Parent-child Contact Research Articles

Intergenerational Relations in Older Stepfamilies: A Comparison of France, Germany, and Russia

Our study examines cross-national variations in intergenerational relations of partnered parents aged 50 and older with adult non-coresident children by family structure (intact vs stepfamilies) and parent-child relationship type (biological tie vs steprelation). We focus on three European countries-France, Germany, and Russia-which have in common a relatively large proportion of stepfamilies, but differ with regard to contextual characteristics potentially impacting the stepfamily-intergenerational-relations nexus. The analysis is based on data from the Generations and Gender Survey (Wave 1). Our pooled analytical sample consists of 14,309 parent-child relationships derived from responses by 6,590 surveyed parents with adult children living outside the parental household. We consider two core dimensions of intergenerational solidarity as dependent variables, namely frequency of contact and emotional closeness. Our results support the notion of commonly weaker intergenerational relations in stepfamilies. We also observe differences between biological parent-child ties and steprelations. Compared with their French and German counterparts, there is a weaker association between having a steprelation and parent-child contact frequency as well as a stronger negative correlation between having a steprelation and emotional closeness among Russian respondents. The observed cross-national differences are proposed to result from different economic incentives to form a stepfamily, translating into a stronger "functional" basis of stepfamily intergenerational relations in the Russian context.

청소년의 자극추구성향과 성비행의 관계에서 부모-자녀 간 의사소통과 비행친구접촉의 조절효과

청소년의 자극추구성향과 성비행의 관계에서 부모-자녀 간 의사소통과 비행친구접촉의 조절효과

Non-resident parent-child contact after marital dissolution and parental repartnering: Evidence from Italy

BACKGROUND: With the diffusion of marital instability, the number of children who spend some of their childhood without one of their parents has become significant, even in Italy. Therefore, given the importance of parent-child interactions for children's wellbeing, analyzing children's contact with the non-resident parent has become relevant. Objective: In this paper we consider the frequency of contact between children and their non- resident parent after separation, with a double aim: a) to analyze if and how the non- resident parent's contact with his/her children varies according to whether the (resident or non-resident) parent has repartnered, and b) to investigate whether the relationship between repartnering and contact differs according to the gender of the non-resident parent. Methods: The study focuses on children aged 0-17 living with only one biological parent, using data pooled together from two cross-sectional rounds of the Italian survey, Family and Social Subjects. Results: Results show that parents' repartnering is positively associated with lower non-resident parent-child contact only in the case of non-resident fathers; in the case of a non- resident mother, her repartnering is actually correlated with higher contact. Contribution: Language: en

Understandings of biological kinship ties in social workers’ accounts: A cross-cultural study of out-of-home placements in Norway and France

Although kinship has been the object of growing anthropological interest since the mid-1980s, few studies have concentrated on the cultural understandings of biological kinship ties in the context of out-of-home placements. Drawing on qualitative data from interviews with professionals in Norway and France, this article compares the meanings attributed to biological ties where children are in out-of-home placements. Applying theoretical perspectives from the new kinship studies, the analysis reveals that while a reference to biological ties underlies both the Norwegian and the French accounts, these biological ties are expressed differently. Moreover, these different understandings of biological ties impact on social work practice, for example in respect of parent–child contact. The article concludes with a discussion of the implications of these findings for social work practice with children and families.

Children's Divorce and Parent-Child Contact: A Within-Family Analysis of Older European Parents.

Studies have shown that a parental divorce has a negative effect on parent-child relations. This study examines how adult children's divorce affects the amount of contact children have with older parents, making a distinction between the effects of being single on the one hand and the effects of divorce on the other hand. Using data on older adults in 11 European countries, I estimate within-family regression models to compare multiple adult children per parent (19,454 children aged 30-49; 10,476 parents aged 50-96). I analyze contact frequency while taking into account coresidence and distance. When comparing single divorced children and married children, no difference in contact is observed, but divorced children are more likely to live with their parents. When comparing among children who are single, divorced children have less frequent contact with parents than never-married children. This negative divorce effect exists for sons and daughters and is found in 9 of the 11 countries. The divorce of a child has a double meaning: it leads to being single, which is associated with stronger intergenerational ties, but it is also a non-normative and stressful life event, which is associated with weaker intergenerational ties.

