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Thesis advisor: Marcie Pitt-Catsouphes / Dual-earner families are an increasing demographic in our society (U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2006a, 2006b). Employers, policymakers, and academics have focused their attention on how to best alleviate the negative consequences of work on families, and enhance the benefits that work and family can bring to one another. One aspect of the connection between work and family is the relationship between parental employment and adolescent well-being. This dissertation seeks to identify the relationships between parental perceptions of their job family-friendliness, satisfaction, stress and burnout, and spillover, and adolescent perceptions of parental mood after work, parental acceptance, and adolescent well-being. The current study uses data from a sample of 150 working families with adolescents from the Nurturing Families Study. This investigation examined parents' perceptions of their jobs and their middle school-aged children's assessments of parents' work and family processes as potential mediators or moderators. The relationships were analyzed using regression modeling techniques. Findings determine the extent to which parental employment experiences explain variance in adolescents' well-being. The most compelling findings from this dissertation suggest that parental assessments of their jobs and adolescent well-being are connected, though not directly. Connections between parent's jobs and adolescent well-being were seen only in relation to adolescent perceptions of mother's work and family contexts. Results indicate that adolescent perceptions of their mothers' level of acceptance moderated the relationship between mothers' reports of their job family-friendliness and their adolescents' reports of well-being. For mothers with low job family-friendliness, mother acceptance diminishes the negative association of this workplace characteristic on adolescent well-being. Additionally, when a mother's job satisfaction is low, adolescent perceptions of her mood after work diminishes the negative association of this workplace characteristic on their well-being more so than when job satisfaction is high. Family practitioners and clinical social workers will be able to use the findings to enhance their clinical work with families with adolescents. The results of the study are also relevant to employers and social workers within organizations. Finally, macro social workers interested in enhancing the well-being of working families and adolescents will be informed by the results of this study. / Thesis (PhD) — Boston College, 2012. / Submitted to: Boston College. Graduate School of Social Work. / Discipline: Social Work.

Marital relationships play an important role in family functioning and in the development of sibling relationships. From a family systems perspective, other subsystems within the family, such as coparenting interactions, could explain the effects of the marital relationship on sibling bonds. Specifically, the quality of the coparenting relationship may mediate the association between marital functioning and sibling relationship quality. The current study examined relationships between these three subsystems (marital, coparenting, and sibling) as self-reported by mothers, fathers, and children with siblings. As part of a larger project, families with a child aged 8 to 11 and at least one sibling (N = 75) completed the Dyadic Adjustment Scale and the Coparenting Scale (both completed by mother and father), as well as the Sibling Relationship Questionnaire (completed by target child). Results suggested that marital functioning is a significant predictor of functioning within the coparenting relationship. Predicted associations did not emerge between sibling relationship quality and marital or coparenting relationships, with minor exceptions, and the coparenting relationship did not mediate the association between marital and sibling relationship quality. Implications of the current findings and suggestions for future research are discussed.

Parent involvement has been recognized as a promising component in the treatment of pediatric overweight. However, to what extent and how to involve parents remains unclear. Family systems models have been used to treat a range of childhood illnesses and may also provide a useful framework for understanding and treating pediatric overweight. The current review presents relevant literature on family systems and child health, discusses the current state of intervention efforts in pediatric overweight, and utilizes family systems ideas to offer suggestions for practice and directions for research regarding the role of parents in treatment.

