Summary
For more than four decades, researchers have shown interest in exploring the role of parental influences on children’s math competence (Sonnenschein et al., 2012). One reason for this interest is the realization that parents play a profound role in shaping their children’s math self-efficacy and, ultimately, their children’s math competence. The second is that parents are instrumental in providing children with math-related opportunities in the home environment (Hart, et al., 2016). However, few studies have explored this relationship for African American parents. Little is known about the effects of parental math self-efficacy and children’s self-efficacy on children’s math performance among African American parents and their children. Our results suggest that parent’s math self-efficacy positively contributes to their children’s math performance, which means parents transfer their math self-efficacy beliefs to their children, leading to higher math self-efficacy and higher math scores.

Objectives

• This study's major objective is to explore the influence of African American parents' self-efficacy and math self-efficacyon their school-aged children's math performance.
• The second objective is to determine the relationship between gender, student math self-efficacy, parental math and general self-efficacy, parental teaching attitudes, and student math performance of Kindergarten, 1st, and 2nd-grade students' math performance.
• The third major objective is to examine the relationship between the students' personal math self-efficacy beliefs and their math performance.

Subject Codes: education, parent-child relationships, race
Population Codes: early childhood, K-12, African Americans
Method and Approach Codes: parenting education, regression: linear (simple, multiple, hierarchical), quantitative methodology

Summary
Research with community and clinical samples has suggested that both lower and higher levels of mother-child affective variability are associated with higher externalizing problems during early childhood. This study investigated the associations between dyadic affective variability and attractor strength with child externalizing problems in mother-child and father-child dyads within an at-risk sample. For mother-child dyads with lower positive affect, moderate dyadic variability and attractor strength when children were age 3 predicted lower child externalizing problems at age 4; lower or higher dyadic variability or attractor strength predicted higher externalizing problems. For mother-child dyads with higher positive affect, lower dyadic variability predicted lower externalizing problems; there was no curvilinear association between attractor strength and child externalizing problems. There may be an optimal level of mother-child affective variability and attractor strength for child externalizing problems, particularly for dyads exhibiting lower positive affect overall, suggesting this may be an important intervention target.

Objectives

• To test whether there is an optimal level of dyadic affective variability for child externalizing problems and whether this association is moderated by the overall positive affective valence of the parent-child interaction
• To test whether there is an optimal level of attractor strength for child externalizing problems and whether this association is moderated by the overall positive affective valence of the parent-child interaction
• To explore whether there are important differences in affective dynamics within mother-child versus father-child interactions and their relations to children's externalizing problems

Subject Codes: parent-child relationships, socialization, family relations
Population Codes: early childhood, U.S., low income
Method and Approach Codes: path analysis, quantitative methodology, research, general

Summary
This study examined the extent to which maternal depressive symptoms during infancy influenced children’s behavior problems in childhood through potential mediators across early childhood in the US and Korea. Our findings highlight that developmentally specific cascading processes in which adverse effects of maternal depressive symptoms during infancy affect other domains of maternal functioning across development. Findings also highlight that maternal risk factors are associated with children’s adjustment through parenting stress, confirming that parenting stress during toddlerhood is key for subsequent adjustment in early school age. Our findings indicate that targeting to reduce mothers’ parenting stress in toddlerhood via prevention and intervention programs can be an effective way to facilitate adjustment among children whose mothers experienced depressive symptoms. Additionally, this study is one of the first studies to examine cross-cultural generalizability of children’s development pathways using longitudinal data from Korea and the US.

Objectives

• To examine the extent to which maternal depressive symptoms during infancy influenced children’s behavior problems in childhood through potential mediators across early childhood in the US and Korea.
• To explain the long-lasting consequences of early maternal depressive symptoms
• To examine cross-cultural generalizability of children’s development pathways using longitudinal data from Korea and the US

Subject Codes: parent-child relationships, caregiving,
Population Codes: early childhood, ,
Method and Approach Codes: structural equation modeling (SEM), ,

