Occupational Therapists' Perception of the Tree Theme Method™ as an Intervention in Psychosocial Occupational Therapy

This study investigated how occupational therapists experience utilization of the Tree Theme Method, an intervention based on creative activities and life-story telling and making. The Tree Theme Method is comprised of five sessions in which the therapist asks the client to paint symbolic trees, with specific themes representing their present life situation, childhood, adolescence, adulthood, and the future. Nine occupational therapists in mental health care were asked about their experiences when using the Tree Theme Method. The informants formed two focus groups and each group was interviewed twice. Qualitative content analysis was used to identify five categories including: (1) therapeutic frames, (2) therapist requirements, (3) client requirements, (4) the therapeutic relationship, and (5) the Tree Theme Method as a multi-dimensional process. Overall the informants were satisfied with the intervention with some variation as to therapists' perception about the helpfulness of the tool. The Tree Theme Method was experienced as a structured method of starting a therapeutic process and initiating a therapist–client relationship. The therapeutic attitude, self-knowledge, and expert knowledge seemed to be important prerequisites for the therapists when using the Tree Theme Method intervention.     

Children’s Life Satisfaction: The Roles of Mothers’ Work Engagement and Recovery from Work

The present study examines whether mothers’ positive work-related experiences, work engagement and recovery from work, are indirectly linked to their children’s life satisfaction via mothers’ perceived life satisfaction and closeness with their children. Theoretically the study is based on the spillover and crossover models of work–family interface with a particular focus on positive interface, as this is a gap in the existing research. The sample consisted of 671 Finnish mother–child dyads. Survey-based data were analyzed using structural equation modeling. The results showed that mothers’ work engagement and recovery from work were positively and indirectly associated with children’s life satisfaction via mothers’ life satisfaction and closeness with their children. The findings suggest that work-to-family crossover of positive work-related experiences does indeed occur from mothers to children. Employers should pay attention to mothers’ work engagement and recovery from work, because these positive work-related experiences are likely to promote mothers’ life satisfaction and a positive mother–child relationship which, in turn, may be reflected in children’s life satisfaction. Job resources and mental detachment from work while not working are vital for work engagement and recovery from work, and should be promoted.     

Family Involvement in a Whole-School Bullying Intervention: Mothers’ and Fathers’ Communication and Influence with Children

Research indicates that involving families in school efforts to prevent and manage bullying behaviour is essential to success. Parents can influence their children's involvement in bullying situations by modelling positive social behaviour, offering advice about appropriate responses to bullying, and encouraging help-seeking. This paper reports family-related findings from the three-year group randomized control trial of the Friendly Schools Friendly Families (FSFF) intervention, which provided training and whole-school, classroom and family resources to build the capacity of schools to prevent bullying victimization and perpetration. Over 1400 parents and carers of Grades 2, 4 and 6 school students completed a survey at baseline and two post-tests. Parents exposed to the FSFF parent component received resources about ways to reduce bullying, build parenting skills and enhance parent–child communication; they also completed home activities with their children; and were encouraged to engage with their children’s school to reduce bullying. Mothers and fathers reported significant increases in the frequency of discussions with their child about bullying. Mothers were more likely than fathers to give pro-social, passive and help-seeking advice compared to fathers, who were more likely to encourage their child to ‘fight back’. The intervention improved fathers’ perceptions of their influence on children’s responses to being bullied. These results highlight the importance of working with both male and female caregivers when addressing children’s bullying behaviour. The findings also demonstrate that a parent intervention can have a positive impact on parent–child communication about bullying when it is an integral part of a whole-school approach.     

Examining Children’s Problem Behaviors and Mothers’ Dating for Mothers’ Depressive Symptoms Following Divorce

Journal of Child and Family Studies - Although divorce is typically stressful for mothers, the formation of post-divorce dating relationships can help to ease this stress. Unfortunately, research...     

