Parental Support for Autonomy and Child Depressive Symptoms in Middle Childhood: The Mediating Role of Parent–Child Attachment

To facilitate understanding of the factors associated with child depressive symptoms in middle childhood, we examined the roles of parental support for autonomy and parent–child attachment in child depressive symptoms among 150 Chinese parent–child dyads. The participating children’s ages ranged from 6 to 12 years old. Parental support for autonomy was coded from a conflict resolution and a cooperation task. Children reported their depressive symptoms and their attachment relationships with the participating parents. After controlling for parent depressive symptoms, parental support for autonomy was associated with fewer child depressive symptoms. The association between parental support for autonomy and child depressive symptoms was mediated by parent–child attachment quality, suggesting that parental support for autonomy was negatively associated with child depressive symptoms through its positive association with parent–child attachment quality. Moreover, the positive association between parental support for autonomy and parent–child attachment quality was stronger for older children. The current study expanded the knowledge on parental support for autonomy in middle-childhood and its association with parent–child relationships and child mental health. Future research is encouraged to pay more attention to the role of parental support for autonomy in various aspects of child development for children in middle-childhood and pre-adolescence.     

依恋回避与学前儿童孤独感的关系：同伴拒绝的中介作用和师幼关系的调节作用

为了探讨学前儿童依恋回避对其孤独感的影响,以及同伴拒绝和师幼关系在其中的作用,研究采用问卷法和同伴提名法对193名学前儿童进行为期一年的追踪调查。结果表明：（1）依恋回避、同伴拒绝和孤独感之间两两显著正相关;（2）同伴拒绝在依恋回避和孤独感之间起中介作用;（3）师幼冲突调节了依恋回避通过同伴拒绝影响孤独感中介作用的前半路径。相对于师幼冲突程度较低的幼儿,高师幼冲突幼儿的依恋回避更容易导致高同伴拒绝进而体验较高的孤独感。     

流动儿童的亲子依恋与其城市适应的关系:心理韧性的中介作用

本研究旨在探讨流动儿童的亲子依恋与城市适应的关系,并探讨心理韧性在其中是否起到了中介作用。采用城市适应问卷、亲子依恋问卷、心理韧性量表,对北京市3所小学三到六年级的665名流动儿童进行了调查。经分析发现：（1）女生、低年级、父母教育水平高、公立学校、未转学的流动儿童能更好地城市适应;（2）亲子依恋、城市适应和心理韧性各维度两两相关;（3）亲子依恋中的自我模型和父母模型对城市适应均有直接预测效应。亲子依恋中的自我模型通过心理韧性进而间接影响城市适应;亲子依恋中的父母模型通过心理韧性进而间接影响城市适应;亲子依恋中的自我模型和父母模型可以共同通过心理韧性进而间接影响城市适应;心理韧性在其中均起到显著的部分中介作用。总的来说,亲子依恋可以直接影响城市适应,也可以通过心理韧性的中介作用间接影响城市适应。     

Assessing daily management of childhood diabetes using 24-hour recall interviews: reliability and stability

Conducted 24-hr recall interviews concerning daily diabetes management with seventy-eight 6- to 19-year-old patients and their parents. Patients and parents were interviewed independently nine times over 3 months. Data obtained were used to construct 13 adherence measures. All measures yielded statistically significant estimates of parent-child concordance. Parent-child agreement was higher for weekday versus weekend behaviors and when based on nine versus three interviews. For the sample as a whole, parent-child concordance remained stable over the course of the study. Compared to the older patients, the 6- to 9-year-olds exhibited poorer parent-child agreement on measures involving time (e.g., injection and exercise-duration measures). This deficit disappeared, however, as the children became more practiced with the interview procedure. The dietary and glucose-testing measures exhibited moderate stability over the 3-month study. Lower stability estimates were obtained for the exercise and injection measures.     

Child-rearing antecedents of intergenerational relations in young adulthood: a prospective study.

