Difficult Children Research Articles

Das Dispositiv der Fürsorgeerziehung in Wien

The invention of a modern body politic stimulated human sciences like paediatrics, psychiatry and therapeutic pedagogy, anthropology, psychology and others. Studying the socio-cultural and the naked life they defined the normal and the abnormal, the ‘educable’ and the ‘non-educable’ child, the ‘worthy’ and the ‘unworthy’. This produced serious effects on children and their parents in cooperation with judicial and police authorities and the modern youth welfare which was started by the city council of Vienna round 1910. Psychiatrists and therapeutic pedagogues agreed on “difficult children” being medically treated. Psychoanalytic concepts of a non-violent education where not used at large scale in the city of Freud. The archipelago of municipal, confessional and private care homes was run to full capacity until violence was officially discussed first time in 1971, when the critique at psychiatry begins too. Most of the care homes and the famous Children Admittance Center were closed around 2000 and became substituted by guided shared flats and Intervention Centers scattered all over the city. Main thesis: pedagogic and psychiatric violence against children and youth of deprivileged social classes was produced by the theories of psychiatry, the racial hygiene and eugenics, especially the psychiatric theory of degeneration and the concept of “psychopathic inferiority”, the concept of neglect, the milieu theory, the racist concept of the worthless child, and others. This was fostered by Christian myths of guilt and punishment and Nazi racial anthropology. The violence could take place in the darkness of the care homes shaped as ‘total institutions’ (Goffman), which were created and kept in order to perform illegal and excessive power over the naked body.

Perceptions of child discipline and its contributions to child abuse in a low-income community in Nairobi, Kenya

Background:There is a fine line between child discipline and maltreatment. Perceptions of child discipline in three tribal groups living in an informal community in Kenya are reported.Methods:Child disciplinary practices in the Kibera community of Nairobi were surveyed among three tribal groups (the Luo, Luyha and Nubi) to determine perceptions and modes of discipline and what was perceived as excessive.Results:A random sample of 538 adults with children <18 years; 73% were mothers and 20% fathers. Overall, 98% had ever disciplined a child; 376 (70%) understood discipline to mean showing love and praising children when they do good but punishing wrong-doing, and 108 (20%) understood it to mean beating children whenever they do wrong. The majority said children should be disciplined by the mother (62%), father (47%) or whoever is around at the time of the offence (57%). It was deemed acceptable that teachers discipline children by 11% of the Luos, 23% of the Luhya and 34% of the Nubi. The most commonly used method was caning, used by 520 (97%), then pinching (40%), slapping (33%), pulling ears (20%) and denying food (19%). Sixty-three per cent of parents recognized that excessive punishment could cause fainting, and 64% that it could cause death. Factors reported as contributing to excessive discipline were domestic tension, poverty, stress and ‘difficult children’.Conclusion:There were consistent patterns of child discipline in three tribal groups living in Nairobi. There was a high prevalence of excessive discipline in the form of physical abuse, and clinicians should be aware of the signs of excessive discipline and be prepared to act in the interests of the child’s welfare.

Teacher reflective functioning: a preliminary study of measurement and self-reported teaching behavior

In this pilot study we assessed whether the Parent Development Interview –Revised for Teachers (PDI-R/T) can be used to measure reflective functioning in preschool teachers and whether it was associated with a teacher’s self-reported behavior with a focus child. Twenty teachers were interviewed using the PDI-R/T, which was then coded for reflective functioning using procedures outlined by Slade, Grienenberger, Bernbach, Levy, and Locker. A separate set of coders counted examples of behaviors, reported by the teachers in the PDI-R/T, that are known to foster emotion regulation in young children and behaviors that undermine effective emotion regulation. Teachers’ reflective functioning scores varied from 1 to 8 and were not associated with demographic variables. Teachers rated as highly reflective gave significantly more examples of using behaviors known to foster social emotional skills than teachers rated in the moderate and low reflective functioning categories. These data, although preliminary, indicate that teacher reflective functioning can be measured and may underlie the behaviors that teachers use when interacting which difficult children. Implications for research and practice are discussed.

