<p>New parents often experience significant stress as they take on new roles and responsibilities. Personal informatics practices have increasingly gained attention as they support various aspects of wellness of individuals by providing data-driven self-insights. While several PI systems have been proposed to support mental wellness of individuals not only by providing self-knowledge but also by helping individuals deal with negative emotions, few studies investigated how parenting stress can be managed through PI practices. In this paper, I set out to investigate how new parents make use of flexible self-tracking practices in the context of stress management. The findings of this study indicate that flexible self-tracking practices enable individuals to develop self-knowledge as well as to better communicate with their spouses through data. Based on the findings, I discuss how the self-tracking experiences for the mental wellness of parents can be better designed and provide some considerations for future research and design for parenting stress management.</p>

This study investigated the association between Chinese immigrant mothers' reports of parenting stress and two sources of parenting support: fathers' support and social support. Five independent-samples t-tests were first computed to examine whether there were discrepancies between Chinese immigrant mothers' and fathers' perceptions of fathers' involvement across five domains of fathers' involvement in early child care: (1) fathers' warmth and attunement; (2) control and process responsibility; (3) emotional involvement; (4) indirect care; and (5) positive engagement. Then regression analyses were conducted to understand how and to what extent the five domains of father involvement reported by mothers and mothers' perceived social support influenced Chinese immigrant mothers' parenting stress. In addition, an indirect effects of mothers' self-efficacy on the relation between fathers' involvement and mothers' parenting stress was also tested. The results showed that Chinese mothers reported significantly greater level of fathers' emotional involvement than the same type of involvement reported by Chinese immigrant fathers. This study also found that fathers' emotional involvement reported by Chinese immigrant mothers was a significant predictor of Chinese immigrant mothers' parenting stress. However, mothers' perceived social support was a stronger predictor, accounting for more variance in their parenting stress than their reports of fathers' involvement across all the five dimensions. Mothers' self-efficacy did not account for the association between Chinese immigrant mothers' reports of fathers' involvement across five dimensions and mothers' parenting stress.

The importance of social competence in children's development has been recognized, and evidence has been found that children who are socially incompetent are at risk for academic problems. Yet the influences that may be involved from infancy, such as temperament and attachment, have not been explored longitudinally. The purpose of this study was to investigate the influence of infant temperament characteristics on later social development and to explore the idea that this influence may be affected by the infant's attachment security mediated by parenting stress. Eighteen-month-old infants, from a previous study, were studied as second graders to examine whether their development was influenced by early attachment and temperament . This study examined the involvement of infant temperament and attachment in relation to maternal goodness-of-fit and parenting stress to predict social problems in the school years to gain valuable insight into the potential of the infant to influence his/her own development. Results indicate that characteristics of the infant and the mother-infant relationship have only indirect relations with how children function later in childhood. However, the child's temperament as a second grader, although not stable from infancy, is related to how well a child adapts in a school environment

Some people are genetically more vulnerable to stress than others, leading them towards poorer outcomes following stressful events. Mothers' vulnerability to stress may, in turn, influence their children, leading their children towards poor outcomes as well. A biological marker of vulnerability to stress may indicate mothers who are at greater risk for experiencing parenting stress, depression, and less support of the infant's emotional development, and infants who are at greater risk for development of poor emotion regulation and behavior problems. Taste sensitivity to propylthiouracil (PROP) is proposed as a biological marker of stress vulnerability in mothers and children. This research used a bioecological approach to examine extant data from two previous longitudinal studies, both with child and mother data from maternal interviews and video-recorded observations of mother-child interaction. Participants included 121 low-income and 102 middle-income mother-child pairs who were studied for presence of the biological marker in relation to stressful life events, parenting stress, depression, and lower support of infants' emotions. Children were studied for presence of the biological marker in relation to their development of emotion regulation and their later behavior problems. Results revealed that PROP taste sensitivity, as tested in this study, is not likely to be a useful biological marker of higher vulnerability to stress. Although results flowed in the hypothesized direction, few reached statistical significance and most were of small effect size. For depression, results supported previous research, although with smaller effect sizes. In addition, results depended on the sample and source of stress. For low-income mothers the source of stress was stressful life events. For the middle-income sample the source of stress was parenting stress, specifically mother-child dysfunctional interaction. Among mothers with higher PROP taste sensitivity, those from the low-income sample reported more depression whether stressful events were higher or lower, whereas those from the middle-income sample reported more depression when parenting stress, particularly poor mother-child dyadic interaction, was higher. From both samples, mothers' parenting stress or depression at 14 months predicted children's later behavior problems when they were school-age. Children with lower PROP taste sensitivity were more emotionally regulated with their mothers. Because the results were consistent and suggestive, although not conclusive enough to warrant the use of PROP as a biological marker, future research should examine individual situational factors under which PROP taste sensitivity is related to stress vulnerability.

