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Parenting behaviors have received ample support as a mediator of the relationship between maternal affect and child behavior problems. The majority of these research efforts were based on a uni-dimensional conceptualization of maternal mood, even though decades of theory and research suggest that mood is multidimensional. We examined the mediating role of parenting behaviors on positive affect (PA) and negative affect (NA) and reports of child behavior problems. Evidence for mediation was demonstrated for both PA and NA for children in early to middle childhood. Consistent with the positive psychology movement, our results suggest that maternal PA plays an important role in parents’ utilization of effective parenting behaviors. Implications for clinical intervention and future research are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

BACKGROUND. Between 15% and 25% of children who visit primary care physicians have emotional, behavioral, or psychiatric problems that affect their functioning. The majority of these children are treated by primary care physicians. The purpose of this study was to examine the presentation and treatment of children's psychosocial problems in primary care and to investigate ways in which physician management of a problem is related to parent-physician agreement that the problem exists. METHODS. Twenty-six physicians at an ambulatory care center of a community-based, university-affiliated family medicine training program collected data during outpatient visits of 898 children aged 2 to 16 years. The physicians used a checklist to collect data on children's developmental problems, parents' concerns about the psychosocial functioning of their children, whether physicians and parents were in agreement about these concerns, and the parents' influence on physicians' management of the problems. RESULTS. Family physicians and parents agreed that 10% of the children were experiencing psychosocial problems. For 5% of children, physicians recorded emotional or behavioral concerns when parents did not disclose any such concerns. For only 1.8% of children, parents raised psychosocial concerns while physicians did not. Physicians diagnosed and managed psychosocial concerns during both acute-care and well-child visits. When parents and physicians agreed on the presence of pediatric psychosocial problems, referral to a mental health professional was more likely than when they disagreed (60% vs 16%). CONCLUSIONS. Pediatric psychosocial concerns are raised by parents during acute-care and well-child visits. Family physicians identified and managed these problems at rates consistent with past research. Management strategies appeared to differ as a function of agreement between physicians and parents on whether a problem existed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective: Given the associations between externalizing behaviors and childhood unintentional injuries (CUI), this pilot study evaluated whether an empirically supported behavioral parent training program, Group Triple P, decreased risk for CUI. Methods: Parents of 19 children ages 2-8 referred by their child’s primary care physician for child externalizing behavior problems completed measures of child injury risk pre- and post-Triple P. Results: Child injury risk and disruptive behavior problems decreased significantly. Conclusions: Overall, our findings indicate that teaching behavior management and parenting skills to parents has the potential to decrease injury risk in their children, despite this not being an explicit target of intervention. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Significant numbers of children have diagnosable mental health problems, but only a small proportion of them receive appropriate services. Stigma has been associated with help-seeking for adult mental health problems and for Caucasian parents. The current study aims to understand factors, including stigma, associated with African American parents' help-seeking behavior related to perceived child behavior problems. Participants were a community sample of African American parents and/or legal guardians of children ages 3-8 years recruited from an urban primary care setting ( N = 101). Variables included child behavior, stigma (self, friends/family, and public), object of stigma (parent or child), obstacles for engagement, intention to attend parenting classes, and demographics. Self-stigma was the strongest predictor of help-seeking among African American parents. The impact of self-stigma on parents' ratings of the likelihood of attending parenting classes increased when parents considered a situation in which their child's behavior was concerning to them. Findings support the need to consider parent stigma in the design of care models to ensure that children receive needed preventative and treatment services for behavioral/mental health problems in African American families. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]