A Review of the Nurtured Heart Approach to Parenting: Evaluation of its Theoretical and Empirical Foundations

The Nurtured Heart Approach to parenting (NHA; Glasser & Easley, 2008) is summarized and evaluated in terms of its alignment with current theoretical perspectives and empirical evidence in family studies and developmental science. Originally conceived and promoted as a behavior management approach for parents of difficult children (i.e., with behavior disorders), NHA is increasingly offered as a valuable strategy for parents of any children, despite a lack of published empirical support. Parents using NHA are trained to minimize attention to undesired behaviors, provide positive attention and praise for compliance with rules, help children be successful by scaffolding and shaping desired behavior, and establish a set of clear rules and consequences. Many elements of the approach have strong support in the theoretical and empirical literature; however, some of the assumptions are more questionable, such as that negative child behavior can always be attributed to unintentional positive reinforcement by parents responding with negative attention. On balance, NHA appears to promote effective and validated parenting practices, but its effectiveness now needs to be tested empirically.

Children Cautious Strategy and Variable Maturation Time Window for Responding in a Visual Search Task

Present study evaluates the changes and developmental trajectories of the attentional serial visual search and pre-attentional parallel search (pop-out) in situations in which a fast response is required. The hypothesis of present study are 1) that pre-attentional selection mechanisms develop before than serial attentional processes; 2) in the most difficult tasks, children prefer to adopt a non-responding strategy to an impulsive response patters; and 3) in speeded difficult discrimination tasks young children arrives to the criteria of correct performance in a broad temporal window. The results showed an inverse relationship between the age and the RTs and the different type of errors. For the present set of stimuli which produces an overcrowded scene and required a fast response, the behavioural trend of normal children is to the non-response pattern rather than to impulsive incorrect responses pattern. It can be suggested that young normal children present a broad temporal window to obtain the perceptual, motor and/or cognitive skills needed for responding adequately in a fast speeded discrimination task.

“The dearest but the most infuriating” How to raise a child with challenging temperament?

In this research, parents’ perceptions of difficult children and their characteristics were studied. A unique point of view to the theme was discovered through the Internet as parenting a challenging child appeared as a theme that is discussed widely in the Internet forums. In these forums, parents write about their experiences voluntarily and at the same time, they are the ones who define their children as challenging or difficult. In this study, parents’ descriptions were compared with previous definitions and studies on child temperament. This research was a qualitative research where the interest was in parents’ perceptions of difficult children. The data consisted of 118 messages written by 70 different pseudonyms. The messages were analysed through qualitative content analysis. The purpose of the research was to provide further information and tools for parents of children with challenging temperament.

Difficult temperament moderates links between maternal responsiveness and children’s compliance and behavior problems in low‐income families

Research has shown that interactions between young children's temperament and the quality of care they receive predict the emergence of positive and negative socioemotional developmental outcomes. This multimethod study addresses such interactions, using observed and mother-rated measures of difficult temperament, children's committed, self-regulated compliance and externalizing problems, and mothers' responsiveness in a low-income sample. In 186 thirty-month-old children, difficult temperament was observed in the laboratory (as poor effortful control and high anger proneness), and rated by mothers. Mothers' responsiveness was observed in lengthy naturalistic interactions at 30 and 33 months. At 40 months, children's committed compliance and externalizing behavior problems were assessed using observations and several well-established maternal report instruments. Parallel significant interactions between child difficult temperament and maternal responsiveness were found across both observed and mother-rated measures of temperament. For difficult children, responsiveness had a significant effect such that those children were more compliant and had fewer externalizing problems when they received responsive care, but were less compliant and had more behavior problems when they received unresponsive care. For children with easy temperaments, maternal responsiveness and developmental outcomes were unrelated. All significant interactions reflected the diathesis-stress model. There was no evidence of differential susceptibility, perhaps due to the pervasive stress present in the ecology of the studied families. Those findings add to the growing body of evidence that for temperamentally difficult children, unresponsive parenting exacerbates risks for behavior problems, but responsive parenting can effectively buffer risks conferred by temperament.

