‘Sins of our fathers’: The lived experiences of children and young people with a parent in prison

In this study I have explored first-person stories of young people, parents and healthcare professionals about their experiences of living and working with medically unexplained physical symptoms (MUPS). MUPS claims large amounts of healthcare professionals’ time and technological resources in primary and secondary healthcare. As a consequence there has been an increasing amount of research interest in MUPS sufferers in recent years. However, few studies have explored the experience of MUPS sufferers from a social constructionist, dialogical and narrative epistemological standpoint. A cross-disciplinary review of the literature on MUPS revealed the experiences of young people and their families to be similar to those with a diagnosis of chronic illness and their families. A dearth of qualitative studies have explored the first-person accounts of young people, their parents, and healthcare professionals who live and work with the condition. Research aims were generated following the review of the literature: To explore the meanings that young people, their parents and healthcare professionals attach to their experience of MUPS in the absence of a medical diagnosis. To explore stories constructed from these experiences by young people, their parents, and healthcare professionals about the impact of MUPS upon identity and significant relationships. To discover the discourses and narrative templates that inform healthcare professionals’ practice with young people and their families who live with MUPS. To identify cultural and institutional discourses and narrative templates from focus group members’ stories of experience; that position or marginalise MUPS sufferers and their families. The focus group method was chosen for data collection. Seven focus groups were held in a Paediatric Liaison Department (PLS) in a Regional Hospital in the East Midlands, U.K. Young people and parents were recruited to the focus groups from historical casework of the PLS Department. Healthcare professionals were recruited from the hospital paediatric and PLS teams. The focus groups involved two groups for adolescents with MUPS and two groups of parents of adolescents with MUPS. Three other focus groups involved healthcare professionals who work with adolescents and their families with MUPS. The focus group discussions were videotaped and transcribed by the researcher and two forms of analysis were employed: Thematic Analysis (TA) and Dialogical Narrative Analysis (DNA). The two forms of analysis produced multiple literal themes and implicit stories abstracted from focus group members’ accounts. A major theme for young people and parents was their feelings of anger and frustration following the initial medical interview with their doctors. Young people and parents reported they were not only disbelieved by the doctor about the existence and severity of the symptoms, but the doctor attributed negative attributions about their presentation such as ‘You’re lazy’, ‘It’s psychosomatic’, ‘All in your head’, ‘Fussy parent’. Without a diagnosis concerns of the young people and their parents were not legitimised. Young people and parents lost confidence in medical institutions. Young people responded by withdrawal and increasing social isolation. Many parents took on the role of advocacy in an attempt to restore their child’s credibility and the family’s integrity. Some of the doctors interviewed spoke about the dearth of training in MUPS in both paediatrics and psychiatry. They suggest that managing MUPS patients can be very time-consuming for hard-pressed clinicians. Within the medical encounter they sometimes feel pressured or ambivalent about whether to continue to investigate despite previous negative results. Doctors also stated that MUPS patients can generate anxiety and uncertainty in clinicians. More main themes emerged including recognising MUPS as primarily ‘an idiom of distress’ and the shortcomings of the biomedical paradigm in addressing the problems and dilemmas of MUPS sufferers, their parents and healthcare professionals. In the Discussion Chapter I propose a model of training and CPD for healthcare professionals. The model proposes introducing a hermeneutic approach and open emotional postures to compliment the deductive role of the diagnosing physician. It is proposed that by accessing concepts from both the scientific and phenomenological paradigms healthcare professionals will reduce the possibility of incongruence and potential for impasse within the physician- patient relationship. In the conclusion of the report a number of recommendations are given based upon the outcomes of the study to introduce the benefits for professionals in adding theoretical concepts from systemic family psychotherapy, dialogical and narrative theory to inform and promote a hermeneutic discursive centred practice with MUPS sufferers and their families.

