Effects of the interparental relationship on adolescents' emotional security and adjustment: The important role of fathers

Father's involvement associated with rural children's depression and anxiety: A large-scale analysis based on data from seven provinces in China

To investigate the relationship between father involvement in parenting and mental health problems among children and adolescents in rural China. The Rural Children's Mental Health dataset includes mental health information from 2,489 children and adolescents aged 5-16 in seven provinces in China. The relationship between father involvement in children and adolescents depression risk and anxiety was analyzed by Spearman's correlation analysis, logistic regression analysis, and restricted cubic spline. Father involvement was significantly and negatively associated with depression scores (r = -0.38, P < 0.001) and anxiety scores (r = -0.18, P < 0.001) in rural Chinese children and adolescents. Both multivariate models indicate that the highest level of father involvement has a protective effect on the risk of depression among children and adolescents (OR = 0.268 and 0.303, 95% CI: 0.149~0.483 and 0.144~0.636), while the association with anxiety risk is only significant in the multivariate model 1 (OR = 0.570, 95% CI: 0.363~0.896). Father involvement is a protective factor for the risk of depression among children and adolescents in rural China. The level of father involvement should be increased, and active participation should be encouraged to reduce the risk of depression in their children and to further promote the mental health of children and adolescents in China.

Adverse Childhood Experience, Parental Bonding, and Fatherhood as Parenting Vulnerabilities to Social Anxiety Severity

Background: The present study aims to elucidate the association between adverse childhood experiences, parental bonding, fatherhood, and social anxiety symptoms among emerging adults within an Iranian context. Methods: This prospective cross-sectional study utilized self-reported assessments to evaluate fatherhood, parental bonding, anxious thoughts, and childhood trauma. The study was administered to 242 university students exhibiting social anxiety symptoms. Among the participants, 181 (74.8%) were boys and 61 (25.2%) were girls between the ages of 18 and 29. In terms of educational background, 64.9% of them held a bachelor's degree, and 35.1% held a master's degree. A majority of them (84.3%) were of middle-class socio-economic status, 6.6% were of low income, and 9.1% were of high income. Results: Analysis via multiple linear regression revealed that individuals with adverse childhood experiences exhibited heightened levels of social anxiety symptoms (R2 = 0.32) compared to their counterparts without such experiences. Furthermore, fatherhood (R2 = 0.28), paternal bonding (R2 = 0.26), and maternal bonding (R2 = 0.26) were all significantly and equally associated with variance in social anxiety symptoms. The findings underscored the substantial correlation between ACEs, fatherhood, and both maternal and paternal bonding with social anxiety symptoms in adulthood. Conclusions: Accordingly, the study emphasizes the importance of thoroughly assessing the multifaceted contributors to social anxiety. Such insights are pivotal for the design and implementation of community-based preventive interventions aimed at reducing the societal burden of social anxiety disorders.

The Relationship between Parental Autonomy Support and Children's Self-Concept in China-The Role of Basic Psychological Needs

This study aimed to investigate the relationship between parental autonomy support and children's self-concept, and to explore the role of basic psychological needs in Chinese primary schools from the perspective of self-determination theory. A total of 3109 children aged 6-13 years participated in eastern China. The results indicated a significant correlation between parental autonomy support, basic psychological needs, and children's self-concept. Basic psychological needs play a partial mediating role between parental autonomy support and children's self-concept. Specifically, autonomy support varied by need types whereas parental control steadily played a negative predictive role. Parental autonomy support and control predicted children's self-concept differently through three basic psychological needs, with differences across gender and grades. Boys and elder children had stronger relationships to competence needs, while girls were sensitive to autonomy needs; in addition, both of them were sensitive to relatedness needs. The mediating effects model and cross-group analyses revealed the complex predictive role of parental autonomy support on children's self-concept in China, providing an effective entry point for cross-cultural research and family education to improve children's psychological well-being.

The Mediation of Care and Overprotection between Parent-Adolescent Conflicts and Adolescents' Psychological Difficulties during the COVID-19 Pandemic: Which Role for Fathers?

