Gender Differences in Parental Coping Following their Child's Death

The impact of the deaths of 19 children from malignancy on subsequent patterns of maternal and paternal coping styles was evaluated in a retrospective study of Dutch parents. The parents had been bereaved on average for 19 months. Parental coping was measured by the Utrecht Coping List which has comparable male and female norm groups. Coping styles differed significantly between the bereaved parents and their respective norm groups, particularly for parents bereaved for 18 months or less. The impact of the loss of a child, in terms of their parents' capacity to cope with everyday problems and events, would appear to affect mothers and fathers rather differently. But fathers and mothers who had been bereaved for more than 18 months were both closer to their comparable coping style norm groups than those bereaved for less than that time.     

Network and mutual support for parents bereaved following the violent deaths of their 12- to 28-year-old children: A longitudinal,prospective analysis

Abstract

Social support provided by bereaved parents' networks was examined in this study. Seven dimensions of support were assessed over time. Of special interest to the investigators were the types and frequency of posttreatment contacts among bereaved parents who participated in an experimental support program. The study compared those who reported high versus low social support and high versus low numbers of network confidants on selected outcome and coping variables. The authors recruited a community-based sample of 171 bereaved mothers and 90 bereaved fathers whose 12- to 28-year-old children had died by accident, suicide, or homicide 4 months previously. Parents were randomly assigned to a 12-week bereavement program or control group. It was expected that intervention group parents would report more social network in involvement and greater satisfaction with support received than control group parents. This hypothesis was only partially supported. Only 20% of the parents who participated in the bereavement program remained in contact after the experimental program ended. Finally, significant differences detected between parents who reported high and low support were minimal and not sustained over time. The number of network confidants did not significantly affect the outcomes examined. However, in general, those with more confidants reported lower symptoms. Additional studies are needed to address these complex issues.     

Children’s Influence on Their Parent’s Adult Development: Mothers’ and Fathers’ Receptivity to Children’s Requests for Change

This mixed-method study examined parents’ experiences of their children’s influence on parent’s continuing adult development. Mothers and fathers from 30 families were separately interviewed regarding two of their children who were between 8 and 14 years old. Parents reported on recent events when their younger and older child successfully requested that parents change their preferences, attitudes, and personal behaviors. Mothers reported more direct child influence than fathers, and both parents reported that they were more receptive to influence from their older children. Thematic analyses revealed that parents were generally comfortable with child influence and constructed their children as actors and agents. Parents attributed their receptivity to agentic qualities of children’s requests, goals for empowering children, and maintaining their mutual relationship. The findings provided insight into the transactional and relational nature of children’s influence and the direct and indirect impact of children on the adult development of parents.     

Prevalence of Genetic Testing in CHARGE Syndrome

Parents of 145 individuals with a clinical diagnosis of CHARGE syndrome, ages 2 to 39 years, indicated in a survey whether their child had been tested for the CHD7 mutation, which is the only gene presently known to be associated with CHARGE. More than two thirds (68%) of the affected individuals had never been gene tested. Of the 46 who had been tested, 74% tested positive for the mutation. Half (50%) of those who underwent testing did so as a part of a conference blood draw by Baylor College of Medicine in 1999. Children who were tested were significantly younger than those who had not been tested. A second group of 43 parents were informally surveyed at a conference in 2009. More than half of their children had been tested, and nearly 70% were positive for the mutation. Reasons given by these parents for testing included confirming the diagnosis and assisting research. Reasons given for not testing included lack of opportunity, no known benefit, and lack of insurance coverage.     

The Development of Aggressive Mental Models in Young Children

This study was undertaken to examine why a previous study revealed that children inaccurately recalled “seeing” violence in a nonviolent cartoon clip. We used a 2 (still photo vs. video clip) × 2 (action hero vs. neutral character) repeated measure experimental design and showed preschoolers (33–60 months) two photos and two video clips. Children were asked to tell a story about what might happen next. In addition, parents filled out a brief questionnaire. Results indicate that first, children whose parents reported that they had never been exposed to violent cartoons gave fewer aggressive responses than those who had seen one. Second, character type appears to have a greater effect on children's aggressive mental models than the narrative does. Overall, the effect of stereotypical action characters (as compared to neutral characters) is greater than it is for the video clip versus still-photo manipulation. Third, older children provided more aggressive story endings to the action character in the video sequence compared to younger children who saw the neutral character in the still photo or the neutral character in the video sequence. In sum, a single exposure to action cartoons may help very young children establish mental models for aggression. Second, both older and younger children are influenced by action cartoons, but older children are better able to incorporate story information whereas younger children focus on character appearance. Results are discussed in terms of mental models and child development.     