Thesis advisor: Paul Poteat / Research examining the health of sexual and gender minority (SGM) youth has expanded recently from a focus on how social contexts are linked to health risk to ways they promote wellbeing. The positive youth development (PYD) framework has been increasingly used to conceptualize how various social contexts may promote SGM youth wellbeing, as well as help them engage in community-level change through contribution efforts. There is limited research examining how the family context may promote PYD outcomes and contribution for SGM youth, despite the setting’s association with positive development for heterosexual/cisgender youth. Furthermore, there is a paucity of literature contextualizing family support for SGM identities alongside other measures of family relationships.Parent-child attachment and family cohesion are two measures of family-child relationships that have historically been linked to positive development in youth. They have been linked to various markers of positive development in youth, including confidence, care for others, hope, and gratitude, which in turn may promote greater advocacy and community engagement. This study examined a structural model testing the role of several measures of family relationships in predicting PYD qualities and contribution behaviors for SGM youth. Among 270 SGM youth, structural equation modeling analyses tested the relationship between family relationships with SGM youth (parent-child attachment, family cohesion, and SGM-specific support) and PYD qualities (confidence, care for others, hope, and gratitude) as well as contribution behaviors (advocacy beliefs and community engagement), as mediated by PYD qualities over a six month period. Results indicated that each measure of family relationships was uniquely associated with various PYD qualities and contribution in participants. Furthermore, care for others acted as an indirect pathway through which parent-child attachment was associated with greater advocacy and community engagement for participants. These findings position families as having a role in promoting SGM youth wellbeing within the larger community and contextualize how various markers of family relationships promote select PYD qualities and behaviors. Future research should continue to investigate the longitudinal role of positive family relationships in SGM youth development and how a more nuanced understanding of these relationships may have clinical applications for practitioners and youth wellbeing. / Thesis (PhD) — Boston College, 2022. / Submitted to: Boston College. Lynch School of Education. / Discipline: Counseling, Developmental and Educational Psychology.

Addiction has been predominantly viewed through the lens of the individual, thereby leaving the family largely out of the scope of treatment or prevention. Csiernik (2002) calls the family the ‘secondary element’ in addiction treatment. The definitions of addiction and research on the prevalence of use are examples of this narrow, individual focus. This qualitative study sought to widen the lens and explore the family’s experiences of addiction. Families’ voices will be presented and their perspectives captured regarding what would be helpful to them in addiction treatment. This study’s theoretical underpinnings are Family Systems Theory and Social Constructionism. Interviews with the participants were conducted through the use of an open-ended interview process. Interpretive data analysis and phenomenology were used to explore possible themes and meanings to gain a better understanding of the participants’ perspectives regarding addiction. The main finding of this study, based on the testimony of the participants, was that families perceived there to be a need for more clinical and supportive services to deal with the impact of addictions on the family. This study fills a gap in the literature because, though there is ample research on the consequences of addiction for the family, there is very limited research on the family’s perspective regarding what services they require in order to cope with those consequences. The information supplied by the participants of this study will help social workers and treatment centers provide more holistic, family-centered addiction treatment. / Thesis / Master of Social Work (MSW)

The current study examined associations between perceived family functioning, sibling relational dynamics, and individual's self-reported personal adjustment and internalizing problems among 8- to 11-year old children. Path analyses revealed significant direct effects between conflictual family functioning and children's psychological well-being (p < 0.05). Further, sibling conflict was found to indirectly affect these associations. Finally, significant interactions between family functioning and sibling dynamics were found suggesting that congruent relational dynamics at multiple levels of the family system had a cumulative impact on the child's well-being. Findings from the current study highlight the unique contributions of sibling relationships to the family and the child providing evidence for targeting the sibling relationship in clinical interventions and future family research.

Research suggests that adult attachment is associated with various social roles, such as parenting, with insecure attachment patterns corresponding to lower levels of parenting competence. An increasing amount of research suggests that attachment patterns and social roles are interwoven with gender role beliefs. With family systems theory as an overarching framework, the current study extends the literature by examining dyadic associations between these variables in a sample of 61 cohabitating couples with at least one child under of the age of 18 in the home. Participants included opposite-sex and same-sex romantic partners who were recruited using online snowball sampling processes. The actor-partner interdependence model was used to assess the mutual influences between romantic partners in the parental dyads, specifically focusing on attachment patterns, parenting competence, and the moderating effect of individual gender role-beliefs and incongruence between the two partners' gender role beliefs in the co-parenting relationship. Results indicated both actor and partner attachment anxiety and avoidance were negatively correlated with parenting competence; gender roles beliefs moderated that association with egalitarian gender role beliefs buffering the negative effects of partners' high attachment avoidance or anxiety. Additionally, results indicated that gender role belief incongruence between partners also moderated the relationship between attachment strategies and parenting competence. In light of these findings, limitations, future directions, and clinical implications including attachment-focused individual assessment strategies and therapy techniques as well as couples therapy (i.e., EFCT) modalities are discussed.

