Lived experiences of school-going early mothers in Swaziland

This study explored the lived family and community experiences of Swazi school-going early mothers (N = 15; age range 13–22 years). Participants responded to family and community relationship experiences focus group discussions. The data were content thematically analysed. The findings suggest that early mothers experience strained relationships with their fathers, and receive emotional and material support from their mothers. The young mothers perceived themselves to be discriminated against by teachers in educational support. Early motherhood appeared to cause feelings of happiness, regret and anxiety in many, and a personal sense of satisfaction and accomplishment in some.     

Teenage Childbearing,Reproductive Justice,and Infant Mental Health

Reproductive justice advocates emphasize the rights of women to choose to have children, to decide the conditions under which they give birth, and to parent their children with support, safety, and dignity. This article examines what a reproductive justice perspective contributes to infant mental health work with teenage mothers and their families. It explores the historical framing of teenage pregnancy in which young mothers are the cause of a variety of social problems and in which the primary policy and practice approach is pregnancy prevention. The article offers alternative framings of teenage childbearing, based on reproductive justice principles, which focus on social conditions surrounding teenage parenthood and the meaning of motherhood in the lives of young women. These alternative frames shift the practice agenda to eradicating unjust social conditions and providing supports for young women in their roles as parents. The article then describes ways in which two infant mental health programs have incorporated reproductive justice principles into their work with young families: Chicago's community doula model and Florida's Young Parents Project for court-involved teenage parents. Finally, the article extracts a set of principles deriving from a reproductive justice perspective that are relevant to infant mental health work with young families.     

Predictors of school engagement among same-sex and heterosexual adoptive parents of Kindergarteners

Little research has explored parental engagement in schools in the context of adoptive parent families or same-sex parent families. The current cross-sectional study explored predictors of parents' self-reported school involvement, relationships with teachers, and school satisfaction, in a sample of 103 female same-sex, male same-sex, and heterosexual adoptive parent couples (196 parents) of kindergarten-age children. Parents who reported more contact by teachers about positive or neutral topics (e.g., their child's good grades) reported more involvement and greater satisfaction with schools, regardless of family type. Parents who reported more contact by teachers about negative topics (e.g., their child's behavior problems) reported better relationships with teachers but lower school satisfaction, regardless of family type. Regarding the broader school context, across all family types, parents who felt more accepted by other parents reported more involvement and better parent–teacher relationships; socializing with other parents was related to greater involvement. Regarding the adoption-specific variables, parents who perceived their children's schools as more culturally sensitive were more involved and satisfied with the school, regardless of family type. Perceived cultural sensitivity mattered more for heterosexual adoptive parents' relationships with their teachers than it did for same-sex adoptive parents. Finally, heterosexual adoptive parents who perceived high levels of adoption stigma in their children's schools were less involved than those who perceived low levels of stigma, whereas same-sex adoptive parents who perceived high levels of stigma were more involved than those who perceived low levels of stigma. Our findings have implications for school professionals, such as school psychologists, who work with diverse families.     

Teenage parenting in different cultures,family constellations,and caregiving environments: Effects on infant development

Teenage parenting was investigated in different ethnic groups (Cuban and American Black), family constellations (single-parent, nuclear, and extended families), and primary caregiving arrangements (mother versus other). One hundred sixty-four infants born to a representative sample of teenage mothers were observed during interactions with their mothers and were given developmental assessments when they were 12, 18, and 24 months of age. Being a Cuban mother, living in a nuclear family, and being a secondary caregiver were each associated independently with stronger social support systems and more positive child-rearing attitudes and mother-infant play interactions. Despite these early advantages, maternal stimulation and infant performance decreased over the second year of life irrespective of ethnic group, family constellation, and caregiving arrangements.     

