Short-term effects of teenage parenting programs on knowledge and attitudes

The short-term effects of teenage parenting programs upon the knowledge and attitudes of pregnant teenagers were assessed. The programs studied produced a significant change in the teenagers' knowledge of sexuality and child development while having no apparent effect on the teenagers' parenting attitudes. The implications of producing changes in knowledge without accompanying changes in attitudes are discussed.     

A Dispositional and Situational Assessment of Children's Coping: Testing Alternative Models of Coping

ABSTRACT Dispositional and situational measures of children's coping were developed using a theoretically based approach. Two studies ( N 1 = 217; N 2 = 303) assessed the psychometric characteristics of these measures in fourth- through sixth-grade children. Confirmatory factor analyses indicated that a four-factor model of dispositional coping (active, distraction, avoidant, and support seeking) provided a better fit to the data than either the problemversus emotion-focused (Lazarus & Folkman, 1984) or passive versus active (Billings & Moos, 1981) coping models. The four-factor model was largely invariant with respect to age and gender. Moderate to high correlations were found between the parallel subscales of the dispositional and situational measures of coping. Although the four factor structures of the dispositional and situational measures were generally similar, factor loadings and correlations between dimensions were not equivalent.     

Teenage parenting and child development: a literature review

Research on teenage parenting together with medical and behavioral research related to child development is reviewed in an effort to determine causal factors related to reported developmental deficits among children of teenage parents. 4 general conclusions are suggested: 1) several researchers agree that children of teenage parents show poor social and intellectual competence when compared with children on non-teen parents. However, the amount of sound empirical data to support this view is minimal. For example, there are few published studies of the longterm effects of teenage parenting or of actual behavioral interactions of teenage mothers and their children. 2) It is unlikely that research along the lines of the "continuum of reproductive casualty" will lead to identification of causal factors sufficient to account for developmental deficits in children of teenage mothers. 3) Research along the lines of "the continuum of caretaking casualty" suggest numerous behavioral and environmental variables that may be related to the development of children of teenage mothers. 4) Research designs applied to the study of teenage parenting must shift from linear models to complex multivariate models that permit simultaneous analysis of organismic, environmental, and behavioral determinants of development. Finally, mental health specialists, government agencies, and researchers alike, must be willing to entertain the hypothesis that much of our knowledge of the childrearing skills of teenage mothers is based on myth rather than empirical fact. 1 such myth may be that below 19 years of age, maternal age in and of itself is an important determinant of infant development and parent-infant interaction. Poor social-economic status, family support systems, marital stability, nutrition and prenatal care may be far more important determinants of development for these children than the age of their mothers.     

Family and Neighborhood Fit or Misfit and the Adaptation of Mexican Americans

In this study, a person-environment fit model was used to understand the independent and combined roles of family and neighborhood characteristics on the adjustment of adults and children in a sample of 750 Mexican American families. Latent class analysis was used to identify six qualitatively distinct family types and three quantitatively distinct neighborhood types using socioeconomic and cultural indicators at each level. The results showed that members of single-parent Mexican American families may be particularly at-risk, members of the lowest-income immigrant families reported fewer adaptation problems if they lived in low-income neighborhoods dominated by immigrants, members of economically successful immigrant families may be more at-risk in integrated middle class neighborhoods than in low-income neighborhoods dominated by immigrants, and members of two-parent immigrant families appear to be rather resilient in most settings despite their low socioeconomic status.     

Family Influences on Adolescent Delinquent Behaviors: Applying the Social Development Model to A Chinese Sample

The current study applied the Social Development Model (SDM) to improve understanding of the mediation processes through which the family environment was related to Chinese adolescent delinquent behavior. We tested the hypothesized model using structural equation modeling with questionnaire data collected from 736 Chinese 7th and 9th graders, their parents, and their teachers from two middle schools in Beijing, China. Testing the model separately for boys and girls yielded adequate fit indices for both although the hypothesized model was not invariant across gender and several gender differences were identified. The SDM appeared to be a valuable tool in studying the development of Chinese adolescent delinquency.     

Evaluation of a preventive intervention for a self-selected subpopulation of children

Evaluated an experimental preventive intervention developed for children who perceived their parents as problem drinkers. The 8-session program was designed to improve children's coping, self-esteem, and social competence, and modify alcohol expectancies which were specified as mediators of the effects of parental alcohol abuse on child mental health. Participants were 271 self-selected 4th-, 5th-, and 6th-grade students in 13 schools. The children were randomly assigned to treatment or delayed treatment conditions and the program was given to three successive cohorts of students. A meta-analysis across three different cohorts indicated significant program effects to improve knowledge of the program content and the use of support- and emotion-focused coping behaviors for the full sample. A slightly stronger range of effects was found for a high-risk subsample. This research was funded by the National Institute of Mental Health Grant P50-MH39246 to support a Preventive Intervention Research Center and Prevention Training Grant T32-MH18387-02.     

Family characteristics of children who self-select into a prevention program for children of alcoholics

Evaluated the efficacy of a self-selection recruitment process designed to attract fourth-, fifth-, and sixth-grade children into a school-based prevention program for children of alcoholics. Participants were 296 families comprising one child and either one or both parents. Family members' self- and collateral reports were used to assess parental problem drinking, family characteristics, and individual pathology. Analyses revealed that the recruitment process was not effective in recruiting children of alcohol-abusing parents. Furthermore, families in which children received parental consent to participate in the prevention program were indistinguishable from families whose children either showed interest without obtaining consent or showed no interest at all. Implications for recruitment strategies for future prevention programs for children of alcoholics are discussed.     

Measurement issues in family assessment: the case of the Family Environment Scale

The internal consistency reliabilities of 5 subscales of the Family Environment Scale were re-examined in a study of 311 stressed and 74 control families. The reliability coefficients generated were lower than those originally reported for this instrument; most coefficients generated were below the acceptable level for practical or research use, and there was considerable variation in the reliabilities across type of stressed family. An attempt to generate more reliable scales using the original items was unsuccessful, and questions about the validity of the subscales were raised. Our results illustrate the importance of examining reliabilities of instruments, even well-known and widely used instruments, for each sample studied.     

Prevention science and neighborhood influences on low-income children's development: theoretical and methodological issues

Despite the rapid growth of research on neighborhood influences on children, little of this research may be useful to prevention scientists. Most studies have ignored processes by which neighborhood conditions influence individual outcomes. To encourage neighborhood research that can better guide the development of preventive interventions, we propose a model that focuses attention on mediating and moderating processes, is appropriate for studies interested in individual differences in outcomes, acknowledges the transactions between residents and neighborhoods, and is sensitive to how neighborhood influences may differ for children at different developmental stages. Furthermore, we argue that greater attention to several methodological issues also can make neighborhood research more useful for the next generation of prevention programs to help low-income urban families and children cope successfully with the challenges posed by their neighborhoods.