Background: Children require a nurturing environment to develop optimally and reach their full potential. A critical component of this environment is the health and well-being of caregivers so that they can provide responsive caregiving. It is believed that parents or caregivers of children with ASD will have poorer health and well-being than parents or caregivers of children without ASD. Therefore, parents of children with ASD may require more support to enable them to provide responsive caregiving to these children. Methods: This study was a quantitative study that employed an analytical, comparative design. The purpose of this study is to determine if there is a significant difference in the health and well-being of parents with children with ASD and parents of children without ASD in the South African context. Two hundred and eight participants from two schools in Kwa-Zulu Natal completed a paper-based survey containing 3 questionnaires relating to health-related quality of life; stress, anxiety and depression and parental self-efficacy. Parenting constructs such as stress, anxiety and parental self-efficacy are measured and described, and the association between Health-related Quality of Life and constructs such as stress, anxiety and parental self-efficacy is explored. It took place at a special needs school in KZN and mainstream school in the same district. Results: The results of this study demonstrated a poorer HRQOL in some of the areas of parents of a child with ASD compared to parents of a child without ASD. The results from this study demonstrate the importance for health practitioners to focus on the parents' health and well-being as part of the child's intervention. Conclusion: Intervention is mainly child-focussed however it is important for practitioners to understand the caregiver's health and well-being as this will have a positive influence of the child and in turn, lead to successful intervention. It is therefore important to have a family-centred approach. The QOL of the parents or caregivers of children with ASD will improve through support and intervention which will positively impact on the child's development. If the caregiver is receiving the appropriate support, their QOL will improve and they will be able to provide nurturing care that the child needs.

The COVID-19 pandemic has severely impacted parents and children leading to increased stress and decreased psychological well-being (Black et al., 2021; Duan et al., 2020; Spinelli et al., 2020). Building on current research, this study aimed to investigate how COVID-19 impacted parenting stress, parent and child well-being, and parent-child communication. Using a two-part mixed-methods design, this study adds to the growing literature examining the deleterious effects the pandemic has had on families. Study 1 aimed to explore the impact of COVID-19 on child worry and parent-child communication, while also investigating the mediating effects of parenting stress and parent worry. In addition, two moderators, namely child age and social support were tested. Participants included 163 parents of children between the ages of 6- to 12-years old across Canada. Although a mediating effect was not found, path analysis results indicated that greater reports of impacts and perceived threat around COVID-19 related to increased parent worry, and increased parental worry related to increased child worry. Additionally, greater parenting stress related to less-open communication. Thematic analysis of parent reports indicated that parents prioritized providing children with information about the pandemic, as well as instructing children on safety behaviours. Study 2 aimed to determine how changes in the pandemic related to changes in child worry and parent-child communication. Participants of Study 2 were 44 parents who also participated in Study 1. Compared to reports in Study 1, parents experienced less perceived threat around COVID-19, but reported no change in parenting stress, parent worry, or COVID-19 impacts. Hierarchical regression analyses indicated that the only significant predictors of child worry and parent-child open communication at Time 2 were child worry and parent-child open communication at Time 1, respectively. Taken together, findings from both Study 1 and Study 2 highlight the negative impact the pandemic is having on parent and child well-being, as well as the negative impact of parenting stress on parent-child communication. Additionally, findings indicate that level of distress and openness of communication are relatively stable across the pandemic. Implications of these findings are discussed. / Graduate / 2023-08-10

