A mere glance at a family photograph of the Victorian era leaves little doubt of the position of the figure exuding impervious, authoritarian detachment. Austere, rigid and solemn, it is not hard to guess who cast the shadow over the picture. Arrestingly imposing in his role as backbone of the family, this is the nineteenth century legacy image of the father. However, the last century has seen fatherhood redefine itself and the more liberal, lenient and openly loving figure replaced the strict patriarchal model. In contemporary times, fathers are regularly seen comfortably behind a stroller, outdoors with children on their shoulders, at home tousling with their children, and considerably more involved in school and social events. Unashamedly, fathers have moved toward both acknowledging and displaying a softer paternal image. By definition fatherhood is a decidedly individual concept and a unique experience, involving much more than being the male parent in a family, the family protector, or the provider of paycheques. Although the past decade has seen a surge of research and interest in fatherhood with an increased recognition that the involvement of fathers contribute to the well-being, cognitive growth and social competence of their children, there remains a deficit in research on the experiences, perceptions and involvement of fathers of children diagnosed with Down syndrome. And whilst most of this knowledge base is extrapolated from studies about the mother’s experience, true understanding requires that fathers are studied directly. Mothers and fathers respond differently to the pressure associated with raising a child with Down syndrome and literature supports the common view that men are less likely and easy to engage in therapy than women, are less likely to attend therapy, or seek help for physical or psychological problems. For fathers of any differently abled child, the distance between the idealized fathering experience and the actual one may be enormous. Based upon the patriarchy model of the family, in many conventional homes, the wife and mother is like a thermometer, sensing and reflecting the home’s temperature, whilst the father and husband is like the home’s thermostat, which determines and regulates the temperature. The equilibrium of the father plays an important role in his ‘thermostat settings’ to set the right temperature in the marriage and his family. Having a differently abled child is almost never expected and often necessitates a change in plans as the family members adjust their views of their own future, their future with their child, as well as how they will henceforth operate as a family.Some fathers may experience uncertainty about their parenting role of a child diagnosed with Down syndrome, often resulting in peculiar behaviours of the father. This may include engrossing themselves into their work, hobbies, sport, and so forth, almost abdicating their duty as father; believing that the mother knows best (sometimes using their own lack of knowledge as a cop-out); or, they simply withdraw because the mother takes such complete control of every aspect of the child that the father feels inadequate, superfluous, and peripheral as parent. Each parent grieves the ‘loss’ of the child they expected in their own individual way. However, such a highly emotive situation may be compounded by the following aspects: the undeniable pressure of caring for the differently abled child; the additional financial burden; a waning social life; and, the incapacity to cope emotionally whilst invariably displaying the contrary purely to create the illusion that they are indeed coping. Fathers need to develop strategies and skills to cope with the very real and practical needs of parenting their child with Down syndrome, to furthermore minimize relationship conflict and misunderstanding, and to support their child’s optimal development. How these specific issues are embraced and managed may dramatically influence the peace and harmony of family life as well as the marital relationship. This study explores the perspectives of fathers of a child with Down syndrome to ultimately support this unique journey as they navigate their way through “Down”town Holland, as illustrated in the analogy to follow.

M.Ed. / New legislation on the termination of pregnancy (Number 92 of 1996) was approved by President Mandela on 12 November 1996, and came into effect on 1 February 1997. This law allows any pregnant woman above the age of 12, thus including adolescents, to decide to have her pregnancy terminated. Furthermore, the adolescents do not need parental permission to have their pregnancies terminated. The question arising from this is the following: how do the parents, and more specifically the mother, experience the termination of their adolescent daughter's pregnancy? To explore and describe the feelings of these mothers, qualitative, explorative, descriptive and contextual research was utilized in two phases. During Phase I, in depth phenomenological interviews were conducted. During Phase II logical inference was used to generate guidelines for educational psychologists to enable them to assist and guide these mothers whose adolescent daughters had had their pregnancies terminated. The research showed that the following themes were observed recurringly: > Shock, disillusionment and internal conflict due to the decision to have the pregnancy terminated. > Sorrow due to overwhelming emotions after the termination of the pregnancy. > Helplessness due to the inability to deal with the course of events. > Mechanisms of defense in an attempt to protect themselves. The guidelines that have been set, are as follows: > Setting of goals and rational emotive therapy. > Guidelines regarding unconditional acceptance of the mother, the verbalising of emotions and the addressing of irrational thoughts. > Guidelines to empower mothers to assist both themselves and their daughters. > Guidelines to assist mothers to apply the mechanisms of defense in a positive way.

