Families, Risk, and Competence
Families, Risk, and Competence

Author: Michael Lewis

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2014-04-04

Total Pages: 399

ISBN-13: 1317778812

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The problems of studying families arise from the difficulty in studying systems where there are multiple elements interacting with each other and with the child. How should this system be described? Still other problems relate to indirect effects; namely the influence of a particular dyad's interaction on the child when the child is not a member of the dyad. While all agree that the mother-father relationship has important bearing on the child's development, exactly how to study this--especially using observational techniques--remains a problem. While progress in studying the family has been slow, there is no question that an increase in interest in the family systems, as opposed to the mother-child relationship, is taking place. This has resulted in an increase in research on families and their effects. This volume, by leading figures in child development on families, attests to the growing sophistication of the conceptualization and measurement techniques for getting at family processes. The third in a series that aims to address topics relevant to the developmental problems and developmental disabilities of retardation, this volume is divided into two parts. Section 1 presents basic family processes and approaches for describing family dynamics. It deals with these issues from a broad perspective, including studying families at dinner, families in different cultural contexts, and the understanding of family in nonhuman primates. Section 2 looks at family processes in the service of studying families at-risk. The risk factors include poverty, malnutrition, and developmental delay and retardation. The study of family processes in these contexts provides data on family dynamics as well as how these dynamics impact on the children's developing competence. This volume will be informative for researchers, clinicians, and educators from a variety of disciplines and settings. The editors' aim is to bring a greater clarity to issues concerning the family life of children and highlight new research and possibilities for intervention.

Families, Risk, and Competence
Families, Risk, and Competence

Author: Michael Lewis

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2014-04-04

Total Pages: 361

ISBN-13: 1317778820

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The problems of studying families arise from the difficulty in studying systems where there are multiple elements interacting with each other and with the child. How should this system be described? Still other problems relate to indirect effects; namely the influence of a particular dyad's interaction on the child when the child is not a member of the dyad. While all agree that the mother-father relationship has important bearing on the child's development, exactly how to study this--especially using observational techniques--remains a problem. While progress in studying the family has been slow, there is no question that an increase in interest in the family systems, as opposed to the mother-child relationship, is taking place. This has resulted in an increase in research on families and their effects. This volume, by leading figures in child development on families, attests to the growing sophistication of the conceptualization and measurement techniques for getting at family processes. The third in a series that aims to address topics relevant to the developmental problems and developmental disabilities of retardation, this volume is divided into two parts. Section 1 presents basic family processes and approaches for describing family dynamics. It deals with these issues from a broad perspective, including studying families at dinner, families in different cultural contexts, and the understanding of family in nonhuman primates. Section 2 looks at family processes in the service of studying families at-risk. The risk factors include poverty, malnutrition, and developmental delay and retardation. The study of family processes in these contexts provides data on family dynamics as well as how these dynamics impact on the children's developing competence. This volume will be informative for researchers, clinicians, and educators from a variety of disciplines and settings. The editors' aim is to bring a greater clarity to issues concerning the family life of children and highlight new research and possibilities for intervention.

Stress, Coping, and Resiliency in Children and Families
Stress, Coping, and Resiliency in Children and Families

Author: E. Mavis Hetherington

Publisher: Psychology Press

Published: 2014-02-25

Total Pages: 256

ISBN-13: 1317780140

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Concern with stress and coping has a long history in biomedical, psychological and sociological research. The inadequacy of simplistic models linking stressful life events and adverse physical and psychological outcomes was pointed out in the early 1980s in a series of seminal papers and books. The issues and theoretical models discussed in this work shaped much of the subsequent research on this topic and are reflected in the papers in this volume. The shift has been away from identifying associations between risks and outcomes to a focus on factors and processes that contribute to diversity in response to risks. Based on the Family Research Consortium's fifth summer institute, this volume focuses on stress and adaptability in families and family members. The papers explore not only how a variety of stresses influence family functioning but also how family process moderates and mediates the contribution of individual and environmental risk and protective factors to personal adjustment. They reveal the complexity of current theoretical models, research strategies and analytic approaches to the study of risk, resiliency and vulnerability along with the central role risk, family process and adaptability play in both normal development and childhood psychopathology.

Building Skills in High-risk Families
Building Skills in High-risk Families

Author: Jane L. Peterson

Publisher:

Published: 1995

Total Pages: 284

ISBN-13:

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This six phase approach guides workers and families through the process of building family strengths and developing skills. By focusing on family skill acquisition and goal attainment, this program helps both the worker and the family plot the course toward more effective and satisfying family life.