The Son’s Fault: Martin Luther King,Jr.’s Search for and Recovery of Sonship

This article examines the role of sonship in the psychological and spiritual development of men. In using the methodology of psychobiography, I explore the life history of Martin Luther King, Jr. to analyze his search for and recovery of sonship. I propose that sonship helps men rebel against and, in the end, overcome the feelings of inadequacy that are experienced in their struggles to achieve manhood, particularly within the father–son dyad. The scholarship of pastoral theologian Donald Capps is instructive in this regard, in that he suggests that sons should be allowed to search for a male figure, a father-substitute, who can affirm, not disdain or reject, this state of sonship. In the end, what is often viewed as a negative act of regression—i.e., the recovery of and return to sonship—is recognized instead as a positive one that assists a man in his journey toward wholeness.     

Women’s Perspectives Related to Occupational Performance Following Participation in Substance Use Recovery Programs

Very little research has examined how substance abuse programs affect occupational performance. The progression of addiction and its etiology for women are still under-reported. This study aimed to explore perceived effects of substance use and participation in peer-based programs on women’s occupational performance. Qualitative semi-structured interviews were completed with seven women. Four themes were identified: (1) substance use did not markedly inhibit participation in daily life; (2) recovery was supported by replacing substance related occupations with non-substance related occupations; (3) perceived value of shared perspectives and experiences with others; and (4) the embracing of new perspectives as part of recovery.     

Mediation of Mothers’ Anxiety and Parenting in Children’s Behavior Problems during COVID-19

The outbreak of COVID-19 is affecting the lives of millions of families around the world. The current study was carried out in Israel, following the pandemic’s initial outbreak and during the resulting enforced quarantine, confining parents and children to their homes. A sample of 141 Israeli mothers with at least one child between the ages of 3 and 12 (M?=?6.92, SD?=?2.55) participated as volunteers. About half the sample (50.7%) consisted of girls. Most mothers were cohabiting with a spouse (93%). Mothers completed online questionnaires about their perceptions about the health and economic threats of COVID-19, availability of social support, their anxiety symptoms, hostile/coercive and supportive/engaged parenting behavior, and their children’s behavior problems. Results showed expected significant associations between the mothers’ reports about having little social support, their anxiety symptoms, hostile/coercive and supportive/engaged parenting behavior, and children’s externalizing problems. Likewise, expected significant associations were found between mothers’ perceptions about the health and economic threats of COVID-19, their anxiety symptoms, hostile/coercive parenting behavior, and children’s internalizing and externalizing problems. Importantly, maternal anxiety and hostile/coercive parenting behavior mediated the associations between lack of support, negative perceptions about the health and economic threats of COVID-19, and children’s behavior problems. These findings stress the importance of mothers’ mental health and parenting behaviors for children’s socioemotional adaptation in the context of COVID-19. Implications of the findings for family interventions intended to help parents and children at this time are suggested.

     

Latina Mothers’ Involvement in an HIV/STI and Substance Use Prevention Program for Adolescents: A Parallel Intervention Curriculum

As part of a larger HIV/STI/Substance Abuse Prevention intervention targeted to middle school students, we offered students’ parents an opportunity to participate in an adult education class. The same curricular materials were used for students enrolled in the intervention and for their parents. In the current study, mothers who had completed the adult education class participated in a focus group. The focus group explored what components of the intervention were perceived by mothers as particularly useful to them or to their child. Three core themes emerged from interpretive analyses of the focus group: (1) positive relationships with intervention staff and school personnel enticed students to participate in the intervention and facilitated parents’ involvement; (2) both students and parents felt respected and empowered by the intervention’s cornerstone values and curricular philosophy of cultural richness and pride in Hispanic/Latino heritage; and (3) mothers perceived their mastery of the course content—materially wholly dedicated to the health and wellness of their children—benefitted them in terms of both understanding the material and potentially allowing mothers to discuss health-oriented behavior with their young adolescent child.     

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.     

An Empirical Examination of Women’s Empowerment and Transformative Change in the Context of International Development

This paper responds to calls from social scientists in the area of globalization and women’s empowerment to test a model that investigates both structural and individual components of women’s empowerment in the context of globalization. The investigation uses a liberation psychology framework by taking into account the effects of globalization, human rights discourse, and women’s activism within social movements to identify how structural inequities may be related to empowerment. Surveys conducted in rural Nicaragua revealed that land ownership and organizational participation among women were related to more progressive gender ideology, and in turn, women’s power and control within the marital relationship, individual levels of agency, and subjective well-being. The study demonstrates that psychology can bridge the theoretical arguments surrounding human rights with the practical implementation of development interventions, and provide empirical support that has yet to be demonstrated elsewhere. The findings have important implications for strategies and interventions that can improve conditions for women and contribute to the aims of social justice articulated in the Beijing Platform for Action.     

