Discrepancies in parents' and children's reports of child emotion regulation

The ability to regulate one’s emotions effectively has been linked with many aspects of well-being. The current study examined discrepancies between mothers’ and children’s reports of child emotion regulation. This investigation examined patterns of discrepancies for key aspects of emotion regulation (i.e., inhibition and dysregulated expression) and for three emotions (anger, sadness, worry). A total of 61 mother-child dyads (mean children’s age = 9.3 years) participated. As hypothesized, discrepancies for inhibition subscales were of a larger magnitude than those for dysregulated expression subscales. Furthermore, age was related to discrepancies in both anger subscales, parent reports of child externalizing symptoms were related to anger dysregulated expression discrepancies, and child reports of internalizing symptoms were related to sadness dysregulated expression discrepancies. Overall, the findings suggest that patterns of discrepant reports are not random but rather may provide meaningful and useful information about the nature of emotion regulation.     

面对21世纪的人类“圣餐” 中国该怎样分享

人类基因组计划（ＨｕｍａｎＧｅｎｏｍｅＰｒｏｊｅｃｔ,ＨＧＰ）实施７年来已取得巨大进展,不断涌现的新技术、新策略使人基因组全长测序有望在今后几年内提前完成,结构基因组学时代正向功能基因组学时代过渡。然而,发达国家之间的基因争夺战亦愈演愈烈,中国现正面临着严峻挑战。本文简要介绍了ＨＧＰ研究的国际背景、最新进展及发展趋势,目的在于分析目前我国ＨＧＰ研究所存在的问题和探讨其发展对策     

Developmental verbal control of behavior: Implications for self-instructional training

Kindergarten, first-grade, and second-grade children (5, 6, and 7 years of age, respectively) performed a Luria-type verbal control task in which motor responses are initiated to positive stimuli and inhibited to negative stimuli. The task was performed by motor responding only and verbal self-directed motor responding, with these conditions reversed in sequence for one half of each grade group. Although motor responding and verbal-motor responding by the two younger groups were generally poor, their performance equalled that of the second graders when the verbalizing condition followed the silent, motor-only condition. For these children, verbalizing appeared to constitute a second task which interfered with motor responding. Prior practice on motor-only responding, however, facilitated subsequent, concurrent performance of the two tasks. No interference or practice effects were found for the second graders. The results suggested that self-instructional training programs are likely to be successful when adequate verbal-motor coordination can be assumed or when the motor response is within the child's repertoire.     

Family transmission of work affectivity and experiences to children

Theory and research suggest that children develop orientations toward work appreciably influenced by their family members’ own expressed work experiences and emotions. Cross-sectional data from 100 children (53 girls, 47 boys; mean age = 11.1 years) and structural equation modeling were used to assess measures of work affectivity and experiences and to test hypotheses suggesting that family work experiences and emotions influence the orientations children develop toward work and how they in turn influence children’s work and school motivation. Results indicated that the family setting influences children’s perceptions of and future orientation toward the world of work through adults’ expression of positive work experiences, negative work affect, and negative work experiences. Furthermore, children’s work and school motivations appear to be principally influenced by indicators of favorable work affect and experiences. Implications and suggestions for future research are offered that cast the family as an important core setting for children’s vocational development.     

Cognitive-behavioural therapy for young children with anxiety disorders: Comparison of a Child + Parent condition versus a Parent Only condition

The present study compared the efficacy of a group-based cognitive-behavioural treatment (GCBT) delivered exclusively to parents of young anxious children (between 4 and 8 years of age) with the same intervention delivered to both children and parents, relative to a Wait-list Control condition. Parents of children in the Parent Only condition (N = 25) received 10 weekly sessions of GCBT whereas children and parents in the Parent + Child condition (N = 24) each received 10 weekly sessions of GCBT. Intent-to-treat analyses indicated that both active treatment conditions were superior to the Wait-list condition (N = 11), with 55.3% of children in the Parent Only condition and 54.8% of children in the Parent + Child condition no longer meeting criteria for their principal diagnosis at post-treatment. These treatment gains were maintained in both treatment conditions at six-month and 12-month follow-up assessments. There were no significant differences between the two active conditions on other outcome measures including parental psychopathology and parenting style. However, an unexpected finding was that parenting satisfaction and to some extent parenting competence reduced significantly from pre- to post-treatment regardless of the active treatment condition. The present results suggest that GCBT delivered exclusively to parents of young anxious children may be a viable treatment alternative for improving accessibility to efficacious treatments for children with anxiety disorders and for reducing costs associated with mental health care delivery.     

THE BROTHERS BONHOEFFER ON SCIENCE, MORALITY, AND THEOLOGY

On one level this is a case study in science, religion, and morality, with special attention to the consequences for morality of science's embeddedness in society. On another level this is the science-and-theology dialogue between the theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer and his brother Karl-Friedrich, a physicist. The influence of Karl-Friedrich and the brothers' exchanges on Dietrich's prison theology receives special attention. Because this study is set in Germany in the 1930s and 40s, and Karl-Friedrich's work intersected Germany's efforts to develop a nuclear weapon, the discussion leads to Los Alamos and the Manhattan Project. The attention there is to the interplay of science, religion, and morality at the time the bomb was detonated at the Trinity site.     

Parent characteristics, economic stress and neighborhood context as predictors of parent involvement in preschool children's education

This study examines factors related to three dimensions of parent involvement in preschool: school-based involvement, home-based involvement, and the parent–teacher relationship. Participants were 154 predominantly African American parents recruited from two Head Start programs. Results of bivariate and canonical correlation analyses support the validity of a multi-dimensional, ecological conceptualization of parent involvement. Perceived context variables, including economic stress and neighborhood social disorder, related negatively to parent involvement. Parent characteristics, including sense of efficacy regarding education and level of education, related positively to parent involvement. Regression analyses detected different patterns of association between predictors and the three dimensions of parent involvement. Parent characteristics were associated with home involvement, while perceived context variables were predictive of the teacher–parent relationship. Implications of differential predictors for different domains of parent involvement and directions for future research and intervention with low-income families are discussed.     

Burnout in Mothers and Fathers of Children Surviving Brain Tumour

The aim of this paper was to investigate the occurrence of burnout among parents of brain tumour survivors. Burnout was assessed in 24 mothers and 20 fathers of childhood brain tumour survivors, using the Shirom–Melamed Burnout Questionnaire. Parents of children with no history of chronic or serious diseases served as a reference group. Mothers’ burnout scores were significantly higher compared with reference mothers. For fathers, no relation between burnout and being a parent of a brain tumour survivor was established, despite a nonsignificant tendency in the same direction as for the mothers. In conclusion, the parenting burden after a child’s brain tumour may include chronic strain, and this may be particularly taxing for mothers. The findings encourage further studies of psychological exhaustion among parents of children with special needs.