Risk, Family Functioning, and Child Competence in Head Start Families
Risk, Family Functioning, and Child Competence in Head Start Families

Author:

Publisher:

Published: 2001

Total Pages:

ISBN-13:

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This study examines the mechanisms through which a risk factor such as poverty exerts its well-established negative effects on child development. Following the work of Baldwin, Baldwin, Kasser, Zax, Sameroff & Seifer (1993), risk factors were classified by theoretical proximity to the child into distal intermediate and proximal risk indices. Focusing on socio-emotional competence, this study tested the theory that distal factors, such as poverty, influence competence largely through effects on more proximal factors, such as family functioning. Participants were 25 preschoolers who were enrolled in Head Start programs in Southern New England and their families. Parents completed self-report questionnaires that provided information on 10 risk factors, including family functioning. Observer reports of family functioning were also obtained during home visits in which families were videotaped having a meal together. Information on children's socio-emotional competence in three domains--Regulatory Skills, Maladaptive Behaviours, and Social Relatedness, was obtained through teacher and experimenter ratings done in the children's Head Start classrooms. Hierarchical multiple regressions were performed using the three risk indices to predict each of the domains of socio-emotional competence. Contrary to expectations, none of the risk indices predicted children's socio-emotional competence. Moreover, a cumulative risk index formed by tallying risk factors was not significantly associated with children's socio-emotional competence, and only two risk factors were associated with developmental outcomes (maternal depression and family social support). Results regarding the nature of family functioning in poor families unexpectedly varied with the assessor. Observers rated the majority of families' Overall Family Functioning in the unhealthy range, while most parents rated their families' Overall Family Functioning in the healthy range. Moreover, mothers rated their Overall Family.

Parenting Matters
Parenting Matters

Author: National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine

Publisher: National Academies Press

Published: 2016-11-21

Total Pages: 525

ISBN-13: 0309388570

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Decades of research have demonstrated that the parent-child dyad and the environment of the familyâ€"which includes all primary caregiversâ€"are at the foundation of children's well- being and healthy development. From birth, children are learning and rely on parents and the other caregivers in their lives to protect and care for them. The impact of parents may never be greater than during the earliest years of life, when a child's brain is rapidly developing and when nearly all of her or his experiences are created and shaped by parents and the family environment. Parents help children build and refine their knowledge and skills, charting a trajectory for their health and well-being during childhood and beyond. The experience of parenting also impacts parents themselves. For instance, parenting can enrich and give focus to parents' lives; generate stress or calm; and create any number of emotions, including feelings of happiness, sadness, fulfillment, and anger. Parenting of young children today takes place in the context of significant ongoing developments. These include: a rapidly growing body of science on early childhood, increases in funding for programs and services for families, changing demographics of the U.S. population, and greater diversity of family structure. Additionally, parenting is increasingly being shaped by technology and increased access to information about parenting. Parenting Matters identifies parenting knowledge, attitudes, and practices associated with positive developmental outcomes in children ages 0-8; universal/preventive and targeted strategies used in a variety of settings that have been effective with parents of young children and that support the identified knowledge, attitudes, and practices; and barriers to and facilitators for parents' use of practices that lead to healthy child outcomes as well as their participation in effective programs and services. This report makes recommendations directed at an array of stakeholders, for promoting the wide-scale adoption of effective programs and services for parents and on areas that warrant further research to inform policy and practice. It is meant to serve as a roadmap for the future of parenting policy, research, and practice in the United States.

Diverse Families, Competent Families
Diverse Families, Competent Families

Author: Janet F. Gillespie

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2014-07-16

Total Pages: 239

ISBN-13: 131778944X

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Are you prepared to deliver effective services to a wide range of families and family situations? Diverse Families, Competent Families provides human service professionals with a portrait of the real lives and practical challenges of our nation's families as they face a new millennium. It examines family adaptation and competence in a variety of contexts and situations such as, day-to-day issues of coping and survival, as well as major milestones such as sending children off to school and becoming a caregiver for a family member. This unique book also spans multiple levels of families’existence, examining home, school, and the larger community to provide you with an understanding of the societal dynamics that can have an influence on families. With Diverse Families, Competent Families, you'll explore: the need to reexamine the ways that single parent families are viewed, and the risks inherent in over-generalizing about this type of family ways that men can make the most of their experience as fathers the relationship between parents’perceptions of teacher behavior and how willing they are to become involved at school the ways in which changes or disruptions in a family's functioning can influence their children's academic skills the results of an innovative intervention for “sandwiched” generation mothers who must simultaneously care for an older family member and attend to the needs of their own children ways to help Mexican immigrant parents feel more effective in their parenting roles In Diverse Families, Competent Families, you will discover new, and positive ways to view families, particularly ethnic minority families, low-income families, immigrant families, and families who are coping with specific life stressors such as financial loss, unemployment, divorce, and death.

Early Intervention with Multi-risk Families
Early Intervention with Multi-risk Families

Author: Sarah Landy

Publisher: Brookes Publishing Company

Published: 2006

Total Pages: 568

ISBN-13:

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This book focuses on the treatment of families at psychosocial risk, outlining an integrative approach to early intervention, and providing both a theoretical and a very practical approach to intervention with the most at-risk families.