Data gathered from mothers on parenting and family climate when almost 1,000 children in the Dunedin, New Zealand, longitudinal study were 3, 5, 7, 9, 13, and 15 years of age were used to predict intergenerational relations between young adult children (age 26) and their middle-aged parents. Analyses focused on distinct developmental epochs revealed greater prediction from the middle-childhood and early-adolescent periods than from the early-childhood years: most indicated that more supportive family environments and child-rearing experiences in the family of origin forecasted more positive and less negative parent-child relationships (in terms of contact, closeness, conflict, reciprocal assistance) in young adulthood, though associations were modest in magnitude. Some evidence indicated that (modestly) deleterious effects on intergenerational relations of experiencing relatively unsupportive child-rearing environments in 1 but not 2 (of 3) developmental periods studied could be offset by relatively supportive family environments in the remaining developmental periods.     

祖辈协同教养与幼儿错误信念理解能力的关系:亲子依恋与祖辈同住的作用

为考察祖辈协同教养与幼儿错误信念理解之间的关系以及幼儿亲子依恋的中介作用,采用方便抽样的方法,调查了某城市三所幼儿园345名小班至大班的祖辈协同教养幼儿及其家庭教养人。对幼儿使用操作任务考察错误信念理解能力,对其家庭教养人利用自陈式问卷收集家庭教养方式和亲子依恋等数据。结果显示：(1)祖辈协同教养类型显著影响幼儿的错误信念理解水平和亲子依恋,“有祖辈同住”协同教养幼儿的错误信念理解水平以及依恋的安全性均显著低于“无祖辈同住”协同教养幼儿;(2)亲子依恋在祖辈协同教养的民主信任和教养冲突两个维度与幼儿错误信念理解能力之间分别存在显著的中介作用;(3)祖辈协同教养类型在教养冲突、亲子依恋、错误信念理解能力的中介模型中起调节作用,在“有祖辈同住”条件下,协同教养冲突显著负向预测幼儿的亲子依恋安全感。     

Multiple Determinants of Externalizing Behavior in 5-Year-Olds: A Longitudinal Model

In a community sample of 116 children, assessments of parent-child interaction, parent-child attachment, and various parental, child, and contextual characteristics at 15 and 28 months and at age 5 were used to predict externalizing behavior at age 5, as rated by parents and teachers. Hierarchical multiple regression analysis and path analysis yielded a significant longitudinal model for the prediction of age 5 externalizing behavior, with independent contributions from the following predictors: child sex, partner support reported by the caregiver, disorganized infant-parent attachment at 15 months, child anger proneness at 28 months, and one of the two parent-child interaction factors observed at 28 months, namely negative parent-child interactions. The other, i.e., a lack of effective guidance, predicted externalizing problems only in highly anger-prone children. Furthermore, mediated pathways of influence were found for the parent-child interaction at 15 months (via disorganized attachment) and parental ego-resiliency (via negative parent-child interaction at 28 months).

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Temperament,Family Environment and Anxiety in Preschool Children

This research examines the relationship between behavioural inhibition (BI), family environment (overinvolved and negative parenting, parental anxiety and parent-child attachment) and anxiety in a sample of 202 preschool children. Participants were aged between 3 years 2 months and 4 years 5 months, 101 were male. A thorough methodology was used that incorporated data from multiple observations of behaviour, diagnostic interviews and questionnaire measures. The results showed that children categorised as behaviourally inhibited were significantly more likely to meet criteria for a range of anxiety diagnoses. Furthermore, a wide range of family environment factors, including maternal anxiety, parenting and attachment were significantly associated with BI, with inhibited children more likely to experience adverse family environment factors. No interactions between temperament and family environment were found for child anxiety. However, a significant relationship between current maternal anxiety and child anxiety was found consistently even after controlling for BI. Additionally, there was some evidence of a relationship between maternal negativity and child anxiety, after controlling for BI. The results may suggest that temperament and family environment operate as additive, rather than interactive risk factors for child anxiety. This is discussed in the context of theoretical models of child anxiety and directions for future research.     

