Understanding and predicting parental decisions about early childhood immunizations.

This research investigated the factors that influence decisions about immunizations. Women in the third trimester of pregnancy (N=195) rated their likelihood of immunizing their child; stated their reasons for and against immunizing; and rated their perceptions of the benefits and risks of immunization, feelings of responsibility, and anticipated regret if harm occurred. Immunization status was determined at follow-up. Stepwise regression analyses demonstrated that immunization decisions are strongly influenced by omission bias factors such as anticipated responsibility and regret variance (which explained more than 50% of variance). It is suggested that parents may benefit from antenatal decision aids that address omission bias and encourage them to assess benefits and risks of immunizations on the basis of scientific evidence.     

Children of homosexual parents report childhood difficulties

Referenced as both supporting and weakening the case for parenting by homosexuals, 57 life-story narratives of children with homosexual parents published by Rafkin in 1990 and Saffron in 1996 were subjected to content analysis. Children mentioned one or more problems or concerns in 48 (92%) of 52 families. Of the 213 scored problems, 201 (94%) were attributed to the homosexual parent(s). Older daughters in at least 8 (27%) of 30 families and older sons in at least 2 (20%) of 10 families described themselves as homosexual or bisexual. These findings are inconsistent with propositions that children of homosexuals do not differ appreciably from those who live with married parents or that children of homosexuals are not more apt to engage in homosexuality.     

Evaluation of a short-term group therapy program for children with behavior problems and their parents.

The current study investigated the effectiveness of a short-term, cognitive behavioral program for 106 primary school-aged children referred with externalizing behavior problems and their parents, compared with 39 children and their parents on a waiting-list to be treated. Exploring Together' comprised a children's group (anger management, problem-solving and social skills training), a parents' group (parenting skills training and dealing with parents' own issues), and a combined children's and parents' group (to target parent-child interactions). The program reduced children's behavior problems and improved their social skills at home. Changes in children's behaviors and social skills at home were generally maintained at 6- and 12-month follow-up. Implications of the findings for improving interventions for childhood externalizing behavior problems are discussed.     

Evaluation of behavioral group counseling for parents of learning-disabled children

The present study evaluated the effectiveness of a behavioral group counseling program for parent members of the Association for Children with Learning Disabilities. Twentytwo mothers were assigned to two treatment groups (N=5 and N=6) and a control group (N=11). Treatment-group mothers received a series of eight weekly 11/2-hour sessions in which they were taught basic principles and procedures of behavior modification which they could apply to specific childrearing problems. Multiplesuccess criteria (maternal reports, direct observation, frequency counts, and attitudinal measures) were employed to provide a broad-based measurement of outcome. Results indicated that treatment ratings of childrens' conduct and disruption and parental postbehavioral observations of mother-child interactions showed improvement for the behavioral-counseling groups while control-group ratings and behavior observations remained the same. All treatment-group changes were maintained at 3-month follow-up. Consistency of treatment-group data across measures and over time suggests the effectiveness of this approach as a training method. Implications for future research were discussed.     

Randomised clinical trial of a family-based lifestyle intervention for childhood obesity involving parents as the exclusive agents of change

Parent-centred interventions for childhood obesity aim to improve parents' skills and confidence in managing children's dietary and activity patterns, and in promoting a healthy lifestyle in their family. However, few studies assess changes in parenting over the course of treatment. This study describes the evaluation of a lifestyle-specific parenting program (Group Lifestyle Triple P) on multiple child and parent outcomes. One-hundred-and-one families with overweight and obese 4- to 11-year-old children participated in an intervention or waitlist control condition. The 12-week intervention was associated with significant reductions in child BMI z score and weight-related problem behaviour. At the end of the intervention, parents reported increased confidence in managing children's weight-related behaviour, and less frequent use of inconsistent or coercive parenting practices. All short-term intervention effects were maintained at one-year follow-up assessment, with additional improvements in child body size. The results support the efficacy of Group Lifestyle Triple P and suggest that parenting influences treatment outcomes. Further research is needed to evaluate the long-term effectiveness of the intervention and to elucidate the mechanisms of change.     

