Psychology Commons^™

A Qualitative Study Of Differences Among Hearing Parents In Positive Experiences Raising A Deaf Child: An Emergent Model Informed By Positive Psychology​, Amy Szarkowski, Patrick J. Brice

JADARA

The current qualitative study explored the positive, internal, and growth-enhancing experiences hearing parents derived from raising a child who is deaf or hard of hearing. Based on characteristics of parents’ process and outcomes of the parenting experiences, three distinct parent patterns were identified. Reflective Positive Parents reflected deeply about their experiences, quickly and easily identified positive experiences, and were open to making adjustments to meet their child’s needs. Engaged Parents contemplated their experiences, yet decisions about how to best support their children in many remained unresolved; this group identified both positive and negative aspects of parenting and attempted to align …

A Four-Session Workshop For Parents Of Children With Autism: Understanding And Managing Challenging Behaviors, And Supporting The Development Of Children With Asd, Vanessa Huizar

Electronic Theses, Projects, and Dissertations

Research studies continue to show that being a parent of a child with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) presents unique challenges for many families including understanding ASD deficits and behaviors, and identifying effective ways to manage these behaviors. Because ASD interventions generally take a behaviorally-based approach, parents tend to lack an understanding of child development, positive child guidance practices, ways to build strong parent-child relationships, and methods to engage in enrichment activities that will support their child’s overall development. The purpose of the current project was to create a parent workshop to help parents of children with ASD: 1) understand the …

Analysis Of Mothers’ Parenting Consistency: Associations With Children’S Adjustment, David R L Brabham

University of New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

While robust literature exists on the association between positive and negative parenting with child outcomes, less is known about the nature of parenting’s consistency in this relationship. This study sought to examine the relationship between valence and consistency of parenting, and to determine whether consistency is associated with child adjustment independent of valence. Data were collected from 167 mothers and their toddler-aged child. Participation involved two time points, 1 year apart. At each time point, mothers’ observational data were obtained via videotape of designed interactions between mother and toddler, as well as survey data from mothers. Bivariate correlations and multiple …

Relationship Between Maternal/Family Functioning And Social Functioning In Youth With Adhd, Ewald Michael Wefelmeyer

Master's Theses (2009 -)

Affecting roughly 5% of the population, Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) is a common mental health disorder characterized by deficits in attention, activity level, and/or impulse control causing impairments across multiple domains of functioning (APA, 2013). Although ADHD is most commonly associated with impairment in academic and behavioral functioning, there also exists a strong connection between the disorder and significant social impairment. Indeed, youth with ADHD typically have fewer friends and experience significantly higher levels of peer rejection than do typically developing youth (Bagwell, Molina, Pelham, & Hoza, 2001). In addition to social problems, ADHD is often associated with problems in the …

Parenting Challenges Of Grandparents Raising Grandchildren: Discipline, Child Education, Technology Use, And Outdated Health Beliefs, Ludivine Brunissen, Eli Rapoport, Kate Fruitman, Andrew Adesman

GrandFamilies: The Contemporary Journal of Research, Practice and Policy

BACKGROUND: As of 2015, approximately three million children in the United States were being raised primarily by their grandparents. This study aims to examine, in a large national sample, to what extent grandparents raising grandchildren (GRGs) have difficulty with discipline and meeting their grandchild’s educational and social needs, find computers/other technology challenging, and subscribe to outdated health beliefs.

METHODS: An anonymous online parenting questionnaire was administered to GRGs recruited through state and local grandparent support groups and elderly service agencies.

RESULTS: 733 grandparents that self-identified as the primary caregiver of one or more grandchildren met inclusion criteria. 56.5% of GRGs …

Caregivers’ Expectations, Reflected Appraisals, And Arrests Among Adolescents Who Experienced Parental Incarceration, Cynthia J. Najdowski, Melissa Noel

Psychology Faculty Scholarship

This research sought to identify a potential process by which intergenerational crime occurs, focusing on the effect of parental incarceration on adolescents’ subsequent arrests. We drew from Matsueda’s work on reflected appraisals as an explanatory mechanism for this effect. Thus, the present research examined whether caregivers’ and adolescents’ expectations for adolescents’ future incarceration sequentially mediated the effect of parental incarceration on adolescents’ actual arrest outcomes. Propensity score matching was used to examine this effect in a sample of 1,735 15- to 16-year-olds using NLSY97 data. Parental incarceration was positively related to caregivers’ expectations of adolescents’ future arrest. Moreover, caregivers’ expectations …