Experiences and outcomes of prevention and early intervention programs for young people of parents with a mental illness

This Commentary addresses how the legal rights of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) children affect child custody disputes. The legal standard for determining child custody is the “best interests of the child” standard. This standard is subjective and highly discretionary. In cases concerning LGBT youth, judges must ultimately rely upon their own, possibly skewed conception of sexual orientation and gender identity and expression. Absent a strong assertion of the child’s rights, a judge could decide that being LGBT is undesirable and place the child with a parent who would discourage the child from growing into an LGBT adult. To guide judges in their decision, this Commentary argues that, under Lawrence v. Texas, an LGBT youth possesses the constitutional right to be treated with respect equal to that afforded straight or cisgender youth in regards to their sexual orientation or gender identity and expression. After Lawrence, a judge may not consider becoming an LGBT adult as an undesirable outcome for a child in a child custody determination. Although the LGBT youth’s minority permits the state and parents to limit the youth’s rights in certain ways, there is no interest of sufficient weight to override the youth’s rights under Lawrence. In practice, the youth’s rights weigh in favor of placing an LGBT youth with the parent most capable of helping the youth develop into a healthy, autonomous LGBT adult. INTRODUCTION 172 † University of Iowa College of Law, J.D. 2012. Endless thanks to my editor Sara Carian for her invaluable insights, thoughtful contributions, and hard work. Thanks also to my editors at the University of Iowa Journal of Gender, Race and Justice: Libby Skarin and Justin Randal; to Professors Ann Estin and Todd Pettys; to my mentor Joonna Trapp; and of course to my wonderful wife Tracey and my parents Kirk and Julie for their love and support. COMMENTARY HULSTEIN051212 (DO NOT DELETE) 6/22/2012 3:51 PM 172 BERKELEY JOURNAL OF GENDER, LAW & JUSTICE I. LGBT YOUTH AND THE INSUFFICIENCY OF THE “BEST INTERESTS OF THE CHILD” STANDARD 175 A. Who Are LGBT Youth? 175 B. Child Custody Proceedings and the “Best Interests of the Child” Standard 178 C. LGBT Youth and the Insufficiency of the Traditional “Best Interests” Standard 180 II. PROTECTING AN LGBT YOUTH’S RIGHTS IN CHILD CUSTODY PROCEEDINGS182 A. The Substantive Due Process Rights of an LGBT Youth 182 B. The Substantive Due Process Rights of an LGBT Minor Specifically 184 C. The Substantive Due Process Rights of an LGBT Youth and the “Best Interests of the Child” Standard 188 1. The Substantive Due Process Rights of a Lesbian, Gay, or Bisexual (“LGB”) Youth and the Best Interests Standard ......... 189 2. The Substantive Due Process Rights of a Transgender Youth and the Best Interests Standard 190 II. THE RIGHTS OF THE PARENT WHO OBJECTS TO HER CHILD’S SEXUALITY OR GENDER 192 A. Parental Rights Generally 193 B. Parental Rights in Child Custody Disputes Involving LGBT Youth 195 CONCLUSORY REMARKS AND RECOMMENDATIONS TO JUDGES AND ATTORNEYS CONCERNING LGBT YOUTH IN CUSTODY PROCEEDINGS 196

The stories behind stories: Reflections on the role of voice in research with unaccompanied refugee youth

Background: It is well established that, until recently, the educational needs of adopted and permanently placed young people have historically been ignored in both research and in national legislation. A large percentage of these individuals will have faced adverse early childhood experiences which can impact on their social and emotional development and engagement with learning. Whilst the transition to secondary school is considered a challenging time for all children and young people, this experience has the potential to be increasingly challenging for adopted young people owing to their possible social, emotional and academic difficulties. Although much research has been carried out concerning adopted pupils in education, the views and perspectives of adopted young people are often missing. Current research: This small scale qualitative study utilised elements of a participatory design. Adopted young people in Year 9 of mainstream secondary school were involved in key decisions regarding the research question and data collection techniques. Semi-structured interviews were then conducted with three adopted young people in Year 7 of mainstream secondary school and two adoptive parents to gather data on their experiences of starting secondary education. Transcripts were analysed using interpretative phenomenological analysis. Key findings and implications: Key themes which arose across Year 7 and parent participants included ‘Anxiety’, ‘Managing the Self’, ‘Attachment’ and ‘Adoptive Identity’ with the individual accounts being distinctive and subjective as a result of individual experiences. The study provides key implications for secondary schools to develop cultures which recognise and understand the possible needs of adopted young people as well as implement proactive forms of support. The importance of building positive relationships between the home and school systems is also implicated. Owing to their role across both primary and secondary schools as well as with wider professional and community groups, Educational Psychologists are well-placed to enhance the support provided for adoptive families when beginning secondary education.

