The present study evaluated associations between parent-child connectedness and communication, parent perceptions of child weight, parent feeding behaviors (restriction, pressure to eat, and monitoring), and child body mass index percentile among a sample of children aged 8-12 years. To evaluate these associations, this study used a cross-sectional design and maximum likelihood (ML) structural equation modeling to examine a mediation model with parental feeding behaviors mediating the associations between parent-child relationship quality and child body mass index. Furthermore, because of the known associations between parental perceptions of child weight and parent feeding practices, models examining the mediating effects of parent feeding practices between parent perceptions of child weight and child body mass index were also examined. Finally, we used mixture modeling to conduct latent profile analyses, specifying high, moderate, and low levels of each feeding behavior, in order to examine the mediation effects of specific levels of feeding behaviors. Study findings supported restriction as a mediator between parent reported communication (PRC) and child weight, as well as between parent perceptions of child weight (PCW) and child weight. The results also indicated that parent perceptions of child weight predicted feeding practices and child weight. Both restriction and monitoring predicted child weight. Overall, these findings provide evidence for the role of parent-child relationship quality in predicting parent feeding behavior. However, study findings suggest that these associations may differ depending on the rater (i.e., child, parent).

The purpose of this study was to assess parental preference as perceived by Basque adolescents. A questionnaire was administered to adolescents during the summer months of 1977 in Boise, Idaho and Salt Lake City, Utah. The questionnaire included the Parent- Affinity Perception Scale (Miller, 1972) with a Liker~-type scale showing how much the adolescent preferred mother or father and a cover sheet to determine the degree of "Basqueness" of the subjects. The sample included 27 males and 37 females. l'!'e findings indicate a strong preference for "mother" over "father" by both males and females at all flges. Basque adolescent males"• preference for father did increase with age where the females did not show an increased preference for father with the advancement of age. Results from the profile indicate Basque adolescents think of themselves as "Basques" with majo; identifying characteristics of the Basque people being customs, having fun, being proud, and identification with the family. A large majority of the subjects go to Basque centers and are active in religious programs. Unlike the trad itional Basque family, disciplining in this sample population seems to be shared by both parents. The Likert-type scale indicating degree of affinity showed more adolescents definitely chose mother as the preferred parent than did adolescents definitely preferring father . Chi-square tests for males indicated no relation existed between parental preference and the degree of affinity for the chosen parent but for females a strong positive maternal relationship exists.

The purpose of this study was to explore parental views on the efficacy of parent-child interaction therapy. Research indicates that early intervention and prevention is essential when treating children with disruptive behaviors. Intervening at an early age prevents the disruptive behaviors from progressing into more complex disorders that can occur in the teenage and adult years. This study utilized a quantitative method to better understand if parents identified as parent-child interaction therapy as effective. This study consisted of 29 parent-child dyads that had completed parent-child interaction therapy and reported their satisfaction with parent-child interaction therapy through the use of parent-stress index scores. Results indicated that parent-child interaction therapy was viewed as successful by parents. However, success of parent-child interaction therapy is only applicable to certain domains that were chosen in this study; limiting the generalizability of overall success of parent-child interaction therapy. Parent-child interaction therapy has shown success in strengthening the parent-child dyad and decreasing disruptive behaviors such as distractibility and hyperactivity. It is recommended that parent-child interaction therapy continue to be utilized by professionals and focus on all the domains rather than selected domains.

Many scholars contend that family relationships are nonvoluntary despite evidence that suggests family estrangement is both significant and on the rise. Typically, family estrangement is a serious life rupture often brought on by physical, emotional, or psychological abuse. In order to explore this understudied phenomenon, I began by applying a discourse dependence perspective framework to analyze 52 accounts from adult children who voluntarily and intentionally distanced themselves from a parent or parents with whom they had a negative relationship. Specifically, I engaged in thematic analysis to explore the communicative practices adult children enact to accomplish and maintain distance with a parent or parents as well as the practices they use to disclose and sustain their estrangement to members of their social network. Based on in-depth interviews, results suggest that estrangement is a complex process that requires many communicative practices. At a broad level, these practices were categorized as declarative, one-time, and/or continuously enacted. Of note, adult children reported having to spend a considerable amount of time engaging in communicative practices to maintain the distance they were able to create, which suggests that relational maintenance is more than a constellation of practices that keep relationships close. Additional results reveal that the majority of participants did not disclose their estrangement to members of their social work. In the event others knew about the distance, it was typically because they were there to witness the distancing practices or because the participant conditionally disclosed the information. Similar to the emphasis on maintenance, adult children revealed that sustaining the estrangement required extensive communicative work. In other words, adult children had to resist social network members who sought to reconcile them with their parents. Taken together, results from this study hold promising theoretical and practical implications for researchers, clinicians, social network members, and other individuals going through the estrangement process. These implications and directions for research are discussed.

