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Journal Article Prenatal parenting attitudes and parenting behaviors during infancy and early childhood were used as predictors of attachment in children of adolescent mothers at ages 1 and 5. Seventy-eight adolescent mother - child dyads participated. Data were collected at five time points from the third trimester of pregnancy through the children's 5th year. A high percentage of children exhibited disorganized and insecure attachment during both infancy and early childhood; only 30% were securely attached at 1 year and 41% at 5 years. Quality of maternal interactions and cognitive readiness to parent…
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Journal Article This special issue focuses on teen parenthood and includes articles that address the developmental trajectory for children born to teenage parents, protective factors for teen parents and their children, intervention efforts to promote resiliency, and the experiences of infants of teenage parents. An introductory article discusses the risks associated with adolescent parenthood and community-based strategies to support young families. The following article reviews findings from large national studies on the effects of early care and intervention on the children of adolescents. The next…
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Journal Article This study used the theory of human values to explore parents' involvement with their children. The relationships between maternal and paternal value priorities and various forms of involvement in child care were examined in a sample of 209 couples with 1 child between 6 and 36 months of age. As predicted, giving high priority to openness-to-change values (e.g., self-direction, stimulation) and low priority to conservation values (e.g., tradition, conformity, security) is associated with more father involvement and less mother involvement. Moreover, and as predicted, the priority given by a…
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Journal Article The purpose of this study was to explore the relation between self-esteem, sociodemographic factors, father-daughter relationships, and sexual risk-taking in an economically diverse group of late-adolescent African American girls. Participants were 100 African American adolescent girls from the Southeast region of the U.S. Regression analyses revealed that fathers' education was the most powerful predictor of sexual risk, with self-esteem emerging as a significant, yet less powerful predictor. A subset of the initial sample participated in a secondary, qualitative study explicitly examining…
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Journal Article This study explores the unique influence of fathers on adolescents' psychological well-being. Analyses are based on a nationally representative sample (Add Health) of students in Grades 7 through 12 living in intact homes. Results of multivariate analyses reveal that the father-adolescent relationship has an independent impact on adolescents' psychological well-being beyond the mother-adolescent relationship. Comparatively, the magnitude of effect was similar for mothers and fathers on sons' and daughters' well-being. Examining the dynamic nature of parent-adolescent relations through time…
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Journal Article Building on social ecological research, this study considers whether neighborhood socioeconomic advantage modifies the relationship between parenting practices and sex initiation among young adolescents. Using data on a national sample of 2,559 middle school students, the authors examined two-way interactions between neighborhood socioeconomic status and parental involvement, decision making, and communication about sex. The parental decision-making measure was developed using latent class analysis. Greater parental involvement was related to a lower likelihood of sex initiation only when…
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Journal Article The present study examined the relationship between concurrent measures of adolescent fathers' parenting stress, social support, and fathers' care-giving involvement with the 3-month-old infant, controlling for fathers' prenatal involvement. The study sample consisted of 50 teenage father-mother dyads. Findings from multivariate regression revealed that fathers' parenting stress was significantly and negatively related to fathers' care giving as perceived by both fathers and mothers. The relationship between support for father involvement provided by the young man's parents and father…
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Journal Article How have recent changes in U.S. family structure affected the cognitive, social, and emotional well-being of the nation's children-- Paul Amato examines the effects of family formation on children and evaluates whether current marriage promotion programs are likely to meet children's needs.
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Journal Article Gender role development was assessed in 52 father-absent and 54 father-present African American adolescents. Father-present boys, especially those from lower-income backgrounds, had higher perceptions of their masculinity than did father-absent boys. Lower income father-absent girls perceived themselves to be higher in masculinity than did all other girls. Consequently, father-present adolescents tended to have more traditional gender role orientations than did those in father-absent homes. It is argued that mothers' and fathers' different socializing strategies balance out in two-parent…
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Journal Article The purpose of this study was to examine the involvement of young fathers with their children at entry to a fatherhood program and at subsequent follow-up. Thirty-eight young fathers participated in this analysis. Using open-ended questions at intake and subsequent follow-up, they were asked to describe in their own words their relationships with their children. A thematic analysis was used to explore their self-reported statements. Three themes emerged from the analysis: Positive Emotionality, Accessibility, and Engagement. A comparison between thematic categories at intake and follow-up…