This study examined the extent to which dimensions of parenting style influence identity formation among the youths in a changing society such as Nigeria. 345 youths (15-24 year olds) who were randomly selected completed the questionnaire which measured parenting style and identity formation. 2x2x2 Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) and t-test for independent measures were used to test the hypotheses for the study. Findings reveal that identity formation is high with low parental demandingness, low autonomy and high parental responsiveness. Identity formation is low, with low parental demandingness, low autonomy and low responsiveness. Furthermore, youths in private schools scored higher on identity formation scale than youths in public schools. Conclusively, parental responsiveness and socioeconomic status were found to be key factors in identity formation of Nigerian youths. This has implication for parenting of youths and behavioural outcome. Policy makers and other stakeholders should focus more on families rather than individuals to promote parenting styles that enhance identity formation. Parents should support strategies that promote identity formation, such as providing opportunities to instill confidence and expectations that family members will do their best in difficult situations. African Journal for Psychological Study of Social Issues Vol. 8(1) 2005: 154-171

The person-centred review (PCR) is a model for the review of a young person’s special educational needs (SEN), advocated for use at transition. The young person and their family are placed at the centre of the process, which adopts principles relating to humanistic and positive psychology, and utilises visual strategies for information sharing and planning. This exploratory study investigated the views of 16 students with SEN, and their parents/carers. A mixed-methods design was employed. The views of the participants were gathered through semi-structured interviews as the dominant qualitative method. A thematic analysis was conducted separately for parents and young people. Quantitative data were gathered from the young people before and after their PCR to explore changes in the young people’s locus of control, feelings of positivity towards school and motivation. The findings indicate that the PCR is a constructive and reassuring process for parents and young people. Parents shared views on the wealth of detailed information shared openly and honestly within a relaxed and informal, yet organised and structured process. Parents and young people felt they had contributed to the process as equal partners, feeling their voices were heard. Child-friendly strategies ensured the young people could access the meeting, although some parents felt that the meeting was too long and parts were not understood by the child. The young people were generally positive about the process, although many felt daunted beforehand, possibly due to a lack of preparation. No change was found in the young people’s locus of control or feelings of motivation. Many young people indicated higher ratings of positivity towards school following the PCR. Implications for schools and education professionals are outlined, highlighting the role of the Educational Psychologist in facilitating PCRs, delivering facilitator training, and promoting meaningful pupil and parent participation.

