Family, Life Course, and Society Commons^™

Listening To Children With Head And Heart, Stephen F. Duncan

Forever Families

Many sounds in our world compete for our attention. As parents, life can become so hectic that we fail to truly listen to others, especially those closest to us--such as our children. The words of an anonymous author teach a profound lesson about listening:

Developing A Solid Marriage, Stephen F. Duncan

Forever Families

A solid marriage is at the foundation of a successful stepfamily. In a stepfamily, however, bonds between a parent and child have preceded those of the marriage. Consequently, remarried couples need to make a special effort to care for their relationship. There are several things that pose challenges to the development of a successful remarriage.

Combining Two Families And Meeting Everyone's Needs, Stephen F. Duncan

Forever Families

Newly remarried John and Mary had two children, each from a prior marriage, making a new stepfamily with four children. While all were expected to get along peacefully, trouble began early. First, teen stepsiblings Jeff and Lora became attracted to each other, which made them feel guilty and confused. The teens also wanted more freedom at the same time that John and Mary wanted more togetherness. Stephen, who was the oldest in his previous family was now the middle child. Joy, who had a certain favorite chore in her family before, was now doing a different, and dreaded one. John …

A Stepparent's Role, Stephen F. Duncan

Forever Families

As a stepparent, you may face difficulty fitting into the new family. Since you may be viewed as an "outsider," you may encounter surprisingly stiff resistance to your inclusion in the family, in the form of unexpectedly powerful and negative feelings such as jealousy and resentment, as well as your own confusion and sense of inadequacy. Your role in the family, especially early on, is ill-defined and you may end up trying out several different roles before finding one that "fits." While this lack of definition can be stressful and confusing, it also gives you the freedom and latitude to …

Parenting Children With Disabilities: Discover The Gift That Is Yours, Christina Jackman, Stephen F. Duncan

Forever Families

Research about parenting children with disabilities has often focused on the negative aspects, such as family disruption and stress. But many researchers are now saying they've overstated the negatives and overlooked the positives. While families with disabled children do experience challenges, newer studies show that with good support they're as vibrant and healthy as families without disabled children.

Fostering Moral Behavior In Children, Stephen F. Duncan

Forever Families

With rising youth violence, increasing peer cruelty, coarsening of language, a declining work ethic, diminished personal and civic responsibility, escalating dishonesty, growing ethical illiteracy, and growing disrespect for parents, teachers, and other legitimate authority figures, one wonders if too little emphasis is placed on morality among the young. According to a number of scholars, the answer is a definitive yes.

Nurturing Feelings Of Self-Worth In Children, Janell Langlois, Stephen F. Duncan

Forever Families

Each person has a divine spirit of eternal value. God loves each of us, and we all have the potential to become like Him. Parents and other adults can help children learn from an early age that they have this great worth. The Family: A Proclamation to the World states: "All human beings—male and female—are created in the image of God. Each is a beloved spirit son or daughter of heavenly parents, and, as such, each has a divine nature and destiny" (¶ 2).

Bonding With Your Infant, Kathryn Vaughn, Chris Porter, Stephen F. Duncan

Forever Families

"Children are an heritage of the Lord," wrote the Psalmist. They are sons and daughters of Deity, and a merciful God allows parents to be stewards on earth of His offspring. As we are reminded in The Family: A Proclamation to the World, parents have a sacred obligation to their God to rear their children in love and righteousness, and they will be held accountable before God for the discharge of these obligations.

Say It With Love: Using Communication To Strengthen Our Relationships With Our Children, Stephen F. Duncan

Forever Families

Communication is the lifeblood of any meaningful, close relationship. The closer the relationship, the more important communication becomes. Effective communication is always found in strong parent-child relationships. In fact, effective communication and family quality are so closely related that what affects one will likely affect the other. Although The Family: A Proclamation to the World is silent on communication, it is clear that every characteristic of strong marriages and families is fostered through open, honest, and loving communication.

Practicing Individualized Parenting, Megan Northrup, Stephen F. Duncan

Forever Families

Each child is born unique, with strengths, weaknesses, talents, and tendencies that make him or her an individual. Because of this uniqueness, different children, even within the same family, respond to the same or similar parenting styles in different ways depending on their personalities and perceptions.

The Sacred Responsibility Of Fathers, Jeremy Boyle, Stephen F. Duncan

Forever Families

Every man who fathers a child has a moral and sacred responsibility to his son or daughter. The Family: A Proclamation to the World says that "by divine design, fathers are to preside over their families in love and righteousness and are responsible to provide the necessities of life and protection for their families".