An Exploration of Parents’ Experiences and Empowerment in the Care for Preterm Born Children

Because of improved survival rates and medical prospects, the emphasis in care for preterm infants has shifted in recent years to a focus on support for the wellbeing of children and their families. For the healthcare professionals the parents of these children are the main partners for improving the care of their children. In this context, referring to “patient empowerment” implies not only the infant but also the parents, in other words “parent empowerment”. We aimed to explore parents’ experiences with hospital and aftercare for their preterm children, and the implications for parent empowerment, by organizing face-to-face (n = 4 and n = 7) and online (n = 14) focus group interviews with parents of preterm children. These focus group interviews showed that these parents indicated a lack of support and recognition of parental worries in the care for their infant during two important periods: (1) the transfer to another hospital and (2) after discharge home. These group interviews showed that parents greatly value initiatives that support and empower them in their role as parents and that strengthens their involvement in the care for their children. Requirements for enhancing parent empowerment are proposed.     

Maternal Empathy and Changes in Mothers’ Permissiveness as Predictors of Toddlers’ Early Social Competence with Peers: A Parenting Intervention Study

The goal of the current study was to examine how changes in parenting due to a parenting intervention designed to decrease permissive parenting affected the quality of children’s peer interactions. Forty-nine mothers of toddlers aged 2–3 years participated in a 12-week intervention in which half got hands-on training and practice using positive guidance in a toddler classroom setting, while the other half learned positive guidance solely via a seminar format. To observe children’s peer interactions, toddlers were divided into 8 groups of 5–7 children mixed across condition. Observers coded mothers’ empathy, permissiveness, and positive guidance parenting strategies. Children’s peer interactions were coded for antisocial behaviors, verbal aggression, physical aggression, prosocial behaviors, positive social bids, and empathy. Prior analysis of this intervention indicated that mothers in both conditions showed reductions in permissiveness over the course of the intervention. Results from the present study indicated that reductions in permissiveness predicted decreases in toddlers’ verbal aggression. Maternal empathy was a moderator such that mothers low in empathy who got hands-on training in positive guidance had children who demonstrated the greatest reductions in antisocial behaviors.     

The Importance of Community Context for Young Women’s Occupational Aspirations

The effects of community context on occupational aspirations are examined in a national sample of young women in high school in the USA in 1979 (n = 2,210). Multilevel statistical models indicate that young women living in counties with a lower divorce rate, a lower percentage of women working, and more people employed in the wholesale and retail industrial sector tended to be less likely to aspire to paid work than young women living in areas with a higher divorce rate, a higher percentage of women working, and fewer people employed in the wholesale and retail industrial sector. Community context does not affect the level of young women’s occupational aspirations as predicted by prior scholarship. An earlier version of this paper was presented at the 2006 Southern Sociological Society Annual Meetings. The author thanks John Reynolds, Patricia Yancey Martin, Irene Padavic, Robert Kunovich, Jennifer Keene, Mary Guy, and the editor and reviewers at Sex Roles for their helpful comments on previous drafts of this paper.     

MILFS and Matrons: Images and Realities of Mothers’ Sexuality

Motherhood and sexual appeal are rarely linked in Western culture. There seems to be a notion that once a woman has children she is first and foremost an example, and must be responsible and conservative in a culturally specific way. Most women become mothers at some point in their lives and this is a major physical, emotional, and role transition, one that many women struggle with privately given societal ideals of a ??good?? mother. Despite its essential role in motherhood and life, and the health benefits known to be associated with sexual activity, public expression of sexuality is still primarily associated with being young, childless, and unmarried. Using a social constructionist perspective, we look at the ways in which acceptable expressions of mothers?? sexuality are defined and negotiated by contemporary women. Based on in-depth interviews with fifty women in their 20s, 30s, and 40s, we discuss women??s images of mothers?? sexuality and the ways in which motherhood impacts women??s experiences of sexuality. We find that for most mothers interviewed, the way they felt about sex, their sexual appeal, and their level of sexual desire changed after having children. Coupled with the fatigue and responsibility associated with being a new mother, women felt disconnected from their sexuality for a period of time.     