Cognitive-behavioural (CB) theories that explain Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD) have largely focused on the role of maladaptive belief biases as drivers of the individual’s experience of anxiety or distress, pathological avoidance behaviours and compulsions. One potential limitation of current CB models is the limited focus on the extent to which deficits in emotion regulation (ER) may account for a reliance on maladaptive regulatory processes (avoidance and neutralising compulsions), which also serve to maintain OCD symptomatology. Recently, researchers have begun to examine the potential role of ER in adult and paediatric OCD. However, of the limited number of studies completed to date most have utilised community rather than clinical samples and there are even fewer studies involving youth with OCD. Moreover, there are no studies to date examining the role of ER strategies in cognitive-behavioural treatment of paediatric OCD. Accordingly, this thesis aimed to elucidate the role of ER in OCD symptom expression and treatment by using a combination of self- and parent-report measures of ER to examine the relationship between ER, symptoms and associations with treatment response in relatively large, well-defined clinical samples of children and youth with a primary diagnosis of OCD. These studies represent the most comprehensive examination of the role of ER in paediatric OCD to date, and aim to inform current theoretical models of OCD, as well as inform treatment advances. The first study of this PhD explored whether youth with OCD who experience deficits in emotional control (as indexed by parental report on the Behaviour Rating Inventory of Executive Function, n = 137) differed in their OCD symptom expression, comorbidity and response to evidence-based treatment, relative to youth with OCD who had greater emotional control (n = 68). The findings indicated that those lower on emotional control (n = 69) had significantly greater OCD severity, famil y accommodation, internalising and externalising symptoms, an d were less likely to respond favourably to treatment. The second study involved a clinical sample of 72 youth (aged 7 to 17 years) with a primary diagnosis of OCD and examined self-reported parent perceptions of child ER and associations with family accommodation (FA), as well as explored potential child and parent variables that predicted negative parental perception of child ER ability. The findings of this study revealed that child externalising symptoms and parental depression uniquely predicted negative parental perception of their child’s ER ability. Furthermore, while negative parental perception of child ER was moderately and positively correlated with FA, it was not found to be a unique predictor of FA after controlling for previously established predictors. The third and final study built on the findings of the first study by examining a wide range of specific adaptive and maladaptive ER strategies among youth with a primary diagnosis of OCD (n = 65, aged 7 to 17 years), both before and after treatment, and the degree to which changes in ER strategies following intensive cognitive-behavioural treatment predicted a treatment response at post-treatment and three months following treatment. The findings of this final study indicated significant improvements in four adaptive and five maladaptive ER strategies. Additionally, pre- to post-treatment increases in Acceptance and decreases in Suppression were significant unique predictors of OCD severity at post-treatment, and increases in Acceptance and decreases in Self-Blame were significant unique predictors of OCD severity 3 months following treatment. Taken together, the findings from the three empirical studies reported herein indicate that deficits in ER form a part of the clinical picture of OCD in youth and may be associated with several clinical correlates known to be associated with a poorer treatment response. For instance, deficits in ER are associated with greater externalising symptoms in youth with OCD, and together with parental self-reported depression may be associated with parents having more negative perceptions of their child’s ability to regulate their emotions. Furthermore, given that Acceptance was found to be a particularly strong predictor of favourable treatment response over time, emphasising Acceptance in evidence-based cognitive-behavioural treatment for OCD or augmenting such treatments with an ER training component may potentially enhance the efficacy of evidence-based treatments and ultimately improve treatment response.

Listen to Our Voices! Hearing Children and Young People Living in the Care of the State

In western countries such as Australia, the U.S. and the U.K., the women’s prison population has increased exponentially over the past decade, far outstripping the rate of growth in male imprisonment. The majority of women in prison are the mothers of dependent children. Subsequently, increasing numbers of children are being separated from their mothers; many displaced from home and effectively left parentless. Despite a growing body of knowledge since the 1960s, and growing numbers of children affected, little is known about these children, particularly older children and adolescents. This study examines the impact of maternal imprisonment on 20 young people, aged between 10 and 18 years, whose mothers were incarcerated in the two women’s prisons in Victoria (Australia). Data was gathered directly from young people themselves, as well as from their mothers and a small cohort of professionals, after the mother’s release from prison. To answer the research question, the study sought retrospective and predominantly qualitative data on children’s lives before, during and after their mother’s imprisonment. The data was analysed in a variety of ways, initially through the development of case studies and then across cases using thematic content analysis, drawing on themes emerging from the data and a priori categories gleaned from earlier research. The study shows that maternal incarceration has a significant impact on the lives of adolescents, and that it is uncommon for children to have secure care arrangements in place at the time of their mother’s imprisonment. For children to be displaced from home is also common, although most maintain some contact with their mother over the course of her imprisonment. While the majority of children return home to live with their mother, this is largely influenced by the child’s pre-prison placement and their visiting patterns during the imprisonment. Interestingly, although many young people are not satisfied with their care arrangements, particularly those who are cared for by their fathers, and cope with difficulties by internalising them, most do not report persistent adverse effects. The study provides new and challenging ideas. It describes the important role played by care planning in children’s reaction to maternal incarceration; this has not previously been examined. The findings also illustrate the poor coping mechanisms employed by children and discuss the range of social factors which affect this coping. Finally, factors influential in actual family reunifications are described and examined; very few studies, and none in Australia, have previously sought this data. The study provides a description of family reunification pathways, and highlights the importance of pre-prison placement and children’s visiting. The study findings stress that the impact of a mother’s imprisonment begins before sentencing and continues beyond her release. Yet research to date has focused predominantly on the period of a mother’s imprisonment. Overall, the study finds that limited formal or informal attention is given by adults involved to children’s needs. They are little seen or acknowledged at any point during their mother’s contact with the adult criminal justice process. From her arrest, through sentencing, imprisonment and planning for release, they are not considered to be participants in the proceedings.