Families In Poverty: Additive And Qualitative Influence Of Risk On Parenting, Lauren Aaron

University of New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

Co-occurrence of risk for impoverished families is common, but less is known about how compounded risk influences parenting behavior. Mothers (n = 167) and their two-year-old children were visited at home and engaged in a game aimed to elicit everyday parenting behavior. Mothers endorsed experience of sociodemographic and psychosocial risks. Two unique cumulative risk indices were created from these variables. Regression analyses assessed the relation between the risk indices and positive and negative parenting behavior. Latent class analysis examines classes of risk experience on the same indicators. Results show psychosocial risk experience is associated with both parenting factors, while …

A Qualitative Study Of The Foster Parent Experience: “I Try To Weather The Storm”, Ariel D. Marrero

Dissertations, 2020-current

This qualitative study examined the lived experiences of foster parents to understand how they make meaning of their child’s behavior and their training needs. A survey posted to online foster parent support communities gathered information about foster parents’ level of parental reflective functioning, perceptions of training experiences, and reflections on their parenting experience. Responses from 13 participants were collected and analyzed. Quantitative data gathered was used to characterize the sample of participants. Using thematic analysis, nine themes were rendered. Participants identified positive and negative aspects of their parenting experience, reported strong feelings of love, highlighted the impact of trauma on …

Student-Athlete Success: An Examination Of Parenting, Grit, Academic Success, And Mental Health Outcomes, Jackson Howard

Dissertations

Factors such as poor adjustment, substance misuse, and mental health concerns have been found to be detrimental to college student success. Considering this, researchers have focused on investigating protective factors, which may enhance performance in higher education. Specifically, non-cognitive traits, such as grit, or an ability to maintain determination and passion for long-term goals in the face of adversity, and positive parenting strategies, such as psychological autonomy granting, have been tied to positive outcomes for college students in higher education. Conversely, overparenting behaviors and negative outcomes, such as burnout, have been found to be damaging to student success. Student-athletes are …

Can A Brief Online Intervention Change Low-Income Caregivers’ Reported Use Of Spanking? A Randomized Controlled Trial, Hilary L. Richardson

Dissertations

Spanking is commonly used by parents (64-94%) in the United States as a strategy for managing undesirable child behaviors. Research has found that the use of spanking is particularly high among young mothers, low-income parents, and African American families. Decades of literature on the use of spanking has identified abundant detrimental outcomes for children such as increased externalizing behaviors, decreased long-term compliance, and less guilt following misbehavior, as well as serious outcomes in adulthood such as depressed mood and alcohol/drug use. There is also a risk for spanking to escalate to physical abuse. Thus, safer, more effective discipline strategies are …

Father Knows Best: The Interactive Effects Of Fathering Quantity And Quality On Child Self-Regulation, Mamatha Chetlur Chary

Doctoral Dissertations

In the past decade, developmental research has seen a surge of work regarding fathers and their influences of various aspects of child outcomes- cognitive and socioemotional. Studies show that father involvement, or “quantity” of time the father spends with the child, as well as fathering “quality”, or the characteristics marking the father-child relationship (warmth, supportiveness, sensitivity etc.), can both contribute to variance in the development of individual differences in child outcomes such as language skills, academic success and psychological well-being. One facet of adaptive development, self-regulation (SR), is a robust and consistent predictor of high academic success, fulfilling interpersonal relationships, …

Isolating Critical Components Of A Pediatric Obesity Intervention: Does It Really Take A Village?, Jennifer Coto

FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The current work examined healthy lifestyle interventions in different settings and their associated child and parent outcomes. Specifically, the first study examined, via a randomized trial, the efficacy of the Healthy Lifestyle Summer Camp and Parenting program (HLSC+HLPP) compared to the Health Lifestyle Summer Camp (HLSC) on improving child and parent health outcomes as well as mechanistic outcomes. Various anthropometric, fitness, nutrition, home environment, and parenting outcomes were collected for both children and their parent pre- and post-intervention. Results indicated that both HLSC+HLPP and HLSC were feasible and acceptable. There were no statistically significant differences between groups, however, both groups …

