The contribution of parenting practices in a risk and resiliency model of children's adjustment

A risk and resiliency model of children's adjustment was evaluated, with a focus on the relationship of parenting practices to risk and protective factors. Risk factors included family stress, family conflict, parent psychopathology and low socio‐economic status. Protective factors included family cohesion, family social support and family moral– religious orientation. The research hypothesis was that parenting practices would have a direct effect on child outcomes, as well as a moderating effect on the relationship between risk and protective factors and child outcomes. Three different outcomes were utilized: disruptive behaviour disorders, adaptive emotional functioning and school achievement. Participants were 80 children aged 6–12 years and their mothers. Hierarchical regression analyses suggested that the combination of family risk and protection and parenting practices was highly predictive of child functioning for both disruptive externalizing behaviours and positive emotional adaptation. It was found that negative family factors were more highly associated with negative child outcomes, whereas positive family factors were more highly associated with positive child outcomes. Family risk factors and poor parenting primarily accounted for the variance in externalizing child behaviours. Alternately, family protective factors and positive parenting primarily accounted for the variance in child adaptive behaviours. Parenting practices had a direct effect on child outcomes, but was not a strong moderator of the relationship between risk and protection factors and child outcomes.     

Helping military families through the deployment process: Strategies to support parenting

Recent studies have highlighted the impact of deployment on military families and children and the corresponding need for interventions to support them. Historically, however, little emphasis has been placed on family-based interventions in general, and parenting interventions in particular, with returning service members. This paper provides an overview of research on the associations between combat deployment, parental adjustment of service members and spouses, parenting impairments, and children's adjustment problems, and provides a social interaction learning framework for research and practice to support parenting among military families affected by a parent's deployment. We then describe the Parent Management Training-Oregon model (PMTO(?)), a family of interventions that improves parenting practices and child adjustment in highly stressed families, and briefly present work on an adaptation of PMTO for use in military families (After Deployment: Adaptive Parenting Tools, or ADAPT). The article concludes with PMTO-based recommendations for clinicians providing parenting support to military families.     

Parent and child adjustment dual trajectories at the beginning of the COVID-19 syndemic

Children and their families have been significantly impacted by the unfolding of the COVID-19 syndemic. We sought to identify (1) groups of families with distinct profiles of joint trajectories of parental anxiety and child emotional distress and (2) protective and risk factors associated with these dual-trajectory profiles. A sample of 488 parents (65% White; 77% mothers) with 3- to 8-year-old children (M_Age = 5.04, SD_Age = 1.59) was followed from late March to early July in 2020. Survey data on parent (i.e., anxiety symptoms) and child (i.e., emotional distress) adjustment were collected at three time points. Using multivariate growth mixture modeling, we identified one group with low parental anxiety and child emotional distress (42.7%) and three other distinct groups with varying risk levels among parents and/or children. We also identified protective (e.g., positive parenting) and risk (e.g., child negative affect, negative parenting, perceived stress with racism) factors in predicting parent and child adjustment. It can be concluded that, overall, our sample (mostly middle- and high-socioeconomic status families) demonstrated family resilience amid COVID-19, consistent with prior disaster coping literature. At the same time, our findings also indicated the need to identify at-risk families and modifiable factors for post-disaster public health interventions.     

A Model of Intention to Participate in Parenting Interventions: The Role of Parent Cognitions and Behaviors

A wide range of factors, from perceived child behavior problems to sociocultural factors, have been identified as impacting the engagement of parents in parenting interventions. However, parents’ cognitions and behaviors have not been evaluated sufficiently to understand their role in initial parental engagement. The current study aimed to examine why some parents are more likely to want to participate in parenting programs and how their cognitions and behaviors are related to their intention to participate in future parenting interventions. We tested the hypothesised model of parental factors on intention to participate using structural equation modelling (SEM) in AMOS. This study (N = 6,733) analyzed existing data from the International Parenting Survey (IPS), a web-based tool developed to collect information about parents’ views on family and parenting at a population level in several countries. Results showed that parents’ coercive parenting, parental consistency, positive encouragement, relationship with their child, parental self-efficacy, psychological distress, and help-seeking behaviors were significantly related to their intention to participate in future parenting interventions. The structural model of parents’ cognitions and behaviors explained 16% of the variance in intention to participate. Although the current model explained a small but significant percentage of the variance, it expands existing understanding regarding parental cognitions and behaviors and their relationship to intention. Implications for further research and engagement practice are discussed.     