BACKGROUND

There is evidence of a significant raise in youths' emotional and behavioral difficulties during the pandemic. Only a few studies have addressed parent-adolescent conflict, and none investigated the possible mediating effect of parenting in the association between conflicts with parents and adolescents' symptoms. This study aimed at investigating youths' psychological symptoms during the pandemic, focusing on the predicting effect of parent-adolescent conflict. The mediating role of care and overprotection was also explored, considering whether adolescent gender moderated this mediation.

METHODS

195 adolescents aged 14-18 years participated in an online longitudinal study. Perceived conflict with parents and parenting dimensions (Parental Bonding Instrument; PBI) were assessed at baseline (2021). Self-reported psychological difficulties (Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire; SDQ) were collected at baseline and after one year (2022).

RESULTS

A significantly severer symptomatology was found in adolescents having a conflictual relationship with one or both parents. Major conflicts with parents correlated with lower care and greater overprotection in mothers and fathers. However, parental overprotection and maternal care were not mediators of the relationship between conflict and youths' difficulties. The only exception was represented by paternal care that fully mediated this relationship in both adolescent males and females.

CONCLUSIONS

Although further investigations are needed to overcome limitations due to the small sample, findings extend our insight into the impact of parent-adolescent conflict, highlighting the role of fathers' care and the need to maximize their involvement in clinical interventions.

Stepparent-Child Relationships and Child Outcomes: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis

An inclusive conceptualization of "family" can enable family-serving systems and professionals to leverage high-quality family relationships, wherever they are found, to support the health and well-being of individuals. Stepfamilies are an especially common family form with distinct needs and experiences, and stepparent-child relationships can take on a variety of functions with implications for family stability and individual well-being. The purpose of this systematic review and meta-analysis was to synthesize empirical associations between stepparent-child relationships and child outcomes. General findings from 56 studies highlighted significant associations between several dimensions of stepparent-child relationships and children's psychological, behavioral, social, academic, and physical well-being. Meta-analytic findings from 68 effect-size estimates further substantiated significant and positive associations between stepparent-child relationship quality and child psychological well-being (mean r = .25) and academic well-being (mean r = .23), as well as significant and negative associations between stepparent-child relationship quality and child psychological problems (mean r = -.23) and behavioral problems (mean r = -.19).

Recruiting Fathers for Parenting Research: An Evaluation of Eight Recruitment Methods and an Exploration of Fathers' Motivations for Participation

Objective

We evaluated eight recruitment methods (Craigslist, Facebook ads, Google AdWords, in-person, newspaper, parenting magazines, ResearchMatch, and direct mailing) in terms of their ability to accrue fathers of 3- to 7-year-old children into a laboratory-based behavioral trial for parents. The trial was related to child obesity risk and parental health behaviors.

Design

Each recruitment method was implemented such that half its occurrences advertised for fathers only, and half advertised for mothers and fathers. Methods were evaluated in terms of number of fathers recruited, cost- and time-efficiency, response rates, and demographic characteristics of individuals recruited. We also assessed fathers' and mothers' motivations for participating in the study. 101 fathers and 260 mothers were recruited.

Results

Father-targeted ads were essential for father recruitment; 79% of accruals from father-targeted ads were male, whereas only 14% of accruals from parent-targeted ads were male. Craigslist, ResearchMatch, and Facebook ads were the most cost-efficient for accruing fathers. A greater proportion of fathers was motivated by increasing fathers' representation in research (16%) compared to mothers who wished to increase mothers' representation in research (5.4%). Similar proportions of fathers and mothers were motivated by improving their parenting knowledge and improving their child's health.

Conclusions

Future researchers should employ father-targeted recruitment materials (rather than parent-targeted) that capitalize on fathers' unique motivations for participating in research.