A Dyadic Analysis Of Depressive Symptoms And Harsh And Rejecting Parenting In Filipino Mothers And Fathers, Rosanne M. Jocson

Psychology Department Faculty Publications

This study examines within-person and cross-person relations between depressive symptoms, harsh parenting, and parental rejection in low-income Filipino mothers and fathers of adolescents using an actor-partner interdependence model (APIM). Mother and father dyads (N = 81, Mage = 43.48, SD = 8.66) recruited from urban neighborhoods in the Philippines completed orally administered questionnaires on depressive symptoms, harsh parenting, and rejection. Results showed that mothers' scores and fathers' scores on depressive symptoms did not significantly differ and that mothers scored significantly higher than fathers on harsh parenting and rejection. Dyadic analyses using the APIM showed that the actor effect of depressive …

Latina Mothers Awareness Of Their Childrens Exposure To Community Violence, Rosanne M. Jocson, Francheska Alers-Rojas, James Cranford, Rosario Ceballo

Psychology Department Faculty Publications

This study examines (a) the degree of agreement between mother-reported child community violence exposure and children's self-reports and whether agreement changes over time; (b) whether child gender is associated with mother-child agreement; and (c) whether greater mother-child agreement is concurrently and longitudinally associated with children's psychological well-being. We conducted secondary data analyses using longitudinal data with a socioeconomically diverse sample of 287 Latino adolescents (MageW2 = 11.2, 47% girls) and their mothers (MageW1 = 35.3) from the Project on Human Development in Chicago Neighborhoods. Mother-child agreement about non-exposure to violence was high. However, for violence-exposed children, mothers overestimated exposure in …

A Parenting Curriculum For Parents And Caregivers Of Young Children With A Focus On Attachment Theory, Alexandria Driscoll

Electronic Theses, Projects, and Dissertations

Attachment science has shown the importance of a purposeful and secure parent-child relationship. A secure attachment relationship includes sensitivity, responsiveness, and warmth. However, these behaviors may not come naturally to some parents due to lack of knowledge, stress, mental health issues, and/or past relationships. The purpose of this project was to inform parents about attachment science, increase parents’ confidence, and reduce parental stress by providing four two-hour workshop sessions. This project specifically targeted parents of young children. During the implementation of the project, the platform of the sessions changed from face-to-face to online due to the Covid-19 pandemic and subsequent …

Relations Between Executive Function And Parenting Behavior, Robin Alexandra Riddick

Honors Theses

Past research focused on how harsh parenting related to EF and behavior problems in children when other factors (i.e., maternal stress, household chaos, socioeconomic risk factors) were present. However, the literature was lacking in the examination of the relationship between EF and other parenting styles. This study aimed to examine the relationship between different aspects of executive function and regulation (i.e, inhibition, working memory, cognitive flexibility, problem solving, and impulsivity) and parenting and routines (i.e., laxness, hostility, overreactivity, and sleep and routines). To study this, parents of 18 to 24 month olds were administered a battery of EF tasks and …

Parenting Styles And Child Outcomes In Puerto Rican Families: A Comparison Of Individual And Dyadic Coding, Jeisianne Rosario Colón

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

Parenting styles are comprised from three dimensions: warmth, autonomy granting, and demandingness. These dimensions combined form four parenting styles: authoritative, authoritarian, permissive, and neglectful. Forty-nine Puerto Rican families with children 6-11 years participated. Families engaged in several tasks that were coded using the Parenting Style Observation Rating Scale and child outcomes were measured using the Child Behavior Checklist. Overall, parents received high ratings in warmth, autonomy granting, and supportive demandingness, and low scores in nonsupportive demandingness. There were some differences between parents, with mothers exhibiting higher levels of warmth with girls than boys, and higher levels of autonomy granting and …

The Relationship Between Children’S Misbehavior And Parental Discipline, Hannah Buggs, Emma Smith

Georgia College Student Research Events

The way parents perceive behaviors in children as to whether they are harmful would influence how they choose to deal with that behavior. When employing ineffective disciplinary styles consistently throughout children’s development, behavioral issues may continue to arise. Researchers oftentimes study how parenting discipline styles affect a child’s behavior. However, researchers often fail to study how parental perception of children’s behaviors concerning parenting disciplinary styles. In terms of behaviors, the frequency of children’s positive and negative behaviors may be related to how parents choose to regulate the child. For example, if the child demonstrates a higher frequency of misbehavior, it …

