Search

Parents are in a powerful position to teach sexual topics to their children, promoting positive sex attitudes and lifelong sexual health. However, parents may lack sexual knowledge and confidence to address such topics. This study, grounded in social learning theory, tested the effects of an active learning intervention to increase parental efficacy regarding sexual communication with children aged one- to five-years-old. Parents were randomly assigned to a control group (n = 55), a factsheet group (n = 58), and an active learning group (n = 56). Multi-level Modelling (MLM) analyses showed the intervention was not effective at increasing parental sexual communication efficacy. However, a dosage effect was observed for the active learning and factsheet groups. In addition, factsheet and active learning intervention groups showed significant gains in knowledge of child sexual development. The results of this study suggest active learning may be a step towards promoting lifelong sexual health. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

College student parents represent a unique population because they are typically low-income, accrue more debt than traditional students, and must balance the role of student and parent. Using a mixed methods design, this study examined the relation between college student parents' stress and distress in their relationships with their children and examined how parents managed their multiple roles. Parent participants (n = 80; 54 mothers, 26 fathers; M age = 28.74 years, SD = 4.72) completed an online survey and a subsample (n = 14) participated in semi-structured interviews. Results revealed that college student parents experience a variety of stressors that spillover into their relationships with their children and these associations appear more detrimental for father-child relationships. However, in-depth qualitative interviews not only highlighted the various sources of stress (e.g., time demands, multiple roles), but also revealed internal and external resources that college student parents draw on to help cope with stressors. Findings suggest that program efforts to strengthen the co-parenting relationship and to help college student parents more effectively manage their stress may be beneficial for improved parent-child relationships. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objectives: The transition to adolescence is associated with decreases in student achievement. One factor that may mitigate these decreases is parent involvement. The present study examined whether ethnicity, type of involvement (school-based involvement [SBI] vs. home-based involvement [HBI]), and their interaction predicted GPA. Methods: This study, using data from the High School Longitudinal Study, examined whether type of involvement (SBI vs. HBI) and ethnicity predicted adolescents' grade point average (GPA). Employing random coefficient growth curve modelling, we examined whether time, ethnicity, and SBI and HBI at grade 9 predicted adolescents' levels of GPA from grade 9 to 12. Results: The initial effect of time (from grade 9 to grade 10) was significant, with GPA declining across ethnic groups. The initial decline attenuated from grades 10 to 12. With the exception of Asian Americans, SBI was significantly positively associated with GPA. Over and above SBI, HBI was consistently positively associated with subsequent GPA across ethnic groups. These associations of SBI and HBI with GPA persisted across time. Conclusions: The findings are consistent with past research, although that research did not examine HBI and SBI simultaneously, high school students specifically, and GPA over time. The non-significant association of GPA with SBI for Asian Americans may be due to different peer processes and beliefs about education. Because HBI has similar associations across groups, and because it predicts unique variance in GPA over and above SBI, it may be important for parents of high schoolers to pursue, regardless of ethnicity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Discrepancies between parents' and adolescents' reports in parental knowledge of adolescents' daily activities and whereabouts are common and have implications for adolescents' well-being and school success. Grounded in a family systems perspective utilizing reports from parents and adolescents, the goal of this study was to explore the extent to which parent-adolescent warmth and adolescent self-disclosure could account for discrepancies in parental knowledge by testing the indirect effects linking warmth to discrepancies in parental knowledge via adolescent self-disclosure. Participants were early adolescents (N = 172; 53% female) and their parents (90% mothers). Adolescents (57% African American/Black, 18% multiracial, 17% White/Caucasian, 7% Hispanic/Latino and 1% Asian American) attended a Midwestern, Title 1, urban, public middle school. Using structural equation modeling, findings showed that parent-adolescent warmth significantly predicted adolescent self-disclosure, which in turn predicted fewer discrepancies in parental knowledge. The findings from this study help in understanding the factors that contribute to parental knowledge discrepancies and highlight potential targets for family interventions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

