Clinical research shows that children have emotional investments in stepfamilies and are negatively affected by marital conflict, which can actually be greater than between couples without stepchildren. Stepchildren's perceptions of conflict heightens their need for affection. Views of parents and children about conflict do not necessarily…

Compared parents with retarded children with parents with intellectually average children on marital and family strengths and parental personality characteristics. Parents with retarded children were less critical of family members and had fewer family problems. Spousal support participation in a parents' group and religious beliefs were important…

Examined two contrasting views of divorce and long-term adjustment of children. Failed to support physical-wholeness position; parental marital status was not significantly related to psychological adjustment or social life satisfaction. Results provided strong support for psychological-wholeness position: adolescents' psychological adjustment and…

When parents refuse to, or cannot, participate in family therapy, working with just the siblings (Sibling Therapy) offers one way to help troubled children. When parents offer inconsistent or inadequate nurturing, seeing the children together allows development or strengthening of bonds among them and teaches them how to be available to each…

Families of full-term (N=17) and preterm (N=17) infants were followed throughout the first year of life to examine amount of (and relationship between) reported stress and support services received. Among results was that stress at three months was significantly negatively related to concurrent measures of formal support. (Author/JW)

Discusses the ways in which children of different ages respond to divorce or death in the family. Suggests that an open, caring teacher can reach and teach emotionally troubled students by creating an emotional climate for learning. (DMM)

Findings suggest that parents (N=23) who sought therapy because of "problematic" children differed in valuing style (e.g., rejection, extrinsic valuing, overprotection) from two samples of parents from normal populations. Parents who participated in Gestalt therapy groups made significant changes in their reported parenting styles. (Author/ABB)

Presents case illustrations of five adolescents to demonstrate how parents can seek diagnosis of primary learning disability for nonlearning disabled children; how this diagnosis can be inappropriately used, and how the learning disability label can work as resistance by family when professional recommendations focus on need for individual or…

An assessment of the impact of cystic fibrosis (CF) was conducted with 43 families. The impact of hospitalization upon parents was the most prevalent major problem. Parental communication was a "major problem" for 28% of the mothers but only one father. (Author/CL)

From a developmental-structuralist perspective, describes stages of child development; presents operational criteria to help the clinician categorize infants and young children whose behavioral and emotional patterns may fall outside the expectable, normal range; and illustrates the diagnostic approach with five case studies. (RH)

Interview data on families with children multiply admitted to residential care were contrasted with data from a disadvantaged comparison sample. Members of the in-care group were twice as likely as those in the comparison group to have parenting problems and were distinguished as much by other kinds of family difficulties as by parenting problems…

Parent-adolescent conflicts are frequently sufficiently severe to require third-party intervention. Because the adolescent is more likely to be in a setting where counsel is more easily available, the helping person can make use of insight and emotional maturity that is concomitant with the adolescent's acquisition of formal thought. (Author)

Ratings by mother, father/stepfather, and adolescent of 28 stepfamilies and 28 first-marriage families revealed lower family cohesion, adaptability, and quality in male parent-adolescent relationship in stepfamilies. Length of remarriage, amount and quality of contact with biological father, and adolescent gender were not related to family…

A new form of the Deterrents to Participation Scale was sent to a random sample of households. Data from the 215 respondents yielded six deterrence factors--lack of confidence, lack of course relevance, time constraints, low personal priority, cost, and personal problems--that are useful in building future adult education programs. (SK)

The author examines the social and economic forces affecting adventitiously blinded men in terms of goal setting, family life, attitudes, status, and income. Case records suggest that adventitiously blinded male must set realistic employment goals and make personal and social adjustments or risk facing a life of dependency. (Author/CL)