Family Relations

OBJECTIVE: The purpose of this study was to characterize the impact of adolescent pregnancy on families and describe the needs of adolescent mothers and their infants in order to assess the need for intervention and identify potential intervention targets. BACKGROUND: Adolescent mothers and their offspring face an increased risk of mental health problems. Adolescent mothers and their families also face significant resource constraints; 95% live in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs)...

OBJECTIVE: Understanding how positive parenting is conveyed across generations informs early childhood policy. BACKGROUND: The extant literature has focused on how a mother's relationship with her own mother sets the stage for her parenting of her own children, yet less understood is how a mother's relationship with her father supports her responsive parenting and potentially informs her child's attachment security. METHOD: We analyzed data from 6,400 mothers of singleton infants participating in the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study, Birth Cohort...

OBJECTIVE: This acceptability and feasibility study assessed a previously tested movie discussion intervention culturally adapted for a tribal health setting. BACKGROUND: Despite family and relationships being important in Alaska Native and American Indian (ANAI) cultures, social health interventions supporting committed ANAI couples have not been investigated. Couples watching and discussing movies can promote and sustain relationship health as effectively as intensive skill-building classes...

OBJECTIVE: The purpose of this research was to examine how families and foodways have evolved over time and how they may present promising promotive factors for resilience, health, and wellness. BACKGROUND: Because food is central to family, social relationships, and healthy living, Indigenist foodways may promote family resilience and offset inequities. METHOD: Pragmatic horizon analysis of data drawn from 31 critical ethnographic interviews on food and family in the Southeast and Northwest, including both urban and rural reservation tribal contexts, resulted in emergent themes related to food and families...

OBJECTIVE: This study aimed to extend the current literature by examining the patterns of indulgent parenting of both mothers and fathers and their associations with adolescents' basic psychological needs satisfaction, self-control, and self-efficacy. BACKGROUND: Indulgent parenting could be harmful for the development of psychological needs satisfaction and cognitive abilities when adolescents seek autonomy and gain emotional regulatory skills. Yet research is limited on investigating the patterns of indulgent parenting and their relationships to adolescents' psychological development...

OBJECTIVE: We examined the acculturation processes involving intergenerational consonance and dissonance in parent-child relationships in U.S. immigrant families. BACKGROUND: This study is important because we lack national studies that examine the association between acculturation processes and intergenerational relationships among diverse racial/ethnic groups in immigrant families. METHOD: Using national data from Add Health with diverse race/ethnicity, we measured acculturation levels by immigrant generation, age of arrival, and length of time...

OBJECTIVE: This study reports on the psychometric properties of a new instrument to assess family fear of deportation in two versions (binary and polytomous response options). BACKGROUND: The impact of fear of deportation extends beyond foreign-born youth to U.S. citizen children in families with unauthorized members, and negatively affects their academic achievement and their physical, mental, and behavioral health. A measure assessing levels of fear of deportation among youth is lacking...

OBJECTIVE: To examine the psychometric properties of Snyder's Children's Hope Scale (CHS) with first- and second-generation Latino immigrant youth, using item response theory, exploratory and confirmatory factor analysis, and measurement invariance tests. BACKGROUND: Stress experienced by youth in 2020 has heightened interest in resilience factors such as hope. The CHS is widely used to measure hope but has not been validated for longitudinal assessments with immigrant populations...

OBJECTIVE: This qualitative study examined adult perspectives on the adjustments children face through the process of paternal incarceration and eventual release. BACKGROUND: While the United States leads the world in incarceration, 95% of imprisoned individuals return to community life. Despite poor outcomes for children with incarcerated fathers, less is known as to how they fair after fathers' release. Conceptualizing paternal incarceration and reentry as linked rather than disparate events, this study examines perspectives on family separation, reunification, and children's adjustment when fathers return from prison...

OBJECTIVE: We sought to identify the social process through which communal support can be established among veteran couples and families. BACKGROUND: On the basis of the social organization theory of action and change, a sense of community is crucial for military veterans' well-being and may serve as a resource for intervention. METHOD: We interviewed service providers ( n = 8) and corroborated their perspectives by triangulating evaluations from veteran family participants ( n = 143)...

