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The intent of this study was to examine how perceived aid exchange patterns between mothers and adult children influence the mothers' perception of the quality of their relationship. We also examined how mothers’ characteristics (health, age, and marital status), children's characteristics (marital status and gender), and propinquity were associated with mothers' perceptions of giving and receiving of aid. The types of aid explored were Financial Help, Gifts Besides Money, Help With the House, Help During Sickness, Advice on Life's Problems, Advice on Decisions, Affection, and Overall Exchange of Aid. Aid patterns were classified as Mother Gave More, Child Gave More, About Equal Exchange, or No Exchange. Data were collected from interviews with 330 mothers, 65 years or older, using a six-stage sample selection process. Perceived relationship quality was significantly different for the four different aid pattern groups in regard to Financial Help, Gifts Besides Money, Advice on Life's Problems, and Overall Aid. Highest perceived relationship quality was found in those groups in which Child Gave More or in which there was About Equal Exchange. Lowest perceived relationship quality was found for the group Mother Gave More of these four types of aid. Mother's characteristics, child's characteristics, (except gender), and propinquity were not related to relationship quality. Differences in aid patterns were found between mother's health and Gifts Besides Money, Help When Sick, Affection, and Overall Aid; between mother's age and Advice on Life's Problems, Help When Sick, Help With House; between mother's marital status and Advice on Decisions, Help With House; between children's marital status and Financial Help, Gifts Besides Money, Help With House; between children's gender with Help With House; and between propinquity and Financial Help, Help When Sick, Help With House, Advice on Decisions. / Master of Science

This study investigated the adult child's role as a provider of social support to divorced parents. Each of the 230 randomly-selected individuals participating in the survey had been divorced after 19 or more years of marriage and had at least one child over age 18. Participants ranged in age from 36 to 72 and had been married an average of 28 years prior to divorce. Respondents were asked to indicate the types and amounts of support provided by children in two major areas: instrumental aid (e.g., advice, services, financial assistance) and socioemotional aid. The pattern of support varied according to sex of the parent and the sex of the child. Mothers received significantly more support than fathers in all four categories: advice, services, financial assistance, and socioemotional aid. Sons and daughters did not differ significantly with regard to frequency of provision of advice or financial aid. However, sons provided significantly more services, and daughters provided significantly more socioemotional aid. Circumstances connected with filial provision of support--opportunity, parental expectation of aid, parental financial need, parental health and morale, competing role responsibilities of the child, and quality of the parent-child relationship--were analyzed. Multiple regression was used to specify the relationship between total support received and seven independent variables: frequency of contact, sex of respondent, emotional closeness, filial expectations, frequency of telephoning, sidetaking-behavior, and financial strain. These variables explained 52% of the variance in total support. Mothers were more likely than fathers to rank children as the most helpful source of support during the divorce process: 42.6% of mothers, as compared to 18.3% of fathers ranked children as the most helpful. Mothers ranked children higher than all other sources of support; fathers, on the other hand, ranked their friends and their parents ahead of their children with respect to support provided during the divorce period. / Ph. D.

This research investigated selected aspects of the effects on adult children of placing a parent in a nursing home; specifically, the ease of placement, change in parent-child relationships, and effects on the personal life of the adult child as perceived by the child. Scales constructed for use in measuring these dependent and several independent variables in an original study were revised on the basis of factor analysis, internal consistency analysis and subjective judgement. The revision of the scales was based on the original study's data. The revised scales were included in a shorter, more focused questionnaire utilized in the present study. Results of the original study and evidence from existing literature formed a basis for hypotheses tested in the present study. Revised questionnaires were mailed to 175 adult children listed as guarantors of patients in seven nursing homes. A 66.9% usable response rate was obtained. Stepwise regression was utilized to test the hypotheses. The results indicated that the more concerned the child was about the parent's placement and the less the child favored the placement, the more difficult it was for the child to carry out the decision to place his or her parent. The placement of a parent did not appear to be accompanied by deterioration of the parent-child relationship. Rather, it tends to either remain the same or improve. Those children who are most likely to have perceived positive change in the relationship were those who had more concerns about the parent being in a nursing home, had younger parents, saw their parent as making a good adjustment to being in a nursing home, and did not view their own aging positively. None of the independent variables were significant predictors of perceived effects on the personal life of the adult child. Support for potential positive changes in parent-child relationships as a result of a parent being placed in a nursing home was discussed. Recommendations for further research utilizing the family theory framework of Bowen (1978) was presented. / Ph. D.

