This study examines the relationship between substance abuse and the need for parent skills training. Predicted is that adults in substance abuse treatment are likely to be in need of parent skills training. Previous research has associated the lack of parent skills with inept parenting practices that often leads to developmental problems in children.

U.S. incarceration rates have soared over the past three decades and the demographic characteristics of those who end up in prison are a reflection of the nation's structural inequality. Incarcerated fathers are a socially disadvantaged group and spending time in prison compounds already significant risk factors that these men experienced throughout their lives. In addition, it increases the risk that their children will suffer from the intergenerational transmission of social inequality. While studies indicate that maintaining contact between incarcerated fathers and their children has the potential to benefit them both and improve a variety of outcomes, there is limited research on the factors that impact incarcerated father-child contact. Based on the ecological model and the cumulative risk framework, this thesis attempts to help fill this gap in the current literature by examining whether an incarcerated father's cumulative risk factors impact the frequency of contact he has with his children. Using a nationally representative data set of men in state prisons and a negative binomial regression analysis, this study found that number of childhood risk experiences was a significant predictor of an incarcerated father's contact with his children. In addition, minority status moderated the relationship between childhood risk and frequency of visits, with an increased effect of risk on father-child contact for African American and Hispanic men. While the quadratic term of Risk² was not significant, disproving the hypothesis that there is a non-linear relationship between risk and contact, a visual representation of the distribution showed that contact between fathers and their children dropped substantially for men with the highest number of risk factors. This study provides valuable information about the relationship between the childhood experiences of incarcerated fathers and their subsequent social ties. The knowledge that childhood risk impacts frequency of father-child contact has the potential to inform interventions aimed at improving outcomes for these at-risk families. / Graduation date: 2013

Family therapists have proposed that specific types of family interactions are dysfunctional for the family system and can produce long-term negative effects for the child. They further propose that, for healthy family functioning to be maintained, parental alliances must be sustained and excessive cross-generational coalitions (parent-child alliances) must be blocked. This fundamental assumption, proposed by family therapists, has rarely been empirically tested. The purpose of this study was to investigate the relationship between family interactional patterns and the misconduct of adolescent males. Misconduct by the adolescent was defined by the youth having contact with the police due to delinquent behavior. Specifically, this study was concerned with determining if cross-generational coalitions, witnessed in parent-child interactions, were predictive of later antisocial behavior on the part of the adolescent while controlling for family structure, family problem solving, marital satisfaction, parental conflict, and child externality. Subjects were 68 families consisting of mother, father or stepfather, and son. The first family interaction assessment took place in 1984-1985 when the child was 9.7 years old. The second assessment of family interaction occurred two years later. Follow-up data on the adolescent's delinquent behavior, assessed through county court records, was last collected in 1991 when subjects were 15 to 16 years old. Families were paid for their participation as part of their involvement in a larger study (Capaldi & Patterson, 1987). The results of logistic and multiple regression analyses indicated no association between parent-child coalitions and occurrence or the severity of delinquent behavior. Both analyses did, however, find that family problem-solving skills and a non-intact family structure were significant predictors of later delinquency and of the severity of the delinquency by the adolescent. / Graduation date: 1993

The purpose of this cross-sectional and exploratory study was to describe an interaction model of parental and adolescent attributes and sexual communication influences on intentions for contraception and condom use in Mexican high school students between 14 and 17 years of age. This study utilized a secondary analysis of data from an existing experimental study. Concepts from the Theory of Planned Behavior, the Social Cognitive Theory, and the Ecodevelopmental Theory provided the contexts with which to guide this study. The study sample consisted of 756 adolescents and their parents. A SEM model building approach was used to guide the analyses. The model fit indices suggested that the sample data did not have an acceptable fit to the combined measurement model (X²[subscript (30)] = 92.215, p = 0.0000, CFI = 0.97, TLI = 0.95, RMSEA = 0.05, SRMR= 0.04). Based on the correlation coefficients, the observed variables of parents' and adolescents' familialism and religiosity and adolescents' intentions for contraception and condom use were excluded from the structural equation modeling analyses. Two alternative models were constructed form the original and both had an acceptable fit, but based on the theoretical background, one was selected (X²[subscript (15)] = 27.289, p = .0265, CFI = .99, TLI = .99, RMSEA = .03, SRMR = .02). The revised model parents' attributes (self-efficacy for sex communication and beliefs toward sex) showed a strong relationship (r = 0.80) with parents' sexual communication (communication about sex and comfort with sex communication). An additional moderately strong correlation was found between adolescents' sexual communication (communication about sex and comfort with sex communication) and parents' sexual communication (r = .31). Although the final model in this study did not explain the direct and mediator effects on adolescents' intentions for contraception and condom use, findings add new information in relation to the phenomenon of parent-adolescent communication about sex in Mexico. Several conclusions were also drawn from the relationships among parents' attributes, adolescents' attributes, parents' sexual communication, adolescents' sexual communication, and adolescents' intentions for contraception and condom use. Findings from this study are congruent with similar research and can be useful in developing intervention programs to prevent HIV/AIDS in Mexican adolescents.

