PS1040 - Families in childhood and adolescence

• Types of families


  Nuclear, Extended, Reconstituted, Lone parents, Adoptive parents
• Role of father in infant care


  Lamb (1987)-

  In a psychological sense, fathers can fulfil a parenting role just as much as mothers, but frequently do not

  
  

  Lewis (1986)-

  - Interview study of fathers of 1 year olds in Nottingham

  - 100 fathers in 1960 and another 100 fathers in 1980

  - Majority of men attended the births of their children

  - But majority of child care falls on women
• Consequences of paternal involvement


  Pre-school children of highly involved fathers show...

  - More cognitive competence

  - More internal locus of control

  - More empathy

  - Less gender-role stereotyping (Lamb, 1987)

  
  

  Primary school children of fathers who show positive paternal engagement demonstrate...

  - Better self-control, self-esteem, life-skills and social competency (Amato, 1987)
• Belsky's model of parenting


  Three main influences on quality of parental functioning-

  - Personal psychological resources of parent

  - Contextual source of support

  - Characteristics of child

  
• Baumrind (1967)


  Introduced a typology with three parenting styles to describe differences in normal parenting behaviors: the authoritarian, authoritative and permissive parenting style
• Parenting Styles: Authoritarian


  Parents impose rules and expect obedience

  
  

  Try to shape, control, and evaluate their children's behavior based on the absolute set of standards
• Parenting Styles: Permissive


  Parents submit to their children's desires. They make few demands and use little punishment

  
  

  Grant more autonomy and warmth.
• Maccoby & Martin (1983)


  Attempted to bridge Baumrind's parenting dimensions. Based on the combination of two dimensions - demandingness and responsiveness - they defined four parenting styles: authoritative (i.e., high demandingness and high responsiveness); authoritarian (i.e., high demandingness and low responsiveness); indulgent (i.e., low demandingness and high responsiveness); and neglectful (i.e., low demandingness and low responsiveness)
• Effects of parenting on child outcomes


  Lamborn, Mounts, Steinberg and Dorbusch (1991)

  
  

  - 4,100 15-18 year olds from diverse backgrounds

  - Completed self-report measures of parenting

  - Parenting considered in the light of a wide range of outcome variables - E.g. educational achievement, psychosocial development, internalised distress, problem behaviour
• Parenting (Baumrind) evaluation


  Social and cultural problems with parenting styles and study samples-

  
  

  - Sample = USA = Western

  - Research based primarily on white, middle class, western families (although Lamborn et al., 1991, for more diverse samples)

  
  

  - Chinese parenting styles more authoritarian (- warm + controlling) e.g. Chao, 1994; Chen, 2001

  - Fosters high achievement

  - BUT in extreme cases leads to anxiety, depression, anti-social behaviour (Wang, Pomerantz & Chen, 2007)

  
  

  - Darling & Steinberg (1993) - Baumrind's typology is a better predictor for European-American than African-American families
• Grandparents' influence


  Tinsley and Parke (1984)

  - Grandparents can have an effect on child development in two broad ways:

  --> Indirect - parental attitudes influenced by way parent has been brought up

  --> Direct - looking after child/surrogate parent

  
  

  Johnson (1983)

  - Support and contact drops significantly with age of grandparent

  - Role and potential importance of grandparents is increasingly changing in societal structure and roles
• Siblings influence


  - The majority of children around the world have at least one sibling

  - Siblings typically spend more time with each other than with their parents (Larson & Richards, 1994)

  - Interactions with older siblings can facilitate cognitive development (e.g. language) and emotional development e.g. understanding of other people's emotions and perspectives

  --> E.g. Millenium Cohort Study e.g. De La Rocherbrochard and Joshi (2013
• Why are sibling interactions so important?


  Siblings allow children to experience positive and negative behaviours (Katz et al., 1992)

  - BUT may be influenced by factors such as number of siblings/sibling relationship quality

  
  

  Siblings can have both direct and indirect effects on development

  - Direct - e.g. can serve as social partners, role models - Indirect - e.g. via larger family dynamics, diluting resources
• Divorce and Attachment


  Individuals whose parents were divorced were less secure in their attachment styles (Brennan & Shaver, 1998; Lewis et al., 2000)

  
  

  How long the parents were divorced was not related to attachment styles
• How does divorce disrupt attachment?


  Multiple separations from attachment figures (e.g. extended family)
• Divorce: Acute Distress Syndrome


  Upset (protest)

  
  

  Apathy or Depression (despair)

  
  

  Loss of interest (detachment)
• Divorce results


  In addition to the child's psychological well-being there are other factors that must be considered when examining if divorce should be delayed or not:

  
  

  - Economic security

  - Academic achievement

  - Physical well-being

  - Behavioural problems

  - Will parental conflict rise and possibly focus more on the child?
• Should parents delay divorce?


  Emery (1999) reported that many studies find that children's problems after divorce were present prior to separation, but other studies have not found this.

  
  

  - Children from divorced homes have more psychological problems than children from homes where there was a death in the family

  - Research suggested that the reason for this difference may lie in the amount of interparental conflict that existed
• Interparental conflict


  High-conflict divorces:

  
  

  - More behaviour problems

  - More adjustment difficulties

  - Similar outcomes

  
  

  Low or Conflict-free divorces:

  
  

  - Fewer behaviour problems

  - Fewer adjustment difficulties

  - More varied and less predictable outcomes
• The effects of age of child on divorce


  - Preschool age children have the most dramatic reactions to divorce (e.g. separation anxiety, aggression)

  - Children (5-12) have similar psychological reactions as the preschool children, but tend to be less openly expressive

  - Adolescents have more resources (can understand the situation better and have more interests outside of the home) than younger children
• Other mediating factors of divorce


  - Sex of the child

  - Time since separation

  - Post-divorce arrangements

  - Relationships and support
• Divorce and Family interventions


  - Child-focused interventions (interventions that are aimed at improving children's adjustment)

  
  

  Working with parents:

  - Support parent-child relationships

  - Reducing ongoing parental conflict

  - Contact issues

  - Practical assistance

  
  

  Working with children:

  - Family work

  - Group work

  - Individual work
• Teen parents (Miller et al., 2006)


  - 17% of teen mothers maintain a romantic relationship with the baby's father after the first few months following birth

  
  

  - Compared to their peers having children 20 onwards, teen parents are:

  --> Less likely to complete school or go to college

  -->Less likely to find stable employment & more likely to experience lower income levels

  
  

  - Poverty increases the likelihood of living in a high crime, high violence areas and moving frequently
• Attachment in teen parents


  - Adolescent parents and their children have more dysregulated patterns of interaction e.g. mother yells when child cries

  - Infants show more avoidant behaviour patterns
• Knowledge of teen parents about children's development


  - Often limited

  - Tend to underestimate the rate of mental development in children, and therefore assume that they only have physical needs (Brody & Siegel, 1990)
• Long term impacts of teen motherhood


  - Lipman et al. (2011) 2355 4-16 year olds (1983) assessed again 18 years later (2001; n=1472, with 150 teen mums) at 22 to 34 years of age

  - Being born to a teen mum was associated with poorer educational attainment, life satisfaction and personal income
• Teen parents: Protective factors


  - Social support is one of the most important buffers

  ---> Partner support is positively related with maternal psychological well-being (Roye & Balk, 1996)

  ---> 85% of adolescent mothers do receive help from family members (Cervera, 1994)

  
  

  - Children's developmental outcome is increased when there is another person in the home providing alternative supportive care ---> Beneficial for the attachment between adolescent mother and her infant (Haskett et al., 1994)