M.A. (Social Work) / Sound family life establishes the basis for social stability and is a prerequisite for a community to function orderly. As a profession, social work focuses on activities related to the provision of needs, associated with family care. It is appropriate to assume that social work is mainly concerned with problems related to marriage and family life. This study draws the attention of the profession to the important role that social work should play in growth-orientated development programmes for the family. The main object of this study falls into two categories, namely to determine whether families with normal or minor problems experience a need towards family enrichment, and to evaluate the effectiveness of a family enrichment project, which includes enrichment programmes for both the marriage and parent-child relationships. Twelve families voluntarily took part in the study for seven weeks, two hours per week. Because of the size of the experimental group, it was divided into two groups of six couples each. A family enrichment project directed at marriage and parent-child relationships was developed. The contents of the project were bases on both knowledge and skill components. The model for Human Resource Development was utilised, providing for the acquisition of skills. A manual based on Carkhuff's teaching model facilitated the family enrichment project. A pre-measurement of marriage relationships, parent-child relationships were investigated through a past-test of the mentioned variables at the conclusion of the project ...

This study described and explored perceptions of the context and behaviors of seven 4-year-old children whose parents attended a parenting education program. The problem was to explore a group of 9 volunteer parents' perceptions of their parenting styles and perceptions of their 4-year-old children at home while the parents participated in, and completed, a minimum of 4 out of 6 Active Parenting Today parenting education classes. Volunteer parents were recruited during public school registration for prekindergarten. In addition, perceptions of 4 teachers and 4 classroom educational aides in regard to behaviors of the 4-year-old children whose parents participated in and completed the Active Parenting Today program were explored.

BACKGROUND: The primary aim of the current study was to create a new measure of parenting practices, constituted by items from already established measures in order to advance the measurement of parenting practices in clinical and research settings. The current study utilized five stages designed to select only the best parenting items, establish a factor structure consisting of positive and negative dimensions of parenting, meaningfully consider child developmental stage, ensure strong psychometric properties, and provide initial evidence for the validity of the final measure. METHODS: A total of 1,790 parents (44% fathers) were recruited online through Amazon's Mechanical Turk for three cohorts: Stages 1 (N = 611), 2 (N = 615), and 3 (N = 564). Each sample was equally divided by child developmental stage: Young childhood (3 to 7 years old), middle childhood (8 to 12 years old), and adolescence (13 to 17 years old). Parenting items were selected and adapted from several well-established parenting scales. Measure development followed five rigorous stages using separate samples for each set of factor analyses as advocated by methodologists. Advanced statistical methods were employed for determining final factor structure (e.g., exploratory structural equation modeling - ESEM) and reliability (omega coefficient; longitudinal ESEM), as well as providing initial support for validity (e.g., latent curve modeling - LCM). RESULTS: Through a five-stage empirical approach, the Multidimensional Assessment of Parenting Scale (MAPS) was developed, successfully achieving all aims. The MAPS factor structure included both positive and negative dimensions of warmth/hostility and behavioral control that were appropriate for parents of children across the developmental span. Seven out of eight MAPS subscales demonstrated excellent reliability (above .80). LCM analyses provided initial support for the validity of all MAPS subscales. DISCUSSION: Although the stages of the current study embody an empirical approach to scale development, it also has important theoretical aspects. The factor structure of the MAPS updates prior the theoretical conceptualization of parenting practices (Schaefer, 1959) in order to inform new research and applications. Future directions are discussed.

Parent education programs were introduced nearly 30 years ago with a primary focus on teaching parents strategies to identify and reduce incidences of noncompliance in their children, and have been the single most successful treatment approach for reducing problem behavior. However, few parent education programs address emotion regulation and its role in children's development despite the fact that research has consistently demonstrated that children who are unable to successfully regulate emotions are more likely to develop behavioral problems. Specifically, most programs fail to address the concepts of effortful control and negative affectivity, two important components of child temperament, and their effects on children's behavior. Research has suggested that children who are emotionally regulated develop greater social competence, resulting in better, more positive, relationships. Thus, parents who teach their children to express and regulate their emotions in socially appropriate ways promote the development of prosocial behaviors in their children. In response, the goal of this study was to examine whether adding an emotion component aimed at teaching parents successful strategies for socializing children's emotions would affect overall parenting and children's emotion regulation above and beyond a traditional behavioral model. Twenty-five parents participated in a three-week parent education program. Parents learned strategies for managing their children's misbehavior. Moreover, parents learned about temperament, how these dispositional traits affect children's behavior, and successful strategies for aiding children in emotion management. At each session, parents completed measures designed to assess their children's temperament and behavior. Additionally, parents completed measures regarding their parenting practices and styles as well as feelings of parental efficacy. Repeated measures ANOVAs were run to determine whether changes in children's temperament or parenting emerged over time. Hierarchical multiple regressions were also computed to determine the effects of parents' practices, styles and efficacy on change in children's levels of effortful control and negative affectivity. Results suggest that parents' choice of disciplinary strategies affects children's ability to regulate their emotions, and that participation in the emotion module positively affected overall parenting and children's emotion regulation.