Thesis (M.A.)--University of Hawaii at Manoa, 2005. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 37-44). / viii, 60 leaves, bound ill. 29 cm

Thesis (M.S.)--The University of North Carolina at Greensboro, 2008. / Directed by Marion O'Brien; submitted to the Dept. of Human Development and Family Studies. Title from PDF t.p. (viewed Apr. 13, 2010). Includes bibliographical references (p. 33-38).

Made available in DSpace on 2016-03-15T19:39:35Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Alessandra Cieri Dimberio.pdf: 876029 bytes, checksum: 46322f4c860cf9b2729c186eb3dac81b (MD5) Previous issue date: 2010-12-03 / This study has researched five retained children aged 6 to 12 years, three male and two female from Primary School attending a private school in São Paulo, aiming to investigate their comprehension of their parents attitudes concerning their learning difficulties, on a Psychoanalytic theoretical framework. It describes the analyses of the Family Drawing and the Educational Pair Drawing produced by each participant as well as the questioning of those drawings. Most common signs were shyness and feeling of inadequacy, or guilty due to inadequate behaviors. Data analysis also showed that children who presented learning difficulties presented significant family conflicts such as mother and father distance. Results point to enhancing parent and children relationships and prevention of school difficulties. / Este estudo pesquisou cinco crianças repetentes, de idade entre 7 a 12 anos, sendo três do sexo masculino e duas do sexo feminino, do Ensino Fundamental I de uma escola particular da cidade de São Paulo, a fim de investigar manifestações de sua compreensão quanto às atitudes dos pais frente às suas dificuldades de aprendizagem, sob uma ótica psicanalítica. Descreve as análises do Desenho da Família e do Par Educativo produzidos por cada participante combinadas aos respectivos inquéritos. Os sinais mais presentes obtidos por meio das análises foram afastamento, timidez e sentimento de inadequação ou culpa sobre a incapacidade de agir corretamente. A análise dos dados também mostrou que as crianças que apresentavam dificuldades de aprendizagem demonstraram certos conflitos familiares significativos, como o distanciamento materno ou paterno. Os resultados apontam para o aprimoramento nas relações entre pais e filhos e a prevenção das dificuldades escolares.

The purpose of this study was to examine the impact of maternal attachment on identity and self-esteem in adult gay males.

Abstract not available

With the remarkable increase in immigration since the passage of the 1965 Immigration Act, approximately one in five children in the United States has at least one foreign-born parent (Hernandez & Charney, 1998). This study was an investigation of how students’ perceptions of their parents shaped the kind and degree of motivational goal orientations that they adopted in their mathematics classroom taking students’ different cultural and ethnic backgrounds into account. In this study, students of different ethnic backgrounds enrolled in an American high school reported their achievement goal orientations and self-regulated motivations for their math class, as well as their perceptions of parents’ goals for them, parents’ motivating styles, and the classroom’s goal structures. A total of 138 9th grade Anglo American students and Asian American students were included in the data analyses. In path analyses, Anglo American and Asian American students’ goal orientations were predicted by their perceptions of their parents’ goals for them as well as their parents’ motivating styles, mediated by the students’ self-regulated motivation. For both Anglo American and Asian American students, autonomous self-regulated motivation predicted mastery goal orientation, and less autonomous self-regulated motivation predicted performance goal orientations. However, the students’ perceptions of parental influence from different ethnic/cultural backgrounds were different in predicting students’ self-regulated motivations. Interestingly, Asian American children’s perceptions of parents’ controlling style as well as parents’ autonomy support could predict their mastery goal adoption via identified regulation, and their perception of parental control even predicted their intrinsic regulation. It was also interesting to note that Asian American students’ perceptions of parents’ goal orientations for them predicted their own goals not only directly but also mediated by their self-regulated motivations, unlike Anglo American students whose perceptions of parents’ goals predicted their own goals only mediated by their self-regulated motivations. An integration of self-determination theory and goal theory is offered, broadening the application of these two theories to students of different ethnic/cultural backgrounds. / text