Child Adjustment and Parent Efficacy Scale: Development and Initial Validation of a Parent Report Measure

This study examined the psychometric characteristics of the Child Adjustment and Parent Efficacy Scale (CAPES). The CAPES was designed as a brief outcome measure in the evaluation of both public health and individual or group parenting interventions. The scale consists of a 30‐item intensity scale with two subscales measuring children's behaviour problems and emotional maladjustment and a 20‐item self‐efficacy scale that measures parent's self‐efficacy in managing specific child problem behaviours. A sample of 347 parents of 2–12‐year‐old children participated in the study. Psychometric evaluation of the CAPES revealed that both the intensity and self‐efficacy scales had good internal consistency, as well as satisfactory convergent and discriminant validity. Potential uses of the measure and implications for future validation studies are discussed.     

The Communities That Care (CTC) Family Attachment Scale: Measurement Invariance Across Family Structures

Familial protective factors are an integral part of prevention approaches aimed at problematic behaviour in adolescents. However, there is scarce evidence on the role of familial protective factors in families deviating from the two-parent family configuration. For evaluating targeted (preventive) interventions, a reliable and valid measurement of familial protective factors is crucial. We investigated the factor structure of the Communities That Care (CTC) Family Attachment Scale and tested its measurement invariance in different family structures. Adolescents (n?=?2.459, grades 6–11) from Lower Saxony, Germany filled in the German version of the CTC Youth Survey. Our analyses focused on the CTC Family Attachment Scale measuring the adolescent’s attachment to the mother and the father with six items. We evaluated the postulated unidimensional structure of the scale by confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) and tested the measurement invariance using multigroup factor analyses across different family structures (two-parent family/single-parent family). We used SPSS V.23 and the R packages lavaan and semTools. The two-factor solution for the CTC Family Attachment Scale with one factor representing attachment to the mother and one indicating attachment to the father had an adequate model fit in the total sample (χ²(5)?=?29.938; p?<?.001; CFI?=?.996; TLI?=?.988; RMSEA?=?.050, SRMR?=?.019). This two-factor solution of the CTC Family Attachment Scale showed strong measurement invariance regarding adolescents living in a two-parent family vs. those living with a single parent. The two-factor CTC Family Attachment Scale appears to be a suitable measure to assess family attachment in both two-parent and single-parent families with German adolescents.     

父母教养方式对青少年社会适应的影响:人格类型的调节作用

采用青少年父母教养方式问卷、青少年小五人格问卷和青少年社会适应评估问卷对六城市的2288名中学生进行调查,探讨父母教养方式对青少年社会适应的影响及人格类型在其中的调节作用。结果发现:(1)青少年父母教养方式可分为民主型、权威型、专制型和忽视型四种,所占比例分别为35.2%、16.9%、20.8%、27.1%,不同父母教养类型的青少年在社会适应、人格五因素各维度上的差异达到显著水平;(2)除撤回爱护与行事效率之间相关不显著外,父母教养行为与青少年社会适应各维度相关均达到显著水平;(3)人格类型可以调节父母教养行为对青少年社会适应的预测作用,表现在支持陪伴、自主准予及知晓度对积极适应的影响以及规则引导、自主准予及知晓度对消极适应的影响。     

Confirmatory Factor Analysis of Arnold et al.’s Parenting Scale Across Race, Age, and Sex

We used confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) to investigate the factor structure of several models of Arnold et al.’s Parenting Scale [Arnold et al. (1993). Psychological Assessment, 5, 137–144] across children from various age groups and races. Participants were parents of children (ages 2–16 years) presenting to four community-based pediatric practices for routine care. Parents completed questionnaires pertaining to various aspects of parenting and child behavior problems. Results indicated that a two-factor revision proposed by Reitman et al. [(2001). Journal of Clinical Child Psychology, 30, 514–524] represented the data well and better than the original three-factor structure and other two-factor models. Results from multigroup CFA analyses indicated that this factor structure did not vary across child sex, child age, and parental race. Results of validity analyses indicated that scores on both factors were related to reports of children’s behavior and parental affect and cognitions. This study was the first to use multigroup CFA procedures to demonstrate that relationships between individual items and factors of the Parenting Scale are similar for parents of children across various age groups.     

