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This paper's thesis is that many adolescent problems, particularly those involving sex, can be strikingly reduced or eliminated by intelligent, rationally planned parental management beginning at birth. Among the principal features of desirable parental management, the paper stresses effective parent-child communication. Of approximately 1,500 couples who received routine medical and psychological preparation for marriage over a period of 35 years, approximately 500 remained under continuing counsel and observation after their children came for premarital service. Thus conclusions could be drawn as to how effective she parents had been in preparing their children for adolescence and for marriage, and what type of parental management reduces problems of adolescence and increases capability for successful marriage. Young people' demand for earlier marriage is seen as acceptable when they have matured under improved standards of democratic process and sex education in the family. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents a study which identifies factors associated with singlehood in males and females. The authors argue that a lot of research has been conducted into the psychological sequelae that lead to singlehood, however factors from childhood can also account for this status. The findings support the hypothesis that higher levels of intelligence, education, and career status account for singlehood in females. Males, it was found, are more likely to remain single if they possess poor interpersonal relationships with parents or siblings.

Students at a large university, a small, church-related college, and a theological seminary were surveyed for the purpose of identifying familial factors which might account for "hawkish" attitudes toward war, under the assumption that some parents, as socialization agents, transmit pro-war attitudes to the young. In general, the data intimated that pro-war students were more frequently from lower-class and rural origins; from families which held conservative values and stressed conformity in parent-child relationships; and thus apparently from families which have accepted more traditional solutions in problem-solving. The data supported both the theories of "status politics" and the "authoritarian personality." [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this study an attempt was made to replicate an earlier study and to determine whether variability among published findings on adjusting to the first child may be due in part to the use of different measuring instruments. An effort was also made to test the hypothesis that the amount of difficulty in adjusting to the first child was positively correlated with the child's age and to ascertain whether difficulty with the first child was negatively correlated with parents' marital adjustment scores. The replication confirmed that parenthood was not as severely stressful as earlier studies had suggested. Findings varied considerably when two indexes were used with the same research subjects, but checklist scores and interview ratings were correlated to- a statistically significant degree. The amount of difficulty in adjusting to the first infant and parents' marital adjustment scores were negatively correlated to a statistically significant degree for checklist scores but not for ratings of interviews. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]