An Introduction, Review, and Conceptual Analysis of Mattering as an Essential Construct and an Essential Way of Life

While the importance of having self-esteem is widely recognized and has been studied extensively, another core component of the self-concept has been relatively neglected—a sense of mattering to other people. In the current article, it is argued that mattering is an entirely unique and complex psychological construct with great public appeal and applied significance. The various ways of assessing mattering are reviewed and evidence is summarized, indicating that mattering is a vital construct in that deficits in mattering are linked with consequential outcomes at the individual level (i.e., depression and suicidal tendencies), the relationship level (i.e., relationship discord and dissolution), and the societal level (i.e., delinquency and violence). Contemporary research is described which shows that mattering typically predicts unique variance in key outcomes beyond other predictor variables. Mattering is discussed as double-edged in that mattering is highly protective but feelings of not mattering are deleterious, especially among people who have been marginalized and mistreated. The article concludes with an extended discussion of key directions for future research and an overview of the articles in this special issue. It is argued that a complete view of the self and personal identity will only emerge after we significantly expand the scope of inquiry on the psychology of mattering.

In-Person Versus Online Learning in Relation to Students’ Perceptions of Mattering During COVID-19: A Brief Report

We examined students’ perceptions of mattering during the pandemic in relation to in-person versus online learning in a sample of 6578 Canadian students in Grades 4–12. We found that elementary school students who attended school in-person reported mattering the most, followed by secondary school students who learned part-time in-person and the rest of the time online (blended learning group). The students who felt that they mattered the least were those who learned online full-time during the pandemic (elementary and secondary students). These results were not driven by a selection effect for school choice during the pandemic—our experimental design showed that students’ perceptions of mattering did not differ by current learning modality when they were asked to reflect on their experiences before the pandemic even though some were also learning online full-time at the time they responded to our questions. No gender differences were found. As a validity check, we examined if mattering was correlated with school climate, as it has in past research. Results were similar in that a modest association between mattering and positive school climate was found in both experimental conditions. The results of this brief study show that in-person learning seems to help convey to students that they matter. This is important to know because students who feel like they matter are more protected, resilient, and engaged. Accordingly, mattering is a key educational indicator that ought to be considered when contemplating the merits of remote learning.

Interparental Relationship Quality During Pregnancy: Implications for Early Parent-Infant Bonding and Infant Socioemotional Development

Research demonstrates the central role of mother-child relationships in child socioemotional development; however, families are complex systems and the unique roles of multiple family subsystems in early infant development have received less attention. In the present study, we investigated the role of multiple family relationships (interparental, mother-infant, father-infant), during pregnancy and the first month after childbirth, in infant socioemotional functioning at 6 months. We administered semi-structured interviews during pregnancy to assess multiple qualities of the interparental relationship. At 1 month postpartum, parents completed reports about their feelings and attitudes toward their infant to assess impaired bonding. At 6 months, parents provided reports of child socioemotional functioning. Both mother-infant and father-infant impaired bonding were uniquely associated with infant socioemotional impairment, controlling for prenatal interparental relationship quality. Additionally, multiple dimensions of the interparental relationship (i.e., poor-quality conflict management, inadequate support for fathers, and low levels of respect toward mothers) were associated with infant socioemotional impairment controlling for parent-infant bonding. Results also demonstrated an indirect pathway, such that poor sexual quality during pregnancy was associated with fathers (but not mothers) reporting more impaired bonding with their infants, which was linked to greater infant socioemotional impairment. Results highlight the importance of understanding the broad family environment, prior to and immediately following the birth of the child, to identify at-risk children at the earliest possible stages of intervention.

The long-term associations between parental behaviors, cognitive function and brain activation in adolescence

Parenting behavior has a vital role in the development of the brain and cognitive abilities of offspring throughout childhood and adolescence. While positive and aggressive parenting behavior have been suggested to impact neurobiology in the form of abnormal brain activation in adolescents, little work has investigated the links between parenting behavior and the neurobiological correlates of cognitive performance during this age period. In the current longitudinal fMRI study, associations between parenting behaviors and cognitive performance and brain activation across mid- and late-adolescence were assessed. Observed measures of maternal aggressive and positive behavior were recorded in early adolescence (12 years) and correlated with fMRI activation and in-scanner behavioral scores on the multi-source interference task (MSIT) during mid- (16 years; 95 participants) and late-adolescence (19 years; 75 participants). There was a significant reduction in inhibitory-control-related brain activation in posterior parietal and cingulate cortices as participants transitioned from mid- to late-adolescence. Positive maternal behavior in early-adolescence was associated with lower activation in the left parietal and DLPFC during the MSIT in mid-adolescence, whereas maternal aggressive behavior was associated with longer reaction time to incongruent trials in late-adolescence. The study supports the notion that maternal behavior may influence subsequent neurocognitive development during adolescence.