Attachment-Related Predictors of Constructive Thinking Among College Students

This study explored the extent to which (a) retrospective reports of childhood emotional bonds with parents and (b) current adult attachment orientations predicted the capacity for constructive thinking within a college sample. A total of 145 undergraduates completed measures of global constructive thinking, parent-child emotional bonds, and adult attachment orientations. When gender and ethnic differences in constructive thinking within this sample were controlled for, both parent-child emotional bonds and current adult attachment orientations significantly predicted constructive thinking scores. In addition, students' adult attachment orientations effectively mediated the influence of early emotional bonds on constructive thinking.     

儿童中期亲子依恋与焦虑症状的交叉滞后分析

以Kerns依恋安全性量表、Spence儿童焦虑量表为研究工具,对2所普通小学的472名三年级学生进行为期1年的追踪,考察儿童中期亲子依恋和焦虑症状的发展变化,以及亲子依恋与焦虑症状之间的关系。结果发现:(1)儿童中期的亲子依恋和焦虑症状在1年内较为稳定,分离焦虑、社交恐惧、恐慌障碍和强迫冲动障碍表现出一定的发展变化。(2)亲子依恋与焦虑症状呈显著负相关,依恋越安全,儿童的焦虑水平越低。(3)交叉滞后分析显示,亲子依恋在更大程度上影响儿童焦虑;母子依恋只具有同时性的影响,父子依恋既有同时性也有继时性的影响。(4)安全型父子依恋能够有效缓解不安全母子依恋的消极影响,安全型母子依恋对不安全父子依恋的补偿作用较小。     

Improving the quality of parental interaction with very low birth weight children: A longitudinal study using a Mediated Learning Experience model

Cognitive performance of 3-year-old, very low birth weight children (N = 42) was found to be more significantly related to the quality of parent-child interaction than to early measures of cognitive performance or measures of developmental risk such as birth weight and APGAR. The subjects were randomly divided into an intervention and a control group. The intervention group was visited at home, infrequently, by a mediator who identified basic criteria of quality of parent-child interaction and provided the parents with feedback on the quality of interaction with their own children. The intervention procedure continued for 7 months. The extent of a family's participation in the intervention varied depending upon the initial quality of parent-child interaction and the amount of time it took a family to reach criteria. Quality of parent-child interaction and children's cognitive performance were pretested and reassessed 3 years after the intervention. The sample was reduced to 29 due to attrition over time. Parental behavior following the intervention had changed significantly with respect to all criteria. Parents who had received intervention, as compared to the control group parents, provided their children with more behaviors related to focusing attention, exciting and rewarding, expanding children's understanding of the world around them, preplanning and regulating behavior. Three years after the relatively unintensive intervention, parents continued to show significant gains in quality of mediation. Differences were found between parents of Small for Gestational Age (SGA) and Appropriate for Gestational Age (AGA) children in favor of the SGA group. In children's cognitive performance, scores of the intervention group on the Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test (PPVT) were significantly higher than those of the control group. On other cognitive measures, a consistent trend in favor of the intervention group was noted. More children in the control as compared to the experimental group were rated by their parents as having difficulties with language, fine motor, and sociability skills 3 years after the intervention.     

