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This paper examines the relationship between father involvement and their child's behaviour outcomes amongst a birth cohort of Pacific children and fathers in New Zealand. A birth cohort was established in 2000 from births at Middlemore Hospital in South Auckland where at least one parent was identified as being of Pacific ethnicity and a New Zealand permanent resident. This included 1,376 mothers, 825 fathers, and 1,398 children at baseline. At the 6-years measurement wave, father involvement was measured using the Inventory of Father Involvement, and child behaviour measured using the Child Behaviour Check-list. Internalising and externalising behaviour was related to father involvement in crude and adjusted logistic regression and generalised estimating equation models. 571 Pacific fathers participated at the 6-years measurement wave; most of Samoan (42.9 %) or Tongan (33.5 %) ethnic identification. Overall, 190 (32.1 %) children exhibited clinical or border-line internalising and externalising behaviour. Self-reported father involvement was generally high, but lower involvement was significantly related to increased odds of internalising [adjusted odds ratio (aOR) approximately 1.9, p < 0.001] and externalising (aOR approximately 4.0, p < 0.001) behaviour. Father involvement was significantly associated with child behaviour in Pacific families within New Zealand. Strategies that promote and enable increased father involvement may reduce negative child outcomes amongst Pacific families. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To explore parenting style, child effortful control, parenting stress, and their associations with maternal use of pressure to eat among Asian U.S. immigrant families with preschoolers. One hundred and nine Asian immigrant mothers with 3-to-5-year-old children in Maryland, United States rated their authoritative and authoritarian parenting styles, frequency of pressuring their child to eat, perceived parenting stress, and child's effortful control. Two proposed moderated mediation models were tested using conditional process modeling. Effortful control mediated the association between authoritative parenting style and pressure to eat practices, αβ = −0.07, p < 0.05, and the association between authoritarian style and pressure to eat, αβ = 0.12, p < 0.05. Moreover, parenting stress moderated the association between child effortful control and maternal pressure to eat in the authoritarian style model, but not in the authoritative style model. Specifically, higher effortful control was associated with less use of pressure to eat at low and mean levels of parenting stress. Our findings revealed potential mechanisms underlying the associations between parenting styles and controlling feeding practices. Importantly, information learned from the present study may guide transdisciplinary efforts to design and implement culturally sensitive and family-based interventions targeting Asian immigrants' wellbeing and obesity in the United States. Highlights: This study examined the underlying mechanisms associated with the use of controlling feeding practices in Asian U.S. immigrant families with preschoolers. Child effortful control mediated the associations between parenting styles and pressure to eat. Parenting stress moderated the association between child effortful control and maternal pressure to eat in the authoritarian style model only. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objectives: The transition to adolescence is associated with decreases in student achievement. One factor that may mitigate these decreases is parent involvement. The present study examined whether ethnicity, type of involvement (school-based involvement [SBI] vs. home-based involvement [HBI]), and their interaction predicted GPA. Methods: This study, using data from the High School Longitudinal Study, examined whether type of involvement (SBI vs. HBI) and ethnicity predicted adolescents' grade point average (GPA). Employing random coefficient growth curve modelling, we examined whether time, ethnicity, and SBI and HBI at grade 9 predicted adolescents' levels of GPA from grade 9 to 12. Results: The initial effect of time (from grade 9 to grade 10) was significant, with GPA declining across ethnic groups. The initial decline attenuated from grades 10 to 12. With the exception of Asian Americans, SBI was significantly positively associated with GPA. Over and above SBI, HBI was consistently positively associated with subsequent GPA across ethnic groups. These associations of SBI and HBI with GPA persisted across time. Conclusions: The findings are consistent with past research, although that research did not examine HBI and SBI simultaneously, high school students specifically, and GPA over time. The non-significant association of GPA with SBI for Asian Americans may be due to different peer processes and beliefs about education. Because HBI has similar associations across groups, and because it predicts unique variance in GPA over and above SBI, it may be important for parents of high schoolers to pursue, regardless of ethnicity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Childhood maltreatment is a key social determinant that potentially results in long-lasting psychological consequences in adulthood. This study examined the link between childhood maltreatment (i.e., physical abuse, sexual abuse, and exposure to violence) and psychological distress (i.e., depression and anxiety) among Asian-American women. The moderating effect of perceived discrimination on the association was also investigated. This study utilized self-reported data from 1022 Asian-American women aged 18-65 (Mage = 38.51) who participated in the National Latino and Asian American Survey. A series of multivariate logistic regressions were conducted