In the U.S., obesity has hit alarming rates and affects Hispanic children disproportionately. Acculturation, the shift from one culture’s values, beliefs and practices to those of a new culture, may have both negative and positive health effects on immigrants. The objectives of this study were to determine the association between the level of acculturation (low acculturation or high acculturation) of low-income Latina mothers and the foods consumed by their children (0 to 36 months old). The association between acculturation and maternal perceptions of infant and toddler body size, maternal perceptions of her own body size and maternal parenting stress were also investigated. This was accomplished in 3 stages. First, data was collected cross-sectionally from 68 participants of WIC. Mothers answered many questionnaires including Food Frequency Questionnaires for their children, body size perception scale questionnaires and a parenting stress test. General linear regression models were performed to investigate an association between acculturation and food frequency, maternal perceptions of body size and parenting stress. Each model controlled for child’s age, maternal age, BMI (m/kg2) and education level. Second, key informant interviews were conducted with nine public health professionals to help gain a better understanding of some of our findings and to develop questions for the third stage: focus groups. Third, a total of 32 mothers participated in focus groups to discuss their perceptions on acculturation and child-feeding habits, and children’s body size. In addition, three mothers completed one-on-one interviews. From the cross-sectional analysis of the first study stage, the level of acculturation did not have a significant effect on any of the factors measured. For all mothers, however an increase in child’s age was associated with an increase in both the amount of healthy foods and less healthy foods consumed; an increase in mother’s BMI was associated with an increase in the children’s consumption of less healthy foods (beta coefficient of -0.042; p = 0.035). An increase in child’s age was associated with an increased likelihood of a mother to correctly estimate her own body size (beta coefficient of 0.041; p = 0.043). An increase in maternal BMI was associated with an increased likelihood to underestimate her own weight as well as that of her child. During the second stage, a theme emerged from the focus groups that the mothers try to feed the children the way they were fed growing up but they encounter difficulties when they can’t find the same ingredients and when their children start to prefer American foods. For all groups health was the number one factor they considered when choosing what to feed their children. The low acculturated mothers stated they wanted more education on how to assess if their child is at a healthy weight and admitted to not thinking about weight very much. In both groups, the mothers reported getting information about their child’s weight from health care professionals but many mothers from the bi acculturated group mentioned not believing the doctor when they told them their child was overweight. Overall, the findings suggest that children’s diets are not different by mother’s acculturation level and that the children start to prefer American foods from a young age. Parental education for several areas were identified: 1) for mothers to learn how to continue with the healthful aspects of a traditional diet 2) teach parents about appropriate stages of growth for their children; 3) when trying to teach about food focus on other areas of health rather than weight since weight does not seem to resonate as a concern.

Abundant research describes the prevalence of parenting stress among parents of children with disabilities. Children with disabilities requiring specialized instruction receive special education programming, but this factor can exacerbate stress in parents and interfere with positive mental health and family relationships. In school settings, intervention is directed at the student but fails to address the contextual day-to-day needs of parents experiencing greater stressors. There is scant evidence of the use or presence of structured, manualized intervention programs in schools to address the intense needs of parents of children with disabilities or of occupational therapy-led interventions on behalf of the parent as they emotionally process new special education programming territory. A strong sense of coherence (SOC) is important in positive parenting, health, and wellness. Low SOC has been associated with depression and stress and low parental coping capability. The SOC theory is valuable in explaining differences in individuals’ capacities to positively adapt to life challenges. A school-based, educational parent-intervention program, framed by a salutogenic SOC theory approach, which occurs during the school year, may prove useful to address parents’ diminished meaningful life occupations resulting from increased stress or lowered SOC. This inquiry aims to examine the relevance, need, and benefit of a school-based parental-intervention program for parents of children with disabilities, the Sense of Coherence Uplifting Parent Participation in Everyday Resilience (SUPPER) program. Its intended purpose is to provide a special-education-based, parent-support and -empowerment group for parents of children receiving special education programming and supports.

In this modified single-subject design study, the researcher sought to find whether eight parents who were taught to use lullaby evidenced a change in attachment and parenting stress regarding their infant’s hospitalization and into transition to home. Using repeated measures over a period of approximately two months, each parent was asked to use infant directed lullaby with their infants and keep track of its use with a calendar. The Maternal Attachment Inventory and the Parenting Stress Index provided measurement of self-reported attachment and stress. An adapted intervention rating profile was used to determine the parent’s perceived acceptance of infant directed lullaby. Understanding possible connections between attachment and parenting stress with music, and as a music therapy intervention, is important for both researchers and clinicians in the field of music therapy. Teaching parents to use a simple and cost effective tool may provide families with more access to interventions similar to infant directed lullaby as well as provide support for families and their infants. Despite this study’s inconclusive findings, a new door for research in this settings has been opened regarding parent training and its effectiveness, which is important in that a therapist is not always able to be present to provide treatment particularly in the NICU setting and after they have been discharged home.

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