Parent Perceptions Of The Acceptability, Effectiveness, And Experience Of Engaging In The Group Stepping Stones Triple P Intervention For Parents Of Children With Disabilities, Tara B. Delach

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The challenges associated with parenting are often compounded for parents of children with developmental disabilities. Children with developmental disabilities are at increased risk for exhibiting mental health concerns and challenging behavior compared to their typically developing peers. Parents who are raising a child with a disability tend to experience increased demands, higher levels of stress, and greater challenges associated with the physical, emotional, and behavioral needs of their children than do parents of typically developing children. Parent training interventions grounded in social learning theory and behavioral principles have proven to be effective in improving both child and parent outcomes in …

Book Review: The Science Of Parenting Adopted Children, Nathanael Davis

Library Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Development Of Neural And Behavioral Inhibitory Control During Adolescence: The Integrative Effects Of Family Socioeconomic Status And Parenting Behaviors, Mengjiao Li

Doctoral Dissertations

Inhibitory control (IC) has drawn great attention from researchers and practitioners and the concurrent association between family socioeconomic status and IC in adolescence is well-documented. However, little is known about whether and how family socioeconomic status influence the individual differences in the development of adolescent IC. The current investigation aimed to address this gap in knowledge by employing two multiple-wave longitudinal studies of IC. In the early adolescent sample (N = 311), color-word Stroop task performance was assessed as a measure of IC when individuals were 10 and 13 years old. In the middle adolescent sample (N = 167), multisource …

The Experiences Of Parents And Facilitators In A Positive Parenting Program, Lauren Stenason, Jessie Moorman, Elisa Romano

The Qualitative Report

The researchers examined facilitators’ and parents’ experiences with the Positive Discipline in Everyday Parenting (PDEP) program through qualitative methodology. PDEP is a primary prevention program that teaches parents to move away from physical punishment and toward conflict resolution and positive parenting that focuses on stages of child development. Using a phenomenological approach, we conducted focus groups using semi-structured interviews with four PDEP facilitators and seven parents who completed the program. Parents and facilitators indicated that PDEP helped them learn new ways of thinking about parenting and contributed to overall changes in their parenting approach, including finding a balance of structured …

Self-Management In Youth With Spina Bifida: Associations With Parent Factors In The Context Of A Summer Camp Intervention, Colleen F. Bechtel Driscoll

Dissertations

Achieving condition-related independence is an important developmental milestone for youth with spina bifida (SB) that can be impacted by a variety of parent factors. This study aimed to investigate (1) the cross-sectional associations between parent factors (adjustment, perceptions, attitudes, behaviors) and youth self-management (e.g., youth's condition-related responsibility and mastery), (2) relations between these same parent factors and changes in youth self-management following participation in a summer camp intervention for one summer, and (3) associations between parent factors and growth in self-management variables over two summers. Participants were 89 camper-parent dyads recruited at a summer camp for youth with SB (Myouth …

Harsh Parenting And Familism: Examining The Influence Of Cultural Schemata On Parental Reactions To Child Transgressions, America Lizbeth Davila

Graduate Research Theses & Dissertations

Milner’s (1993, 2000) Social Information Processing (SIP) model of child physical abuse proposes that pre-existing schemata (e.g., belief structures, scripts) influence how parents process information during parent-child interactions, which in turn influences parental responses (e.g., corporal punishment). The purpose of the present study was to examine attitudinal familism (beliefs about unity and commitment/duty towards family) as a pre-existing schema that influences parents’ interpretations, attributions, affective, and behavioral responses to child transgressions. Parents (N = 106) were asked to read vignettes describing child transgressions and report their anticipated cognitive, affective, and behavioral responses. In addition, parents reported on their perceived social …

An Examination Of Quantity And Quality Of Maternal Consulting Predicting Adolescents' Socio-Emotional Outcomes, Natalie Low

Graduate Research Theses & Dissertations

This observational investigation had two aims. The first aim examined the independent associations of the quantity and quality of maternal consulting and early adolescents’ socio-emotional outcomes. The second aim assessed the moderation effect of the quality of maternal consulting on the relationship between the quantity of maternal consulting and early adolescents’ outcomes. Seventy early adolescents (Mage=12.39 years old) and their mothers participated in the study. The sample was 51.4% girls and 48.6% boys. Mothers and their early adolescents were video recorded discussing typical hypothetical peer-related situations. Conversations were coded for the amount of consulting and four aspects of quality: feasibility, …