Child’s Difficult Temperament and Mothers’ Parenting Styles

The study examined the associations between children’s temperamental characteristics and mothers’ parenting styles, and the mediating and moderating role of maternal well-being in these associations. Mothers of 152 Finnish first grade children (79 girls and 73 boys) filled in questionnaires measuring their parenting styles (i.e., affection, behavioral control, and psychological control) and psychological well-being (i.e., depressive symptoms and self-esteem), and their children’s temperament. The results showed that children’s low positivity was associated with low maternal affection, whereas children’s negative emotionality was associated with mothers’ high controlling attempts in terms of psychological and behavioral control. The impacts of children’s low levels of positivity and high levels of activity on mothers’ psychological control were mediated via maternal well-being: the more active and the less positive a mother perceived her child to be, the lower was her well-being and, consequently, the more psychological control she applied. Moderating effects of psychological well-being were not found.     

Assessing Recall in Mothers’ Retrospective Reports: Concerns Over Children’s Speech and Language Development

Retrospective recall about children’s symptoms is used to establish early developmental patterns in clinical practice and is also utilised in child psychopathology research. Some studies have indicated that the accuracy of retrospective recall is influenced by life events. Our hypothesis was that an intervention: speech and language therapy, would adversely affect the accuracy of parent recall of early concerns about their child’s speech and language development. Mothers (n?=?5,390) reported on their child’s speech development (child male to female ratio = 50:50) when their children were aged 18 or 30 months, and also reported on these early concerns retrospectively, 10 years later, when their children were 13 years old. Overall reliability of retrospective recall was good, 86 % of respondents accurately recalling their earlier concerns. As hypothesised, however, the speech and language intervention was strongly associated with inaccurate retrospective recall about concerns in the early years (Relative Risk Ratio = 19.03; 95 % CI:14.78–24.48). Attendance at speech therapy was associated with increased recall of concerns that were not reported at the time. The study suggests caution is required when interpreting retrospective reports of abnormal child development as recall may be influenced by intervening events.     

The Affective Temperaments: Differences between Adolescents in the Big Five Model and Cloninger’s Psychobiological Model of Personality

Positive (PA) and negative affect (NA) are indicators or markers of well-being that also reflect stable emotional- temperamental dispositions. In three different studies, self-reported affect was measured by the Positive Affect and Negative Affect Schedule (PANAS). The PANAS measures affect as two separate dimensions and was therefore used to generate four affective temperaments (AFTs): self-actualizing (high PA and Low NA), high affective (high PA and high NA), low affective (low PA and low NA), and self-destructive (low PA and high NA). The present set of studies investigated differences in personality between AFTs in an adolescent sample (N?=?398). Personality was measured by two different models: The Big Five and Cloninger’s psychobiological model. The interaction of PA and NA was expected to reveal differences and similarities in intrapersonal behavior measured by both models of personality. The results show that low NA adolescents reported lower levels of neurotic behavior than high NA adolescents. Nevertheless, despite the experience of high NA respectively, low PA, high and low affective reported higher Self-Directedness than self-destructive adolescents. Implications of the AFTs framework are discussed.     

Risk and Resistance Factors for Psychological Distress in Icelandic Parents of Chronically Ill Children: An Application of Wallander and Varni’s Disability-Stress-Coping Model

The purpose of the study was to investigate Wallander and Varni’s (1998) disability-stress coping model in a sample of 105 Icelandic parents of chronically ill children. The Revised Adult Attachment Scale (RAAS), the Attributional Scale (AS), the Defence Style Questionnaire (DSQ), the Sense of Coherence Scale (SOC), the World Assumption scale (WAS), The Coping Style Questionnaire (CSQ), The Impact on Family scale (IFS), the Trauma Symptom Checklist (TSC), and the Harvard Trauma Questionnaire (HTQ), were completed by the parents of children with various diseases. Despite the heterogeneity of the sample in terms of disease type, PTSD was present in 13.2% of the parents and an additional 28.6% had subclinical PTSD. Emotional coping, extent of daily care, time since diagnosis, and changes in employment due to the disease explained 71% of the variance in HTQ total score.