Parental incarceration (PI) is negatively associated with emotional, educational, and psychological child outcomes. However, few studies explore potential mechanisms through which these outcomes are transmitted or the means by which prosocial outcomes might develop. This study used data from two waves of a population cohort study of children aged…

Very preterm birth (<32 weeks of gestation) heightens the risk for developmental and behavioral problems, but individual outcomes vary greatly. We evaluated whether mother-toddler dyadic interaction quality, assessed longitudinally at 14, 20, and 30 months (corrected), could account for unique variance in very preterm and full-term children's…

The aim of this report was to investigate the associations between attachment state of mind, romantic attachment style, and indices of maternal functioning in two relational spheres: the mother-child relationship (i.e., maternal sensitivity and child attachment security) and the marital relationship (i.e., mothers' and their partners' marital…

The purpose of the study was to examine the contributions of maternal encouragement of autonomy and maternal encouragement of connectedness to the prediction of children's social behaviors. A sample of children (N = 94), initially aged two years, and their mothers in China participated in the two-year longitudinal study. Child autonomy and…

The purpose of this study was to test direct, additive, and mediation models involving family, neighborhood, and peer factors in relation to emerging antisocial behavior and social skills. Neighborhood danger, maternal depressive symptoms, and supportive parenting were assessed in early childhood. Peer group acceptance was measured in middle…

Mastery motivation, usually measured by task persistence, is often used to predict infant competence. This study attempted to clarify how a measure of persistence can be used to facilitate the prediction of competence when examining the relationship between persistence and maternal child-rearing behavior. The measure of persistence used in this…

Mothers and infants were observed in the laboratory when the infants were 12, 18, and 24 months. Mothers reported their child's behavior at 36 months. Predictors of boys' externalizing behavior at two and three years were maternal unresponsiveness and infant attention seeking, aggression, and noncompliance. For girls, infant noncompliance was…

Examined the relationships between violence within the family and child behavior problems in a sample of 185 children living at battered women shelters. Found that children were affected by witnessing violence between their parents and by harsh punitive discipline, particularly administered by mothers. Family violence variables were better…

This study sought to construct a set of family strengths using data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth - Child Supplement (NLSY-CS), and, if the family strengths' construct was possible, to discern whether the presence of these family strengths predict better outcomes for children. The original NLSY sampled approximately 12,000…