Rural Chinese youth during the transition into adulthood: Family dynamics and psychological adjustment

Rural youth in China experience numerous challenges during their transition into adulthood. Yet, research on this transition and its relevant influential factors is rare. Through the lens of family systems theory, this study examined the impacts of family dynamics (i.e., interparental and parent-adolescent interactions) in adolescence on the psychological adjustment of youth as they transition into adulthood. Participants were 1330 youth and their mothers in rural Gansu. In 2004, mothers completed questionnaires of interparental and parent-adolescent interactions when youth were adolescents (M_age  = 15.03, SD = 1.15). In 2009, youth completed questionnaires of depression and self-esteem when they were emerging adults (M_age  = 20.03, SD = 1.15). Results of structural equation modelling suggested that while interparental interactions in adolescence were not associated with the psychological adjustment of youth in emerging adulthood, positive parent-adolescent interactions in adolescence predicted better psychological adjustment of youth in emerging adulthood. Furthermore, mediation analysis showed that although interparental interactions did not directly affect the psychological adjustment of youth, they were positively associated with parent-adolescent interactions, which in turn contributed to the psychological adjustment of youth. The results reveal an enduring influence of family dynamics on psychological adjustment among rural Chinese youth during the transition into adulthood.

The Diagnostic Accuracy of Delayed Development in Adolescents

INTRODUCTION

The early identification of developmental delay in adolescents by health professionals is relevant for a good prognosis. However, the clinical indicators of development delay are unclear in nursing science.

PURPOSE

To analyze the clinical indicators of delayed development in school adolescents.

METHODS

A diagnostic accuracy study that investigated delayed development among 385 adolescents in public schools between July and September of 2017. The accuracy measures were analyzed using a latent class analysis based on sensitivity and specificity values.

FINDINGS

The delayed development is present in 18.26% of school adolescents. The best accuracy values were as follows: low self-esteem (0.9838), dissatisfaction with own image (0.8400), impaired daily activities (0.9815), internalization behavior (0.8304), outsourcing behavior (0.6367), eating disorders (1.0000), emotional insecurity (0.7093), dependent behavior (0.9836), and altered sexual maturation (0.6085).

CONCLUSION

Thus, this set of nine clinical indicators can be used by nurse practitioners to confirm delayed development in school adolescents.

IMPLICATIONS FOR NURSING PRACTICE

This research contributes by providing accurate clinical indicators of delayed development in adolescents. Thus, nurses should recognize delayed development in adolescents through accurate clinical indicators and propose nursing interventions that have positive health results.

Divorce and conversational difficulties with parents: Impact on adolescent health and self-esteem

Background: Divorce experience (DE) may cause health and self-conceptual problems, but these consequences might also be caused by conflicts and lack of conversational confidence (CC) with one or both parents. We investigated how DE impacted CC and how DE and CC impacted health complaints and self-esteem in a two-year longitudinal cohort study. Methods: The study was performed between 2011 and 2013 among 1225 students in junior high school (aged 11 and 13 years in 2011). We used binary logistic analyses to account for how DE impacted CC, and linear regression analyses to examine how DE and CC impacted on subjective health and self-esteem in 2013. Results: The study revealed that former and recent DEs impacted CC with fathers only. The impact was most evident for the more severe forms of conversational difficulties. DE in itself predicted only self-esteem, and CC with parents mediated this association. CC with both mothers and fathers had strong temporal causal associations with the outcomes two years later. Only CC with fathers impacted changes of the health complaints and self-esteem in full-model residual change analyses. Conclusions: The study proves a sex-specific effect on loss of CC between fathers and children after divorce. The impairment of CC has predictive repercussions on the health and self-conception of adolescents in their middle teenage years. From a public-health perspective, preserving the relation and the confidence between children and their fathers after divorce seems an important task.