The central problem guiding this research focuses on the nature of Siyabuswa adolescent learners' future perspective. An in-depth literature study pertaining research methodology was undertaken. Qualitative research methodology was applied to gather information. A situation analysis was conducted in order to scrutinize the orientation of learners towards education and to determine the nature and impact of parental involvement, on the future perspective of their adolescent learners. A pilot study was executed and data gathered for this study were analysed and interpreted. The results served as indicators for the compiling of questionnaires for the unstructured interviews with parents and adolescents. The empirical study indicated various factors that impact negatively on the future perspective of the Siyabuswa adolescent learners. Learners were negatively affected by the following: <ul><li> Surrogate parenting. </li><li> Educational level of parents. </li><li> Learning culture. </li><li> Personal circumstances of parents. </li><li> Teachers' attitude in the Siyabuswa area. </li><li>The impact of the country's state of affairs. <br></li></ul> Two main questions of the study were answered as follows: The nature of the future perspective of the adolescent learners in the Siyabuswa area reflected: <ul><li> a negative attitude towards school tasks, </li><li>a negative attitude towards authority, </li><li> a negative attitude towards the "self",</li><li> failure to comply to academic demands, </li><li>poor school attendance, </li><li> non participation in school-related co-curriculum activities, and </li><li>lack of self-responsibility. <br></li></ul> The nature and extent of parental involvement in the development of the adolescent learners' future perspective indicated that: <ul><li> parents do not set examples by reading for pleasure, </li><li> limited provision of extra learning material is made available at home, </li><li> limited goal setting for the year is done with the child, </li><li> parents lack interest in their children's school work and school related activities, </li><li> limited motivation and encouragement is provided, and </li><li>limited authoritative guidance and control is offered. <br></li></ul> / Dissertation (MEd (Orthopedagogics))--University of Pretoria, 2005. / Educational Psychology / unrestricted

An understanding of factors that enhance empathic parenting behaviors is of considerable importance to the study of child development and to the development of parenting interventions to promote child adjustment. Moreover, gaining a better understanding of the factors that predict empathic parenting with older children is of interest since most research examining parental empathy focuses on infants. These were the goals of the current study. Guided by Belsky's 1984 process model of the determinants of parenting that impact child development, an expanded model of the determinants of parenting is proposed that includes various parent, child, and contextual factors of influence. Using data from a community sample, a partial least squares path analysis approach was employed to test the model's strength in predicting empathically attuned parenting with children ages 5 to 10 years and, ultimately, the child's psychoemotional functioning. Results support the expanded model; however, a reduced model was found to be superior and revealed unique relationships between the determinants of parenting. Specifically, a parent's psychoemotional functioning and childrearing beliefs and attitudes were found to be critical to the parent's ability to engage in empathic parenting behaviors. Other parent factors such as the parent's developmental history of abuse, maladaptive personality traits, and age, along with contextual factors and child characteristics, were found to influence parenting only indirectly through their impact on the parent's level of psychoemotional distress or childrearing beliefs and attitudes. Ultimately, the current findings support Belsky's claim that parent factors are the strongest predictors of empathic parenting. Implications of these findings are many. The results highlight the importance of assessing a parent's childrearing beliefs and attitudes and level of distress in conjunction with characteristics of the child when a family comes in for treatment. Moreover, the results identify many points of intervention to stopping the cycle of abuse.