Parenting stress and external stressors as predictors of maternal ratings of child adjustment

This study sought to disentangle the effects of different kinds of stress on maternal ratings of child externalizing and internalizing problems, social inhibition, and social competence, with a primary focus on parenting stress. The relations were explored in a sample consisting of mothers of 436 children (M_age = 7 years) in Sweden. Half the sample had had early clinical contacts during infancy due to child regulation problems, and the rest were mothers without known such early contacts. Demographic factors, family stressors, and parenting stress were examined in stress – adjustment models. Family stressors were clinical contact during infancy, current child and parent health problems, recent negative life events, and insufficient social support. Parenting stress as a mediator of the effect of other stressors on rated child adjustment was tested as was social support as a moderator of the effect of parenting stress on adjustment. The results showed that a higher parenting stress level was associated with maternal ratings of more externalizing and internalizing behaviors, more social inhibition, and lower social competence. Other family stressors and background variables were also found to be of importance, mainly for externalizing and internalizing problems and to some extent for social competence. Social inhibition had a unique relation to parenting stress only. Parenting stress mediated effects of other stressors in twelve models, whereas social support had no moderating effect on the link between parenting stress and child adjustment. Thus, parenting stress seems to be an important overarching construct. Clinical implications are proposed.     

The Role of Parenting Programmes in the Prevention of Child Maltreatment

Child maltreatment is a major worldwide concern and continuing high rates of abuse demand action. This article examines the role of parenting programmes as a strategy to prevent child maltreatment in the population as a whole and also as a targeted intervention for parents who have abused, or are at risk of abusing, their children. We argue that a blend of universal and targeted interventions is needed to reduce the prevalence of child maltreatment. Parenting interventions that concurrently target positive parenting and effective child management skills, dysfunctional parental attributions, and increasing parents' capacity to regulate their emotions are particularly useful. A variant of the Triple P—Positive Parenting Program, known as Pathways Triple P, is discussed to illustrate the value of this approach. Contextual factors that need to be addressed in working with child protection cases are also discussed. The role of training and supervision is discussed in the context of disseminating evidence‐based parenting programmes, and future directions for research are presented.     

The Weaving Healthy Families program: Promoting parenting practices,family resilience,and communal mastery

Parenting quality, family resilience, and community resilience and support have been found to be primary protective factors for the disproportionate burden of anxiety, posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), substance use disorder (SUD), depression, and suicide that US Indigenous youth and adults tend to experience. The purpose of this research study was to examine pilot results for outcomes related to relational factors for Indigenous family members who participated in the Weaving Healthy Families (WHF) program (translated to Chukka Auchaffi’ Natana, in the Choctaw tribal language), a culturally grounded and empirically informed program geared toward promoting wellness, family resilience, parenting practices, and community resilience while also preventing SUD and violence. This nonrandomized pre-experimental pilot intervention followed a longitudinal design, which included pre-test, a post-test, and a 6-, 9-, and 12-month post-intervention follow-up surveys. Repeated-measures regressions were utilized with generalized estimating equations (GEE) to examine changes in parenting, family resilience, and communal mastery before and after the intervention for 24 adults and adolescents (12–17) across eight tribal families. Results indicate that the overall quality of parenting improved, as measured by improved parental monitoring and reductions in inconsistent discipline and corporal punishment. We identified sex differences in positive parenting, poor monitoring, and corporal punishment, with greater decreases in these measures among males over time. Family resilience and communal mastery improved for adolescent and adult participants after the WHF program. Our results indicate promising improvements across relational, familial, and community ecological, which provide clear clinical implications.     

Marital interaction, family organization, and differences in parenting behavior: explaining variations across family interaction contexts.