Summary
Research has demonstrated the transmission of negative body image and risk of eating disorders related to the mother-daughter dyad. Although the mother-daughter dyad is associated with body image and eating behaviors, there have been no systematic reviews dedicated to how this relationship may serve as a facilitator for positive body image. This article examined studies focused on factors associated with daughter’s positive body image through the mother-daughter relationship. Study outcomes were analyzed through thematic analysis resulting in three major themes relating to the mother-daughter relationship as a facilitator for daughter’s positive body image: (1) mothers as a role-model- healthy behaviors such as physical activity and intuitive eating, modeling self-compassion, and a focus on nonappearance domains such as self-care; (2) communication/language- positive body talk and avoiding comparison, and awareness of empowerment, media, and identity/gender roles; (3) connections- relational safety in social support, discussions, trust, and close relationships.

Objectives

• Identify literature with a focus on positive factors of the mother’s influence on a daughter’s body image.
• Describe the primary themes of the mother-daughter relationship as a facilitator for a daughter’s body image.
• Consider practice-related application of the positive messages from mother to daughter related to body image.

Subject Codes: parent-child relationships, family relations, health
Population Codes: intergenerational, ,
Method and Approach Codes: systematic literature review, ,

Summary
Conflicts are unavoidable in any relationship. Although marital conflicts are often considered as obstacles in a family, it is also essential to keep in mind that marital conflict which is well resolved may be beneficial to the strength of parental relationships and may also be associated with positive parent-child relationship. This study takes on a family system perspective to explore how marital conflict and its resolution relate to father-child interaction, including father’s involvement warmth, parenting self-efficacy, and parenting stress, which in turn relate to children’s socioemotional development. Specifically, we examine the moderating effect of fathers’ constructive and destructive conflict resolution strategies on the association between marital conflict and father-child interaction. With the results, we provide a more holistic understanding of the interaction between the couple’s dyadic relationship and the parent-child dyad relationship in a family. We will also offer implications for parents’ education and family intervention.

Objectives

• Fatherhood
• Family functioning
• Developmental issues

Subject Codes: parent-child relationships, fatherhood, conflict
Population Codes: couples/coupled, pre-school,
Method and Approach Codes: mediation/indirect effects models, secondary data analysis,

Summary
Many studies have presented evidence of fathers' participation in children’s lives after separation or divorce from their partners (Cancian et al., 2014). Father involvement after divorce when there past marital violence may negatively affect children (Elam et al., 2016). Our study investigates the associations between father involvement after separation and child health/wellbeing over time in the context of different types of marital IPV. Using mothers’ reports, we examined our research questions on a sample of 197 children aged 3-17 years whose parents were in the process of divorce or were separated using multilevel modeling procedures. Our preliminary findings show that non-physical father involvement contributed to a decline in a child’s health over time. Further analyses will examine parental violence and how maternal attitudes toward fathers impact these results.

Objectives

• To demonstrate existing associations between father-child involvement and child health
• To explore the impact of marital violence on father-child involvement
• To examine how maternal attitudes toward fathers affect father-child involvement

Subject Codes: parent-child relationships, intimate partner violence (IPV), health
Population Codes: divorced, middle childhood, adolescence
Method and Approach Codes: longitudinal modeling, quantitative methodology, mediation/indirect effects models

Summary
To present a phenomenological study about Black parents’ perceptions of involvement in their children’s schooling within middle childhood in the U.S. Virgin Islands after Hurricane Irma and/or Hurricane Maria. Billingsley’s Black family model was used to guide this study. Ten Black parents were interviewed using a semi-structured meeting guide. Interviews were audiotaped, transcribed verbatim, and analyzed to determine themes. The data yielded three major themes: parent involvement was focused on their children’s academic learning, their child’s social needs, and their child’s family’s basic needs. Implications regarding policy and practice are also presented.

Objectives

• To discuss the importance of Caribbean parents’ involvement in their children’s education
• To explain outcomes of parent involvement when natural disasters occur
• To present the results and implications of parent involvement during middle childhood after a hurricane within the Caribbean.

