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Parental burnout (PB) is a chronic stress-related condition resulting from long-lasting exposure to overwhelming parenting stress. Previous studies showing the seriousness of this condition stressed the urgent need to provide researchers and practitioners with effective assessment tools. Validated PB measures are the Parental Burnout Inventory (PBI) and the Parental Burnout Assessment (PBA). The good psychometric properties of these instruments have been replicated across different samples and countries, but thresholds for identifying impairing PB levels (i.e., cutoff scores) have not yet been established. The present study aims to fill this gap by adopting a multi-informant and multimethod approach to a sample of 192 burned-out and control parents. PBI and PBA cutoffs were derived from the combination of several PB indicators, based on a preregistered analysis strategy. Results identified a score of 74.6 (95% confidence interval (CI) = [69.48–79.68]) for the PBI and 86.3 (95% CI = [79.49–93.03]) for the PBA as indicators of the most severe PB levels. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In Western countries, recent decades have witnessed a revolution toward gender equality. Inequalities have been greatly reduced in areas such as education or employment. Because inequalities lead to distress, this development has largely benefited women. One notable exception is the realm of parenting, which has remained rife with inequalities even in the most egalitarian countries. We hypothesized that experiencing inequality in parenting when one holds egalitarian values and raising a child in a country characterized by a high level of gender equality in other areas, increases mothers' psychological distress in the specific area of parenting. Multilevel modeling analyses computed among 11,538 mothers from 40 countries confirmed this prediction: high egalitarian values at the individual level and high gender equality at the societal level are associated with higher burnout levels in mothers. The associations hold beyond differences in sociodemographic characteristics at the individual level and beyond economic disparities at the societal level. These findings show the importance of egalitarian values and gender equality and their paradoxical effect when inequalities are still present in specific areas as parenting. This study reveals the crucial need to act not only at the micro level but also at the macro level to promote gender equality in parenting and prevent parental burnout. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The current article serves a dual purpose: to highlight the overlooked and recent concept of parenting-related exhaustion and to propose a specific methodology to test concurrent variations of the parent's exhaustion with the partner's exhaustion and her or his perceived and given support. Questionnaire data were collected from 97 mother–father couples over the course of 5 consecutive days. Results from multilevel model analyses revealed day-to-day dyadic variations as well as day-to-day regulation occurring in parental couples. The dyadic variations were shown by the fact that over the week, on the days when one parent felt more exhausted, the other parent's exhaustion was also high. Dyadic regulation meant that greater exhaustion felt by one parent was associated with greater support from her or his partner. Partner's extra support was both perceived by the exhausted parent and reported by the support provider (i.e., the partner). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The majority of previous studies focused on mothers' distress and considered partner support from the father to the mother. The current research studies the level and the course of distress and partner support in new mothers and fathers during the transition to parenthood and tests the protective role of partner support against distress. Data were collected in a two-wave longitudinal design from 53 heterosexual couples. Mothers and fathers completed questionnaires at two measurement occasions, that is, in the third trimester of pregnancy and 3 months after childbirth. The results provided arguments in favor of a dyadic perspective on distress during the transition to parenthood. No difference was displayed between mothers and fathers before and after childbirth. The level of distress decreased in mothers and also in fathers but only for those whose partner's distress also decreased. The importance of partner support against postpartum distress was highlighted for mothers and fathers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study investigates the hypothesis of a child differential sensitivity to parenting improvement. One hundred and fourteen parents of preschoolers participated in two parenting micro-trials aiming to increase parental self-efficacy in view of improving child behavior. The first micro-trial took place in a short-term laboratory experiment; the other was an eight-week parenting group intervention, both focusing on altering parental cognition. Differential effects of parental self-efficacy improvement on child’s positive and negative behaviors, depending on child temperament, were compared at post-test between control and experimental groups. Both observation and questionnaires were used to measure child behavior as well as regression and Regions of Significance analyses. Child differential sensitivity was found both in the laboratory experiment and in the parenting intervention for the temperamental trait of negative emotionality but not for the temperamental trait of activity. However, this sensitivity was in an unexpected direction. Highly emotional children benefited less from this parental cognitive improvement than children low on emotionality. These results may be explained by the specific cognitive nature of these two parenting micro-trials. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study explored the relation between adolescent reports of parental religious socialization (i.e., cultural socialization, promotion of mistrust, and pluralism) and their religious out-group evaluations, externalizing and internalizing behaviors. Crosssectional data were obtained from 730 12- to 15-year old Belgian adolescents through questionnaires. Results from multilevel and ordinary linear regression analyses indicated that pluralism was associated with higher religious out-group evaluations whereas promotion of mistrust was associated with lower religious out-group evaluations and higher externalizing and internalizing behaviors. Cultural socialization interacted with the importance adolescents give to religion to influence youth externalizing behaviors. Despite its limitations, this study presents a complex picture of the association between religious socialization practices and adolescent outcomes and offers an alternative pathway to understand parental religious socialization. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