Family systems theories remind us that, in two-parent families, children encounter their parents in multiple family configurations, including parent-child dyads and mother-father-child triads, or whole families. There are, however, relatively few empirical investigations of differences in parenting behavior which tend to emerge when a dyad is transformed into a whole family unit. Using a sample of 82 families with a kindergarten-age child, the present study offers support to earlier studies reporting that mothers' and fathers' parenting behavior differs when observed in dyadic and whole family interaction sessions. The present study then turns to examining explanations for these differences in parenting behavior. Limited support was found for the hypothesis that observations of marital interaction are associated with differences in parenting behavior across family interaction contexts. Family level assessment of adaptive organization was found to explain differences in fathers' parenting in the dyad and when the entire family is together, but not differences in mothers' parenting behavior. The clinical and methodological implications of these findings are discussed.     

Effectiveness of Group Positive Parenting Program (Triple P) in Changing Child Behavior,Parenting Style,and Parental Adjustment: An Intervention Study in Japan

The purpose of this study is to investigate the effectiveness of a group-based family intervention program known as the Group Positive Parenting Program (Triple P), with families in Japan. Reductions in children’s behavioral problems, changes in dysfunctional parenting practices, and affects on parenting adjustment were examined. Participants of both the intervention and control groups (N = 91 and N = 24, respectively) were recruited from mothers visiting health clinics in Kawasaki City, Kanagawa. Intervention and control groups were assessed in terms of child behavior (Strength and Difficulty Questionnaire, SDQ), parenting style (Parenting Scale, PS), and parenting adjustment (Depression-Anxiety-Stress Scale, DASS; and Parenting Experience Survey, PES), both pre- and postintervention. A repeated measures multivariate analysis of variance was used to determine the intervention’s effects. The SDQ score for the conduct problems subscale indicated a significant intervention effect. In addition, the postintervention scores for all subscales of the PS, the DASS depression subscale and total scores, as well as ratings for perceived difficulty of parenting in the PES, were significantly reduced in the intervention group alone. The PES also revealed that confidence in parenting significantly increased only in the intervention group. Group Triple P is effective in decreasing child conduct problems, dysfunctional parenting practices, depression, anxiety, stress, and the perceived level of parenting difficulty, as well as in improving parenting confidence, among Japanese families.     

Testing a Military Family Stress Model

The current study examines a military family stress model, evaluating associations between deployment‐related stressors (i.e., deployment length/number, posttraumatic stress disorder [PTSD] symptoms) and parent, child, parenting, and dyadic adjustment among families in which a parent had previously deployed to Iraq or Afghanistan in the recent conflicts. Married families (N = 293) with at least one child between the ages of 4 and 12 were recruited from a Midwestern state. Service members were from the Reserve Component (National Guard or Reserves); fathers (N = 253) and/or mothers had deployed (N = 45) to the recent conflicts in the Middle East. Multiple‐method (observations of parenting and couple interactions; questionnaires) and multiple informant measures were gathered online and in the homes of participants, from parents, children, and teachers. Findings demonstrated associations between mothers’ and fathers’ PTSD symptoms and a latent variable of child adjustment comprising teacher, parent, and child report. Mothers’ but not fathers’ PTSD symptoms were also associated with dyadic adjustment and parenting practices; parenting practices were in turn associated with child adjustment. The results are discussed in terms of their implications for military family stress research and interventions to support and strengthen parents and families after deployment.     

Development and Validation of a Short Form of the Alabama Parenting Questionnaire

Brief assessments of parenting practices can provide important information about the development of disruptive behavior disorders in children. We examined the factor structure of a widely used assessment of parenting practices, the Alabama Parenting Questionnaire, and produced a 9-item short scale around its three supported factors: Positive Parenting, Inconsistent Discipline and Poor Supervision. The short scale was then validated in independent community samples using confirmatory factor analysis and measures of disruptive behavioral disorders in children. The scale showed good fit to a three-factor model and good convergent validity by differentiating parents of children with disruptive behavioral disorders and parents of children without such disorders. Results indicated that this new measure is an informative tool for researchers and clinicians whom require brief assessments of parenting practices relating to disruptive behavioral disorders in children.     

