The Recipe 4 Success preventive intervention targeted multiple factors critical to the health and well-being of toddlers living in poverty. This randomized controlled trial, which was embedded within Early Head Start home visits for 12 weeks, included 242 racially and ethnically diverse families (51% girls; toddler mean age = 2.58 years; data…

Disoriented, punitive, and caregiving/role-confused attachment behaviors are associated with psychopathology in childhood, but have not been assessed in adolescence. A total of 120 low-income late adolescents (aged 18-23 years) and parents were assessed in a conflict-resolution paradigm. Their interactions were coded with the Goal-Corrected…

Spending leisure time with deviant peers may have strong influences on adolescents' delinquency. The current 3-wave multi-informant study examined how parental control and parental prohibition of friendships relate to these undesirable peer influences. To this end, annual questionnaires were administered to 497 Dutch youths (283 boys, mean age =…

Transactional models of problem behavior argue that less effective parenting and adolescent problem behaviors coevolve, exerting bidirectional influences. This article extends such models by analyzing growth trajectories of sexual risk behaviors and parenting processes among 3,206 adolescents (aged 13-18) and their residential parents. Within…

The effects of geographic variations in cost of living and family income on children's academic achievement and social competence in first grade (mean age = 86.9 months) were examined, mediated through material hardship, parental investments, family stress, and school resources. Using data from the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study-Kindergarten…

This study examined the role of adolescent perceptions of parental behavior and disrupted parenting in the continuity of antisocial behavior across generations. Participants included 430 adolescents and their biological parents assessed during the period from the 9th to 12th grades (9th grade age in years: M=15.09, SD=0.43). Structural equation…

This study demonstrated separate linkages between 2 features of positive parenting responsiveness to distress and warmth and different aspects of children's socio-emotional functioning, in a sample of 106 children (6-8 years old). As expected, mothers' and fathers' responsiveness to distress, but not warmth, predicted better negative affect…

Argues for focusing on parental psychological control of children in socialization studies. Describes three studies that tested the measurement of psychological control and its associations with adolescent behavior problems; results showed that parental psychological control is consistently predictive of youth internalized problems (depression)…

Observed parents' coparenting of 15-month-old sons to test 2 hypotheses: (1) greater differences in parents' demographic factors, personality, styles of relatedness, and child-rearing attitudes would forecast more unsupportive coparenting; and (2) the adverse effects of spousal differences would be amplified by family stress. Results supported…

Examined mothers' patterns of welfare receipt in the 3 years following birth of a child. Found strong negative associations between receiving welfare and parenting behavior and child outcomes at age three. Parenting by mothers who had left welfare by their child's third birthday was more likely to be authoritarian if mother had left public…

Examined low interrater agreement by decomposing common and unique variance among parent, adolescent, and observer reports of parental warmth and negativity into genetic and environmental factors. Model-fitting analyses findings generally supported predictions for warmth and negativity at Family and Individual levels. At the Social level, genetic…

Examined familial factors in relation to 93 fifth-graders' motivational orientation and academic performance. High parental surveillance of homework; parental reactions to grades that included negative control, uninvolvement, or extrinsic reward; and over- and undercontrolling family styles were found to be related to children's extrinsic…

Analyzed data from 11 studies of concordance of mother/father attachment to an infant based on the Strange Situation. Found that security of attachment, type of insecurity, and subcategory classification of security to one parent depended on the other parent. Discussed parenting styles and infant temperament. (BC)

Used prospective longitudinal design to ascertain whether different types of behavioral inhibition were stable from toddler to preschool age, and whether inhibited temperament or parenting style predicted children's subsequent social/behavioral problems. Found that traditional and peer-social toddler inhibition predicted socially reticent behavior…

Examined early childhood antecedents and behavior-problem correlates of monitoring and psychological control during early adolescence. Found that monitoring was anteceded by proactive parenting style and advantageous family-ecological characteristics. Psychological control was anteceded by harsh parenting and mothers' report of earlier child…