Adolescents’ perceived mattering to parents and friends: Testing cross-lagged associations with psychosocial well-being

Mattering is the tendency to view the self as significant to other people. Theoretically, mattering has been proposed to promote psychosocial well-being. Although prior research has found positive associations between mattering to parents and psychosocial well-being among adolescents, extant studies have not clarified whether perceptions of mattering predict psychosocial well-being or the other way around. Thus, the direction of the association needs verification. The purpose of this study was to examine the direction of associations between adolescents’ mattering to parents and friends and adolescents’ depressive symptoms and problem behaviors using cross-lag models. A two-wave annual survey assessed mattering to family and friends, depressive symptoms, and problem behaviors of students in grades 6 to 9 ( N = 164; 56.1% girls) in a school district in western Canada (Time 1 age range = 11 to 15 years; mean age = 12.23; standard deviation = 1.07). Structural equation modeling was used to assess concurrent, auto-regressive, and cross-lagged associations between mattering and psychosocial well-being. Mattering to mother, father, and friends was assessed in separate models. Significant lags were found only between mattering to friends and depressive symptoms and problem behaviors, with positive associations suggesting a form of socialization through mattering. With one exception, mattering to parents was not directly associated with psychosocial well-being over time. However, gender moderated the association between mattering to mother (Time 1), depressive symptoms (Time 2), problem behaviors (Time 1), and mattering to mother (Time 2). Taken together, these results suggest that mattering may not be as strongly protective of adolescent well-being as previously suggested.

Parenting Style, Familism, and Youth Adjustment in Mexican American and European American Families

Authoritative parenting is typically considered the gold-standard parenting approach based on studies with largely European American (EA) samples. The current study evaluated a novel, “no-nonsense” parenting style in Mexican American (MA) and EA families, not captured by traditional classifications. Parenting styles of mothers and fathers, cultural values, and youth internalizing and externalizing problems were assessed in 179 MA ( n = 84) and EA ( n = 95) parents and adolescents across 2 years (seventh to ninth grade). MA families showed a higher proportion of “no-nonsense” parenting, characterized by high levels of acceptance as well as harsh discipline and rejection, compared with EA families. Cultural values influenced the link between parenting styles and youth outcomes across ethnicity such that when parents endorsed low adherence to familismo values, authoritative parenting predicted lower youth internalizing and externalizing problems compared with the “no-nonsense” parenting. Yet when parents endorsed strong adherence to familismo values, the authoritative and no-nonsense parenting functioned similarly. Findings have implications for the development of culturally competent parenting interventions that may lead to positive outcomes in youth from diverse ethnic and cultural backgrounds.

Interparental conflict and child HPA-axis responses to acute stress: Insights using intensive repeated measures

Interparental conflict is a common source of psychosocial stress in the lives of children. The purpose of this study was to examine the association between recent interparental conflict and one component of the physiological stress response system, the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA)-axis. Parents of 42 children (ages 8-13 years) completed daily diaries of interparental conflict for 8 weeks. At the end of the 8 weeks, youth participated in the Trier Social Stress Test for Children (TSST-C) while providing 2 pre- and 4 poststress salivary cortisol samples. Youth whose fathers reported a pattern of increasing interparental conflict over the past 8 weeks demonstrated an exaggerated HPA-axis response to acute stress. Mother-reported interparental conflict was not associated with children's HPA-axis responses without accounting for fathers' reports. When accounting for fathers' reports, the offspring of mothers reporting higher average daily interparental conflict demonstrated an attenuated HPA-axis response to the stressor. By estimating both average exposure and recent patterns of change in exposure to conflict, we address the circumstances that may prompt attenuation versus sensitization of the HPA-axis in the context of interparental conflict. We conclude that the HPA-axis is sensitive to proximal increases in interparental conflict which may be one pathway through which stress affects health across development, and that incorporating father's reports is important to understanding the role of the family environment in stress responses. This study further demonstrates the value of using intensive repeated measures and multiple reporters to characterize children's psychosocial environment. (PsycINFO Database Record