From access to quality: migrant children’s education in urban China

An increasing number of migrant children are involved in public education due largely to the policy for migrant children education outlined by the Government of China from the late 1990s. In this article, we describe the unique and often difficult situation rural migrant children face after they enter urban public schools. Drawing from the Theory of Inclusive Education and data collected at two public junior high schools in Beijing, we provide an in-depth analysis on migrant children’s education from their own viewpoint and from the perspectives of their parents, teachers, and school administrators. Our survey results identify the need for further adjustments of the existing education system which can help improve migrant children’s education in China. Findings also highlight the dilemmas regarding how to best meet the needs for teachers, migrant parents, and migrant children who attend public schools. In order to provide a quality education for migrant children, we conclude by arguing that there must be a three-pronged partnership to best accommodate the unique education needs of migrant children in urban China.

Interactive Regulated Participation: Children’s perspectives on child–parent interaction when suspicion of child sexual abuse is raised

This article presents the findings of a study on child–parent interaction during suspicion of child sexual abuse as seen from the children’s point of view. Study methods followed the principles of grounded theory approaches. Data were drawn from research interviews and child abuse assessment interviews with thirteen children referred to the child protection services because of suspected child sexual abuse. During analysis the core concept of Interactive Regulated Participation was constructed on the basis of the following main categories developed from the children’s narratives: conversations on suspicion, receiving information, contributing in decision-making, sharing feelings and thoughts, and engaging in conversations on meaning-making. These categories help us understand the difficult situation children find themselves in when a suspicion of child sexual abuse is raised, and help us explore and support child–parent interaction in this specific situation. Attention to variations in child–parent interaction may help professionals and parents to focus on children’s opportunities to talk about possible abuse as well as on the children’s situation in the midst of child sexual abuse allegations.

Father involvement and peer play competence in preschoolers: The moderating effect of the child's difficult temperament

This article focuses on the association between the relative involvement of the father with preschool children in two-parent families, individual characteristics of children (age, gender, and difficult temperament) and the children's peer play competence. Relative involvement of the father was assessed using The Parental Involvement: Care and Socialization Questionnaire composed of five subscales: Direct Care, Indirect Care, Teaching/Discipline, Play and Leisure Outdoors. Interactive peer play competence was assessed using the Penn Interactive Peer Play Scale (PIPPS), with three subscales: Play Interaction, Play Disruption and Play Disconnection. Parental assessment of the child's temperament was made using the preschool version of the Infant Characteristics Questionnaire's (ICQ) subscale of Difficult Temperament. Multiple regression ordinary least squares (OLS) models showed that boys and children with difficult temperament tend to show more play disruption and less play interaction, and also that difficult temperament was a moderator of the association between the relative father involvement in Direct Care, Play and Teaching/Discipline activities and individual differences in peer play Disruption and Interaction. Higher levels of relative father involvement in Direct Care and Play with temperamentally difficult children were associated with more disruptive play with peers, and higher levels of relative father involvement in Teaching/Discipline with difficult children was associated with more play Interaction. The discussion elaborates on the differential styles of Interaction by fathers and mothers with temperamentally difficult children.

The Progressive Past of Residential Treatment of Emotionally Disturbed Children

In January 1949, 9-year-old Betty stepped through the doors of the Cincinnati Child Guidance Home. For the next 2 years, the Home would attempt to treat her severe emotional and behavioral problems in an experimental approach called residential treatment. After 4 years of child welfare and child guidance interventions, the Home was a last resort. Betty's home life was a mess. When she was 3, her “promiscuous” mother had deserted the family, and her father, an alcoholic, was gone most of the time. The house was so messy that the family was evicted over and over.1 Two foster homes later, Betty arrived at a local child guidance clinic, where the staff noted her “extreme stubbornness, destructive behavior, vomiting, soiling, and diurnal and nocturnal enuresis.”1 Betty's third foster mother, Mrs F, resented having to care for this “defective” child. She regularly beat Betty, who had blank staring spells and skipped school. Fed up with this behavior, Mrs F begged the child guidance clinic to admit the girl to a psychiatric hospital.1 Looking back, we might imagine that Betty would have been sent away to a state mental hospital or a punitive custodial institution for delinquent girls. Twenty years earlier, this might have been the case,2 but, in fact, Betty had a very different experience than what we might expect. The Cincinnati Child Guidance Home, where … Address correspondence to Deborah Blythe Doroshow, MA, MPhil, Section of the History of Medicine, Yale University, 333 Cedar St, Sterling Hall of Medicine, L-132, New Haven, CT 06520. E-mail: deborah.doroshow{at}yale.edu