Triple P-Positive Parenting Program: Towards an Empirically Validated Multilevel Parenting and Family Support Strategy for the Prevention of Behavior and Emotional Problems in Children

This paper outlines the theoretical and empirical foundations of a unique multilevel parenting and family support strategy designed to reduce the prevalence of behavioral and emotional problems in preadolescent children. The program known as Triple P-Positive Parenting Program is a multilevel system of family intervention, which provides five levels of intervention of increasing strength. These interventions include a universal population-level media information campaign targeting all parents, two levels of brief primary care consultations targeting mild behavior problems, and two more intensive parent training and family intervention programs for children at risk for more severe behavioral problems. The program aims to determine the minimally sufficient intervention a parent requires in order to deflect a child away from a trajectory towards more serious problems. The self-regulation of parental skill is a central construct in the program. The program uses flexible delivery modalities (including individual face-to-face, group, telephone assisted, and self-directed programs) to tailor the strength of the intervention to the requirements of individual families. Its multidisciplinary, preventive and community-wide focus gives the program wide reach, permitting the targeting of destigmatized access points through primary care services for families who are reluctant to participate in parenting skills programs. The available empirical evidence supporting the efficacy of the program is discussed and its implications for research on dissemination are discussed.     

Children of depressed parents: an integrative review

This article reviews the various literatures on the adjustment of children of depressed parents, difficulties in parenting and parent-child interaction in these families, and contextual factors that may play a role in child adjustment and parent depression. First, issues arising from the recurrent, episodic, heterogeneous nature of depression are discussed. Second, studies on the adjustment of children with a depressed parent are summarized. Early studies that used depressed parents as controls for schizophrenic parents found equivalent risk for child disturbance. Subsequent studies using better-defined samples of depressed parents found that these children were at risk for a full range of adjustment problems and at specific risk for clinical depression. Third, the parenting difficulties of depressed parents are described and explanatory models of child adjustment problems are outlined. Contextual factors, particularly marital distress, remain viable alternative explanations for both child and parenting problems. Fourth, important gaps in the literature are identified, and a consistent, if unintentional, "mother-bashing" quality in the existing literature is noted. Given the limitations in knowledge, large-scale, long-term, longitudinal studies would be premature at this time.     

Factor Structure of the Parenting Scale in a Low-Income African American Sample

We evaluated the relative goodness-of-fit of two factor structures of the Parenting Scale (Arnold, O'Leary, Wolf, {&} Acker, 1993) among two samples of low-income African American families. Participants included 271 mother-child dyads from urban and rural areas in the southern and southeastern US, who completed the Parenting Scale along with other measures of parenting style and dyadic relationship. Confirmatory Factor Analyses (CFA) indicated that a two-factor solution, comprising Laxness and Overreactivity dimensions, was the better fit to the data. Some direct evidence for convergent validity was provided by a correlation between the Laxness factor of the Parenting Scale and the Firm/Lax Control subscale of the Children's Report of Parenting Behavior Inventory (CRPBI). Results are discussed in term of Brody and Flor's (1998) “no nonsense” parenting style.     

Evaluation of an Air Force Child Physical Abuse Prevention Project Using the Reliable Change Index

Three hundred and seventy-nine parents at 25 Air Force bases participated in a collaborative child physical abuse prevention project designed by the United States Air Force Family Advocacy Program and Father Flanagan's Boys' Home (Boys Town). These participants were active duty or civilian employee parents and their spouses who completed the Boys Town Common Sense Parenting ® program as part of a comprehensive prevention effort. We hypothesized that participants would report decreased child behavior problems, improved relationships with family members, and reduced risk for child physical abuse after attending parenting sessions. Results supported this hypothesis. The data were also analyzed to determine the frequencies of individual parents who made statistically reliable changes on the dependent measures using Jacobson's Reliable Change Index. Nineteen to 30% of the participants reported significant improvement in the areas assessed. Parents who improved in abuse risk were at a higher level of risk and were less satisfied with family relationships prior to their participation than those who did not change. Implications for prevention of child physical abuse and future directions for research are discussed.