Reviewed by: Histories, Memories and Representations of Being Young in the First World War ed. by Maggie Andrews, N. C. Fleming, and Marcus Morris Ashley Henrickson Histories, Memories and Representations of Being Young in the First World War. Edited by Maggie Andrews, N. C. Fleming, and Marcus Morris. Cham: Palgrave Macmillan, 2020. xiii + 257 pp. Hardcover $119.99, paper $84.99. Histories, Memories and Representations of Being Young in the First World War explores the experiences of young people during the war and how the conflict has been presented to young people in the century that followed. The edited collection was developed from a 2015 conference at Manchester Metropolitan University titled "Being Young in World War One." Editors Maggie Andrews, N. C. Fleming, and Marcus Morris have broadly defined both children and youth (including people up to the age of twenty) and welcomed essays that explore the diverse perspectives and experiences of young people. The editors aptly note that the collection does not and cannot cover the entirety of young people's experiences; however, the contributors should be commended for putting a notable dent in the historiography. The chapters cover many different topics, including children's and young people's experiences in education, the workplace, and organizations like the Navy League. Examining such a breadth of topics inevitably means that the authors describe numerous and sometimes contradictory wartime experiences. For example, in her chapter, Ruth Percy suggests that young, working-class women viewed the war as a time of opportunity rather than a time of loss and sorrow. Conversely, Melanie Tebbutt describes how young people often found refuge from the sadness of war in darkened movie theatres. Marcus Morris illustrates yet another unique experience by drawing attention to the desires of some young women to subvert gender norms and fight on the front lines. These varied descriptions of young people's experiences may appear inconsistent, but as Maggie Andrews, Hayley Carter, Lisa Cox-Davies, and Anna Muggeridge explain in their chapter, "there were numerous home fronts just as there were numerous battlefronts," and furthermore, "a national narrative of the conflict, even in relation to children, is not the national narrative" (55). By highlighting a variety of perspectives, this edited collection embraces the inevitable complexity of wartime and childhood. [End Page 441] The collection works to center the experiences of children and young people in a field where their experiences are often studied only in relation to other histories. In doing so, the authors demonstrate how the history of childhood helps paint a more complete picture of the past. For example, by focusing on the experiences of urban children, Rebecca Ball's chapter challenges the belief that the home front was a predominantly female space and questions the assumption that relationships between civilians and soldiers were largely defined by separation. The latter half of the collection examines contemporary understandings of the war and children's place within it, along with ways that the war was presented to later generations. Jane Rosen considers how children's novels produced over the past four decades preserve myths about the war in an attempt to tell morally instructive tales. Sam Edwards discusses how the war has been portrayed and commemorated through television. The collection concludes with a fascinating chapter by Maggie Andrews that will interest both academic and public historians. Andrews reviews the numerous accommodations that were undertaken to make the centennial commemorations of the First World War palatable for consumption by young people in the United Kingdom. She outlines the various political, historiographic, and economic factors that shaped and ultimately limited the histories of the war that were shared with young people. Overall, this collection provides a wealth of insight into the experiences of young people in World War I. Melanie Tebbutt's analysis of how children experienced the darkened space of the cinemas is especially innovative. As a whole, the book demonstrates that growing up during a time of conflict had enormous effects on young people's lives; however, these effects were diverse and sometimes contradictory. Ashley Henrickson Know History Inc. Copyright © 2022 Johns Hopkins University Press