This study involved 77 couples consisting of mothers and fathers of ADHD children from intact, two-parent families. All ADHD children were between 6 and 16 years old and had been evaluated by a Licensed Practicing Psychologist or Medical Doctor. All mothers and fathers completed three questionnaires - the Conners Parent Rating Scales-48 (Conners, 1973), the Dyadic Adjustment Scale (Spanier, 1976), and a demographic questionnaire. For purposes of this study, Bell's (1981) child effects model was used as a basis for research. This model, as opposed to an adult effects model, supports the thesis that children contribute to their own socialization by influencing the behavior of their caretakers. Recent research suggests that in most families of ADHD children, the primary contributors to parent-child interactive stress appear to emanate from child characteristics, with parental and environmental characteristics playing an important but secondary role (Barkley, 1981a, 1989; Bell & Harper, 1977; Mash & Johnson, 1990; Schachar et al., 1987). The literature supports the investigation of the relationship between interparent agreement on the perceptions of their ADHD children's behavior and self reports of marital satisfaction with regards to the variables of age of the child, gender of the child, severity of the child's behavior, and gender of the parent. As predicted, moderate relationships were found between interparent agreement on child behavior and mothers' and fathers' reports of marital satisfaction, although somewhat higher for mothers. The predicted effects of age of the child and rated severity of child behavior were not supported. When assessing the effec~s of gender of the child, parents of ADHD girls reported slightly more agreement and higher marital satisfaction than parents of ADHD boys. Examination of the predicted differences between mothers and fathers showed that mothers perceived their ADHD children's behavior as slightly more severe and reported slightly lower marital satisfaction than did fathers of ADHD children. / Ph. D.

published_or_final_version / Social Work and Social Administration / Master / Master of Social Sciences

published_or_final_version / Social Work / Master / Master of Social Work

1598 students (from Primary 2 to Primary 4) participated in Study One on prevalence. Data on internalizing problems were collected using the Child Behaviour Checklist (CBCL). The overall prevalence rate in the current sample was 11.4 percent. Association between children's internalizing problem and mother-child relationship was assessed using the Parent-Child Relationship Questionnaire (PCRQ). Warmth in PCRQ had the highest negative correlation with Anxious/Depressed in CBCL. / Early identification of internalizing problems in young children is important as internalizing behaviour may intensify over time and lead to psychiatric disorders (e.g., Seligman & Ollendick, 1998), or even suicide (e.g., Lewinshon, Rohde, & Seeley, 1998). The internalizing problems of Hong Kong young children also reached an alarming point. A recent survey released by the Hong Kong Association for Careers Masters and Guidance Masters (HKACMGM) in late 2005 indicated that around 75 percent of primary school children considered themselves unhappy in their daily life. The present research looked into the internalizing problems among Hong Kong primary school children. It consisted of two studies. Study One was on the prevalence of childhood internalizing problems, and its association with mother-child relationship. Study Two was a treatment outcome research on the effectiveness of different intervention programs for these children. Three interventions were compared with the waitlist control group in order to identify the effectiveness of interventions on reducing internalizing symptoms, enhancing mother-child relationship, and increasing self-esteem. These interventions were: FRIENDS (cognitive-behavioural approach), THERAPLAY (relationship-based approach), and COPE (an integrative approach). / In general, this research was among the first few in Hong Kong on assessing the prevalence rate of internalizing problem and its association with mother-child relationship. The results on the impact of different interventions on children provided further insight to local practitioners in evaluating the characteristics of their intervention programs on these children. Limitations of this research were also discussed. / Results showed that intervention of any kind could help to reduce children's internalizing problems. Such reduction could, in general, be maintained to the follow-up period despite fluctuations in between. Three major findings on the intervention programs were highlighted. First, COPE, using an integrative approach, had the biggest drop in internalizing problems as measured by CBCL. Second, FRIENDS and COPE were particularly effective in enhancing warmth, disciplinary warmth (as seen by mothers) and personal relations (as reported by children). Third, THERAPLAY was reported to be effective in reducing children's social anxiety and in enhancing children's social self-esteem. / Study Two included 92 children whose CBCL score reached at least the cutoff point (i.e., they were considered as "high risk" for having internalizing disorders) and met the selection criteria for the treatment groups. These children and their mothers were randomly allocated either to one of the three treatment conditions (n=23, 22, 23 respectively) and completed an 8-session intervention program, or to a wait-list control condition (control group, n=24). Children completed the Reynold's Child Depression Scale (RCDS), Screening for Children Anxiety-Related Disorders (SCARED) Culture-free Self-Esteem Inventory (CFSEI) at pre- and post-intervention while mothers completed the Child Behaviour Checklist (CBCL) and the Parent-Child Relationship Questionnaire (PCRQ) at post-intervention. 1-month follow-up assessment on the above measures was conducted. Peer nomination was done at pre- and post-intervention as well as at 1-month follow-up time points to explore more on the impact of these interventions on children's social world. / Siu Fung Ying Angela. / "June 2006." / Adviser: David W. Chan. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 69-01, Section: A, page: 0115. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--Chinese University of Hong Kong, 2006. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 162-180). / Electronic reproduction. Hong Kong : Chinese University of Hong Kong, [2012] System requirements: Adobe Acrobat Reader. Available via World Wide Web. / Electronic reproduction. [Ann Arbor, MI] : ProQuest Information and Learning, [200-] System requirements: Adobe Acrobat Reader. Available via World Wide Web. / Abstracts in English and Chinese. / School code: 1307.