Long-term effects of losing a spouse or child in a motor vehicle crash

In this article we examine the long-term effects of the sudden, unexpected loss of a spouse or child. In the spouse study, interviews were conducted with 39 individuals who had lost a spouse in a motor vehicle crash 4 to 7 years ago and with 39 matched controls. In the parent study, interviews were conducted with 41 parents who had lost a child in a crash and with 41 matched controls. Control respondents were matched to bereaved respondents case-by-case on the basis of sex, age, income, education, and number and ages of children. Significant differences between bereaved spouses and controls were revealed on several indicators of general functioning, including depression and other psychiatric symptoms, social functioning, psychological well-being, reactivity to good events, and future worries and concerns. For the most part, these differences persisted when variables such as present family income and present marital status were statistically controlled. Comparisons between bereaved and control parents also revealed significant differences on some measures of general functioning (especially depression), but these were not as pervasive as the differences obtained in the spouse study. Responses to questions about current thoughts and feelings suggest that the deceased continued to occupy the thoughts and conversations of bereaved spouses and parents. Moreover, a large percentage of respondents (from 30% to 85%, depending on the question), continued to ruminate about the accident or what might have been done to prevent it, and they appeared to be unable to accept, resolve, or find any meaning in the loss. Taken together, the data provide little support for traditional notions of recovery from the sudden, unexpected loss of a spouse or child.     

Couple Conflict in Parents of Children with versus without Autism: Self-Reported and Observed Findings

We compared the couple conflict of parents of children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) to a comparison group of parents of children without disabilities using self-reported and observational measures. In total, 178 couples who had a child with ASD (aged 5–12 years) and 174 couples who had children without disabilities (aged 5–12 years), recruited from a Midwestern state in the United States, reported on couple conflict in everyday life and engaged in an observed couple conflict interaction. Parents of children with ASD reported more frequent, severe, and unresolved couple problems than the comparison group. Parents who had a child with ASD were observed to have less engaged, balanced, and cooperative couple conflict interactions, but demonstrated more positive affect and sensitivity towards one another, than parents in the comparison group. Group differences had small effect sizes. Findings have implications for marital therapy and relationship education programs.     

Psychological Consequences of Pregnancy Loss and Infant Death in a Sample of Bereaved Parents

This study aimed to explore a broad range of psychological reactions to trauma in a sample of bereaved parents in order to assess whether the traumatic framework is adequate for describing the entire range of emotional reactions to infant death. A sample of bereaved parents (N = 455) who lost their child through perinatal or postnatal loss were compared to a control group of parents (N = 110) who gave birth to a healthy child. Multivariate regression analysis clearly demonstrated that bereaved parents scored significantly higher on the Depression, Anxiety, Dissociation, Sleep Disturbances, Somatization, Interpersonal Sensitivity, and Aggression subscales of the Trauma Symptom Checklist. Consistent with previous studies, the results showed that for up to 5 years postloss bereaved parents expressed elevated levels of trauma-specific and psychological outcomes, in particular interpersonal sensitivity and aggression.     

From Demonization to Identification: How Parents Who Lost Children in Terrorist Attacks Perceive the Attacker

The aim of this article is to examine how bereaved parents who lost children in terrorist attacks in Israel perceive the terrorist attack perpetrators. Forty bereaved parents were interviewed using a semistructured in-depth interview. The content analysis revealed a typology of reactions to the Arab attackers that included perceiving them as objects of anger, hate, and revenge; as demons; as negligible; and as people with whom they could identify. The way bereaved parents perceive the Arab attackers serves as a coping resource. Follow-up research to examine the efficacy of the different types of reactions towards attackers would contribute to gaining a deeper understanding of the coping process that bereaved parents experience.     