There is abundant evidence supporting the importance of accepting and autonomy-supportive parenting rather than rejecting and autonomy-restrictive or controlling parenting for development. This is especially relevant for adolescent and young adult (youth) adaptive development, including the development of relational schemas, coping skills and emotional health. Moreover, the impact of the quality of parent-child (and other) relationships on youth’s emotional health has been described as mediated via relational schemas, with schemas defined as beliefs, biases, and expectations that arise out of social experiences. For example, rejection sensitivity (RS) theory (Downey & Feldman, 1996) is one influential perspective that explicitly identifies how social experiences of rejection, victimisation, or isolation gives rise to a cognitive-affective bias of anxious expectation, biased perceptions, and defensive overreactions to ambiguous or overt cues of rejection. These cognitive affective biases in turn, are implicated in the development and maintenance of negative outcomes, such as internalising symptoms. However, components of this model, when applied to older adolescents and young adults, have rarely examined the mechanisms that help account for the associations of parental experiences, RS, and internalising symptoms. To this end, the aim of the four empirical studies conducted for this thesis was to apply the RS framework to test a model that specifically accounts for how interpersonal experiences (in the form of parenting behaviours), biased perceptions and beliefs regarding interpersonal exchanges (i.e., RS), and intrapersonal vulnerabilities (i.e., maladaptive socio-emotional responses) all play roles in elevated internalising symptoms for older adolescents and young adults. A parallel aim was to identify protective factors (i.e., cognitive reappraisal and coping flexibility) that may modify the risk of these interpersonal and intrapersonal factors for older adolescents and young adults. To achieve these aims, the four studies utilized either cross-sectional or two waves of longitudinal data collected from older adolescents and young adults over a 1-year period. Study 1 tested a comprehensive RS-model among a sample of 628 older adolescents and young adults. Structural equation models (SEMs) were used to identify serial-mediation pathways of risk stemming from parenting practices and RS onto higher depressive and anxious symptoms. Study 2 examined the temporal risk that RS plays for increased internalising symptoms over a one-year time span via heightened emotional dysregulation, expressive suppression, and social avoidance among 402 longitudinal participants from Study 1. Further, in Study 2, bi-directional relations between socio-emotional responses and internalising symptoms were tested, with results supporting bi-directional associations over time. Study 3 drew upon the cross-sectional sample from Study 1 (N = 643) to examine the moderating effects of three related, but distinct, components of the self-perceived capacity for flexibly coping with stress (i.e., multiple coping strategy use, situational coping, and coping rigidity). More specifically, these three capacities were examined as potential moderators of the relations between several regulatory strategies (emotion dysregulation, suppression, social avoidance, and cognitive reappraisal) and internalising symptoms. Finally, making use of the longitudinal sample, Study 4 (N = 394) examined the moderating effects of cognitive reappraisal and coping flexibility (i.e., multiple coping strategy use) on the concurrent and temporal associations of parenting, RS, and internalising symptoms over a 1-year period. Altogether, three general conclusions from these studies are described. First, though parenting practices are correlates of youths’ internalising symptoms, it is RS that is the most salient risk of symptoms over time. Second, emotional dysregulation, suppression, and social avoidance are key mechanisms that independently confer risk for more elevated symptoms and partially account for the increased risk of elevated perceptions of RS and greater symptoms over time. Additionally, cognitive reppraisal played a unique and buffering role in cross-sectional associations. Third, coping flexibility appears to be an important resource for youth, but further research is needed to examine the interplay of flexible coping capacities with parenting, ER, ways of coping, and internalising symptoms among youth. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed, along with recommendations for future research. Taken together, the current research identifies multiple interpersonal and intrapersonal risk and protective factors that are relevant for understanding increases in internalising symptomology during late adolescence and young adulthood. Furthermore, these factors, in particular, could be targeted as avenues for intervention to help youth cope with interpersonal stressors of rejecting and autonomy-restrictive parenting and RS.