Respiratory Sinus Arrhythmia, Behavioral Inhibition/Activation, And Behavioral Response To A Distressed Infant Simulator In Emerging Adults, Erin R. Mckay

Graduate Research Theses & Dissertations

Caregiver sensitivity and intrusiveness during infancy are predictive of the development of self-regulation, joint-attention, and cognitive ability. However, few studies have examined predictors of caregiver responses to infant distress. Of particular note is vagal tone, specifically respiratory sinus arrhythmia (RSA), a physiological measure of top-down self-regulation. Previous work has identified a relationship between RSA, as well as other measures of caregiver self-regulation, with caregiver sensitivity and intrusiveness. The current study also examined additional predictors of caregiver responsiveness, behavioral inhibition and activation, which was conceptualized as a bottom-up system of self-regulation due to its influence on motivation and personality. It was …

An Online Randomized Controlled Trial Of Mindful Parenting Among Parents Of Children With Autism Spectrum Disorder, Emily Elizabeth Padgett

Graduate Research Theses & Dissertations

Parents of children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) often experience stress and other psychological symptoms associated with their role as a parent. Mindfulness, defined as purposefully paying attention and nonjudgmentally remaining in the present moment, and mindful parenting, the application of mindfulness to the parent-child relationship, have been found to improve psychological functioning for individuals more broadly and parents specifically. Additionally, experimental mindful parenting interventions have been found to improve multiple outcomes in parents, including mindfulness, mindful parenting, parenting stress, anxiety and depression, and self-compassion. However, experimental research to date has not yet examined an online, self-guided mindful parenting intervention, …

Mothers’ And Fathers’ Self-Regulation Capacity, Dysfunctional Attributions And Hostile Parenting During Early Adolescence: A Process-Oriented Approach, Melissa L. Sturge-Apple, Zhi Li, Meredith J. Martin, Hannah R. Jones-Gordils, Patrick T. Davies

Department of Educational Psychology: Faculty Publications

The parent-child relationship undergoes substantial reorganization over the transition to adolescence. Navigating this change is a challenge for parents because teens desire more behavioral autonomy as well as input in decision-making processes. Although it has been demon- strated that changes in parental socialization approaches facilitates adolescent adjustment, very little work has been devoted to understand- ing the underlying mechanisms supporting parents’ abilities to adjust caregiving during this period. Guided by self-regulation models of parenting, the present study examined how parental physiological and cognitive regulatory capacities were associated with hostile and insen- sitive parent conflict behavior over time. From a process-oriented …

Maternal Parenting Behavior, Socioeconomic Risk, And Toddler Effortful Control: The Mediating Role Of Infant Attention, Leanna D. Rosinski

Graduate Research Theses & Dissertations

Effortful control (EC), the regulatory component of temperament, has important implications for children’s emotional, behavioral, and physical health. Greater infant attention regulation, a skill which develops prior to the emergence of EC, predicts better EC later in childhood. In addition, higher socioeconomic status (e.g., greater education, higher income) predicts better infant attention regulation and child EC. Negative parenting, characterized by intrusive, insensitive interactions with expressions of negative affect, has been found to predict poorer infant attention and child EC. Given these findings, the current study examined infant attention as a mediator between socioeconomic status, negative parenting, and toddler EC. A …

The Meanings And Ways Of Parental Involvement Among Low-Income Filipinos, Aileen Garcia, Maria Rosario De Guzman

Department of Child, Youth, and Family Studies: Faculty Publications

Parental involvement in children’s education is an integral component of young children’s academic achievement. Although there is clear evidence regarding the benefits of parental involvement, little is known regarding its impacts, manifestations, and conceptualizations in non-Western societies. Given that parenting and child rearing are imbued with cultural meaning in many profound ways (Super & Harkness,1986), this study employed a phenomenological approach and used pakikipagkwentuhan, a data collection procedure drawn from indigenous Filipino Psychology to closely examine how low-income Filipino parents conceptualize parental involvement and its role in their children’s education. Thirty-one parents/caregivers were engaged in conversation and qualitative data …