Anxiety and vulnerability in parents following the death of an infant

Empirical data on the subjectively reported anxiety reactions of 117 parents who lost an infant at birth or daring the first year of life are presented. From a retrospective survey conducted 1 to 4 years after the death it was evident that parents experienced a great deal of anxiety following the death of their child. Parents who experienced a sudden death in the home reported the strongest anxiety, but other parents who lost their child in hospital at birth or thereafter also experienced strong anxiety. The anxiety for surviving children and later-born children was extensive. In all areas mothers experienced more anxiety than fathers. More intense and longer grief in one's partner, the perceived lack of support from others, being older, and being a female were significantly correlated with anxiety. The results are interpreted as a confirmation that parents who lose their children experience a fundamental change in their beliefs about their family's future security. Better training of health personnel is required to secure an adequate follow up of families that lose a child.     

Prosocial rule breaking,ingroups and social norms: Parental decision-making about COVID-19 rule breaking in the UK

The British public generally adhered to COVID-19-related restrictions, but as the pandemic drew on, it became challenging for some populations. Parents with young children were identified as a vulnerable group. We collected rich, mixed-methods survey data from 99 UK-based parents (91 mothers) of children under 12, who described their lockdown transgressions. Household mixing was the most prevalent broken rule. Template analysis found that rule breaking was driven by ‘ingroup-level’ prosocial motivations to protect the mental and social health of family and loved ones, and that parents were ‘engaged’ decision-makers who underwent careful deliberation when deciding to break rules, making trade-offs, bending rules, mitigating risks, reaching consensus, and reacting to perceived rule injustices. Cumulative link models found that the perceived reasonableness of rule violations was predicted by social norms. Rules were broken by parents not for antisocial reasons, but for ‘ingroup-level’ prosocial reasons, linked to supporting loved ones.     

Parents teaching young children home safety rules: Implications for childhood injury risk

Teaching safety rules is a common practice but little is known about this. Fifty-eight parents of children 2 to 2.5 or 3 to 3.5 years of age reported on the safety rules they have, the factors that prompted these rules, the strategies used to teach these rules, and how they react to noncompliance with these rules. Results revealed more safety rules for children in the older group than the younger group, and greater emphasis on teaching the rule than teaching the basis for the rule at younger than older ages. Only about half the rules restricted the child from doing the risk behavior completely, whereas the remaining rules allowed for the behavior under certain circumstances. Parents assumed safety rules would prevent injuries and mostly implemented rules in reaction to evidence of injury risk. Parents equated noncompliance with not understanding, assuming that if children understood they would comply. Implications for childhood injury risk are discussed.     

Multiple attachment relationships within families: mothers and fathers with two young children

Security of attachment between mothers and fathers and their 2 children was examined in 41 maritally intact families. Strange Situation assessments of attachment security for the younger children (mean age = 1 year 10 months), Attachment Q-sort ratings of the older children (mean age = 4 years 8 months), and ratings of parental caregiving behavior of both children were obtained. Younger and older children developed concordant attachments to both parents. Parents were consistent in their caregiving behavior toward their 2 children. However, parents were not congruent in their attachment to their 2 children. Associations were found between maternal caregiving and attachment only in the younger group. The results support the idea that parental caregiving behavior accounts for only modest portions of the variance in attachment security; evolving attachments integrate developmental inputs from the children and the caregivers in the network of early family relationships.     

The use of religion in coping with grief among bereaved Malay Muslim parents

The purpose of this study is to explore the influence of religion on bereaved parents after the death of a child. Literature had attempted to understand how religiosity may influence parental grief both in positive and negative ways. However, this area is scarcely explored in the Malaysian context. This qualitative study involved 11 bereaved parents who lost their children due to accidents (n?=?9) and homicide (n?=?2). Open-ended questions that focused on the importance, activities, and role of religion in the grieving process among Malay parents were asked. According to the thematic analysis, some of the main themes found were that the bereaved parents described religion as a beneficial mechanism in helping them to adapt with their losses through various responses that indicated the perception that religion as a guidance. However, other than the positive impact, religiosity can also lead the bereaved parents to experience negative effects of using religion as a coping strategy. The influence of culture is prevalent in the current study as the theme of mystical belief and paranormal experiences were also reported. This study provides some professional implication from the possible use of religion in intervention.     

Long-term effects of the death of a child on parents' adjustment in midlife.