Language development of pre‐school children born to teenage mothers

An Erratum has been published for this article in Infant and Child Development 10(4) 2001, 241. This paper compares the language development of pre‐school children born to teenage (n=22) and comparison mothers (n=20) and examines the extent to which differences in language development can be explained by social background, child and parenting factors. Mothers and children were assessed at home using a range of measures, including a structured interview, the language scales of the Child Development Inventory, the HOME Inventory, and videotaped mother‐child interaction. Results showed that children of teenage mothers perform significantly poorer than children of comparison mothers on measures of expressive language and language comprehension. Subsequent analyses showed that these differences are largely explained by differences in the parenting behaviour of teenage and comparison mothers. Specifically, maternal verbal stimulation and intrusiveness accounted for the relationship between teenage motherhood and children's poorer language comprehension, while maternal intrusiveness and involvement with the child account for the relationship between teenage motherhood and children's poorer expressive language development. These findings highlight the importance of early mother–child interaction for children's language development. Copyright © 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Intrafamilial physical victimization and externalizing behavior problems: Who remain the ‘forgotten’ children?

Over the past few decades, researchers have documented positive associations between direct child maltreatment and exposure to interpersonal violence (including intimate partner violence, community violence, school violence, and media violence) and children's externalizing behavior problems. However, current family violence literature largely ignores the effects of child abuse on other children in the family. A handful of studies have focused on exposure to child abuse and documented the behavioral effects on siblings, and these studies lend support for broadening scholarship focused on this type of family violence. This article presents empirical research and theories that focus on the relationships between child physical abuse and exposure to intimate partner violence and children's externalizing behavior problems. Using this literature as a foundation, an argument is made for the need to focus on children's exposure to child physical abuse. This article presents information from the few studies that have focused on children who were exposed to the physical abuse of a sibling and offers theoretical frameworks, including social learning theory and psychological proximity, as a foundation for future research. The article concludes with a discussion of services that may be necessary for children who have been exposed to the physical abuse of a sibling, including services focused on safety and mental health.     

Academic Pathways and Children of Immigrant Families

In this study, we examined the relationships between family, school, and community contexts and academic achievement during middle childhood among children of Portuguese, Dominican, and Cambodian immigrant families. We interviewed approximately 350 children from 2 age cohorts spanning first through third and fourth through sixth grades annually across 3 years. Additionally, we collected interviews with parents, measures from teachers, school administrative information, and community ethnographies to understand the various contexts of children's academic achievement. Using a "mixed-methods" approach, we qualitatively coded children's academic success from school records and teacher's responses about the student into 1 of 5 pathways representing children who were "excelling, positive, neutral, negative, or abysmal" across all 3 years of the study. We then used ordinal regression modeling to examine the relationships between child, family, school, and community factors and child academic pathway. Commonalities in findings across the 3 immigrant groups reveal the importance of good school attendance. Divergences between the 3 immigrant groups highlighted family and cultural influences on positive child academic achievement such as synchronicity between child and school values, the children's own academic self-concepts, and academic aspirations. We integrated quantitative findings with the profiles from ethnographic research of the study's communities for an in-depth examination of the mechanisms behind early educational success among children of immigrants.     

Predicting interpersonal competence in young adulthood: The roles of family,self, and peer systems during adolescence

The present investigation examines the impact of family, self, and peer systems, evaluated during early adolescence, on the development of interpersonal competence in young adulthood. The participants were 110 Caucasian individuals, their mothers, and one of their teachers. At the first assessment, the participants ranged in age from 11.5 to 15.1 years old. Approximately six years later, the participants completed a second evaluation involving assessment of interpersonal competence. Increased interparental conflict and parental divorce predicted decreased self-esteem. Decreased self-esteem predicted poorer peer-adolescent relationships, which, in turn, forecasted poorer adult interpersonal competence. The results suggest that living in a distressed family leads to diminished self-esteem which can influence the quality of peer relationships and place an adolescent on a trejectory toward difficulties in interpersonal competence during adulthood.     

The Youth Public Arts Program: Interpersonal and Intrapersonal Outcomes for At-Risk Youth

This article provides the findings of a program evaluation of the Youth Public Arts Program, a long-standing community-based art program that serves at-risk youth in eastern North Carolina. The program evaluation was undertaken to examine the art skills, social and interpersonal skills, and community involvement of the participants. The study included four focus groups and telephone surveys with a total of 38 stakeholders (program participants, parents of participants, program staff, and referral sources). Results indicated that the at-risk youth had gains in both interpersonal and intrapersonal skills, including family relationships, peer relationships, community interaction, increased art skills, confidence, and self-regulation. This article adds to the very limited literature on community-based art programs for youth.     