学龄前留守儿童亲子依恋对执行功能的影响:祖孙依恋的调节作用和中介作用

本研究探究了学龄前留守儿童亲子依恋、祖孙依恋与执行功能之间的关系,并进一步分析了祖孙依恋的调节作用和中介作用。对155名南昌市农村地区的学龄前留守儿童及其父母亲和（外）祖父母进行研究,研究工具包括亲子依恋量表（Waters Attachment Q-sort Items）和执行功能任务组。结果表明：（1）学龄前留守儿童亲子依恋与祖孙依恋、执行功能子成分抑制控制呈显著正相关,祖孙依恋与执行功能子成分抑制控制和认知灵活性呈显著正相关;（2）祖孙依恋在亲子依恋对学龄前留守儿童执行功能子成分抑制控制的影响之间存在调节效应;（3）祖孙依恋在亲子依恋对学龄前留守儿童执行功能子成分抑制控制和认知灵活性的影响之间存在中介效应。结论是可通过改善亲子依恋和祖孙依恋的质量来促进儿童执行功能的发展。     

亲子依恋与儿童抑郁症状的关系：儿童对环境的生物敏感性的作用及父母差异

不良的亲子依恋是导致儿童抑郁症状的风险因素,但其对儿童的影响会因儿童对环境的生物敏感性不同而存在差异。为探究家庭中母子、父子依恋对儿童抑郁症状的影响及儿童生物敏感性(本文中采用迷走神经抑制作为指标)在其中的作用,本研究结合行为任务、问卷报告、生理测量等多种研究手段,招募150名学龄儿童(平均年龄8.64岁,63名女孩)参与研究。结果表明：(1)学龄儿童的母子依恋水平高于父子依恋水平。(2)高水平的母子依恋与父子依恋会同等程度地降低儿童的抑郁症状。(3)儿童对环境的生物敏感性对母子依恋影响儿童抑郁症状路径的调节作用显著,生理上对环境更敏感(高迷走神经抑制)的儿童更易得益于高母子依恋,表现出较低的抑郁水平;但同时,这类儿童在母子依恋较低时也更易表现出较高的抑郁水平。(4)儿童的生物敏感性对父子依恋影响儿童抑郁症状路径的调节作用不显著,高父子依恋对生物敏感性水平不同的儿童均存在有利影响。(5)在不同情境中测量的迷走神经抑制对亲子依恋影响儿童抑郁症状的调节作用模式相似,表现出跨情境一致的特点。本研究率先揭示儿童迷走神经抑制与亲子依恋对儿童抑郁症状的联合作用机制及父母角色差异。     

Marital conflict and support seeking by parents in adolescence: empirical support for the parentification construct

Parentification, a parent-child dynamic wherein children come to provide ongoing emotional support for their parents, has been documented extensively in the clinical literature; however, it rarely has been studied systematically. Using a community sample of 83 couples and their adolescent children (mean age = 15.26 years; 52% male, 48% female), the authors linked adolescent self-report of parentification to specific youth and adult behaviors using multiple methods and examined its associations with youth adjustment problems. The parentification measure demonstrated strong internal consistency and 1-year stability. Parentification was associated with marital conflict, youth perceptions of threat, low warmth in the parent-child relationship, and the tendency for youths to intervene in marital conflict. Links were also found with youth reports of internalizing and externalizing behavior and poorer competency in close friendships. These findings thus support the parentification construct and provide evidence that parentification may contribute to poor youth outcomes by burdening children with developmentally inappropriate responsibilities.     

学业成绩影响儿童孤独感的中介变量分析

为考察、检验学业成绩影响儿童孤独感的中介变量,采用同伴提名问卷、依恋量表、儿童孤独感量表调查了4—6年级438名儿童。结果表明,在考察单一变量的中介作用时,亲子依恋、同伴拒绝分别在学业成绩与儿童孤独感之间起部分中介作用,教师接纳在二者之间起完全中介作用;当同时考察亲子依恋、同伴拒绝、教师接纳在学业成绩与孤独感之间的中介作用时,三种社会关系起完全中介作用。结论：教师接纳、同伴拒绝和亲子依恋是学业成绩与孤独感之间的中介变量。     