Latin American immigrant parents and their children's teachers in U.S. early childhood education programmes

For many immigrants, their children's schools offer their first sustained interaction with the major societal institutions of their new countries, and so exploring the ways in which immigrant parents manage their children's educational experiences offers insight into how they adapt to new cultural norms, customs and expectations and how they are treated in return. This study delved into the involvement of Latin American immigrant parents in U.S. education, shifting the traditional focus down from elementary and secondary school to early childhood education. Statistical analysis of nationally representative data revealed that Latina immigrants had lower frequencies of most home‐ and community‐based involvement behaviours than U.S.‐born and foreign‐born parents of varying racial/ethnic backgrounds but higher frequencies of involvement behaviours requiring participation in early childhood education programmes. As a window into these national patterns, qualitative data from an early childhood programme in an immigration‐heavy state revealed that Latina immigrant mothers and their children's teachers often talked about each other as partners in supporting children's educational experiences but that their actual interactions tended to socialise mothers into being more passive recipients of teachers' directives.     

Evaluation of the effects of a childhood depression prevention program

The study aimed to design and evaluate a program for the prevention of childhood depression (“Pozik-Bizi” [in English, “Live-Happily”]), comparing its effects with a socio-emotional intervention program based on cooperative play. The sample comprised 420 students aged 7 to 10?years from the Basque Country, 51.9% were randomly assigned to the experimental condition (“Pozik-Bizi”) program and 48.1% to the control group (“Play program”). Using a pretest-posttest repeated measures experimental design, 7 evaluation instruments were administered. When comparing the two interventions, it was confirmed that those who participated in the “Pozik-Bizi” program significantly decreased their level of clinical maladjustment, school maladjustment, emotional, and behavioral problems, and they increased positive behaviors that inhibit depression. However, the cooperative play program improved self-concept and social skills significantly more than the “Pozik-Bizi” program. The effect size in all the variables was small. The discussion analyzes the effectiveness of specific programs of prevention of childhood depression versus global programs of social-emotional development. This work provides a program to prevent childhood depression that has been shown to be effective in the reduction of clinical variables. In addition, this study confirms the positive potential of programs of cooperative play, to increase self-concept and social skills.     

Evaluation of the FASIKI traffic safety programme for parents of cycling children

The voluntary cycling test is an important milestone in traffic education in primary school. Cycling helps to develop traffic competences and traffic sense, it increases the mobility range of children and also improves sustainable mobility. On the other hand, data shows that beginning with school age more children have accidents due to cycling (Drott, Johansson, & Aström, 2008; Funk, 2013). The aim of the paper is to show that a measure that can be easily implemented in given structures could help to enhance safe cycling behaviour of children. The voluntary cycling test for ten-year-old children in Austria was complemented with a short traffic psychological intervention for parents called FASIKI. The main aim of the FASIKI programme is to promote a safe cycling performance for children. Therefore, the programme should show parents the average developmental status of their ten-year-old children, so that they can train them in an adequate way as far as age and competence level is concerned. From a traffic psychological point of view it is important for safe cycling behaviour that parents do not over- or underestimate the traffic competences of their children. The present study aimed to verify the effectiveness of the FASIKI programme using Kirkpatrick’s four level evaluation model. Based on a pre-post design, first changes in knowledge and attitudes of parents who attended the programme as well as the impact of the programme on the practical skills of their children in the voluntary cycling test were assessed. The results show positive effects of the FASIKI programme on both, parents’ knowledge and attitudes, and on children’s practical skills. Parental intentions to do cycling exercises with their children were strengthened. Finally, practical implications and policy recommendations concerning traffic safety for children are discussed.     

Attitudes of parents of nondisabled students regarding inclusion of disabled students in Nevada's public schools

Opinions of 370 parents of students without disabilities about inclusive programming were compared with those obtained from a previous study of 65 parents of students with disabilities. Both groups of parents positively rated opinion statements favoring inclusion; however, parents of students with disabilities consistently rated inclusion-focused statements more positively than parents of nondisabled students.     

Making ethical choices: a comprehensive decision-making model for Canadian psychologists.

This paper proposes a theoretical augmentation of the seven-step decision-making model outlined in the Canadian Code of Ethics for Psychologists. We propose that teleological, deontological, and existential ethical perspectives should be taken into account in the decision-making process. We also consider the influence of individual, issue-specific, significant-other, situational, and external factors on ethical decision-making. This theoretical analysis demonstrates the richness and complexity of ethical decision-making.     

Comparative study of distraction versus topical anesthesia for pediatric pain management during immunizations.

This study compared distraction, an anesthetic (eutectic mixture of local anesthetics [EMLA]), and typical care during pediatric immunizations. Participants were 39 4th graders receiving a 3-injection vaccination series over a 6-month period. Children displayed low distress despite reporting moderate anxiety and pain. Distraction resulted in more nurse coaching and child coping and less child distress than did EMLA or typical care on an observational measure. EMLA did not result in increased child coping or decreased distress. In fact, the nurse coached more, and trends suggested that children coped more with typical care than with EMLA. Whereas participant ratings and heart rate did not differ among conditions, all 3 conditions demonstrated improvements over time with these measures. Satisfaction ratings suggested that children preferred the treatments to typical care, whereas the nurse appreciated aspects of each of the conditions. Finally, distraction was more economical than EMLA.     