to detect the association between childhood maltreatment, sociodemographics and acculturation, and psychological distress for Asian-American women. Results indicated that Asian women who experienced sexual abuse and were exposed to violence during childhood had a significantly greater likelihood of both depressive and anxiety disorders, while childhood physical abuse was significantly associated with a depressive disorder, but not an anxiety disorder (Model 1). In Model 2, marital status and perceived discrimination were significant determinants of psychological distress. Respondents who were never married had a greater likelihood of depression compared to those who were married or cohabited. Also, women who perceived discrimination were more likely to have both depressive and anxiety disorders. In Model 3, perceived discrimination was a significant moderator on the association between exposure to violence and an anxiety disorder. From a clinical perspective, identifying the effects of social determinants on mental health disorders and providing proper services and intervention can be key to improving an individual’s well-being and social stability. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Parental perception of a child's weight is important in determining parenting and feeding styles, which relate to childhood obesity. Evidence suggests this perception can vary by ethnicity. The purpose of this review was to explore Asian parents' child weight perception and examine factors related to Asian parents' child weight misperception. A systematic literature review was conducted on eight studies between 2000 and 2016 through the databases of CINAHL, Cochrane Reviews, PsycINFO, Medline, and PubMed. Searching key words were Asians, Asian-Americans, weight perception, and parents. The review revealed that all eight studies identified child weight misperception, but with highly varying results (ranging from 29.7 to 89.2%). Factors that influenced the accuracy of a parent's child weight perception included maternal BMI, parental gender and age, child's BMI, child's own weight perception, child's gender and age, and child's birth order and birth weight. Misperception about their children's weight is prevalent among Asian parents. Anthropometric measurement of a child, rather than a parent's reporting of a child's weight, should be used to educate Asian parents regarding childhood obesity. Health care professionals should be aware of misperceptions when developing and providing a culturally appropriate intervention to address overweight/obesity among Asian children, which might include improving weight perception. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The present study examined authoritative parenting and associations with parenting sense of competence and social support in Chinese mothers of children with intellectual disability and mothers of typically developing children. One hundred and sixty-seven mothers of children with intellectual disability with a mean age of 10.89 years (SD = 1.74) and 119 mothers of typically developing children with a mean age of 10.55 years (SD = 1.10) participated in a survey. Mothers of children with intellectual disability reported similar levels of parental warmth, and less use of reasoning and autonomy support compared with mothers of typically developing children. Parenting efficacy contributed uniquely to three dimensions of authoritative parenting for mothers of children with intellectual disability. By comparison, parenting efficacy did not contribute to use of reasoning and autonomy support for mothers of typically developing children. Social support made a unique but small contribution to parental warmth but not to parental reasoning and autonomy support for mothers of children with intellectual disability. For mothers of typically developing children, social support was associated with both parental warmth and autonomy support. This study suggests that child disability status is related to maternal authoritative parenting, and additionally, parenting efficacy plays a more critical role in predicting authoritative parenting of Chinese mothers of children with intellectual disability than mothers of typically developing children. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Parents' aspirations shape children's development. In this study, over 6700 pregnant women and over 4300 of their partners from the Growing Up in New Zealand cohort responded to a question about their hopes, dreams, and expectations for their unborn children. Responses were coded according to a Maslowian hierarchy of needs. Mothers and their partners predominantly mentioned self-actualization and physiological aspirations for their unborn children, but their responses varied as a function of parental ethnicity and level of educational achievement and less so as a function of socioeconomic status. Mothers of European ethnicity, and parents with higher levels of educational achievement, mentioned more aspirations for their children-especially for self-actualization and belonging-than mothers of non-European ethnicity and parents with lower levels of educational achievement. These findings are discussed with respect to Maslowian theory and cultural developmental theories, and in terms of understanding the aspirations of parents from diverse backgrounds. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A growing body of literature links particular parenting practices with negative child outcomes including greater anxiety symptoms among western societies. However, the effects of cultural differences on such linkages have not been adequately addressed in the anxiety literature. This study therefore aimed to examine the relationship between perceived parenting style and anxiety among Malay, Chinese, Indian, Arab and European/American (Caucasian) origins adolescents and the possible cultural group influences on this relationship was studied. Using multiple cluster sampling, a total of 227 students (122 boys and 105 girls) aged 13-18 years was selected. They completed questionnaires measuring parental rearing behaviors (EMBU-C) and anxiety symptoms scale (SCAS). Results indicated that in comparison to the European/American; Asian samples reported greater anxiety symptoms on all subscales of anxiety. Parental rejection, anxious rearing and control/over protection were correlated to higher anxiety independent of cultural group but these associations were stronger for Caucasians. Parenting styles as predictor of anxiety were found to be cross culturally different. Although European/American adolescents rated their parents as least over controlling, it was significant predictor of anxiety. This study provides evidence for the notion that relationship between parenting factors and anxiety were different across cultural contexts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Misdiagnoses of racial/ethnic minority youth's mental health problems can potentially contribute to inappropriate mental health care. Therefore, we conducted a systematic review that focuses on current theory and empirical research in an attempt to answer the following two questions: (1) What evidence exists that supports or contradicts the idea that racial/ethnic minority youth's mental health problems are misdiagnosed? (2) What are the sources of misdiagnoses? Articles were reviewed from 1967 to 2014 using PsychINFO, PubMed, and GoogleScholar. Search terms included 'race', 'ethnicity', 'minority', 'culture', 'children', 'youth', 'adolescents', 'mental health', 'psychopathology', 'diagnosis', 'misdiagnosis', 'miscategorization', 'underdiagnosis', and 'overdiagnosis'. Seventy-two articles and book chapters met criteria and were included in this review. Overall, evidence was found that supports the possibility of misdiagnosis of ethnic minority youth's emotional and behavioral problems. However, the evidence is limited such that it cannot be determined whether racial/ethnic differences are due to differences in psychopathology, mental health biases, and/or inaccurate diagnoses. Cultural and contextual factors that may influence misdiagnosis as well as recommendations for research and practice are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Early alcohol abuse is related to negative outcomes that can persist into adulthood. Family cohesion is often associated with the development of emotional distress and alcohol use, while emotional distress is suggested as the most problematic motivation for alcohol use. Using the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health (Add Health), this study explored the relationship between family cohesion, emotional distress, and adolescent alcohol use for N = 6,504 adolescents. Results indicated emotional distress as indirectly related to adolescent alcohol use through family cohesion, supporting family systems theory in considering the development of alcohol use in adolescence. A multiple sample analysis indicated gender differences in the model, such that family cohesion was more strongly related to female adolescents' reported emotional distress, while emotional distress was more strongly related to males' reported problems related to alcohol use. These findings support the need to consider not only how an adolescent's emotional state is related to their problematic behavior, but also how that could be representative of the parent-child relationship, and an indicator of the health of the family system. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Asian Indian immigrant parents of children with intellectual and developmental disabilities (IDD) have unique experiences and challenges grounded within their cultural contexts and migration to United States. This study sought to describe these experiences using qualitative method. Open-ended interviews were individually conducted with 15 Asian Indian parents (8 mothers, 7 fathers) whose children were diagnosed with Down Syndrome, Autistic Disorder, or Pervasive Developmental Disorder- Not Otherwise Specified. Qualitative analysis generated 16 themes that were grouped into five domains: Cultural explanations, community response, and migration; impact on the self and family; sources of stress and support; a unique parenting approach; and hopes and fears for the future. In particular, parents described their local community's initial struggles with acceptance of IDD grounded within religious explanations of the disability. Similar to parents of children with IDD from other cultural groups, these parents described family support, broader social awareness and acceptance, and access to resources as sources of support and the lack of these factors as contributing to stress. A unique parenting approach emerged in reference to the child with IDD that included adjusting academic aspirations for the child, taking a practical, '1 day at a time' approach, and efforts to pass on cultural heritage. Parents voiced concerns about the future care of their child when they would not be around, as well as their hopes. These findings suggest the importance of attending to cultural meanings and local contexts when understanding parenting experiences. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Using Conservation of Resources Theory (COR), the current study examined the relationship between exposure to trauma, resources, and behavioral health in a prospective longitudinal cohort of youth in a public behavioral health system. The sample includes 303 youth, aged 5-19, who had received 6 months of treatment-as-usual in an urban, diverse public behavioral health system, and who had experienced at least one type of trauma. Youth entered treatment with an average of four types of trauma and five accessible resources. Consistent with COR, multivariate regression model results showed that both lifetime exposure to trauma and youth resources were significantly associated with behavioral health needs, upon entry to treatment and after 6 months of treatment. Losing resources over 6 months of treatment was associated with greater behavioral health needs, while maintaining or gaining resources over 6 months of treatment was associated with fewer behavioral health needs. This study highlights the need to explore resource gain and resource loss among clients with trauma exposure receiving services in a public system, further test COR-related hypotheses in treatment settings, and develop applicable, multi-level interventions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Extensive evidence links youth mental health to family functioning, highlighting the need to document causal pathways. This will require longitudinal studies, but traditional methods for longitudinal clinical research have several limitations, including high cost and resource demands, underrepresentation of fathers, and attrition bias. We tested whether an online alternative might address limitations of-and thus provide a useful complement to-traditional methods. We used the Mechanical Turk (MTurk) survey program to obtain reports from parents (N = 177) on family functioning, the parents' own symptoms, their children's behavioral and emotional problems, and parenting stress, with assessments in three consecutive months. Parents provided largely high-quality data (e.g., passed consistency checks); measures showed acceptable psychometrics at each time-point; and correlations among study measures paralleled those observed in prior research. Compared to prior studies using traditional longitudinal methods, the MTurk method was (a) much lower in cost and resource requirements, (b) successful in enrolling fathers, (c) comparable in participant attrition, and (c) similar in attrition bias, participant race/ethnicity, and enrollment of single parents. Overall, findings suggest that MTurk is a viable tool with its own set of strengths and limitations, and a potentially useful complement to traditional longitudinal methods. In particular, MTurk might be a cost-effective first step in generating causal hypotheses about family processes and youth mental health, for later testing via more traditional methods. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although exposure to community violence and parental involvement have been previously found to independently predict aggressive behaviors, the interaction effect is less clear. Additionally, unique associations between exposure to community violence and reactive and proactive aggression, two widely-studied forms of aggression, in the context of parental involvement has yet to be examined. One population that may be of particular interest for such an investigation is immigrant adolescents, a population at increased risk of experiencing community violence and developing aggression. The current study therefore examined the joint and interactive contribution of community violence and parental involvement in the explanation of reactive and proactive forms of aggression among 81 immigrant adolescents ( M = 15.44). As expected, exposure to community violence was positively associated with both reactive and proactive aggression. Parental involvement, however, was not associated with either form of aggression. Further, the association between exposure to community violence and proactive aggression was found to vary by level of parental involvement. Contrary to expectations, when levels of parental involvement were high, there was a positive association between exposure to community violence and proactive aggression and no association when levels of parental involvement were low. Results have important implications for understanding unique developmental pathways and distinct correlates of reactive and proactive aggression among immigrant adolescents. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The relationship between parental depressive symptoms and children's school-readiness has been well-established. However, contextual factors that may transmit the negative influence of parents' depressive symptoms on children has less been studied. The current study examined household chaos, the level of crowdedness, disorganization, noise, and lack of routine at home as a mediating factor between parental depressive symptoms and children's school-readiness. The data came from 444 preschool-aged children (36-70 months old). Parents and teachers reported on children's socio-emotional development and children were directly assessed on literacy, math, and behavioral self-regulation. Structural equation modeling was used to test the indirect association, using the bootstrapping technique. Results revealed that parents' depressive symptoms were significantly associated with their report of household chaos, which in turn was significantly related with children's cognitive skills, mother-reported socio-emotional development, and behavioral self-regulation. Test of indirect effects showed that household chaos had significant indirect effect only between parental depressive symptoms and mother-reported social skills. The negative association between depressive symptoms and child outcomes were statistically significant regardless of the level of household chaos. The results of the study reveal that parents who have depressive symptoms may elicit more chaotic home environments, which affects their children's socio-emotional development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study integrated two views on parents' narratives regarding their child, the psychiatric model of expressed emotion (EE) and the attachment model of narrative coherence (NC), to examine common and unique associations