• Disruptions in Family Routines: Conceptualizations of Variability in Daily Family Life and Children’s Health Outcomes
  Presented by: Barbara H. Fiese, Blake L. Jones

• Time Diary Measures of Family Rituals and Routines and Their Association with Relationship Quality Across the Transition to Parenthood
  Presented by: Claire M. Kamp Dush, Letitia E. Kotila, Sarah J. Schoppe-Sullivan

Disruptions in Family Routines: Conceptualizations of Variability in Daily Family Life and Children’s Health Outcomes
Presented by: Barbara H. Fiese, Blake L. Jones

This TCRM paper examines the variations in disruptions of daily routines, specifically the timing of mealtime and bedtime routines, for families of children with persistent asthma. We assessed the relative stability of dinnertimes, bedtimes, and nighttime waking, using 1,094 daily diary reports that were collected by telephone from 73 families across a 12-month period. Overall, we saw considerable fluctuation in daily routines for most families, and found that dinnertime was late 23% of the time, bedtime was late over 38% of the time, and child waking occurred on 15% of the nights. The paper also examines the connections between disruptions in routines with parents‟ mental health, daily reports of parental mood, and children‟s health outcomes. We did find that late bedtimes and nighttime waking were significantly related to parents reporting feeling worried, overwhelmed, and hassled from kids not listening to them. Next, we discuss possible mechanisms that may link parental mood with disrupted routines, and how those cascading factors may relate to differences in children‟s health over time. Finally, we identify and discuss some socio-cultural differences in relation to perceptions of disruptions in nighttime routines. We also suggest future directions and implications of these initial results.

Time Diary Measures of Family Rituals and Routines and Their Association with Relationship Quality Across the Transition to Parenthood
Presented by: Claire M. Kamp Dush, Letitia E. Kotila, Sarah J. Schoppe-Sullivan

Many couples find that their relationship suffers following the transition to parenthood, partially due to a decline in shared spousal time (Claxton & Perry-Jenkins, 2008; Dew & Wilcox, 2011). Using data from the New Parents Project, a study of the transition to parenthood among 182 first-time parents who were employed, we examine data from the third trimester of pregnancy to 9-months postpartum. Time diary data are used to create measures of couple, family, and child routines and rituals. Structure equation model results suggested that couple routines and rituals are unassociated with maternal and paternal relationship quality in the third trimester of pregnancy. Couple routines and rituals dropped significantly across the transition to parenthood. We found little evidence that pre-birth couple routines and rituals predicted post-birth relationship quality, or that pre-birth relationship quality predicted post-birth routines and rituals. Rather, post-birth, greater couple and fewer child rituals and routines were associated with higher maternal relationship quality, and for fathers, family rituals were associated with higher paternal relationship quality. Results suggest that time diary measures of routines and rituals may have utility in family research.