Reframing caring for parents who struggle with substance-use disorders

Nancy Suchman and the colleagues she influenced have produced ground-breaking and attitude-challenging work in understanding how parenting and substance use come together. Dr Suchman and her colleagues make the claim that there is nothing about a substance-use disorder that precludes effective and sensitive caring for children especially with interventions that focus on the parent–child relationship. Suchman's legacy is to highlight how substance use as an illness pulls individuals away from important, caring relationships and limits their giving themselves to those relationships. Restoring the salience of caring relationships and of the individual's ability to care may be as impactful on their substance use as a strict focus on the reduction of drug use and achieving abstinence.     

IMPACT OF JOINT ATTENTION ON SOCIAL‐COMMUNICATION SKILLS IN INTERNATIONALLY ADOPTED CHILDREN

Internationally adopted (IA) children have often experienced early adversity and are at risk for long‐term deficiencies in multiple developmental domains. This study examined the association between IA children's joint attention (JA) soon after arrival and later cognitive, communicative, and socioemotional competency 6 months’ postadoption. We expected a child's initial JA would positively predict later cognitive, communication, and social ability. IA children (n = 63) adopted from Eastern Europe were seen soon after their arrival into the United States to assess their JA. Their socioemotional competency, social communication, and cognitive abilities were measured at a follow‐up session 6 months’ postadoption. We found that higher order JA was positively associated with measures of social relatedness. Furthermore, individual hierarchical regressions of each measure of JA (higher order JA, initiating JA, responding to JA, and initiating behavior requests [BR]) considered with age‐at‐adoption showed that each measure was an independent and positive predictor of Mullen outcomes in the receptive and expressive language domains. These results suggest that JA may be a sensitive predictor of subsequent functioning in the social, communicative, and cognitive domains. Thus, assessing JA soon after arrival has the potential to identify at‐risk IA children, and interventions targeting JA may support those children in overcoming the negative impacts of early adversity.     

上善若水为而不争：老子处世哲学的生命启慧

老子是道家自然美学的开创者,并以《道德经》印证了高远深邃的人生智慧。可以说,＂上善若水＂、＂为而不争＂、＂自然皈依＂作为一种理想化的君子人格模式,体认着老子＂以水喻道＂的敏锐睿智的思辨特质,召唤了历代仁人志士在人格实现上日趋走向完善、达求和升华,从而使得老子哲学始终蕴含着悠长隽永的生命意趣。     

Toward a Confucian Notion of Human Dignity

This essay discusses the possibility of conceptualizing a Confucian notion of human dignity. Previous discussions on this topic have been either historical or reconstructive, the former discussing mainly how Confucianism considers dignity and the latter exploring the possibility of conceptualizing a Confucian human dignity as an alternative to Kant’s Menschenwürde. This essay focuses on mainly the latter effort. Specifically, I critically evaluate professor Ni Peimin’s celebrated attempt at reconstructing Confucian dignity in the context of Kant’s Menschenwürde, arguing that Ni’s work offers us novel and original insights on human dignity but fails to be coherent in several senses. On the other hand, Kant’s Menschenwürde may well lack motivation in particular circumstances, and gives no credit to moral efforts. Building upon this criticism, I further Ni’s discussion of the “four hearts” and propose a revised version of Confucian dignity.     

帛书《周易》以史解经刍议

1973年长沙马王堆出土的帛书《周易》中的《缪和》篇中,有六则以历史故事解说《易经》卦爻辞的例子。本文分析这六则历史故事用以解经的符合程度,以证明用历史故事解经并不始于南宋的杨万里等人,而四库馆臣所谓"一变而胡瑗、程子,始阐明儒理;再变而李光、杨万里,又参证史事,《易》遂日启其论端",并非历史事实。     

再读帛书《缪和》篇

本文立足于探究汉初今文《易》义的理论视野,对帛书《缪和》篇的部分章节作了疏释,一方面结合传世文献对《缪和》中包含的西汉今文《易》义作了阐发,另一方面对篇中疑难辞句也进行了较为详细的考证训释。     

读帛书《缪和》札记

马王堆帛书《缪和》是马王堆汉墓帛书《易传》六篇之第五种,内容丰富,价值颇高。但对于其中部分语句的释读和解释,存在着不同的意见。我们在各家整理注释本的基础上,在释读、诠释和分章上提出了几点个人看法,其中有些认识可能直接关涉到对孔子思想的理解。     

PARENTAL CHILDHOOD ADVERSITY,DEPRESSIVE SYMPTOMS,AND PARENTING QUALITY: EFFECTS ON TODDLER SELF‐REGULATION IN CHILD WELFARE SERVICES INVOLVED FAMILIES

Parents who are involved with child welfare services (CWSI) often have a history of childhood adversity and depressive symptoms. Both affect parenting quality, which in turn influences child adaptive functioning. We tested a model of the relations between parental depression and child regulatory outcomes first proposed by K. Lyons‐Ruth, R. Wolfe, A. Lyubchik, and R. Steingard (2002). We hypothesized that both parental depression and parenting quality mediate the effects of parental early adversity on offspring regulatory outcomes. Participants were 123 CWSI parents and their toddlers assessed three times over a period of 6 months. At Time 1, parents reported on their childhood adversity and current depressive symptoms. At Time 2, parents’ sensitivity to their child's distress and nondistress cues was rated from a videotaped teaching task. At Time 3, observers rated children's emotional regulation, orientation/engagement, and secure base behavior. The results of a path model partly supported the hypotheses. Parent childhood adversity was associated with current depressive symptoms, which in turn related to parent sensitivity to child distress, but not nondistress. Sensitivity to distress also predicted secure base behavior. Depression directly predicted orientation/engagement, also predicted by sensitivity to nondistress. Sensitivity to distress predicted emotion regulation and orientation/engagement. Results are discussed in terms of intervention approaches for CWSI families.