Bringing a mentalizing framework to understanding mothers with addiction: The groundbreaking work of Nancy E. Suchman

Nancy Suchman is remembered as a pioneer whose mentalization-based intervention—Mothering from the Inside Out (MIO)—transformed the treatment of parents struggling with substance use disorders. Specifically, Suchman's work highlighted the neural mechanisms underlying substance use disorders and identified the promotion of parental mentalizing as a key therapeutic focus in enhancing early parent-child relationships. Her work transformed parenting support models for this population of parents. Several randomized controlled trials (RCT) show the effectiveness of MIO in promoting parental reflective functioning (PRF) and positive relational outcomes in parents with substance use disorders and their children. Suchman's MIO model has since been extended to parenting in many contexts. She is also remembered as a generous colleague, a gifted researcher and clinician, and an inspiration to generations of researchers and practitioners working with parents who aspire to raise healthy, secure children despite multiple challenges and adversities. This special issue compiles the work of researchers inspired by Suchman as they carry on her legacy in examining aspects of parental mentalization. Collectively, the research presented yields confirmation of MIO core assumptions, offers new insights into roles of positive sentiment and savoring in mentalization processes, and presents evaluations of MIO in multiple contexts and with new adaptations.     

PYRAMIDAL PARENT TRAINING BY PEERS

This study replicated a pyramidal model of parent training by peers and compared its effects with training by a professional with 26 parents of children with disabilities. A multiple probe design across 3 tiers of parents showed that both types of training produced acquisition, maintenance, and to varying extents, generalization of parents' teaching skills, with concomitant increases in the children's performance in most cases. Improvements were comparable for parents trained by a professional or by peers, and for parents who did and did not serve as peer trainers.     

PARENT EDUCATION PROJECT III: INCREASING AFFECTION AND RESPONSIVITY IN DEVELOPMENTALLY HANDICAPPED MOTHERS: COMPONENT ANALYSIS,GENERALIZATION, AND EFFECTS ON CHILD LANGUAGE

We evaluated the effects of a parent training program consisting of verbal instruction, modeling, and feedback on the affection and responsivity of 3 developmentally handicapped mothers towards their children. The results indicated the following: First, the training package increased maternal physical affection, praise, and imitation of child vocalizations. These parenting skills increased to levels found in comparison groups of nonhandicapped mothers. Second, the training package was more effective than verbal instruction alone, the latter being the predominant method presently used by social service workers. Third, most maternal gains were maintained over a 3- to 18-month follow-up period, although one mother required a reinforced maintenance procedure. Fourth, instructing mothers to generalize served to increase the generalization of newly acquired skills from play times (the training context) to child-care tasks (e.g., diapering, feeding). Fifth, teaching the parents to imitate child vocalizations was related to gains in both the frequency and quality of verbal behavior of the two language delayed children as measured by standardized developmental tests and in vivo comparisons with age-matched children (who had nonhandicapped parents). These results show that behavioral instruction can improve important child-rearing skills of developmentally handicapped mothers, with corresponding benefits to their children.     

Not your average sport parents: How sport scholars make decisions about their own children’s sport involvement

Every year, millions of parents are faced with decisions about their children’s sport involvement that may have profound impacts on psychosocial and developmental outcomes. Little is known about how parents make these decisions and what factors may be influencing them, although parents’ sport background and knowledge are likely important. Parents who are also active sport scholars with knowledge of the academic literature and policies pertaining to youth sport are well positioned to clarify and interpret their decision-making processes and influences related to their children’s sport involvement. In this study, we aimed to answer the question, “How do parents with academic expertise in sport make decisions about their children’s sport involvement?” We interviewed 11 faculty-researchers from within the United States and Canada, all of whom held doctorates in sport-related disciplines and had one or more children between the ages of 8–15 years involved in organized, competitive sport. Findings were analyzed through a process of content analysis, and results are represented by four main themes: (a) influencing factors, (b) encouraging sampling, (c) evaluating and modifying the sport environment, and (d) supporting autonomy. Our findings revealed far more complexity in the types of decisions to be made and the factors influencing them than is currently suggested by youth sport literature and policy documents. As well, participants demonstrated nuanced interpretations of commonly endorsed sport parenting practices and illuminated structural issues with youth sport policies, including a focus on individual athletes without consideration of siblings and the family unit as a whole.     