The Add Health Parent Study or Parents (2015-2017), gathered social, behavioral, and health survey data in 2015-2017 on a probability sample of the parents of Add Health sample members who were originally interviewed at Wave I (1994-1995). Data for 966 Wave I Parents, ranging in age from 50-80 years and representing 988 Add Health sample members, are available in the Public-Use sample. Parents eligible for participation in this study were the biological parent, adoptive parent, or stepparent of an Add Health respondent at Wave I; not deceased or incarcerated at the time of Parents (2015-2017) sampling; and had at least one Add Health child who was also not deceased at the time of Parents (2015-2017) sampling. Spouse/Partner Interviews The Add Health Parent Study interview also gathered survey data on the current co-habiting Spouse or Partner of eligible parents who completed the interview. Four hundred eight-six (486) current Spouse/or Partner interviews are available in the Public-Use sample. Financial Respondent During the Wave I Parent interview, Wave I Parents who indicated having a Spouse or Partner were asked to identify whether they or their Spouse or Partner was most knowledgeable about household assets, debts and retirement planning. The person identified was flagged by the survey as the Financial Respondent. Only the Financial Respondent was asked to complete a more detailed set of questions on these topics. Family Health History A paper Family Health History (FHH) leave-behind questionnaire was given to each respondent (Wave I Parent and Spouse or Partner) at the end of the interview together with a self-addressed and stamped envelope. Health Histories for biological parents, siblings, aunts or uncles and grandparents are included in this FHH questionnaire. A total of 633 Wave I Parents and 316 Spouses or Partners, selected for inclusion in the Public-Use sample, completed and returned the FHH leave-behind questionnaire.

This paper examines the influence of children’s choices on parents’ purchasing decisions of high-technology products. Various demographic variables such as age, gender, race, family size and family type were considered to assess the significant impact of the magnitude of a child’s influence on his/her parent’s purchasing decisions during the ‘initiation’ and ‘search and decision’ phases. The study was conducted using two samples (youth and parent respondents) for each of the aforementioned phases. It was found that during the ‘initiation’ stage, the youth sample perceived gender and family structure to significantly affect the magnitude of influence that children wield over their parents when purchasing high-technology products. The sample from the parents group perceived gender, family structure and family type to significantly affect the magnitude of a child’s influence in this respect. Furthermore, during the ‘search and decision’ stage, the youth sample perceived gender, race, family type, child’s age, average age and family size to affect the magnitude of influence that children wield over their parents when purchasing high-technology products. Finally, the parent sample perceived race, income, family type, child’s age, average age and family size to significantly affect the magnitude of a child’s influence in this context. Keywords: Youth influence, parent decision making, high technology products, demographics, South Africa.

The rise of unintended pregnancies and transmission of STIs and HIV/AIDS among young people is a growing public health problem in Brazil. To design effective interventions, it is necessary to understand the sources that affect their sexuality. Research in developed countries suggests that parents are an important influence. Whether this is also the case in Brazil however, remains unknown as previous studies have largely ignored this question. This study aimed to explore parental influence on the sexual knowledge, attitudes, timing of first sex and contraceptive behaviour of young men and women in a low- income community of Brazil. Parental influence was investigated by focusing on eight factors: verbal sexual communication; parental sexual attitudes; quality of relationship with parents; parental control and other measures of non-verbal communication that have seldom been researched. 1077 young people aged 13-24 from two secondary schools completed a survey questionnaire and 8 focus groups and 138 in-depth interviews were held with young people and parents. Of the 8 parental factors investigated, 5 were related to one or more of the sexuality outcomes: Verbal sexual communication was related to all four outcomes; parental sexual attitudes to young people's own attitudes and the timing of first sex of males; quality of relationship with parents to the attitudes of females and timing of first sex of males; parental control to the sexual knowledge and condom use of young men and the timing of first sex of young women; father's non-verbal feelings towards sex-related scenes on TV was related to the attitudes of both genders and condom use of males. Similar patterns of influence also emerged from the in-depth interviews as did information about how the influences may operate. The results indicate that in the context studied, parents influence young people's sexuality and should be included in future interventions.