亲子依恋与初中生亲社会行为:有调节的中介效应

亲社会行为是个体在人际交往中表现出的谦让、帮助、合作、分享等行为,是青少年社会能力发展的重要方面。以往研究表明,安全的亲子依恋对亲社会行为具有重要影响,但亲子依恋发挥作用的具体机制及作用条件还有待深入探讨。本研究在发展系统理论及依恋理论指导下,构建一个有调节的中介效应模型,检验心理资本在亲子依恋与亲社会行为之间的中介作用,以及不良同伴交往对上述中介路径的调节作用。采用亲子依恋问卷、心理资本问卷、不良同伴交往问卷以及亲社会行为问卷对737名初中生进行测查。结构方程模型分析表明:(1)在控制了年龄、性别和社会经济地位后,亲子依恋对亲社会行为具有显著的正向预测作用。(2)中介效应检验表明,心理资本在亲子依恋与亲社会行为之间具有完全中介作用。(3)有调节的中介效应检验进一步表明,不良同伴交往调节了"亲子依恋→心理资本→亲社会行为"的前半段,即当初中生的不良同伴交往偏多时,亲子依恋对心理资本的促进作用减弱。本研究的发现表明,安全的依恋关系有利于培养初中生的心理资本,进而促进亲社会行为。但是,较高的不良同伴交往会阻碍亲子依恋积极作用的发挥。本研究验证了家庭系统、同伴系统和个人系统对亲社会行为的联合作用,对初中生亲社会行为的培养具有一定的指导意义。     

Longitudinally Foretelling Drug Use in the Late Twenties: Adolescent Personality and Social-Environmental Antecedents

This research focuses on the interrelation of the parent-child attachment, unconventionality, friends' drug use, and the young adult's use of drugs. Data were collected from participants at 4 points in time: early adolescence, late adolescence, early 20s, and late 20s. Data were collected from mothers at the 3 points in time that corresponded with the first 3 collections of data from their children. Both the youths and their mothers were individually interviewed. The findings indicated that the effect of parent-child mutual attachment was mediated through early adolescent personality attributes of greater responsibility, less rebelliousness, and intolerance of deviance. These non-drug-prone personality and behavioral attitudes, in turn, insulated the young adult from affiliating with drug-using peers, and these attitudes were related to less drug use in the early 20s and ultimately in the late 20s. The results suggest that interventions focused on enhancing parent-child mutual attachment should result in a reduction of the risk factors conducive to drug use during the late 20s. The fact that these findings cover a decade and a half, from early adolescence to the late 20s, underscores the significance of placing drug use in a perspective that includes familial and behavioral aspects.     

Parent–Adolescent Attachment and Academic Adjustment: The Mediating Role of Self-Worth

Within the theoretical framework of attachment theory, this study examined associations between adolescents’ attachment relationships with both mother and father and their academic adjustment, and explored the potential mediation role of self-worth in the associations. Participants were 384 Chinese adolescents (49.6% male, average age?=?15.13 years) from public schools in Shanghai, China. They completed self-report measures of mother–adolescent attachment, father–adolescent attachment, general self-worth, academic engagement and school grades. The results indicated that adolescents’ attachments to both parents were associated with higher levels of academic engagement. There was partial support of the mediating role of self-worth, as adolescents who had high levels of parent–adolescent attachment were more likely to have high levels of self-worth, which in turn enhanced their academic engagement and then improved high school grades. The findings highlighted the importance of parental attachment-based intervention strategies to promote and maintain academic adjustment among adolescents.     

Adult Attachment Styles, the Desire to Have Children, and Working Models of Parenthood

ABSTRACT College students who had yet to marry and begin a family were asked about their desire to have children and their beliefs and expectations about themselves as parents (Study 1) and the characteristics of their prospective children (Study 2). Persons with more avoidant and anxious-ambivalent models of close adult relationships harbored more negative models of parent-hood and parent-child relationships. These findings indicate that working models of parenting and parent-child relationships form well before marriage and the birth of children and that these models are systematically associated with attachment styles in adult relationships. The findings also suggest ways in which insecure attachments between child and parent may be influenced by the caregiver's models of parenting and parent-child relationships.