Sibling aggression is one of the most frequently occurring forms of aggression within the family and has been associated with socioemotional problems. Guided by the cultural context perspective and family systems theory, a conceptual model depicting the direct and indirect effects of cultural orientation values, traditional gender role attitudes, parental differential treatment, and parent-child conflict on sibling aggression and psychosocial functioning (i.e., psychological distress and interpersonal difficulties) was developed. It was hypothesized that perceptions of cultural values and gender role attitudes endorsed by primary caregivers would be associated with family dynamics factors (i.e., parental differential treatment and parent-child conflict) that contributed to sibling aggression and resulting impaired psychosocial functioning. A total of 272 participants completed the online questionnaire that measured the variables of interest. Structural equation modeling (SEM) methods were used to analyze the data. Findings of the final models lent clear support to the indirect effects of cultural values and gender role attitudes on sibling aggression and resulting psychosocial functioning through differential treatment and parent-child conflict although the results also yielded some unexpected nuances regarding the indirect effect paths. Specifically, lower levels of independent cultural values contributed to greater levels of sibling aggression and impaired psychosocial functioning through more differential treatment and parent-child conflict, while higher levels of traditional gender role attitudes contributed to the outcome variables only through differential treatment. Findings are discussed from the cultural context and family systems framework. Limitations, future directions, and clinical implications are also discussed.

Parents’ capacity to represent and sensitively respond to their children as individuals, is a particularly pertinent ability during infancy. This thesis contributes to theoretical understanding of the nature of parental sensitivity during infancy. In particular, it examined whether parental mind-mindedness and coherence, dimensions theoretically related to sensitivity, are (i) measurable during pregnancy, (ii) conceptually distinct, and (iii) meaningfully associated with observed sensitivity. Results from two studies are presented. The first, a prospective longitudinal study, involved interviews with and observations of 201 first-time parents during late pregnancy and at 4 and 14 months postpartum. Drawing on this data, I established that both expectant mothers and fathers can construct mind-minded and coherent descriptions of their unborn infants during pregnancy. However, there was no evidence that these prenatal constructs had a direct or indirect effect on parents’ sensitivity during infancy. These results were added to the second meta-analytic study that showed expectant mothers’ (but not fathers’) thoughts and feelings about their unborn infant were related to their observed parenting in the postnatal period. In line with the gendered meta-analytic results, further differences emerged between mothers’ and fathers’ talk and behaviour within the prospective longitudinal study. Specifically, mind-mindedness was more stable than sensitivity for mothers whilst the reverse was evident for fathers. Compared with mothers, fathers’ talk and behaviour was more susceptible to influence from other members of the family system. Couple relationship quality influenced both fathers’ prenatal coherence and gains in their mind-mindedness over time. Infant affective responses were also important for fathers’ mind-mindedness, whilst maternal parental efficacy alongside infants’ receptive vocabulary were associated with fathers’ sensitivity. Unexpectedly, infant gender was an important influence on parents’ behaviour: mothers’ sensitivity at 4 months appeared to stimulate fathers’ sensitivity towards their daughters at 14 months. By following both mothers and fathers and in line with family systems theory, assessing whether partners contribute to the emergence of their co-parents’ sensitivity, this thesis provides a rich portrayal of the transition to parenthood in the 21st century.