The death of a child is a traumatic event that can have long-term effects on the lives of parents. This study examined bereaved parents of deceased children (infancy to age 34) and comparison parents with similar backgrounds (n = 428 per group) identified in the Wisconsin Longitudinal Study. An average of 18.05 years following the death, when parents were age 53, bereaved parents reported more depressive symptoms, poorer well-being, and more health problems and were more likely to have experienced a depressive episode and marital disruption than were comparison parents. Recovery from grief was associated with having a sense of life purpose and having additional children but was unrelated to the cause of death or the amount of time since the death. The results point to the need for detection and intervention to help those parents who are experiencing lasting grief.     

Gender and Age Differences in Social Skills Among Children with ADHD: Peer Problems and Prosocial Behavior

Abstract

Gender differences in peer problems and prosocial behavior among children with attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) were examined. Parents and teachers rated social functioning on the Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire (SDQ) among 592 children (age 5–10?years) with ADHD and among 215 children (age 6–10?years) in a community sample. Results in the clinical group revealed significant interaction effects where older boys showed fewer peer problems than younger boys, but older girls had similar peer problems as younger girls. Teachers reported less prosocial behavior among younger girls than older girls. No gender differences in social problems emerged for the nonclinical comparison group.     

A social identity approach to explaining children's aggressive intentions

This study explored the effects of group norms, intra-group position, and age on the direct and indirect aggressive intentions of 247 children (aged 5.50 to 11.83 years). Participants were assigned to a team, with team norms (aggression vs. helping) and the child's position within the team (prototypical vs. peripheral–prototypical vs. peripheral) manipulated. Results showed that children in the aggressive norm condition reported greater aggressive intentions than those in the helping norm condition, although, when age was considered, this effect remained evident for younger, but not older, children. Similarly, intra-group position influenced the aggressive intentions of younger children only. For these children, when group norms supported aggression, prototypical members and peripheral members who anticipated a future prototypical position reported greater aggressive intentions than peripheral members who were given no information about their future position. The implications of these findings for understanding childhood aggression, and for intervention, are discussed.     

The Interactive Effect of Parental Education on Language Production

This study examines the interactive effect of mother’s and father’s education on childhood language development. Parents of sixteen- and twenty-month-old children (N = 48) completed measures on their children’s language production (MacArthur Communicative Development Inventory: Words and Sentences) as well as basic demographic information. There were variations in language production according to maternal education for only the older children. There was also an interaction between maternal and paternal education; children of parents with heterogeneous levels of education (that is, only one parent with a 4-year degree) had higher levels of language production than parents with homogeneous levels of education (that is, either both parents with a degree or both parents without a degree). Surprisingly, children with homogeneous levels of parental education were the ones who scored the lowest on measures of language production. This may be due to less effective parenting at both the low and high parental education levels or because disparity in parental education positively affects the home learning environment.     

The More the Merrier? Sibling Composition and Early Manifestations of Theory of Mind in Toddlers

Sibling relationships are argued to offer a rich social context for the development of young children’s theory of mind (ToM). There is evidence that the presence of siblings, particularly older siblings, may promote preschoolers’ ToM, but it has not been investigated among toddlers. This study evaluated differences in early manifestations of ToM between toddlers in different sibling compositions: 1) without a sibling, 2) with younger siblings only, and 3) with older siblings only. The sample included 227 toddlers who completed 2 tasks assessing their understanding of discrepant desires and visual perspectives. Results indicated that only children and those who had older siblings did not differ from each other on either task. However, on both tasks, toddlers with younger siblings performed significantly more poorly compared with those with older siblings. Moreover, children with younger siblings demonstrated poorer visual-perspective understanding compared with only children. It may be critical to take siblings’ birth order into account when investigating their respective effects on each other’s ToM, especially in toddlerhood.     

Evaluation of home-based programs for teaching personal safety skills to children

We evaluated the efficacy of a commercially available program, the Red Flag, Green Flag Prevention Book, used by parents to teach their children personal safety skills. Children's knowledge and skills regarding the prevention of sexual abuse and abduction were assessed prior to, during, and after training. In one group, training consisted of parents using the prevention book to train their children. Parents of children in the second group used the prevention book with added instructions. Children who did not achieve criterion performance after training with the prevention book received behavioral skills training provided by the experimenter. All children acquired safety skills following behavioral skills training. Follow-up probes 2 months later showed skill maintenance among the older children. Parents reported satisfaction with the procedures and no signs of behavioral or emotional problems following the follow-up probe.