It is well established that parental knowledge contributes to adolescents' well-being and school success and scholars have noted that parents and adolescents report different levels of knowledge. Discrepancies in parental knowledge have implications for adolescent outcomes such as risk behaviors, but little is known about the implications of knowledge discrepancies for adolescents' school outcomes. The present study examined discrepancies in parent and adolescent reports of parental knowledge and investigated the extent to which knowledge discrepancies were linked to school engagement. Participants were early adolescents ( N = 174; 53 % female) and their parents (90 % mothers). Adolescents (57 % African American/Black, 18 % multiracial, 17 % White/Caucasian, 7 % Hispanic/Latino and 1 % Asian American) attended a Midwestern, Title 1, urban, public middle school. Adolescents completed surveys in their homerooms and parents completed paper-pencil surveys at home or surveys via telephone. Results showed that parents reported more knowledge of adolescents' activities and whereabouts compared to adolescents' reports. Knowledge discrepancies were associated with school bonding and school self-esteem such that dyads in which adolescents reported more knowledge than their parents reported had significantly higher levels of school bonding and school self-esteem compared to dyads in which parents reported much more knowledge. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study explored trajectories of African American youths' academic functioning and assessed whether changes in parent-adolescent relationships were associated with changes in youths' academic functioning. The data were drawn from a 3-year longitudinal study of gender socialization and development in two-parent African American families and included 197 families. Findings revealed gender differences in achievement trajectories and indicated that boys not only had lower levels of academic achievement compared to girls, but also experienced steeper declines in school self-esteem during adolescence. Changes in parent-adolescent relationship quality were linked to changes in academic functioning: Increases in conflict were related to decreases in GPA, school bonding, and school self-esteem and increases in warmth were related to increases in school bonding and school self-esteem. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Guided by the integrative model of parenting, the present study investigated the relationship between parental monitoring and racial/ethnic minority adolescents' school engagement and academic motivation as a function of parental warmth, and explored whether these associations varied for boys and girls. Participants (60 % female) were 208 sixth through eighth grade students (63 % African American, 19 % Latino, 18 % Multiracial) from an urban middle school in the Midwestern United States. Youth completed an in-school survey with items on parenting (parental monitoring, mothers'/fathers' warmth), cognitive engagement (school self-esteem), behavioral engagement (school trouble), and academic motivation (intrinsic motivation). As hypothesized, mothers' warmth enhanced the association between parental monitoring and youths' engagement and motivation. No gender differences in these associations emerged. Fathers' warmth strengthened the negative association between parental monitoring and school trouble, and this association was stronger for boys. Implications regarding the importance of sustaining a high level of monitoring within the context of warm parent-adolescent relationships to best support academic outcomes among minority youth are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Mothers' and fathers' cultural socialization and bias preparation with older ( M=13.9 years) and younger ( M=10.31 years) siblings were studied in 162 two-parent, African American families. Analyses examined whether parental warmth and offspring age and gender were linked to parental practices and whether parents' warmth, spouses' racial socialization, or youth age or gender moderated links between racial socialization and youth outcomes. Parental warmth was linked to parents' socialization. Mothers engaged in more socialization with older offspring, and fathers more with sons. Mothers' cultural socialization was positively related to youth ethnic identity and fathers' was negatively related to youth depression symptoms. Youth exhibited a lower locus of control when mothers were high but fathers were low in racial socialization. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objectives We examined the association of multiple process, person, and context factors (Bronfenbrenner, 2005) with parents’ involvement (support and pressure) in sport. Specifically, we examined (a) the concordance among self, partner, and child reports of fathers and mothers for key study variables, and (b) prediction of parent support and pressure in youth sport by warmth and conflict in the parent–child relationship, parent positive and negative affect, and mastery and ego dimensions of the coach-created motivational climate. Design Cross-sectional survey. Method Self-reports of study variables were collected from athletes (ages 11–13 years) and parents from participating families (final N = 201). Multitrait-multimethod analysis was used to address the first study aim and multivariate multiple regression analysis for the second aim. Results Values for concordance among reporters were largely significant and in hypothesized directions, yet were of modest magnitude and suggested low reporter agreement (Cohen's κ range = −.07–.35). Multivariate relationships were significant and were of low to moderate magnitude (R d range = .04–.22). Canonical loadings showed that warmth, positive affect, and mastery climate positively associate with support, whereas conflict, negative affect, and ego climate positively associate with pressure from fathers and mothers. Conflict and positive affect positively associated with support and pressure in some functions, suggesting complexity in interpretations of parent involvement. Conclusion Findings support the adaptive role of parent-child warmth, positive parent affect, and coach-created mastery motivational climate in youth sport; however, low concordance of reporter perceptions must be considered when pursuing family-related questions in sport. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of this article was to explore how family chaos, parenting processes, parent–child relationship qualities, and sibling relationship qualities changed before versus the early months of the COVID-19 pandemic. Participants included one parent and two adolescent-aged children from 682 families (2,046 participants). Parents and youth participating in an ongoing longitudinal study in five Midwestern states in the United States completed an additional web-based assessment of family processes and family relationship qualities during the May–June 2020 pandemic-related shutdowns. A series of two-wave latent change score models indicated that family chaos increased with the onset of pandemic-related shutdowns and that the level of chaos within a family during the shutdowns had implications for changes in several parenting processes and family relationship qualities. Specifically, higher levels of family chaos during the pandemic mitigated observed increases in parental knowledge and were associated with declines in parental autonomy granting. Family chaos during pandemic-related shutdowns also was associated with increases in maternal–child conflict, paternal–child conflict, and sibling conflict as well as decreases in paternal–child intimacy, sibling intimacy, and sibling disclosure. Overall, consistent with a family stress perspective, the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic was associated with increased strain and commotion within many households, and these changes had implications for multiple family relationships. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]