Subject Codes: parent-child relationships, parenting, education
Population Codes: People of Color, middle childhood, Family Life Education
Method and Approach Codes: qualitative methodology, educational, phenomenology

Summary
Human infants spend most of their time sleeping, but over the first few years their sleep becomes regulated to coincide more closely with adult sleep. It is believed that evolution played a role in infant sleep regulation, as co-sleeping is part of an ancient behavioral complex representing the biopsychosocial microenvironment in which human infants co-evolved with their mothers through millions of years of human history. Conceptualizing mother-infant co-regulation in the context of mother-infant co-sleeping provides a species-typical, evolutionary-based view for understanding the ontogeny of mother-infant co-regulatory processes. This conceptual, interdisciplinary review of the literature uses this perspective to determine how mother-infant co-sleeping contributes to the development of mother-infant co-regulatory processes during the first year of life. This narrative review covers three decades of research from anthropology, pediatrics, sociology, social work, public health, medicine, developmental and family studies, and psychology, focusing on mother-infant co-sleeping and mother-infant co-regulation.

Objectives

• To analyze co-sleeping as a species-typical behavior in which human infants co-evolved with their mothers through human history.
• To explore mother-infant co-regulatory processes in the context of human evolutionary context.
• To understand mother-infant co-sleeping and mother-infant co-regulation as biopsychosocial phenomena, and to examine the research through a multidisciplinary lens, incorporating research from anthropology, pediatrics, medicine, psychology, public health, family studies, and other disciplines in order to understand the phenomenon of co-sleeping.

Subject Codes: parent-child relationships, sleep, biobehavioral processes
Population Codes: prenatal or infants, early childhood,
Method and Approach Codes: review article, contextual, narrative

Summary
Financial hardship (FH) negatively impacts parenting quality, resulting in fewer positive and greater negative parenting practices in mother-child relationships. This aligns with Bronfenbrenner’s Ecological Systems Theory, suggesting that the exosystem (e.g., family’s resources) impacts a child’s microsystem. Parent dyads were used to examine relationships between these variables in nontraditional family structures. Families (N=2,306), drawn from Wave 1 of the Fragile Families and Child Well-Being Study, included mothers, fathers, and target child. Mothers (56.1%) and fathers (33.3%) received assisted income. A predictive Actor-Partner Interdependence Model (APIM) showed significant negative partner effects for mother FH and mothers’ belief in the father role on father-child relationship quality, and significant negative actor effects for father FH and fathers’ belief in the father role on father-child relationship quality. Significant negative partner effects were found for fathers’ FH on mother-child relationship quality. Findings yield important implications for policy, program development, and future research.

Objectives

• To examine how financial hardship affects parent-child relationship quality in nontraditional family structures that include a father's perspective.
• To analyze how financial hardship influences parent-child relationship quality from a family perspective.
• To analyze how belief/expectation in the father role influences parent-child relationship quality from a family perspective.

Subject Codes: parent-child relationships, economics,
Population Codes: low income, ,
Method and Approach Codes: actor-partner interdependence model (APIM), ,

Summary
Rare disease caregivers often consider caregiving to be rewarding, despite high levels of burden. Guided by the caregiver stress process model, the present study examined the associations between caregiver stressors (e.g., perceived burden, care needs), interpersonal coping strategies (e.g., emotional support, instrumental support, venting), and positive aspects of caregiving (PAC). Survey data came from caregivers of children with inherited metabolic conditions (IM; n=167), undiagnosed diseases (UD; n=23), and typically developing children (TD; n=74). Results from generalized linear models indicated venting was associated with lower PAC, whereas emotional support was associated with increased PAC among UD caregivers. Care needs were associated with greater PAC among caregivers engaged in high levels of emotional support coping and venting. Findings illuminate differences in PAC based on caregiving condition as well as components of the caregiver stress process that might be universal. This study advances stress process theory and can inform caregiver support interventions.

Objectives

• To test the caregiver stress process model across different caregiving conditions
• To evaluate the associations between caregiving stressors, coping strategies, and positive aspects of caregiving
• To identify potential targets for interventions that facilitate successful adaptation to caregiving

Subject Codes: caregiving, chronic illness, coping
Population Codes: physical illness (e.g., cancer, infertility), ,
Method and Approach Codes: regression: linear (simple, multiple, hierarchical), ,