An interview with Sonya Bolland: Fostering of children in social care

Peter Lloyd Bennett interviewed Sonya Bolland who has had considerable experience as principal social worker in a local authority and more recently Regional Manager in the Adolescent Children’s Trust which was a charity devoted to fostering. Sonya set up the charity in Northamptonshire and from there it spread out through Birmingham, Iiverpool and the Midlands. The aim was to recruit, train and support foster carers in the private sector and set up placements for the most difficult children.

Navigating Worlds of “Trouble and Woe and Worse” in Children’s Literature: An Exploration into the Double Text of Tony Kushner and Maurice Sendak’s Brundibar

In this article, the author explores the richly layered double text of Kushner and Sendak’s picturebook, Brundibar (2003)—the historical context of Brundibar as a Holocaust-era children’s operetta by Hans Krasa and Adolf Hoffmeister, and the present day manifestation of Brundibar as a children’s picturebook. In order to contextualize the discussion of Kushner and Sendak’s text, Brundibar’s historical origins in Nazi-annexed Czechoslovakia and its transition to the stage in the Nazi “model” concentration camp, Terezin, is presented. An extensive semiotic analysis of Kushner and Sendak’s illustrations and text is also provided within the framework of what Kushner (The art of Maurice Sendak: 1980 to the present, 2003) terms “a world of trouble and woe and worse” (p. 210). Furthermore, the author discusses the development of Sendak’s Hitlerian Brundibar and the struggles that both Kushner and Sendak faced as they considered how to portray the story’s antagonist, given their somewhat differing conceptions of which difficult themes and topics children should be exposed to during childhood. To round out this discussion, the author explores pedagogical implications for teachers as they read difficult texts, particularly Holocaust texts, with children.

Challenging circumstances moderate the links between mothers' personality traits and their parenting in low-income families with young children.

The need for research on potential moderators of personality-parenting links has been repeatedly emphasized, yet few studies have examined how varying stressful or challenging circumstances may influence such links. We studied 186 diverse, low-income mother-toddler dyads. Mothers described themselves in terms of Big Five traits, were observed in lengthy interactions with their children, and provided parenting reports. Ecological adversity, assessed as a cumulative index of known risk factors, and the child's difficulty observed as negative affect and defiance in interactions with mothers were posited as sources of parenting challenge. Mothers high in Neuroticism reported more power assertion. Some personality-parenting relations emerged only under challenging conditions. For mothers raising difficult children, higher Extraversion was linked to increased observed power assertion, but higher Conscientiousness was linked to decreased reported power assertion. There were no such relations for mothers of easy children. By contrast, some relations emerged only in the absence of challenge. Agreeableness was associated with more positive parenting for mothers who lived under conditions of low ecological adversity, and with less reported power for those who had easy children, and Openness was linked to more positive parenting for mothers of easy children. Those traits were unrelated to parenting under challenging conditions.