Chronic Illness Among Children, Melanie Churchill, Stephen F. Duncan

Forever Families

Parenting, by itself, brings many new challenges and opportunities to learn. Parenting a child with a chronic illness brings even more. A chronic illness is one that persists for a long time, sometimes for life. Examples of chronic illnesses are diabetes, asthma, and cancer. The needs of child patients are as varied as the types of chronic illnesses. However, parents of children with a chronic illness many times ask the same questions. Questions such as "why my child?" and "how did this happen?" Although we may not have all the answers to questions such as these, we can find counsel …

See How They Grow: An Infant's Physical Development, Kathryn Vaughn, Chris Porter, Stephen F. Duncan

Forever Families

As stewards of God’s sons and daughters, parents have a sacred obligation to look after the needs of their children. Among these responsibilities is becoming aware of how an infant grows physically. With knowledge, parents can optimally nurture this process.

Helping Teens Avoid Risky Behavior, Amber Turner, Laura M. Padilla-Walker, Stephen F. Duncan

Forever Families

Parenting is a sacred and honorable duty. The Family: A Proclamation to the World states that parents have the sacred duty of rearing their children in love and righteousness. This includes guiding adolescents away from risky behaviors.

A Social Space Approach To Testing Complex Hypotheses: The Case Of Hispanic Marriage Patterns In The United States, Jeffrey A. Smith

Department of Sociology: Faculty Publications

Where do individuals identifying as Hispanic fit in the racial landscape of the United States? The answer offered by past work is complex: The empirical results do not lend themselves to simple interpretation as no single hypothesis fits the Hispanic case very well. Instead, Hispanic integration is described as mixtures of different archetypical hypotheses, like panethnic formation, white assimilation, and racialized assimilation. My goal is to develop a formal framework to help make sense of this complex picture. I extend past work by showing which combination of integration processes (panethnic formation, white assimilation, etc.) best characterizes Hispanic marriage patterns. I …

A Physical Therapy Intervention To Advance Cognitive And Motor Skills: A Single Subject Study Of A Young Child With Cerebral Palsy, Stacey C. Dusing, Reggie T. Harbourne, Michele A. Lobo, Sally Westcott-Mccoy, James A. Bovaird, Audrey E. Kane, Gullnar Syed, Emily C. Marcinowski, Natalie A. Koziol, Shaaron E. Brown

Nebraska Center for Research on Children, Youth, Families, and Schools: Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Ethnic Culture And Family Relations In Later Life, Hyunsook Kang, Gina Fe G. Causin

School of Human Sciences Research Showcase

The current research was done in order to examine the relationships of older adults. It was hypothesized that older adults’ ethnic culture will have effects on their family relationships. Results showed that older adults’ ethnic culture has an effects on family relations.

The Perception Of School Food-Service Professionals On The Implementation Of The Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act Of 2010: A Mixed-Methods Study, Zainab Rida, Elisha Hall, Saima Hasnin, Jessie Coffey, Dipti Dev

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

Objective: To: (i) understand the nutrition attitudes, self-efficacy, knowledge and practices of school food-service personnel (SFP) in Nebraska and (ii) identify potential barriers that schools face in offering healthy school meals that meet the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) nutrition standards.

Design: Convergent parallel mixed-methods study.

Setting: Kindergarten–12th grade schools in Nebraska, USA.

Participants: SFP (260 survey participants; fifteen focus group participants) working at schools that participate in the USDA National School Lunch Program.

Results: Mixed-methods themes identified include: (i) ‘Mixed attitudes towards healthy meals’, which captured a variety of conflicting positive and negative attitudes depending on the situation; (ii) …

Sociosexuality, Testosterone, And Life History Status: Prospective Associations And Longitudinal Changes Among Men In Cebu, Philippines, Lee T. Gettler, Patty X. Kuo, Stacy Rosenbaum, Josephine L. Avila, Thomas W. Mcdade, Christopher W. Kuzawa

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

Sociosexuality is defined as an individual's interest in uncommitted sexual activity and can be measured in terms of both psychological orientations and behavioral expression. In socio-ecological contexts in which adults monogamously partner and cooperate to raise children, individuals with unrestricted sociosexuality are likely to prioritize mating/competition over committed partnering and parenting. Given the importance of mother-father cooperation in the evolutionary past, humans may have the capacity to facultatively and opportunistically downregulate sociosexuality to focus on priorities related to invested partnering and parenting. To date, no prior studies have used longitudinal data to track within-individuals changes in sociosexuality as it relates …

Cooking With Couples: A Grounded Theory Study On The Relational Aspects Found In The Cooking Interactions Of Couples, Nicole R. Gordon

Department of Family Therapy Dissertations and Applied Clinical Projects

Cooking is a universal activity which all humans can relate to on some level. Historically, cooking has continued to connect people across cultures and time, simultaneously providing nutritive sustenance as well as socio- and psychological benefits. Medical and mental health practitioners only in recent years have utilized cooking in a therapeutic process, and most of those cooking activities available tend to focus on cooking from an occupational and nutrition-education stance. A gap in the literature pertaining to cooking and its therapeutic applications exists around the relational nature underlying the cooking process, especially as it pertains to couples. While marriage and …