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Training Materials In the Parenting Wisely: Teenagers video series, the first three scenarios illustrate the challenges families face in teaching children to be responsible. Lying, name calling, disrespectful arguing, and completing homework and household chores are depicted. Parents demonstrate how to resolve these challenges through good role modeling of effective discipline and communication, while structuring tasks and incentives.The second three scenarios depict parents and children working through conflicts. The issues portrayed include neglecting schoolwork and associating with a deviant peer, child…
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Training Materials In the Parenting Wisely: Young Children video series, the first three family scenarios are presented in which young children, aged 3-5, don't comply when they are told to stop doing something. In scenario one, a child is trying to get the parent's attention by interrupting the mother when she is on the telephone. Scenario two depicts a tantrum in the grocery store when a young child's demands for treats are denied. The third scene shows a parent having trouble getting a child off to bed. Effective and non-effective methods, routinely used by parents to deal with these challenges, are shown…
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Journal Article Recent trends in marriage and fertility have increased the number of adults having children by more than 1 partner, a phenomenon that we refer to as multipartnered fertility. This article uses data from the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Study to examine the prevalence and correlates of multipartnered fertility among urban parents of a recent birth cohort (N = 4,300). We find that unmarried parents are much more likely to have had a child by a previous partner than married parents. Also, race/ethnicity is strongly associated with multipartnered fertility, as is mothers' young age at…
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Journal Article In "Fatherhood, Cohabitation, and Marriage," Wade F. Horn, Assistant Secretary for Children and Families at the Department of Health and Human Services, summarizes the importance of fathers to child well-being. He explains that "fatherlessness is a significant risk factor for poor developmental outcomes for children." This connection has led some observers to view cohabitation as a substitute or at least an alternative to marriage. Horn argues, however, that marriage is the best option for children and that cohabitation is a weak family structure compared with marriage. Children in households…
This Partnership for Reading publication is designed to help parents teach their children how to read. It describes strategies proven to work by the most rigorous scientific research available on the teaching of reading. The research that confirmed the effectiveness of these strategies used systematic, empirical methods drawn from observation or experiment; involved rigorous data analyses to test its hypotheses and justify its conclusions; produced valid data across multiple evaluators and observations; and was accepted by a peer-reviewed journal or approved by a panel of independent experts…
This "playbook" offers dads some simple skills to use in order to help their kids be even better readers such as knowing what kinds of questions to ask when reading a story together. It discusses how parents can help by building five skills that kids need to become readers-- phonemic awareness, phonics, vocabulary, fluency, and comprehension. It also includes stories from 20 dads on how they helped their kids learn to read.
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Journal Article The impact of children's perception of a father's and mother's support on children's quality of relationship with their classroom teacher was examined in a sample of 51 third and fourth grade Asian children rated by their teachers as aggressive. Children's perception of a father's support predicted teacher-ratings in all three areas of the teacher-student relationship (instrumental help, satisfaction, and conflict) but children's perception of a mother's support did not. This adds to a gradually expanding research base documenting the benefits of fatherly support across selected and…
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Journal Article This research links residence with biological and nonbiological married and unmarried parents to the cognitive achievement and behavioral problems of children aged 3-12, controlling for factors that make such families different. The data were drawn from the 1997 Child Development Supplement to the Panel Study of Income Dynamics. Achievement differences were not associated with father family structure per se, but with demographic and economic factors that differ across families. In contrast, behavioral problems were linked to family structure even after controls for measured and unmeasured…
This InfoSheet includes 10 steps for involving fathers in the early literacy development of their children. (Author abstract modified)
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Journal Article The present study was conducted to investigate differences in nurturant fathering, father involvement, and young adult psychosocial functioning among small samples of three nontraditional family forms. A total of 168 young-adult university students from three family forms (27 adoptive, 22 adoptive stepfather, 119 nonadoptive stepfather) completed retrospective measures of nurturant fathering and father involvement and measures of current psychosocial functioning. Results indicated that adoptive fathers were rated as the most nurturant and involved and that nonadoptive stepfathers were…
