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Journal Article The saying "violence begets violence" is an apt descriptor of the cycle of family violence, as children who witness parental violence are at high risk for repeating family violence in their own adult intimate relationships. Neuroscience research suggests that emotional regulation may be an important link in the heritability of family violence, and promotes awareness of the importance of internalizing as well as externalizing responses to stress, neglect, and abuse. This study argues for a trauma-informed approach to identifying children and parents whose symptoms of emotional dysregulation…
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Journal Article The broad aim of this study on father-child attachment was to verify whether the Risky Situation (RS) procedure is a more valid means than the Strange Situation (SS) procedure of predicting children's socio-emotional development, and to evaluate the moderator effect of day-to-day involvement on attachment and activation. Participants were 53 father-child dyads. The RS and the SS were conducted when children were 12-18 months old to measure attachment and activation, and a questionnaire on fathering was administered at the same time. Childcare workers rated children's socio-emotional…
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Journal Article The activation relationship is a new theorisation of father-child attachment that places the emphasis on exploration and openness to the world. This study, which was the first to employ the Preschool Risky Situation and which used a convenience sample of 51 father-child dyads, confirmed the hypothesis of an association between the activation relationship and internalising disorders (IDs) in children. The analyses demonstrated the existence of the anticipated link between underactivation and IDs: underactivated children had significantly more IDs than activated children. Children were…
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Journal Article Self-regulation ability is an important component of school readiness and predictor of academic success, but few studies of self-regulation examine contributions of fathering to the emergence of self-regulation in low-income ethnic minority preschoolers. Associations were examined between parental child-oriented parenting support and preschoolers' emerging self-regulation abilities in 224 low-income African American (n = 86) and Latino (n = 138) children observed at age 30 months in father-child and mother-child interactions to determine unique predictions from fathering qualities. Child-…
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Journal Article The purpose of the current study was to examine the relationships among selected family interaction variables and psychosocial outcomes in a sample of Jamaican adolescents. The authors hypothesized that adolescent psychosocial outcomes would be negatively associated with physical violence, verbal aggression would be more potent than physical violence, and the combined effect of all aggression and violence would be more detrimental than either form of aggression by itself. Overall, the results supported the authors' hypotheses about the detrimental effects of negative family interactions on…
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Journal Article The aim of this study was to investigate whether stigmatization was associated with psychological adjustment in adolescents from planned lesbian families and, if so, to examine whether individual and interpersonal promotive factors influenced this association. Seventy-eight adolescents (39 girls, 39 boys; mean age = 17.05 years) completed an online questionnaire about psychological health problems and life satisfaction. In addition, information was obtained about androgynous personality traits (an individual factor) of the adolescents. The adolescents were also queried about family…
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Journal Article Purpose: To examine evidence of the continuity in abusive discipline across two generations (G1 and G2) and the role of safe, stable, and nurturing relationships (SSNRs) as protective factors. Methods: Data are from the Lehigh Longitudinal Study, a prospective investigation of the causes and consequences child maltreatment that began in the 1970s with a sample of 457 children and their parents. Data were most recently collected in 2008-2010 from 80% of the original child sample (N = 357) when they were adults age 36 years on average. Of those assessed as adults, 268 participants (G2s) were…
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Journal Article Purpose: We examine two research questions. First, does a history of child maltreatment victimization significantly increase the likelihood of maltreatment perpetration during adulthood? Second, do safe, stable, and nurturing relationships (SSNRs) during early adulthood serve as direct protective factors, buffering protective factors, or both to interrupt intergenerational continuity in maltreating behaviors? Methods: Data come from the Rochester Youth Development Study that followed a community sample from age 14 to 31 with 14 assessments. Maltreatment victimization records covering birth…
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Journal Article Intervention programs aiming to support fathers' parenting skills with young children need a practical, but psychometrically sound, observational measure of fathers' parenting interactions. The purpose of this study was to test the psychometric properties of the Parenting Interactions with Children--Checklist of Observations Linked to Outcomes (PICCOLO) measure for use with fathers, and to explore whether additional observational father-behavior items derived from father research and theory would strengthen those psychometric properties. The 29 original PICCOLO items and 44 additional…
This fact sheet offers a brief overview of the first of seven concepts outlined in the Healthy Relationship and Marriage Education Training (HRMET), Care for Self. Information is shared on why self-care, including physical, emotional/mental, sexual, and spiritual well-being, is so important to the health of romantic relationships. An overview is given on why encouraging Care for Self is important to child welfare services.