Personal and socio-ecological resilience resources among school-going teenage mothers: An exploratory study

This qualitative study explored the self-perceived personal and socio-ecological resilience resources that enabled teenage mothers to cope with early parenthood and school in a South African school. Participants were a convenient sample of ten school-going teenage mothers in the Gauteng Province of South Africa. Their ages ranged from 16–19 years and they were in grades 10 to 12. Four teenage mothers took part in individual semi-structured interviews while six took part in a focus group interview. The interviews focused on personal and socio-ecological resilience resources that enabled their resilience as early mothers and learners. Thematic analysis of the data suggested personal resilience resources of the teenage mothers that include a positive outlook on life, a sense of humour, tenacity, toughness, determination, religiosity, and prayerfulness. Regarding social-ecological resilience resources, the teen mothers self-reported social capital from biological parents, partners, peers, teachers and pastors.     

中学生人际关系发展特点的研究

本研究选取北京、河南、重庆、杭州、新疆五地的11743名从初一到高三中学生作为被试,采用《人际关系量表》,从与异性关系、同性关系、父母关系、教师关系、陌生人关系五个方面对中学生人际关系状况和发展特点做了测查.研究结果表明:(1)中学生人际交往水平从初一到初二明显下降,初三时有大幅度的攀升,高中阶段保持在一个较高的水平上.女生的人际交往水平高于男生.(2)中学生与同伴交往水平较高,与异性同伴的关系要好于与同性同伴的关系;中学生与成人交往水平较低,与陌生成人的关系要好于与父母和教师的关系.(4)初二到初三女生与异性同伴交往水平迅速提高,初三后保持稳定;初二到高一男生与异性同伴交往水平迅速提高,高二后保持稳定;初三到高一,中学生与同性伙伴的交往水平明显提升.(5)初一到初二,中学生与父母和教师的交往水平显著下降,高中生与父母的关系有所改善,但与教师的关系一直处于较低的水平上.随年龄增长,男生与陌生人的交往水平逐渐提高,女生与陌生人的交往发展波动较大,初三和高三水平较高,初二和高一水平较低.     

An 8-year study of multiple influences on drug use and drug use consequences

Multiple long-term influences on young adult drug use and abuse were tested within an interactionist perspective using latent-variable causal models. Intrapersonal influences included early drug use and social conformity. Proximal interpersonal influences were captured by perceived peer drug use, perceived adult drug use, and family disruption. More distal influences included perceptions of community approval or disapproval for drug use. Outcome measures included not only use of drugs but also disruptive drug use (getting high at work or school) and self-admitted problems with drugs. Data were obtained from 654 participants at three equally spaced time points during an 8-year longitudinal study that began when the subjects were in junior high school. Confirmatory factor analyses were used to test the adequacy of the hypothesized measurement model. Subsequently, a structural equation, or path model, was used to examine the across-time relations among the latent and manifest variables. Stability effects were found for all repeatedly measured latent variables across the 4-year spans. Social conformity strongly influenced other latent variables across time. Early drug use and perceived adult drug use were prominent predictors of young adult drug use, whereas prior drug use predicted disruptive drug use and a lack of social conformity predicted problems with drug use. Early adult alcohol use predicted later disruptive drug use and problems with drug use. Perceived adult drug use generally influenced later alcohol use, whereas peer drug use influenced later cannabis and hard-drug use. Implications for prevention and treatment using a multicausal interactionist perspective are discussed.     

Building social support for adolescents with suicidal ideation: implications for school guidance and counselling

This study involved interviews with 13 adolescents with high levels of suicidal ideation. It aimed to understand how these adolescents perceived their family, school and peer relationships, and how they perceived these systems as their support. Comparison between adolescents with severe and mild suicidal ideation showed that the family, school and peers could act as effective support systems in times of stress. A close interpersonal relationship was the key factor in unlocking these support systems. The school as a support system was highlighted. Implications for school guidance and counselling to strengthen the social support of adolescents and adolescents' resiliency were discussed.     