The current investigation examines the relationship between parenting, emotion regulation, and symptoms of psychopathology in maltreating and non-maltreating parent-child dyads. The participants in this study were 114 children (67 maltreated and 57 non-maltreated) from ages 1 to 4. Child affect and effortful control along with parent affect were observed during a parentchild interaction procedure. Symptoms of psychopathology were measured using the Child Behavior Checklist. The maltreated children in this study exhibited more irritability/anger, affect lability, and internalizing symptomatology, along with less positive affect than their non-maltreated peers. These data also suggest that parental affect is related to internalizing symptomatology; but this relationship is stronger for the maltreated group. Contrary to expectations emotion regulation did not fully mediate the relationship between parenting and psychopathology. Clusters of maladaptive affect, "angry" and "labile", emerged in the maltreated group along with a more "resilient" group characterized by positive affect, positive parental affect, and lower levels of psychopathology.

Dissertation Submitted to fulfil the requirements for the Degree of Master of Arts by Research (Psychology) by Dissertation Only / The aim of this study was to explore black South African women academics’ constructions of culture, mothering and education. The study further explored the relationships inherent between these aspects. The study followed a qualitative design through the utilisation of open-ended interviews that took place at a large urban public university in Johannesburg, South Africa. Nine women in academia who were linked predominantly to the field of health, who were of African descent and who had children between the ages of 0 and 18 years old were interviewed. The results illustrated that the women used multiple sources in the construction of their identities, some of which were congruent whereas between others there were tensions. The largest influence in their constructions of their identities was their religious affiliation, which took precedence over all other influences. At different stages of life their diverse identities held various significances to the women. This study is important because it is the first to investigate mothering in a low-risk African group

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Thesis advisor: Karen Rosen / Thesis advisor: Nancy Lau / Prior research has demonstrated that parental control, parental criticism, and parental acceptance are associated with social anxiety in youth (Wood, McLeod, Sigman, Hwang, & Chu 2003). However, researchers have not examined how these parenting behaviors might impact youth treatment responses. Research in this area has also relied almost exclusively on self and child- report measures. The current study used a newly developed behavioral observation coding system to observe: (1) parental control; (2) parental criticism; (3) quality of parent-child interaction (parental acceptance); (4) parental monitoring of youth anxiety; and (5) discussion of emotion in the context of a public speaking exposure therapy for socially anxious youth (n=39) ages 8-16 years (M = 10.82, SD = 1.94). It was hypothesized that (1) parents of socially anxious youth would exhibit higher levels of parental control, parental negativity, and parental monitoring of youth anxiety, (2) that the quality of interaction would be lower in socially anxious parent-child dyads, and (3) that parents of socially anxious youth would be less likely to discuss emotions with their children. Results demonstrated that parents of socially anxious youth offered significantly more praise than parents of non-socially anxious youth, (F(1, 33) = 5.662, p = 0.023). Parents of socially anxious youth also offered higher levels of directive help (F(1, 33) = 3.713, p = 0.063), although this finding was only trending towards significance. Potential explanations for these findings are discussed and directions for future research are offered. / Thesis (BA) — Boston College, 2014. / Submitted to: Boston College. College of Arts and Sciences. / Discipline: College Honors Program. / Discipline: Psychology Honors Program. / Discipline: Psychology.

by Lo Chu Yin-kwan. / Bibliography: leaves 138-145 / Thesis (M.S.W.)--Chinese University of Hong Kong, 1984

Thesis (Ed.D.)--Boston University.