Perception of childhood dissatisfaction with parents and selected personality traits in adulthood

This study tested the hypotheses that perceptions of childhood dissatisfaction with parents are associated with higher scores on measures of intensity and chronicity of loneliness, anxiety, neuroticism, psychoticism, misanthropy, and external locus of control and lower scores on measures of self-esteem and sociability. The subjects were 537 Iranian students studying in American and Iranian universities. Both hypotheses were confirmed in a multivariate statistical model. We also found that dissatisfaction with parents was related to a lack of satisfactory relationships with peers.     

Bioinspired decision-making for a socially interactive robot

Nowadays, robots and humans coexist in real settings where robots need to interact autonomously making their own decisions. Many applications require that robots adapt their behavior to different users and remember each user’s preferences to engage them in the interaction. To this end, we propose a decision making system for social robots that drives their actions taking into account the user and the robot’s state. This system is based on bio-inspired concepts, such as motivations, drives and wellbeing, that facilitate the rise of natural behaviors to ease the acceptance of the robot by the users. The system has been designed to promote the human-robot interaction by using drives and motivations related with social aspects, such as the users’ satisfaction or the need of social interaction. Furthermore, the changes of state produced by the users’ exogenous actions have been modeled as transitional states that are considered when the next robot’s action has to be selected. Our system has been evaluated considering two different user profiles. In the proposed system, user’s preferences are considered and alter the homeostatic process that controls the decision making system. As a result, using reinforcement learning algorithms and considering the robot’s wellbeing as the reward function, the social robot Mini has learned from scratch two different policies of action, one for each user, that fit the users’ preferences. The robot learned behaviors that maximize its wellbeing as well as keep the users engaged in the interactions.     

Religion as a resource for bereaved parents

This paper addresses the relationship between bereavement and religious beliefs for parents. In-depth, qualitative interviews of twenty-seven couples were used to address the question of the relative value of religion as a coping resource during grief. Also addressed were ways in which religion was a positive resource (enhancing recovery), a neutral resource (having no impact), or a negative resource (retarding recovery). Conclusions are presented regarding the resource value of religion and ways in which others, primarily clergy, family, and friends, can enhance positive and minimize negative impact of religion during bereavement.This is a revision of a paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the national Council on Family Relations in Nuvember 1989 in new Orleans.     

A distant mirror: Memories of parents and friends across childhood and adolescence

Memories that were easily accessible (i.e., quickly retrieved in a memory‐fluency task) of Italian university students were assessed. They were from four periods of life: preschool, elementary school, middle school, and high school/university. Half of the participants were instructed to recall only memories involving parents, and the other half memories involving friends. Across age at the time of remembered events, only memories of friends increased in frequency. For parental memories (but not friend memories), the proportion with negative affect increased over age, especially for males. There were also differences related to whether memories were episodic or generic. It was concluded that memories of different periods of childhood and adolescence can serve as a reflective mirror for developmental changes in parent–child and friendship relationships.     

Helping processes in a mutual aid organization for persons with emotional disturbance.

To date, the notion of helpfulness of group processes has been equivocal in research on self-help groups. This article argues that findings drawn from the participants' subjective appraisals of helpfulness carry meanings different from those drawn from the correlational approach. In a mutual aid organization serving adults with mental health problems, the study found that, whereas universality, self-disclosure, and instillation of hope were the most valued processes, support and catharsis were the strongest correlates of benefits of participation. The authors propose a two-level hierarchy that distinguishes sustaining and beneficial factors. Different sets of factors should constitute the focus of facilitation at different stages of group development.     

Defensiveness in response to aid from a sibling.

Defensive reactions to aid in the context of a close relationship were studied. Young adult siblings reported on their self-esteem, the quality of the sibling relationship, relevant demographic variables, and a variety of components of defensiveness to aid. Consistent with theory, the components of defensiveness were interrelated. A large percentage (52%) of the variance in defensiveness was accounted for by conflict between siblings, dominance relative to one's sibling, low global self-esteem, high self-esteem when comparing oneself with one's sibling, and low levels of feelings of entitlement. Siblings were least defensive in reaction to aid from older and female siblings. Corroboration from a subset of benefactor siblings was obtained. The results are discussed in relation to recent thinking about the nature of receiving support in close relationships and recipients' reactions to aid.