As the first exploratory qualitative study on child sexual abuse in the People's Republic of China, this study adopted system-individual-culture-gender-resilience perspectives under social constructionism approach using the family as the unit of study, and extended the research parameters beyond the individual child to other systems. The data was collected through ethnography, family and couple interviews, individual interviews with parents and the abused children, participant and part-participant observation by this researcher in a village in north-eastern China. Six families were selected for the study, each with a 10-year-old daughter who had been sexually abused by the same male teacher for two years, with the said teacher engaging in molestation, masturbation, oral sex, intercourse, etc. on the girls, two of whom were also known to have been physically abused. The researcher conducted the field study between eight and thirteen months after the disclosure (over a six-month period), and sought to understand the family experiences from seven aspects: the disclosure process, the family coping, traumatic experiences (including the abused and their family), the family relational process, the reactions from extra-familial systems, the healing process for the abused, and the need for professional support. / Results indicated that while the entire family was traumatically impacted, there were significant differences in reactions from male and female parents. In responding to "one of their own" being sexually exploited by an outsider, parents made concerted efforts in facing external ramifications, often at the expense of marginalizing the abused daughter and adding an extra burden on the whole family in healing from the trauma. Furthermore, parents were observed to become more protective in the process, providing physical care and material needs, and refraining from mentioning the trauma before the abused. As for emotional support, families varied in their coping at different stages in time. At the initial stage, parents seemed to be overshadowed by shame towards their daughter's loss of chastity. As time went by, they resumed their parenting routine, until eventually the adult-, sibling- and extended family relations constituted a circular impact that would in turn impact on the parent-child relations. The external systems, the family relational reality before disclosure, as well as family financial conditions combined could either facilitate or hinder the family system in seeking change. / The study further analyzed the systems and cultural mechanisms vis-a-vis the traumatic experience and family support, seeking to de-construct the chastity myth in the Chinese rural culture, as well as expert discourses in mainstream western research that focused on a psycho-pathological approach to study trauma. It further challenged the cultural practice of attributing blame to the individuals and their family, and provided recommendations to address the above-mentioned issues. / Western studies on the sexual abuse of children and the resulting trauma on the abused and their families have adopted primarily a psycho-pathological perspective. This has led to the tendency of blaming the victim, the mother and the family. Until now, comparative studies on this subject have not been carried out in a Chinese context. / 龍迪. / 論文(哲學博士)--香港中文大學, 2005. / 參考文獻(p. 464-487). / Adviser: Joyce Ma. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 67-07, Section: A, page: 2753. / Electronic reproduction. Hong Kong : Chinese University of Hong Kong, [2012] System requirements: Adobe Acrobat Reader. Available via World Wide Web. / Electronic reproduction. [Ann Arbor, MI] : ProQuest Information and Learning, [200-] System requirements: Adobe Acrobat Reader. Available via World Wide Web. / Abstracts also in English. / School code: 1307. / Lun wen (Zhe xue bo shi)--Xianggang Zhong wen da xue, 2005. / Can kao wen xian (p. 464-487). / Long Di.

The present study employed a family systems approach to investigate the effects of level of autism severity on family functioning as mediated by parental coping. Participants were mothers of children with autism who were volunteers in an ongoing research program conducted within a university-based treatment center (N=146). Gilliam Autism Rating Scale, Second Edition (GARS-2) scores were available for all of the children and, as part of the broader program, parents completed the Coping Scale for Adults, which assesses a range of coping styles, and the Family Environment Scale, which provides positive and negative indicators of family functioning. Data analyses indicated that nonproductive coping significantly mediated the relationship between level of autism severity and family cohesion and conflict. Results also suggested that level of autism severity was negatively related to family conflict. The study further examined the use of specific coping styles on family cohesion and conflict. Evaluation of findings suggest that parents who have a child diagnosed with severe autism may be employing maladaptive coping strategies, such as wishful thinking, blaming one's self, or avoiding the situation. Implications for intervention approaches for individuals working with families of children with autism are suggested.