青少年心目中的理想父母形象研究

以690名初一、高一和大一学生为被试,采用自制的词表,运用因素分析方法研究青少年心目中的理想父母形象,并比较不同青少年理想父母形象之差异。结果发现:(1)当代青少年心目中理想父母形象应具备的五项主要特征是:尊重沟通、与子为友,能力强、善于交际,正义乐群,正视现实,品德好、有原则;(2)女孩比男孩更重视父母与她们的沟通与相处;(3)随着年龄的增长,孩子对父母与自己相处态度的要求逐渐提高,而对父母的能力、生活态度、品德的要求逐渐降低;(4)是否独生子女、家庭收入水平对青少年心目中的理想父母形象也有一定影响,不同家庭结构青少年心目中的理想父母形象则没有差异。     

‘He thinks Krishna is his friend’: Domestic space and temple sociality in the socialisation beliefs of immigrant Indian Hindu parents

This paper reports results from a study of the cultural belief systems, or ethnotheories, of Asian Indian Hindu parents in the city of Baltimore, Maryland, in the USA. I adopted a cultural, developmental psychological approach and, over a one-year period, used caregiver diaries, ecological inventories, repeated in-depth interviews and participant observations to gain access to the ethnotheories of the parents. These immigrant parents emphasised family ties, unprompted adherence to the daily routine, knowledge of cultural origins and religiously inflected moral values. Exploring the nuances of their emphasis on cultural origins and moral and religious values, particularly as those relate to Hinduism and its transnational rearticulation, I show how the parents utilised domestic spaces and the temple as dual venues to systematically socialise their children into a new form of Hindu religious and ‘Indian’ ethnic identity in the USA.     

Asian-Indian Parents’ Attributions About the Causes of Child Behavior: A Replication and Extension With Parents From Chennai,India

Using hypothetical vignettes, 152 parents of children 10–17 years old living in Chennai, India, made attributions about whether the origins of 2 positive and 2 negative behaviors performed by their own child or another child were due to the child's personality or the situation, or to parenting or nonparenting influences based on the frequency, intensity, and cross-situational consistency of the behavior. Parents attributed the positive behaviors of all children to the personality of the child and to parenting. Parents attributed negative behavior of their own children to situational influences and nonparenting effects, but attributed the negative behavior of other children to their personality and to parenting, a pattern that enhances and reinforces parent self-esteem. Results were discussed in terms of the self-serving bias and the actor–observer bias, cognitive distortions that protect and enhance parents’ views of themselves and their children.     

The child's sense of existence and the fatal attraction of identification

This paper gives special emphasis to the widening and modification of the sense of existence in relation to the unconscious processes of identification. In our ‘post‐modern’ society there are some parents who, while taking care of their children, use subtle projective identification against them, so as to produce in them a sort of pathological introjective identification, which denies their Self. Ferenczi's thought, which deals with the sense of ‘not‐existing’ in some children, helps us to go into depth in understanding their difficulties and pathologies.     

Attachment relationships and physical activity motivation of college students

This study was designed to assess the link of attachment relationships with physical activity motivation. Potential mediators of this link were examined in a cross-sectional study targeting college student physical activity motivation and behaviour. Participants completed self-reports of attachment relationships (with mother, father and best friend), self-determined motivation for physical activity, physical activity behaviour and the hypothesised mediator variables of perceived competence, autonomy and relatedness. The results provide support for the mediating role of these variables in the association of father attachment with self-determined motivation. Meaningful variance in self-determined motivation for physical activity and physical activity behaviour was explained. Overall, attachment relationships appear to be relevant, albeit modestly, to physical activity motivation of college students. The findings support continued efforts to integrate attachment and motivational perspectives in the study of college student health behaviour.     

学前儿童自我控制行为家长评定问卷的编制及其结构验证

目的:编制学前儿童自我控制行为家长评定问卷并对其结构进行验证。方法:在理论分析和开放式问卷调查的基础上,编制了学前儿童自我控制行为家长评定问卷,并采用探索性因素分析与验证性因素分析相结合的方法,分别对263名和387名学前儿童的自我控制行为进行结构的探索与验证。结果:学前儿童自我控制行为由独立性、自觉性、坚持性、自制力和自我延迟满足五个维度构成;学前儿童自我控制行为问卷具有较好的信效度,其结构在不同性别、城乡样本中具有稳定性。结论:学前儿童自我控制行为是一个五因素的结构,所编制的问卷可作为学前儿童自我控制行为家长评定的工具。