Partner Support and Grandparent Support as Predictors of Change in Coparenting Quality

Young ethnic minority parents may lack psychological and financial resources to handle parenthood, increasing the risk of negative psychosocial and parenting outcomes. Partner support has been associated with positive coparenting, although findings have been mixed. Support from young parents’ own parents (“grandparents”) has been linked to adaptive family outcomes and may be particularly protective for African American and Latino parents whose cultures espouse interdependence. This study examined partner support and grandparent support as individual predictors of change in coparenting quality, and tested whether grandparent support moderated the relationship between partner support and change in coparenting quality over the first postpartum year. Participants were 136 African American and Latina adolescent mothers (age range?=?15–21 years) and their babies’ fathers (15–41 years). Partner and grandparent support were measured at 6 months postpartum. Coparenting quality was measured at 6 and 12 months postpartum, and change in coparenting quality was measured using latent change scores. Structural equation modeling was used to test the hypothesis that the relationship between partner support and change in coparenting quality would be moderated by grandparent support. Fit indices indicated a well-fitted model. Results demonstrated that the moderator term (partner support?×?grandparent support) significantly predicted change in coparenting quality. Specifically, partner support was positively associated with changes in coparenting quality when grandparent support was high; however, that association became weaker and changed direction for lower levels of grandparent support. Findings highlight the need to assess parents’ social support networks and grandparents’ impact on the coparenting quality of this at-risk population.     

The intergenerational transmission of social dominance: A three‐generation study

This study examined the transmission of social dominance orientation (SDO) from parents and grandparents to children. It was predicted that parents as well as grandparents would pass their social dominance attitudes to children. Children's levels of SDO would thus be the highest when parental and grandparental attitudes are high; the lowest when parental and grandparental attitudes are low; and intermediate when parental and grandparental attitudes are incongruent. These hypotheses were examined in a sample of 93 families including children (in early adulthood), one of their parents, and one of their grandparents. Results yielded support for the predictions. These findings' implications are discussed in terms of their potential to explain previous inconsistent results on the transmission of social attitudes to children. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Grandparents as family stabilizers during economic hardship in Bulgaria

T he present study of three generations' families living together during a period of marked economic dislocation investigates whether supportive grandparents can ameliorate the negative effects of economic stress on parenting and on teen outcomes. The study focuses on harsh parenting and adolescent depression, which has been shown to be especially responsive to economic stress. Three hypotheses were investigated: (1) in extended families there is a link between economic adversity and adolescent depression that is mediated by harsh parenting; (2) grandparent support diminishes the relationship between economic pressure and harsh parenting; and (3) grandparent support diminishes the relationship between harsh parenting and adolescent depression. Data were collected from a community sample of 62 extended families with an adolescent during a period of marked economic dislocation in Bulgaria. Mothers, fathers, and adolescents completed questionnaires about perceived economic pressure, parents' harsh parenting, and perceived support of grandparents. Adolescents also completed a measure of self‐reported depression. Additional interviews were conducted with every eligible family member about family relations. Results showed that even though there was significant economic stress reported by parents, adolescents reported moderate levels of depression and low levels of harsh parenting by mothers and fathers. Correlation and regression analyses revealed that whenever respondents experienced support by grandparents, it made a difference for family members. More specifically, despite economic stress, mothers who experienced the support of grandparents tended to exercise less harsh parenting practices than mothers who lacked such support. Furthermore, when grandparents were supportive, harsh parenting was not associated with adolescent depression. These findings are discussed in the light of existing studies of families under economic pressure with a special focus on extended family relations and the role of cultural context.     

Will the young support the old? An individual‐ and family‐level study of filial obligations in two New Zealand cultures

Do people feel that they are obliged to look after older parents and grandparents, support them financially, respect, obey, and maintain contact with them, as well as please them and make them happy? Two surveys of filial obligations were conducted in New Zealand involving 100 Chinese and 103 European families respectively. Across the 587 individuals from two generations, a widely shared obligation hierarchy emerged with social contact and respect on top of all others. Chinese were higher than Europeans on obedience and financial support as predicted, but also on most other obligations. Gender differences, contrary to prediction, were generally absent; but children were significantly higher than their parents on obedience. Obligations were moderately intercorrelated, and also correlated with corresponding expectations. K‐means cluster analysis was used in a novel way to discover three European and four Chinese family obligation types. Further family‐level analysis showed that parental income, grandparents’ residence, and motivations in communicating with elders differentiated the family types.     