Risk and protective factors in adolescents' drug use, and differences by age and sex

Adolescents' drug use has huge social and personal implications, so it is essential to identify risk and protective factors. In this research, the CTCYS was used with 2440 adolescents to detect risk and protective factors for drug use in the community, family, school and peers/individual; differences in risk and protective factors by age and sex; and relationships between risk and protective factors and substance use. Protective factors are high. Risk factors are high in the community, the school and the individual. Older adolescents have more risks and less protection than the youngest; and there are sex differences, because males have less protection and more risks. The risk factors more closely related to drug use are availability of drugs in the community, family attitudes favourable to drug use, family history of antisocial behaviour, early start and use of drugs by friends, perceived risk and attitudes favourable to drug use. In the protective factors, the role played by social skills for alcohol use is important.     

Some predictors of Yugoslavian adolescents' problems

The purpose of this study was to examine the relative contribution of personal (locus of control, extraversion-intraversion, neuroticism, psychoticism), interpersonal (control, nurture, and intimacy in relationships with parents and teacher), and demographic variables (family setting, family structure, school, educational level of mother and father) to the prediction of adolescents' problems in the following domains: "school," "after school," "myself," "me and others," and "general." The subjects were 391 adolescents of both sexes (mean age = 17.5 years). Regression analysis demonstrated that the personal and interpersonal variables were better predictors of adolescents' problems than were demographic variables. The best predictors were neuroticism (personal variable) and nurture of father (interpersonal variable).     

Personality integration and social schemata1

This study was designed to determine whether persons of differing levels of personality integration utilize different response sets to govern their personal space boundaries in relationships with parents and peers. These response sets or “social schemata” were operationally defined by Kuethe's (1962a) free placement felt figures technique and by tape recorded interviews with 30 female and 30 male undergraduates. Findings indicate that personality integration is significantly related to equality with parents and peers, to women's perceived closeness to parents, to the variability of personal space boundaries, and to “communicative richness” when individuals are asked to describe their interpersonal relationships verbally.     

Electronic Communication Use and Socio-Emotional Well-Being among Military Youth

The authors seek to investigate the relationship between electronic-communication (e-communication) use and social isolation for adolescents age 11–18 in the context of military family life, with a specific focus on relationship function provided by e-communication. Self-efficacy, developmental stage (early or middle/late adolescence), sex, and military contextual factors (parents’ military rank, number of school changes and parent deployment) on social benefits and social isolation were controls in the model. Data from a computer survey administered to adolescents (N?=?1036) who had at least one active-duty military parent at five US Army installations in the US and Western Europe were analyzed using a path analysis model. Findings suggest that using e-communication to establish new relationships may be strategic for military youth, who experience many geographic relocations and school changes, in terms of creating social benefits (opportunity for nurturance). On the other hand, spending large amounts of time using e-communication may impede the establishment of nurturing relationships with others and ultimately may be linked to social isolation. Within the model, significant moderational effects related to self-efficacy, sex of the adolescent and parents’ military rank were found.     

Benefits of Equitable Relationships: The Impact of Sense of Fairness,Household Division of Labor,and Decision Making Power on Perceived Social Support

We examine the impact of equity in intimate relationships on perceived social support among married and cohabiting individuals. We found performing an inequitable portion of the housework or feeling one's portion of the housework is unfair corresponds with lower perceived social support for both individuals in advantaged and disadvantaged positions of power. The highest level of social support results when partners contribute equally to household decisions. In contrast to earlier studies, women do not perceive inequitable household responsibilities as more fair than do men. We argue perceived social support is based in part on the structural conditions of marital arrangements. Five percent of the participants identified as Black, 89% as White, and 6% as members of other racial groups. The average participant had just over a high school education, with a median family income of $42,427.     

Equally Shared Parenting

Conventional images of motherhood and fatherhood, social interactions, and gender-based job pressures push couples toward unequal parenting. Equally sharing parents resist those pressures, and construct equality through everyday negotiations and ongoing decisions about family and work. They do not believe that mothers are more responsible for children, or more suited to care for them, than fathers. They avoid gender-based decisions about jobs that reinforce a gender-based division of labor at home. Qualitative research is necessary to unravel the complex interactions between work and family arrangements, and to show how economic, social, and ideological factors constrain family arrangements, but are also transformed in their creation.