BACKGROUND: Living together harmoniously requires compromise. Research on the psychological factors that promote compromise frequently focuses on individual differences and interpersonal environment. The current research takes a different approach by asking what role I-sharing (i.e., the feeling that others share the same in-the-moment, subjective experience as oneself) plays in the success of a cohabiting couple's compromise efforts. OBJECTIVE: Drawing from work on the prosocial outcomes associated with I-sharing, we asked whether I-sharing with a stranger enhances couples' ability to compromise...

OBJECTIVE: This manuscript describes the Day-in-the-Life (DIL) method for assessing child caregiving activities, its implementation, and findings regarding family members' roles and associations with maternal depression symptoms. BACKGROUND: Infant caregiving activities are most commonly performed by the mother, although there is increasing acknowledgement of others' contribution. Few methods exist to measure the diverse caregiving activities that mothers and others perform...

OBJECTIVE: The current study used the family stress model to test the mechanisms by which economic insecurity contributes to mothers' and fathers' mental health and couples' relationship functioning. BACKGROUND: Although low household income has been a focus of poverty research, material hardship-defined as everyday challenges related to making ends meet including difficulties paying for housing, utilities, food, or medical care-is common among American families...

OBJECTIVE: This study assesses the psychometric properties of the four- and eight-item versions of the Patient-Reported Outcomes Measurement Information System (PROMIS) Pediatric Psychological Stress Measure (PPSM) for use with Latino immigrant adolescents. BACKGROUND: Immigrant Latino youth are exposed to numerous stressors that can have consequences affecting health well into adulthood. However, few studies have assessed the suitability of psychosocial measures for this group...

OBJECTIVE: The present study revisits the assumption in American culture, based in "family privilege," that children fare better in two-parent households by longitudinally examining associations between family structure, process, and adolescent behavior. BACKGROUND: Societal assumptions and cross-sectional research suggest that there is a difference in child adjustment across varying family structures. Relatedly, the family process literature emphasizes the importance of parent-child relationship quality in addition to family structure on child adjustment...

OBJECTIVE: The purpose of the study is to contribute to an understanding of the cultural and normative meaning of birth motherhood and how lesbian couples decide who carries the child. BACKGROUND: The decision of who carries the child is central in lesbian family-making, carrying consequences for life after birth. Even so, it has been relatively overlooked in research. Drawing from the sociology of personal life and Park's (2013) conceptualization of monomaternalism, we study how informants consider and decide birth motherhood...

OBJECTIVE: The current study investigated the relation of various cultural stressors, parent-child alienation, and Mexican-origin adolescents' internalizing symptoms at both between- and within-person levels across the course of adolescence. BACKGROUND: Positive parent-child relationships can be a critical buffer against cultural stressors for Mexican-origin adolescents. However, it is unclear whether low levels of parent-child alienation (a) buffer the negative effects of different types of cultural stressors on internalizing symptoms and (b) function at the individual level more generally or during specific periods when adolescents experience high cultural stressors...

OBJECTIVE: This article examines how Haitian families with youth interfacing with the juvenile justice system cope with structural racism and socioethnic discrimination (RSD). BACKGROUND: Haitian families' experiences of discrimination based on their histories, immigrant status, and positionality illustrates the need for more scientific scrutiny of the experiences of RSD among Black immigrant groups. This National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA)-funded study details the narratives of and responses to RSD experienced by Haitian families interfacing with the juvenile justice system...

OBJECTIVE: This paper includes a mixed methods content analysis of a parenting Facebook group focused on COVID-19. We analyze participants' posts to identify the types of support parents sought and gave. BACKGROUND: The COVID-19 pandemic has resulted in increased parental stress and challenges related to children's development. Many families turned to social media as a source of information and social support. METHOD: We analyzed 1,180 posts from a large, closed Facebook group focused on parenting during COVID-19...

Objective: The purpose of this study was to examine the direct and indirect relationships among economic hardship, economic strain, emotional stress, and couple conflict for married Koreans during the COVID-19 pandemic. In particular, we investigated whether these pathways were different between lower and higher socioeconomic status (SES) groups. Background: Due to the global economic downturn brought on by COVID-19, many couples experienced economic hardship including increased household debt, job loss, and reduced work hours...