Unintentional injury is a leading cause of childhood death and disability in the U.S. Notably, atypically-developing children are at greater risk for unintentional injuries than their typically developing peers. A key question is how to prevent these injuries in both typically- and atypically-developing children. As children gain independence, responsibility for the regulation of risky behaviors must transfer from parents to children. This likely happens in a variety of ways, one of which is parent-child conversations about safety. Past work has examined the content of parent-child safety conversations in typically-developing children and found that mothers use disagreements, supported by references to dangerous features of the activity and the adverse outcomes that might result, as a means of bringing children around to their own way of thinking about safety. Still unknown is what these conversations look like while parents and children are engaged in common, yet potentially unsafe activities, such as crossing roads with traffic. Nor do we know what these conversations look like in at-risk populations, such as children with ADHD. Evidence points to poor executive function and oppositionality, commonly comorbid with ADHD, as driving the increased injury risk in this population. We assessed parent-child safety conversations in real time while parents and their children (with and without ADHD) were engaged in a simulated risky activity: crossing traffic-filled roads in our pedestrian simulator. Recorded conversations were coded and parents completed several questionnaires and diagnostic assessments regarding their and their child’s ADHD symptoms. While fewer symptomology differences related to parent-child conversations emerged than initially anticipated, many that did were primarily driven by oppositionality. These findings support previous claims that oppositionality increases injury risk in this population and contributes to poorer parent-child interactions.

Parent cognitions, including parent attributions for and perceptions of children's behaviors , are related to negative parent-child interactions and have been hypothesized to negatively affect treatment outcome in parent training studies. Specifically, parents who attribute children's disruptive behaviors to internal, stable, uncontrollable, and global causes and believe that they are not personally responsible for their children's behavior are less likely to engage in positive interactions with their children and successfully manage child behavior. Additionally, parents who expect their children to demonstrate aversive behavior and perceive their children's neutral behaviors as aversive are less likely to engage in positive interactions with their children and successfully manage child behavior. Parent well-being and child behavior have been examined in relation to parent attributions and perceptions, with previous studies generally indicating that decreased parent well being and increased child behavior problems are associated with more negative parent attributions and perceptions. Though parent attributions and perceptions have been investigated in previous studies, there are gaps and inconsistencies within the literature. Specifically, previous studies have not consistently considered both maternal and paternal attributions for and perceptions of child and parent behaviors, and the relationship between parent-rated and researcher-rated child behaviors has not consistently been examined. This study examined parent attributions and parent perceptions related to child and parent behaviors within the parent-child interactions of 25 mothers, 15 fathers, and their children. The results of this study provide support for relationships between parents' attributions and parent-reported child behavior problems and parent well being. Additionally, significant relationships were found between parent perceptions of parent and child behaviors and parent-reported child behavior problems and parent well being. Furthermore, this study identified differences in parent attributions and parent-child interactions between mothers and fathers, with mothers viewing themselves as more responsible for compliant and noncompliant child behaviors and mothers sharing both more positive and negative interactions with children than fathers . Conclusions and clinical implications of these findings are provided.

<p>The purpose of this study is to investigate mediation’s crime prevention effects. The question that has been answered is: which crime prevention effects mediation has had on young criminals who have participated in mediation programs? The investigation was made in relation to a comparable control group and included a reoffence analysis based on a multivariate analysis. This reoffence study mainly focuses on that the mediation prevents crime through the feelings of shame that the young perpetrator has due to the fact that the crime has been made clear and reinforced at the mediation meeting. The following hypothesis is addressed in this study: Mediation involves the trust between the young perpetrator and his/her parents and has a conflict-solving and crime-prevention effect. By committing a crime, the youth has broken the trust with his/her parents, who have condemned the action. The parents feel the shame from those around them, and because of this resume their position against the youth. The main conclusion is that the total population of youths who participated in mediation programs relapsed into crime to a lesser extent than the youths who did not participate in mediation. The risk for a relapse was twice as high for the youths who did not participate in mediation. A statistically significant relationship emerged between mediation and relapse with regard to party and person plaintiff status, but it is not possible to draw any conclusions whether mediation has a better or worse effect between plaintiff status. The significant effect of relapse for respective gender showed that girls relapsed to a lesser extent than boys. It was not possible to statistically determine whether the youths who were born abroad respective born i Sweden have relapsed to a greater extent. Regarding the age groups there was no statistically significant relationship as to whether youths relapsed to a greater or lesser extent depending on whether they were under or over fifteen years of age. Furthermore, it has not been possible to statistically determine whether group mediation has had a different outcome in relapse frequency as compared to individual mediation, and it has not been possible to distinguish whether compensation at mediation has had any effect. There emerged significant relationships between mediation and relapse for the crime categories ‘crime against life and health’, ‘crime against freedom and peace’, ‘burglary, robbery and other theft crimes’ and ‘vandalism’.</p>