Grandchildren's perspectives on relationships with grandparents: The influence of gender across generations

The study examines the relation between gender of grandchildren, parents and grandparents and grandchild-grandparent relationships. Subjects were 120 young adult grandchildren (ages 18–23) who provided information on the 375 grandparents they had known. Subjects reported how close they felt to their grandparents, how much they liked them, and what activities they engaged in with them. Strong effects were found for sex of grandparent and sex of parent. Grandchildren had closer relationships with grandmothers, particularly maternal grandmothers, and they tended to prefer maternal grandmothers over other grandparents. Maternal grandmothers seem to make themselves particularly accessible to grandchildren. The results suggest that the gender of the grandparent can be more important than proximity in determining the quality of grandchild-grandparent relationships.An earlier version of this paper was presented in March of 1986 at the annual meeting of the Southwestern Society for Research in Human Development. The authors thanks Richard Wenzlaff for his assistance in the analysis of the data, Billy Hoover for his assistance in collecting and coding the data, and Judith Loftus for her comments on earlier drafts of the paper.     

Families, economies, cultures, and science achievement in 41 countries: country-, school-, and student-level analyses.

This study examines the links between students' families and science achievement across many countries. Science tests and questionnaire responses of 107,834 fifteen-year-olds in 41 countries were analyzed with multilevel analyses. Students had higher science scores if they were native born, lived with two parents, lived without grandparents, lived with fewer siblings (especially older ones), had more educational resources, had more family involvement, lived in wealthier countries, or lived in countries with more equal distributions of household income. In wealthier countries, family involvement, blended families, and number of siblings showed stronger links to science scores. Science achievement was more strongly linked to family socioeconomic status (SES) and educational resources in more egalitarian cultures and to single parents, family SES, resident grandparents, and birth order in more individualistic cultures. Hence, family constructs were linked to academic achievement in all 41 countries, and the links were stronger in more economically and culturally developed countries.     

Coparenting Conflict and Cooperation between Parents and Grandparents in Vietnamese Families: The Role of Grandparent Psychological Control and Parent–Grandparent Communication

Shared care between parents and grandparents is common in Asian cultures. This cocare practice provides many benefits to families but is also particularly complex, as both parents and grandparents must simultaneously fulfill their roles as cocaregivers as well as maintain their relationship with each other. This study aims to explore the determinants of coparenting relationships between parents and grandparents in Vietnam. Data were collected from 501 Vietnamese parents whose aging parents are active carers for their children. The results indicated that grandparent psychological control and parent–grandparent quality of communication explain the largest variance in both parent–grandparent coparenting conflict and cooperation. The results suggest that parenting interventions aimed at the Asian cultures, where grandparent care is common, may benefit from the inclusion of a content focus on promoting the coparenting relationship between parents and grandparents.     

Intergenerational transmission of values: family generativity and adolescents' narratives of parent and grandparent value teaching

In this longitudinal study, we compared family stories told by 32 Canadian adolescents at ages 16 and 20 about how parents and grandparents had taught them values. Relations to parents' and children's levels of generativity were also examined. Adolescents' stories of grandparent value teaching were less readily recalled and less interactive in their content compared with stories about parents. Stories of value teaching by more generative parents were more likely to involve specific episodes, to be more interactive, to be more likely to emphasize caring content, and to be less likely to have their message rejected by the teens. Similarly, when parents were more generative, adolescents' stories about grandparents' value teaching were also more likely to involve specific and interactive episodes. Finally, stories told about parents and grandparents that were more positive on these dimensions predicted higher generative concern scores for the adolescents themselves, measured subsequently at age 24. Adolescents' stories about parent and grandparent socialization in more generative family contexts thus have features that suggest a more compelling process of intergenerational value transmission.     

When grandparents drive their grandchildren

Driving their grandchildren has become one of the common tasks grandparents perform as part of the support they provide for working parents. The current research made use of qualitative and quantitative methodologies in two complementary studies conducted on grandparents who drive their grandchildren, the first using personal interviews and the second self-report questionnaires. The goal of the qualitative study was to capture grandparents’ subjective experience (n = 27), whereas the quantitative study sought to provide more specific data on the factors affecting grandparents’ experience behind the wheel and attitudes to child restraints by examining the contribution of driving styles and parental influence (n = 330). The findings of the qualitative study indicate that having grandchildren in the car is a unique situation which affects grandparents’ emotions and driving behavior. Less careful drivers were found to adapt a more careful driving style when driving their grandchildren than when driving without them. In the quantitative study, risky and anxious drivers felt more tension when driving their grandchildren. Furthermore, parental intervention was found to heighten tension among grandparents. Finally, heightened tension and less angry and more careful grandparents’ driving styles were associated with more positive attitudes to child restraints. Possible explanations of the findings are discussed.     