of maternal EE and NC with preschoolers' behavior problems across families from varied ethnicities. The five minute speech samples (FMSSs) of 212 Hispanic (59.9 %), Black (18.9 %), and White (21.2 %) mothers were evaluated using Magana-Amato (Manual for coding expressed emotion from the five minute speech sample: UCLA family project, UCLA, Los Angeles, ) FMSS-EE coding protocol and a novel FMSS-NC coding system. Preschoolers' behavior problems were assessed with both maternal and observer reports. Across ethnic groups, EE positive comments were related to mother-ratings of fewer behavior problems, whereas NC was associated with observer-ratings of fewer behavior problems. EE negative comments were associated with mother-ratings of more behavior problems, but only among White and Black mothers and not among Hispanic mothers. These findings illustrate the merits of integrating semantic and organizational dimensions of mothers' narratives to understand children's behavioral adjustment. Implications for research and practice are discussed with an emphasis on applications for developmentally and culturally sensitive work with families of preschoolers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This field intervention trial evaluated the effect of a 5-week mindfulness-based curriculum on teacher-ratings of student classroom behavior at a Richmond, CA public elementary school, and examined if the addition of more sessions provided added benefit to student outcomes. Seventeen teachers reported on the classroom behaviors of 409 children (83 % enrolled in a California free lunch program and 95.7 % ethnic minority) in kindergarten through sixth grade at pre-intervention, immediate post-intervention, and 7 weeks post-intervention. Results showed that teachers reported improved classroom behavior of their students (i.e., paying attention, self-control, participation in activities, and caring/respect for others) that lasted up to 7 weeks post-intervention. Overall, improvements were not bolstered by the addition of extra sessions, with the exception of paying attention. The implications of this study are limited due to the lack of a mindfulness program-naïve control group, yet findings suggest that mindfulness training might benefit teacher-based perceptions of improved classroom behavior in a public elementary school, which has practice implications for improving the classroom learning environment for lower-income and ethnically-diverse children. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Benefits and drawbacks of parental control exercised in relation to adolescents continue to be debated in socialization research with greater emphasis being placed on the benefits of parental autonomy-granting than parental control. We examined the relations between maternal and paternal control and parent-adolescent conflict frequency and intensity as well as parental knowledge of adolescent activities and adolescents' disclosure of their activities to parents. Adolescents in grades 10 and 12 were interviewed about parenting practices their parents employed when regulating 18 adolescent activities. Thirty-seven parenting practices emerged from which authoritarian, directive, authoritative, democratic, and unengaged parenting clusters were derived. Adolescents whose mothers and fathers were classified as directive or authoritative reported less conflict with parents, more disclosure to parents, and more parental knowledge than adolescents whose mothers and fathers were classified as authoritarian. Coercive control practices of authoritarian parents as well as nondemanding practices of unengaged parents and to some extent of democratic parents were related to more negative parent-child relationship indicators than was the extensive use of firm/confrontive control (rational-demanding) by directive parents or authoritative parents. Evidence herein supports the conclusion that even for middle and late adolescents, parental control that is rational and firm is related to beneficial parent-child relationship qualities. Therefore, practitioners should underscore the importance of continued parental control during adolescence not just of autonomy-granting. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Pacific peoples represent one of the fastest growing population subgroups in New Zealand and suffer disproportionately from diabetes, obesity, and other diseases. There is little research on the predictors of behavioral problems in Pacific children or the role that cultural variables play in shaping the unique environments in which child development occurs This study aims to examine the: (1) prevalence of behavior problems at 2, 4, and 6 years-of-age among Pacific children, and (2) relationships between maternal, cultural, and socio-demographic factors and behavioral problems. Data were gathered from the Pacific Islands Families Study. Maternal reports of child behavior were obtained using the Child Behavior Checklist for over 1000 Pacific children. The prevalence of clinical internalizing problems at ages 2, 4, and 6 years was 16.8, 22 and 8.5%, and clinical externalizing was 6.7, 10.7, and 14.6% respectively. Significant risk factors associated with clinical internalizing were maternal depression, maternal smoking, intimate partner violence, and having a single mother. Significant risk factors for clinical externalizing were harsh parenting, maternal depression, having a New Zealand born mother, and low household income. Across dimensions, a protective factor was found for children with mothers who described themselves as strongly aligned with Pacific traditions. These findings contribute to the limited longitudinal data specific to children from different ethnic groups and demonstrate the importance of cultural factors in developmental outcomes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]