Understanding contextual effects on externalizing behaviors in children in out-of-home care: Influence of workers and foster families

The expression of externalizing behaviors of children in-care can be influenced by a multitude of factors. The current study examined the simultaneous levels of influence of workers and foster families on children's externalizing behaviors in those receiving out-of-home care. A cross-classified multilevel model was used to partition variance in children in-care's externalizing scores into worker, foster family and child-specific levels of influence. The extent to which processes are explained by worker and foster-family level predictors was examined. Assessment and Action Record (AAR) data from the Ontario Looking after Children (OnLAC) project were analyzed. The sample included data from 1063 children between 10 and 17 years of age ( M age = 13 years, 6 months, SD = 2.08 years). While individual differences in children's externalizing behaviors were primarily attributable to child-specific effects (72%), 10% and 18% of the variance can be explained by worker and foster family influences respectively. Worker education accounted for substantial differences seen between workers where more difficult children were monitored by workers with less educational attainment. Furthermore, foster-family level predictors also explained variance in children's externalizing behaviors. Relative to children in foster care, those in kinship care displayed significantly lower levels of problem behaviors while children in group care displayed significantly higher levels. Higher levels of parental negativity within the foster family and the experience of more differential parental negativity relative to siblings were significantly associated with more externalizing behaviors. Lastly, children who were more satisfied with their placement displayed significantly lower levels of problematic behaviors. These results suggest that children in-care can be conceptualized within a multilevel framework.

Enhancing Adoptive Parenting: A Cost-Effectiveness Analysis.

Children adopted from care often exhibit behavioural difficulties. There is however limited cost-effectiveness evidence regarding different interventions to address this. This paper reports a cost-effectiveness analysis of parenting programmes for these children. Adoptive parents of children aged between 3 and 8 years participated in home-based, manualised, parenting programmes delivered by trained family social workers. The adopters were randomly allocated to one of two interventions (n = 19) or to a 'services as usual' control group (n = 18). Baseline, immediate post-intervention and 6-month follow-ups were assessed by questionnaires and adopter interviews. Economic costs were calculated. At 6-month follow-up, a significant difference (p < .007) was found for 'satisfaction with parenting' in favour of the intervention group. No significant differences were found on child measures between the combined intervention groups and control group, adjusting for baseline scores. The mean costs for the combined intervention group were £1528 higher than for the control group at the post-intervention point, which was statistically significant (95% CI, £67 to £2782). However, over the entire follow-up period the difference (£1652) was not statistically significant (-£1709 to £4268). The cost-effectiveness analysis showed that costs of £731 would be incurred to achieve a point improvement in satisfaction with parenting compared to routine care by the end of treatment, whilst the figure was £337 for a point improvement by the 6-month follow-up. Findings suggest that a home-based parenting programme for adopters caring for difficult children in the first 18 months of placement may be cost-effective in enhancing satisfaction with parenting, but not in reducing child behavioural problems, compared with 'services-as-usual'.

Improvement of developmental outcome between 24 and 36 months corrected age in very preterm infants

To study early developmental course in preschool-aged very preterm infants and its association with perinatal risk factors and test-taking behaviour. Children born <30 weeks gestation and/or <1000g in the Academic Medical Center of Amsterdam were assessed at 24 and 36 months corrected age with the Dutch Bayley Scales of Infant Development-II (BSID-II-NL) and neurological examination. Linear regression analyses for developmental change were performed with perinatal risk factors. One hundred and forty-six children, mean GA 28 weeks and mean birth weight 1043 g, participated. Mental and psychomotor scores improved significantly with 6 and 7 points, respectively, from 24 to 36 months (p < 0.01). Mild to severe problems on at least one domain occurred less often at 36 (32%) compared to 24 months (63%) (p < 0.01), using corrected scores. Mental improvement was associated with being born very small for gestational age or <28 weeks; psychomotor improvement was associated with not being treated with indomethacin. Difficult test behaviour occurred mostly at 24 months and was associated with non-optimal development at 36 months. Improved developmental outcome and test behaviour were found at 36 compared to 24 months in a cohort of very preterm children. Long-term outcome studies and retesting of behaviourally difficult children are recommended.