The purpose of the current study was, in general, to use the Experience Sampling Methodology (ESM) to more accurately assess the types of behaviors that mothers and fathers engage in with their sons and daughters and the amount of time they spend engaged in those behaviors when compared to each other.

Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the Degree of Ph.D in Community Psychology in the Faculty of Arts, Department of Psychology at the University of Zululand, 2007. / A qualitative, phenomenological approach incorporating triangulation, process evaluative and appreciative inquiry techniques was used to evaluate parental experiences of participating in a stress management programme for parents of children with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD). Parents experienced the program as bringing about empowerment, group cohesion, cognitive restructuring, behaviour modification, growth, development and change. Children viewed their parents as having become more relaxed, approachable, inclusive and loving. An independent psychologist evaluated the programme positively in terms of its quality, effectiveness, flexibility, adaptability and comprehensiveness. The research concludes with ways of improving the programme for future management of children with ADHD.

This study addresses the preparenthood period of family life, that period from conception to six weeks after the infant is born. This period was of great interest because in nine years of social work practice I have recognized that families resist change after their particular family system process, even destructive process, is established. I also believe that the order, or disorder, of society depends upon the order of the institution of the family. Other institutions of society depend upon the family for their existence.

No description available.

A child’s early language environment, and their parents’ active engagement during parent-child interactions play a vital role in facilitating the development of complex social reinforcers and the growth of their verbal behavior. Using a verbal behavioral approach, this study aimed to measure the statistical significance of changes in the quality and quantity of parent-child interactions after parents participated in a virtual parent-training program. The intervention used was the Incredible Years-ASLD® (Webster-Stratton, 2015) program, which consisted of 12 group parent-training sessions delivered virtually in small groups. Th e study also aimed to assess the association between parental stress and the quality and quantity of parent-child interactions. Participants were seventeen biological mother-child dyads. The participant children attended a full-day, intensive Applied Behavior Analysis (ABA) preschool, with a mean age of 4 years and 3 months and either had an Individual Education Program for a preschooler with a disability or an Individualized Family Service Plan. The number of verbal operants exchanged between the mother and the child during the parent-child interactions were measured at baseline, during, and after the intervention. Parent-child interactions were designed to mirror their naturalistic interactions and consisted of a five-min structured-play task, and a five-min free-play task, which were recorded for future analysis. Self-reported parental-stress levels were measured at baseline and after the intervention using the Parenting-Stress Index-Fourth Edition, Short Form (Abidin, 2012). This pilot study was conducted to statistically evaluate the changes across all three conditions following the IY-ASLD® intervention on a) the quantity of mother-child interactions, as measured by the number of vocal-verbal operants initiated by the mothers (i.e., mands and tacts), and the number of approvals vs. disapprovals; and b) on the quality of mother-child interactions as measured by mothers’ verbal responsiveness to their children’s initiations, mothers’ effectiveness in eliciting a response from their children, and the number of missed opportunities for mothers and children. The results for the first research question demonstrated that there was a statistically significant increase in the number of tacts emitted by the mothers in the free-play task, as well as a statistically significant decrease in the number of approvals following the intervention. There were no statistically significant changes in the number of mothers’ mands or disapprovals. The results for the second research question demonstrated that, following the intervention, there was a statistically significant decrease in the number of missed opportunities for the children during the structured-play task, and in the number of missed opportunities for the mothers in both tasks. There was also a statistically significant decrease in children’s responses to mothers’ initiations in the free-play task. This study also aimed to assess the relation between parental stress and the quality and quantity of parent-child interactions. The findings suggested a statistically significant negative association during the pre-intervention condition between parental-stress and the quality of parent-child interactions, specifically, mothers’ responsiveness to their children’s initiations. Furthermore, mothers’ stress levels were significantly negatively associated with the number of mands emitted by the mothers, but not associated with the quantity of the other vocal-verbal operants.

Studies have found that the type of parenting a child receives affects his or her subsequent development. This study investigates the relative influence of maternal parenting behavior and the impact of multiple variables influencing the quality of mothers' parenting behaviors. This knowledge will help to understand how early attachment experiences impact future parenting behavior.