Reports on a multimeasure, multicontext study of the relationship between father-child and mother-child play and children's competence with preschool peers. Involves 13 boys and 14 girls three to four years of age, and their parents. Children were videotaped while playing with each parent, and their social competence with peers was evaluated.…

Non-paternalistic arguments supporting the rights of parents to have a say concerning their children's schooling are presented. These include parents' rights rooted in (1) extensions of their own freedoms, (2) parental involvement in children's suffering and success, (3) a contract of birth, and (4) exceptional demands of familial relationships.…

Compared sexual permissiveness attitudes and likely behaviors of father-absent vs. father-present Black, lower-socioeconomic female adolescents (N=100). Father-absent subjects were not found to be more sexually permissive, but had significantly greater inconsistency between behavioral and attitudinal scores in which the reported behavior was more…

Describes a study which examined the relationship between mother's speech and the rate of child syntax growth for 22 two-and-a-half-year-old children. Results suggest that linguistic experience does contribute to syntax development but that the relation between linguistic input and language growth is different for different domains of language and…

Investigated whether directing mothers to make weekly appointments to visit the neonatal intensive care unit would generalize to increase the frequency of independent maternal visiation and affect maternal perceptions of the infant and infants' length of hospitalization. (Author/RH)

Reports a study of the ways young children view television. The more common style involves uncritical absorption which seems debilitating to the child, while the other style provides the viewer with skills for discovering meaning within the program and beyond. Suggestions are given for parents to encourage the more critical style of watching.…

That a mother's affective illness may interfere with her ability to relate to her child in ways that promote a secure attachment is documented in these data. Depression decreased the likelihood of secure attachment between mother and child. Children of unipolar and bipolar depressed mothers had different patterns of attachment. (RH)

The family can provide learning experiences and become the center of a child's education, rather than leaving all responsibility to the school. Home experiences should include activities that foster curiosity, exploration, inquiry, and discovery. Suggested in-home experiences are offered for family use. (DF)

Argues (1) that Feinman (1982) and Campos (1983) agree that 10-month-old infants are able to use their mother's emotional expression to come to an appraisal of a third event and (2) that this claim is supported by studies of mother-infant interaction and communication. (Author/RH)

Suggests that the determinants of individual differences in parental functioning are illuminated by research on the etiology of child maltreatment. Three domains of determinants include parents' personal psychological resources, child characteristics, and contextual sources of stress and support. A process model of competent parental functioning…

The nature and purpose of parental speech in the language acquisition process of the young child is explored in this article. The effect of the quality and quantity of parental speech on the child's language development and linguistic interactions among language-delayed children are discussed. (DF)

While a variety of scales and instruments to measure parental support exist, most of these have not received adequate analysis. Utilizing two bodies of data, the widely used Heilbrun, Cornell, and Schaefer measures of parental support were examined. Results are presented. (Author)

Available from: EC 090 265.

The purpose of this study was to investigate the relationship between levels of hope and perceived parental authority style in college students (N=251). It was expected that there would be a positive relationship between authoritative parenting and students' levels of hope. It was also expected that there would be a negative relationship between…