The relationship of children predicted behaviour to their observed behaviour during dental precedures

The objective of this study was to assess the relationship of some Nigerian children’s predicted behaviour to their observed behaviour during dental treatment. Two hundred and sixty children aged 2-15years, participated in this study. They were treated at the three government dental establishments in Ibadan, a city in southwestern Nigeria over a six-month period. The children’s behaviour during thedifferent phases of treatment were determined by the Frankl’s Behaviour Rating Scale (Frankl et al, 1962). The findings revealed a direct relationship between the predicted behaviour and the actual manifested behaviour during dental appointments. During clinical examination 42.7% of presumed difficult children manifested positive behaviour in comparison to 95.1% whose mothers believed would be cooperative (p

A Hero Protects America’s Children From Psychiatric Abuse

Jim Gottstein's Law Project for Psychiatric Rights (PsychRights.org) has gone to court to stop the drugging of Alaska's children. Before they are given psychiatric drugs, Attorney Gottstein wants the following standards to be met: 1. That proven psychosocial interventions have been exhausted. 2. That the benefits of the drug outweigh the risks. 3. That those authorizing the prescriptions are fully informed about the risks and benefits and the alternatives. 4. That the children are thoroughly monitored, including for side effects. There is nothing radical in this attempt to require the state of Alaska to use science, good medical practice, and common sense before prescribing psychiatric medications to the children in its care. Too often the medications are prescribed solely for the convenience of managing them in institutions and foster care. An ethical sane society would bar the state from giving psychiatric drugs to children under almost any circumstances. Their brains are growing-and should not be made to develop in a toxic internal environment. Instead of psychiatric medication, they need what all children need-more and better attention from caring adults, improved family life, and better schooling. And they need protection from agencies and professionals who are now prescribing them psychoactive substances en mass instead of meeting their basic needs as children. About 15 years ago, I spent more than a week as a consultant in Alaska working with a marvelous wraparound program for children and youth (Breggin & Breggin, 1998, pp. 171-173; also see Morrison-Velasco, 2002, for a description of wraparound programs). Alaska had been farming out its more difficult children to the lower 48, as far away as Texas. Not only was the separation harmful to the children and their families, it was enormously expensive. So Alaska developed a program that aimed at the community wrapping its arms around the child and the child's family, and spending money to provide what the family needed to raise its children decently-everything from job and parent training for the mothers and fathers to counseling and tutoring for the children. A team that included a variety of professionals, teachers, and family members managed each family's treatment. Called the Alaska Youth Initiative, it provided great help to children and their families and kept the children from being institutionalized in expensive and abusive prisons or mental hospitals. While costly, it was much less expensive than institutionalizing these very distressed and distressing children in Alaska or elsewhere. Instead of creating career mental patients and criminals, it enabled children to stabilize and succeed at home with their own families. What happened to Alaska's wraparound program? It went the way of most good mental health programs-out of existence. Why? Because the psychopharmaceutical complex provides a seemingly much quicker and easier fix by pharmacologically suppressing the brains of our children. At every opportunity, organized psychiatry rejects effective psychosocial and educational programs, including proven family and home-based interventions, in favor of psychiatric drugs and institutionalization (Breggin, 2008). Attorney Gottstein points out that the state takes custody over children who have already been abused and suffered at the hands of adults and then saddles them with a mental illness diagnosis and drugs them. The extent of this state-inflicted child abuse is an emergency and should be corrected immediately. The children, of course, are involuntary patients. They need special protection from the state, not the erosion and destruction of their mental faculties or their brains on toxic agents (see Breggin, 2008, for documentation of the toxic effects of each class of psychiatric drug). Alaska is not an especially egregious offender. Government-sponsored and directed drugging of children is endemic throughout the 50 states. …

Singing to Estranged Lovers

This article examines Runa relation to plants in the Ecuadorian Amazon. By examining ritual songs to plants as well as gardening behavior it argues that plants are treated like dangerous lovers or difficult children. To find out why this should be the case it then examines Quichua and Shuar language accounts of the origins of plant species. These accounts suggest that plant species evolve from a previously human state in which the plants were lovers or children who became estranged. The emotional estrangement then hardened into a physical transformation giving rise to a new species. Under certain circumstances plants continue to be treated as though they were moody estranged children or lovers. The paper concludes by suggesting that treating plants as high maintenance lovers leads to a kind of gardening that is more costly in terms of time and dedication than many women can afford under conditions of modernity.