Family Instability and Young Children's School Adjustment: Callousness and Negative Internal Representations as Mediators

Interparental conflict as a quadratic predictor of children's reactivity to interparental conflict and school adjustment: Steeling effects or risk saturation?

This study examined interparental conflict as a curvilinear predictor of children's reactivity to interparental conflict and, in turn, their school problems across three annual measurements. Participants included 243 preschool children (M_age  = 4.60 years; 56% girls) and their parents from racially (e.g., 48% Black; 16% Latinx) diverse backgrounds. Interparental conflict was a significant quadratic predictor of children's emotional reactivity (β = .23) and behavioral dysregulation (β = .27) to conflict over a 1-year period. The robust association between interparental conflict and behavioral dysregulation weakened at high levels of interparental conflict. In contrast, interparental conflict more strongly predicted children's emotional reactivity as conflict exposure increased. Children's emotional reactivity, in turn, predicted their greater school problems 1 year later (β = .25).

Detouring in the family system as an antecedent of children's adjustment problems

Guided by conceptualizations of relational boundaries from family systems theory, this study examined unique links between detouring (e.g., alliance between parents against child) and young children's psychological functioning after accounting for general family negativity and conflict. Participants in this longitudinal (i.e., 2 annual waves of data collection), multimethod (i.e., observation, survey, semistructured interview), multiinformant (i.e., parent, teacher, observer) study included 218 young children (mean [M] age = 5.76 years) and their families. The findings from cross-lagged panel analysis indicated that detouring uniquely predicted increases in children's externalizing problems, hostile attribution bias, and peer rejection and victimization over a 1-year period (i.e., the transition from kindergarten to first grade). Conversely, the findings failed to support a child effects model in that child adjustment problems did not predict increases in detouring or family negativity and conflict over time. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2020 APA, all rights reserved).

Heterogeneity in the dynamic arousal and modulation of fear in young foster children

Guided by emotional security theory, we explored how child and context-related factors were associated with heterogeneity in young foster children's organized patterns of fear response to distress. Results from group-based trajectory modeling used to analyze observational data from a fear-eliciting task showed that children from our sample (mean age = 62 months, SD = 9) were classified into 3 specific fear regulation patterns differentiated by the emotional response parameters of onset intensity, peak intensity, and rise time. A descriptive examination of child's emotion knowledge, aggressive behaviors, and attention problems, as well as length of time in current foster home, placement transitions, and caregiver responsiveness and modeling showed class-specific differences in means. Moreover, the likelihood of class membership was significantly predicted by children's emotion knowledge, aggressive behaviors, and foster mothers' responsiveness and modeling of appropriate boundaries. Results show promising support for the implementation of individualized, child-directed interventions targeting specific patterns of response parameters of emotion regulation for young foster children. Further, parenting intervention services need to promote the emotion socialization skills of foster parents that are tailored toward each specific trajectory pattern of emotion arousal and modulation.

Coparental discord and children's behavior problems: Children's negative family representations as an explanatory mechanism

This study examined children's insecure representations of the family as a mechanism accounting for the association between coparental discord and children's externalizing problems in a diverse sample of 243 preschool children (mean [M] age = 4.60 years). The results from a multimethod, multi-informant, prospective design indicated that coparental discord was indirectly related to children's externalizing behaviors through their insecure representations of the family. Higher levels of coparental discord were specifically linked with more insecure representations of the family, which in turn predicted higher levels of externalizing behaviors 2 years later. These pathways remained robust even after considering the roles of general family adversity, child gender, and family income per capita as predictors in the analyses. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2020 APA, all rights reserved).

Early Environmental Unpredictability: Implications for Youth's Perceptions and Social Functioning

According to an evolutionary perspective, early environmental unpredictability induces expectations in youth that their future is uncertain and increases their likelihood of engaging in opportunistic, impulsive, and aggressive behaviors. Although considerable evidence supports the links between environmental unpredictability and such behaviors, less is known about how youth growing up in volatile environments actually perceive their lives and how these perceptions relate to their behavior. In this study, two samples of 10-17 year-olds, one with a history of maltreatment and removal from home (n = 90; 52% female; 67% Hispanic-American) and one without (n = 80; 54% female; 69% Hispanic-American), reported on their perceptions of unpredictability and social functioning. Maltreated youth endorsed greater perceptions of unpredictability than non-maltreated youth. For both groups, greater perceptions of unpredictability were associated with increased aggression and conduct problems and decreased prosociality. Findings advance understanding of a developmental pathway contributing to opportunistic and risky social behavior in youth.

Family Instability in the Lives of American Children

Scholars have long looked to family composition to understand child well-being. Family instability, or the experience of repeated changes in parents' union status during childhood, represents a recent advance in this field that takes into account the dynamic nature of contemporary family organization and considers its implications for children's adjustment and development. We review some of the structural and cultural factors that have contributed to rising levels of family instability and highlight the emergence of national data to measure it. We then review the perspective that guides much of the scholarship on family instability and critically assess the contributions of this work to the understanding of child well-being. We close by suggesting new directions for research, with a call for work that broadens the conceptualization and measurement of contemporary children's family systems and home environments as well as the mechanisms that explain why-or whether-instability matters.