Intergenerational Transmission of Parenting Style and Personality: Direct Influence or Mediation?

In order to examine the relationships between parenting styles and personality traits over generations, a cross-sectional questionnaire study was conducted for fathers and mothers of school-age children of grades 5–9. The parenting styles measured by the Parental Bonding Instrument (PBI) and the personality traits measured by the Temperament and Character Inventory (TCI) were correlated within and between the consecutive generations (the grandparents and the parents for the PBI and the parents and the children for the TCI). A series of structural equation modeling showed that (1) while the parenting styles were transmitted directly from the grandparents to the parents, it was partly mediated by the fathers’ Co-operativeness (C) but not so for the mothers, (2) while the personality traits were transmitted directly from the parents to the children, it was only the fathers’ parenting styles that mediated C, and (3) the parents’ parenting styles had independent effects upon the children’s personality traits.     

Social support after the loss of an infant child: A long-term perspective

The article presents findings from a survey among 251 parents whose infant child had died. For most of the parents, the loss occurred several years ago. The survey assessed the amounts of instrumental, emotional and informational support received by these parents from various sources in connection with the death. The findings revealed that different sources provided different kinds of support. There was only one significant difference between bereaved males and females with regard to amount of support: females received more emotional support from their friends than males did. Furthermore, large amounts of support received by one spouse was associated with a similar level of support received by the other spouse. Social support in connection with the death was to some extent related to long-term psychological adaptation. Particularly support from neighbours and professionals was consistently associated with psychological adaptation. In general, however, the findings with regard to long-term effects of social support were ambiguous.     

Using Consumer Input to Tailor Evidence-Based Parenting Interventions to the Needs of Grandparents

Grandparents provide a significant amount of child care to their grandchildren. However, there is limited research investigating whether grandparents would view a parenting program developed specifically for them as useful. Our study adopted a consumer focused perspective to program design and examined the challenges encountered by grandparents in their role as an informal child care provider. Focus groups were conducted with fourteen grandparents (11 females, 3 males) aged 45–76?years (M?=?60.14) the majority of whom provided 11–20?h of care per week to their grandchild. A thematic analysis indicated that grandparents have difficulty managing the relationship with the parents and remembering effective parenting strategies. In addition, grandparents also indicated wanting further strategies to cope with the stressors associated with the role, particularly surrounding feelings of frustration and guilt. These results suggest that grandparents could benefit from a parenting program and this paper argues that an existing evidence-based parenting program should be modified. In terms of implications for program design the inclusion of a module centered on improving grandparent–parent communication and partner support may buffer potential conflict and tension that can arise in co-parenting situations.     

Continuation of Pregnancy Following the Diagnosis of a Fetal Sex Chromosome Abnormality: A Study of Parents' Counseling Needs and Experiences

Parents who decide to continue a pregnancy diagnosed with a sex chromosome abnormality (SCA) experience a variety of emotions as they deal with complex medical and genetic information. To better understand these individuals' psychosocial, educational, and support needs, 26 parents who received prenatal diagnosis of an SCA after 1989 and who had decided to continue their pregnancy were interviewed by telephone. Twenty (77%) reported they initially had a poor understanding of the predicted syndrome. All parents later met with a genetics professional. Twenty-two (92%) parents considered sterility and underdevelopment of secondary sexual characteristics to be the most negative aspects of SCAs. Contact with other parents of children with SCAs and with support organizations were generally viewed as helpful experiences. Insight gained from this study should be useful for genetic counselors and other health care providers involved with patients who have received abnormal prenatal diagnosis results.     

The moderating role of empathy in the association between parental support and adolescent aggressive and delinquent behavior

The present two‐wave longitudinal study addressed the role of affective empathy and parental support in aggressive and delinquent behavior in a sample of 323 adolescents (158 boys, 165 girls). Self‐report questionnaires were used to assess affective empathy, perceived support from parents, delinquency, and aggression. Guided by theories on children's differential susceptibility to socialization, we expected adolescents with different levels of empathy to vary in their responsiveness to parental support. In agreement with our hypothesis, empathy moderated the relation of perceived parental support with aggressive and delinquent behavior. Controlling for the effect of gender and for the stability of aggression and delinquency, higher perceived parental support was predictive of lower levels of aggression at age 15, but only for adolescents high in empathy. Remarkably, adolescents low in empathy not only appeared to benefit less from parental support, but even showed more aggression and delinquency at age 15 when they perceived their parents to be more supportive at age 14. Aggr. Behav. 38:368‐377, 2012. © 2012 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

Grandparents' psychological well-being after loss of contact with their grandchildren.