Maternal intimate partner violence victimization and child maltreatment

There is some limited evidence of an association between maternal intimate partner victimization (IPV) and children's experience of maltreatment. Using data from a longitudinal study, we examine whether this relationship is independent of range of potential confounders including socio-economic, familial and psychological factors. Data were taken from the 14 and 30-year follow-ups of the Mater-University of Queensland Study of Pregnancy (MUSP) in Australia. A subsample of 2064 mothers and children (59.0% female) whose data on maternal IPV and child maltreatment was available, were analysed. In families with maternal IPV, two in five children reported being maltreated, compared to one in five children maltreated in families without maternal IPV. Except for sexual maltreatment which was consistently higher in female offspring, there was no gender differences in experiencing different types of maltreatment in families manifesting maternal IPV. Although both males and females were at increased risk of child maltreatment in families where mothers were victimized by their male partners, male children were more likely to be emotionally maltreated. The main associations were substantially independent of measured confounders, except for father's history of mental health problems which attenuated the association of maternal IPV victimization and male offspring's physical abuse. Our findings confirm that there is a robust association between maternal IPV and child maltreatment. Both maternal IPV victimization and child maltreatment co-occur in a household characterized by conflict and violence. Consequences of IPV go beyond the incident and influence all family members. Efforts to reduce child maltreatment may need to address the greater level of IPV associated with the cycle of family violence.

Associations between Parental Relocation Following Separation in Childhood and Maladjustment in Adolescence and Young Adulthood

Petitions by custodial parents to relocate children away from non-custodial parents present difficult choices for family courts. In the current study, the sample (N = 81) was randomly recruited through the children's schools according to the following criteria: Children were 12 years old and at the time resided primarily with their mothers; mothers had been living with a male partner "acting in a father role" for at least the previous year. Thirty-eight children had been separated by more than an hour's drive from their biological fathers due to either their mothers or fathers relocating. The data were collected from two reporters (children and mothers) at five time points (child ages 12.5, 14, 15.5, 19.5, and 22) by trained interviewers using standardized measures with adequate reliability and validity. Long-distance separation from biological fathers prior to age 12 was linked in adolescence and young adulthood to serious behavior problems, anxiety and depression symptoms, and disturbed relationships with all three parental figures (i.e., biological fathers, mothers, and step-fathers). These associations held after controlling for mother-stepfather conflict and domestic violence, mothers' family income, and mother-biological father relationship quality. These longitudinal findings over time replicated the cross-sectional findings of Braver, Ellman, and Fabricius (2003) and Fabricius and Braver (2006). Policy implications for parental long-distance relocation following separation are discussed.

Father-adolescent engagement in shared activities: Effects on cortisol stress response in young adulthood

Parent-child relationships can critically affect youth physiological development. Most studies have focused on the influence of maternal behaviors, with little attention to paternal influences. The current study investigated father engagement with their adolescents in household (shopping, cooking) and discretionary leisure activities as a predictor of youth cortisol response to a challenging interpersonal task in young adulthood. The sample (N = 213) was roughly divided between Mexican American (MA; n = 101) and European American (EA; n = 112) families, and included resident biological-father (n = 131) and resident stepfather families (n = 82). Salivary cortisol was collected before, immediately after, and at 20 and 40 min after an interpersonal challenge task; area under the curve (AUCg) was calculated to capture total cortisol output. Results suggested that more frequent father engagement in shared activities with adolescents (ages 11-16), but not mother engagement, predicted lower AUCg cortisol response in young adulthood (ages 19-22). The relation remained significant after adjusting for current mother and father engagement and current mental health. Further, the relation did not differ given family ethnicity, father type (step or biological), or adolescent sex. Future research should consider unique influences of fathers when investigating the effects of parent-child relationships on youth physiological development and health. (PsycINFO Database Record