“Why do parents parent the way they do?” remains an important question since it concerns both scientific issues, such as the stability or change of childrearing behavior, and clinical issues, such as the way to promote positive parenting in evidence-based programs. Using an accelerated design, the aim of this study was to examine several parental and child predictors of childrearing behavior trajectories among 373 mothers and 356 fathers of 2- to 9-year-old children. Hypotheses were drawn from Belsky (1984) and subsequent studies of the determinants of parenting. The parental and child predictors were assessed and analyzed as time-varying (parental self-efficacy beliefs and child externalizing behavior) or time-invariant (parental educational level and personality traits) predictors, according to their conceptual properties. The results show a linear decrease in both supportive and controlling childrearing behavior in mothers and an improvement in supportive but a decrease in controlling childrearing behavior in fathers over time. Moreover, the results support the idea that childrearing behavior is determined by multiple factors, in particular the parents’ self-efficacy beliefs and the child’s behavior. Finally, the results confirm the hypothesis of a greater influence of child predictors than of parental ones in the case of mothers, while the reverse hypothesis of a greater predictive power of parental variables than of child ones is confirmed for fathers. The results are discussed both for research and clinical purposes. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Summary The aim of this study was to assess the links between religious discrimination and developmental and contextual variables. Based on the assumption that discrimination results from the interplay of prejudice and moral thinking, discriminatory behaviour was hypothesised to be linked to age, school environment, minority or majority group membership, and parental religious socialisation practices. The results indicate that discrimination is more frequent during childhood than during pre-adolescence or adolescence, more common in homogeneous schools than in heterogeneous schools, and more likely when parents frequently express messages promoting mistrust of other religious groups. Participants from the minority group were more likely to discriminate against their own ingroup than were those from the majority group. Further studies are needed to determine whether these links are correlative or predictive, and to understand the underlying processes of religious discrimination. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The present study explores the bidirectional associations between parental behavior and child externalizing behavior in the context of two intervening variables: child’s personality as a moderator of the effect of parental behavior on later child behavior; and parental self-efficacy as a mediator of the effect of child behavior on later parental behavior. Data were collected twice within one year from a sample of 340 preschoolers and their parents. Using latent variable SEM, three models were computed separately for mother—child and father—child dyads. A bidirectional effect was verified for the mothers, but only a child effect was observed for the fathers. Expected mediation by self-efficacy was verified. Finally, a partial moderating role for child’s personality was demonstrated. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This study explores reciprocal relations between children’s attachment representations and their cognitive ability. Previous literature has mainly focused on the prediction of cognitive abilities from attachment, rarely on the reverse prediction. This was explored in the current research. Attachment representations were assessed with the Attachment Story Completion Task (Bretherton, Ridgeway, & Cassidy, 1990); the IQ was measured with the WPPSI-III (Wechsler, 2004). Data were collected twice, at a two-year interval, from about 400 preschoolers. Reasoning IQ was found to influence the development of secure attachment representations, while attachment security and disorganization influenced later verbal IQ. The implications of the findings for both clinical and research purposes are discussed in the light of the interactions between cognitive abilities and attachment representations. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The Family Apperception Test (FAT) is a projective assessment procedure based on the family system theory. FAT allows the subjects' affects and feelings about their family to be assessed. The original version and its French translation removed some of the conceptual and psychometric limitations of previous projective tests and family assessment procedures but several questions remained. The current study proposes several modifications to the conceptual background, administration, coding procedure, and standardization of the FAT, which considerably improve its psychometric properties. Data were collected on 168 typical and clinical children in the French-speaking part of Belgium. The results provide significant evidence for inter- and intra-assessor reliability; the factorial analysis and the internal consistency of the revised version were good; the FAT enabled us to discriminate between typical children and those in the clinical sample. The discussion focuses on the interest and limits of the quantitative coding procedure, based on several categories conceptualized as risk versus protective factors. The FAT is characterized by a complementary approach--both quantitative and qualitative--to the children and their families. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Bowlby proposed that the individual's social experiences, as early as in infancy, contribute to the construction of Internal Working Models (IWMs) of attachment, which will later guide the individual's expectations and behaviors in close relationships all along his or her life. The qualitative, individual characteristics of these models reflect the specificity of the individual's early experiences with attachment figures. The attachment literature globally shows that the qualities of IWMs are neither gender specific nor cultural specific. Procedures to evaluate IWMs in adulthood have been well established, based on narrative accounts of childhood experiences. Narrative procedures at earlier ages (e.g., in the preschool years) have been proposed, such as Bretherton's Attachment Story Completion Task (ASCT), to evaluate attachment representations. More than 500 ASCT narratives of preschoolers, coming from five different countries, have been collected, in the perspective of examining possible interactions between gender and culture regarding attachment representations. A specific Q-Sort coding procedure (CCH) has been used to evaluate several dimensions of the narratives. Girls' narratives appeared as systematically more secure than those of same-age boys, whatever their culture. The magnitude of gender differences, however, varied between countries. Taylor's model of gender-specific responses to stress and Harwood's and Posada's hypothesis on intercultural differences regarding caregiving are evoked to understand the differences across gender and countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Parental burnout (PB), an exhaustion disorder related to parenting, is receiving increasing attention. In this article we aim to take stock of the findings accumulated about PB over the past 15 years. We review and organize the literature around four questions: (a) What is parental burnout? (b) Which factors are associated with an increased risk of PB? (c) What are the consequences of PB? (d) What are the current treatment options? In order to answer these questions, the article includes a correlational meta-analysis (k = 49, N total = 35,170) of all empirical studies published on PB up to July 2021. In the last part of the article, we provide a road map for future research by pinpointing particularly promising paths and methodological improvements needed to draw stronger conclusions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]