This study examined the role of anger in infancy and its interaction with maternal warmth in predicting children's socioemotional development. Participants included a demographically diverse sample of 316 mothers and children from the Project on Human Development in Chicago Neighborhoods (PHDCN) study. Infants were followed across 3 waves of data…

Data from the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Study (N = 4,176) are used to examine family structure transitions and maternal parenting stress. Using multilevel modeling, we found that mothers who exit coresidential relationships with biological fathers or enter coresidential relationships with nonbiological fathers reported higher levels of…

We use data from the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Study (N = 1,975) to examine the association between mothers' partnership changes and parenting behavior during the first 5 years of their children's lives. We compare coresidential with dating transitions and recent with more distal transitions. We also examine interactions between…

We used data from the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Study to examine how couple relationship quality and parental engagement are linked over children's early years--when they are infants, toddlers, and preschoolers. Our sample included 1,630 couples who were coresident over Years 1-3 and 1,376 couples who were coresident over Years 3-5…

The federal Early Head Start (EHS) program began in 1995, and a randomized trial was conducted to evaluate the efficacy of 17 EHS programs. In all, 3,001 low-income families (35% African American, 24% Hispanic, and 37% White) with a pregnant women or an infant under the age of 12 months were randomly assigned to a treatment or control group (with…

We used longitudinal data from a birth cohort study, the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Study, to investigate the links between Head Start and school readiness in a large and diverse sample of urban children at age 5 (N = 2,803; 18 cities). We found that Head Start attendance was associated with enhanced cognitive ability and social…

Kimberly Howard and Jeanne Brooks-Gunn examine home visiting, an increasingly popular method for delivering services for families, as a strategy for preventing child abuse and neglect. They focus on early interventions because infants are at greater risk for child abuse and neglect than are older children. In their article, Howard and Brooks-Gunn…

Jane Waldfogel, Terry-Ann Craigie, and Jeanne Brooks-Gunn review recent studies that use data from the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Study (FFCWS) to examine why children who grow up in single-mother and cohabiting families fare worse than children born into married-couple households. They also present findings from their own new research.…

Examines the characteristics of grandmothers who help provide care for their grandchildren, using data from a nationally representative sample (N=2,095). Overall, 43% of grandmothers helped provide care for their grandchildren on a regular basis. Grandmothers' age, living arrangements, number of children, number of grandchildren, education, and…

Early development is likely influenced by quality of early parenting and improvements or declines in quality over time. Little is known about how changes in different dimensions of parenting influence child outcomes, nor the relative sizes of associations when considering several aspects simultaneously. These questions are addressed in the Early…

Few studies of parenting have considered the possibility that the association between one parent's supportive parenting and a child's early cognition is moderated by the other parent's supportiveness. We test this proposition using a low-income sample of coresident couples. In addition, we cross-classify parents within couples according to their…

This paper examined whether the greater average schooling and employment, and lower parenting competence, of young mothers who reside with adult relatives reflect preexisting differences versus potential causal mechanisms. The sample included 554 young mothers (ages 13 to 25; nearly two thirds African American) from the Infant Health and…

Study of a cohort of low birth weight, preterm infants examined effects of maternal knowledge and concepts of child rearing on the home environment and developmental outcomes. Maternal knowledge, measured at 1 year, was found to be associated with quality of the home environment, the number of child behavior problems, and to a small degree, infant…

The authors describe various parenting behaviors, such as nurturance, discipline, teaching, and language use, and explain how researchers measure them. They note racial and ethnic variations in several behaviors. Most striking are differences in language use. Black and Hispanic mothers talk less with their young children than do white mothers and…