Black-Canadian populations are disproportionately affected by HIV/AIDS. In particular, Black-Canadian youth are noted to be at a greater risk of HIV infection due to their sexual risk behaviours. Many international studies indicate that open parent-youth sex communication may counter the potentially negative impact of peers, mass media and inadequate sexual health education programs on youth sexual risk behaviour. However, there is a paucity of Canadian studies on Black-Canadian parent-youth sex communication and ways to enhance this communication. As such, a qualitative based exploratory study was conducted using a community based research approach to determine the state of Black-Canadian parent-youth sex communication in Toronto, Ontario. Data was collected through 17 Key Informant interviews; that is individuals who work in Black Toronto communities and are knowledgeable about the subject matter. The results noted several factors which affect Black-Canadian parent-youth sex communication such as religion and cultural taboos surrounding the discussion of sexual health. The impact of these factors along with potential implications of this study on Black-Canadian populations and recommendations to enhance Black-Canadian parent- youth sex communication are discussed. / UOIT

Children with co-occurring internalizing and externalizing problems (MIXED children) represent a distinct aggressive subtype with negative outcomes; understanding what works for them in treatment is imperative. The success of MIXED children in some family-based programs for aggression may be attributable to collateral reductions in internalizing symptoms. The current study examined whether reductions in internalizing behaviour in MIXED children were due to reductions in maternal depression and parent-child co-rumination. Co-rumination, a dyadic interaction related to internalizing symptoms, is defined as excessively discussing problems and dwelling on negative feelings. We investigated 154 MIXED children and 49 pure externalizers who underwent Parent Management Training/Cognitive Behavioural Therapy. Mother-child co-rumination was assessed using videotaped observations of problem discussions gathered at pre-treatment, post-treatment and follow-up. We hypothesized that, at pre-treatment, mother-child co-rumination would mediate the relation between maternal depression and child internalizing problems. During treatment, we expected that co-rumination and maternal depression would predict reductions in child symptoms. Finally, we hypothesized that reductions in co-rumination would mediate the association between improvements in maternal depression and improvements in child internalizing which would, in turn, impact externalizing outcomes. Results did not support our pre-treatment and during treatment hypotheses about the role of co-rumination as a mediator. At pre-treatment, maternal depression was associated with child internalizing problems and co-rumination; co-rumination was not associated with internalizing when controlling for maternal depression. Reductions in maternal depression were associated with improvements in child internalizing and, marginally, with child externalizing, thus partially supporting our hypotheses. We also found that reductions in co-rumination impacted child externalizing, but not internalizing behaviour, again partially supporting our hypotheses regarding co-rumination changes and child symptom changes. Finally, results demonstrated that internalizing improvements affected externalizing outcomes, partially supporting our treatment-related hypothesis. Findings have implications for understanding the development and treatment of problems in MIXED children.

Children with co-occurring internalizing and externalizing problems (MIXED children) represent a distinct aggressive subtype with negative outcomes; understanding what works for them in treatment is imperative. The success of MIXED children in some family-based programs for aggression may be attributable to collateral reductions in internalizing symptoms. The current study examined whether reductions in internalizing behaviour in MIXED children were due to reductions in maternal depression and parent-child co-rumination. Co-rumination, a dyadic interaction related to internalizing symptoms, is defined as excessively discussing problems and dwelling on negative feelings. We investigated 154 MIXED children and 49 pure externalizers who underwent Parent Management Training/Cognitive Behavioural Therapy. Mother-child co-rumination was assessed using videotaped observations of problem discussions gathered at pre-treatment, post-treatment and follow-up. We hypothesized that, at pre-treatment, mother-child co-rumination would mediate the relation between maternal depression and child internalizing problems. During treatment, we expected that co-rumination and maternal depression would predict reductions in child symptoms. Finally, we hypothesized that reductions in co-rumination would mediate the association between improvements in maternal depression and improvements in child internalizing which would, in turn, impact externalizing outcomes. Results did not support our pre-treatment and during treatment hypotheses about the role of co-rumination as a mediator. At pre-treatment, maternal depression was associated with child internalizing problems and co-rumination; co-rumination was not associated with internalizing when controlling for maternal depression. Reductions in maternal depression were associated with improvements in child internalizing and, marginally, with child externalizing, thus partially supporting our hypotheses. We also found that reductions in co-rumination impacted child externalizing, but not internalizing behaviour, again partially supporting our hypotheses regarding co-rumination changes and child symptom changes. Finally, results demonstrated that internalizing improvements affected externalizing outcomes, partially supporting our treatment-related hypothesis. Findings have implications for understanding the development and treatment of problems in MIXED children.