of early adolescence, while the change in positivity during this period depended on the initial levels of positivity during the 6th grade. For those high in positivity during the 6th grade, positivity remained stable from 6th to 8th grade, while for those low in positivity during the 6th grade, positivity decreased substantially during this period. In addition, an examination of the links between the relationship features and adjustment measures, such as internalizing and externalizing problems, found that models with initial rates of the relationships predicting changes in adjustment were ideal in comparison to models with both initial rates of and changes in relationships linked to changes in adjustment.

This one-year longitudinal study was designed to illuminate the direction of the causal arrow between children's perceptions of their mother's behavior and children's attachment style during a period of development that has been relatively neglected in research on attachment - preadolescence. The possibility that children's behavior problems moderate the influence of perceived parenting on attachment, or of attachment on perceived parenting, was also investigated. Participants were an ethnically diverse sample of 407 children (213 girls, 194 boys) who were in the fourth grade at initial testing (M age = 11 years 1 month). Measures included children's perceptions of five maternal behaviors (harassment, overprotectiveness, monitoring, affectionate contact, and reliable support), peer reports of children's behavior problems (internalizing and externalizing), and children's self-perceived attachment styles (preoccupied and avoidant). Contrary to a traditional attachment perspective, there was limited evidence that perceptions of parenting led to change in children's attachment styles. Though children with internalizing problems who perceived their mother as harassing developed preoccupied attachment over time, and children with externalizing problems who perceived their mother as v overprotective developed avoidant attachment over time. However, there was considerable support for the reverse causal hypothesis that children's attachment style influences how they perceive their mother: Preoccupied attachment predicted increasingly favorable perceptions of maternal behavior over time (reduced harassment and increased monitoring), whereas avoidant attachment predicted increasingly unfavorable perceptions of the mother over time (increased harassment, reduced monitoring, reduced affectionate contact, and reduced reliable support). Children's behavior problems moderated a few of these relations.