This study examined how loss of contact with grandchildren due to parental separation or divorce, family feud, or a sudden event, such as relocation, affected the emotional well-being of grandparents (N = 442). Using data from the Longitudinal Study of Generations, the depressive symptoms of grandparents were tracked over 15 years. Growth curve analysis was used to compare grandparents who had lost contact with their grandchildren with those who had not and to examine preloss to postloss change in depressive symptoms. Grandparents who lost contact with their grandchildren experienced a steeper increase in depressive symptoms as they aged compared with other grandparents. Depressive symptoms of grandparents who lost contact because of a sudden event increased up to 3 years following the loss but returned to equilibrium thereafter. The authors conclude that grandparents who lost contact with their grandchildren experienced a negative impact on their emotional health.     

Parental Divorce, Familial Risk for Depression, and Psychopathology in Offspring: A Three-Generation Study

Research suggests a link between parental divorce and negative child outcomes; however, the presence of parental depression may confound this relationship. Studies exploring the simultaneous effects of depression and parents’ divorce on the adjustment of their children are scarce and rarely have a longitudinal design. This is the first three-generation study of the relative effects of depression and divorce on offspring psychopathology, based on data from a 25-year longitudinal study with families at high and low risk for depression. One hundred seventy-eight grandchildren (mean age?=?13.9?years) of depressed and nondepressed parents and grandparents were evaluated by raters blind to their parents’ and grandparents’ clinical status. We found that in both low and high-risk children, divorce had a limited impact on child adjustment over and above familial risk for depression. Divorce had a significant effect on child outcomes only among high-risk grandchildren with a depressed grandparent and non-depressed parents, with this group showing a threefold risk for anxiety disorders. Results support previous findings suggesting that familial risk for depression largely overshadows the effect of parental divorce on child psychopathology. Possible reasons for the lack of association between divorce and child psychopathology among low-risk offspring are discussed.     

Transmission of risk factors across three generations

The present study examined the association between the parent-grandmother relationship, the parenting of toddlers, and toddlers' anger. Parent-grandmother relations were assessed when the parents were adolescents. Patient-toddler relations were examined when the toddlers were two years of age. The sample consists of 185 2-yr-old toddlers, one of the parents of each toddler, and the corresponding grandmother of each toddler. The findings support our hypothesis that there would be an indirect effect of the grandmothers' personalities and child-rearing practices on their grandchildren through the influence of the grandmothers on the parents. The influence of both the grandmothers' and the parents' smoking behaviors on the toddlers' anger was mediated by their child-rearing practices. The significance of the findings from a multigenerational study are discussed with reference to incorporating them into prevention programs. The findings are consistent with the notion of the intergenerational transmission of risk factors--from grandparents to parents to toddlers.     

Memoirs of a drug-abusing prostitute: Dynamics and treatment considerations in a case of intergenerational child abuse

This paper examines the dynamics of a 26-year-old prostitute who entered psychotherapy with a number of symptoms. The patient had undergone a series of traumas in her life and was reenacting them in her present behavior. Repetition compulsion, as described by Freud, was a primary form of resistance manifested by this patient. The repetition of the sexual trauma reenacted itself in her choice of profession; namely, prostitution. Additionally, this woman had lived her early years falsely believing that her parents were caring for her, when in fact, they were her grandparents. This early family secret led to the development of a false self within the patient, as well as a strong sense of entitlement, greed, and need for revenge.     

Change in the social context of physical activity across adolescence and its association with moderate-to-vigorous intensity physical activity

We examined whether changes in social context (i.e., frequency with which youth engage in physical activity [PA] alone, with teammates, with friends, with siblings, or with parents/grandparents) is associated with change in moderate-to-vigorous intensity PA (MVPA) across Grades 5–8 and Grades 8–11 (N = 938). Data were self-reported annually. Across Grades 5–8, the frequency of PA in all social contexts declined over time, and changes in the frequency of PA alone, with teammates, with siblings, and in diversity of PA companion types were positively associated with change in MVPA. Across Grades 8–11, the frequency of PA with siblings, friends, and parents/grandparents declined over time, and changes in the frequency of PA alone, with teammates, with friends, with parents/grandparents, and in diversity of PA companion types were positively associated with change in MVPA. PA social contexts vary in how they associate with change in MVPA in youth over time.