Parent-child interaction and oxytocin production in pre-schoolers with autism spectrum disorder.

Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is associated with genetic risk on the oxytocin system, suggesting oxytocin involvement in ASD; yet oxytocin functioning in young children with ASD is unknown. To assess baseline oxytocin in pre-schoolers with ASD and test whether oxytocin production may be enhanced by parent-child contact. Forty pre-schoolers with high-functioning ASD were matched with 40 typically developing controls. Two home visits included an identical 45-minute social battery once with the mother and once with the father. Four saliva oxytocin samples were collected from each parent and the child during each visit. Children with ASD had lower baseline oxytocin. Following 20 min of parent-child interactions, oxytocin normalised and remained high during social contact. Fifteen minutes after contact, oxytocin fell to baseline. Oxytocin correlated with parent-child social synchrony in both groups. Oxytocin dysfunction in ASD is observed in early childhood. The quick improvement in oxytocin production following parent-child contact underscores the malleability of the system and charts future directions for attachment-based behavioural and pharmacological interventions.

From the Rule of One to Shared Parenting: Custody Presumptions in Law and Policy

Child custody presumptions have formed part of Anglo‐American law for centuries. Both the paternal preference rule at common law and the tender years doctrine that supplanted it in the nineteenth century signaled the law's conviction that custody was indivisible: after a marital breakup, children could be entrusted to only one parent, with the other an infrequent visitor. This “rule of one” began to weaken in the last third of the twentieth century, as the movement toward gender equality called attention to the importance of both parents in the care and nurturance of children and loosened the link between gender and parenting role. Left without a presumption to direct their custody deliberations, courts turned—often by legislative fiat—to the more inclusive but less definitive best interests standard. Although sole custody decrees were still the norm, some courts began to see in joint custody an opportunity for a child to continue a strong and meaningful relationship with both parents. Courts, legislatures, and commentators are changing the vocabulary of child custody to reflect the evolving reality of twenty‐first century family life. Parental responsibilities after separation or divorce are increasingly referred to as “decision‐making” instead of “legal custody” and as “parenting time” in lieu of “physical custody.” Calls for a 50/50 joint parenting time/physical custody presumption have sparked controversy. In some states, legislation already aims to ensure frequent and continuing parent–child contact with no specific temporal sharing formula. But putting any of these presumptions into effect in light of the statutory “best interests” concerns make the court's task—absent parental agreement—extremely complex. The interplay of domestic violence and “friendly parent” provisions with joint custody presumptions pose another array of complicating factors. Context is critical in assessing these statutory choices, on which no consensus currently exists. The task now is to avoid using the hard edge of legal presumptions to undermine the lived experience of children, while at the same time circumventing the perils of unpredictable case‐by‐case determinations unguided by presumptions or preferences. The most promising efforts chart a third course: nudging separating and divorcing parents into a framework that encourages them to implement shared parenting. Shifting the parental focus from litigating custody to jointly crafting a parenting plan also may serve to alleviate the worst aspects of the trauma children often experience when their parents break up. Key Points for the Family Court Community: Until recently, child custody presumptions adhered to a “rule of one”: courts generally insisted that only one parent could properly be awarded child custody. Child custody law is moving toward a norm of shared parenting, with frequent and continuing contact provided for each parent. Legal terminology is also shifting to encourage collaborative parenting. “Decision‐making” is replacing “legal custody,” and “physical custody” is giving way to “parenting time.” A legal presumption of joint custody may mean no more than a generalized shared parenting arrangement, but applying the emerging statutes and case law to award joint custody can involve a quite complex determination process. Shifting the parental focus from litigating custody to implementing a shared parenting plan may avoid the pitfalls of litigating under the “best interests” standard either with or without a legal presumption.

Investigación-Acción para Promover el Contacto Precoz Padre-Hijo(a) en el nacimiento

Pretende ser un referente nacional e internacional en el ámbito de la enfermería y la salud, reconocida por su aporte en la divulgación del conocimiento y por constituir un espacio del diálogo entre los diferentes profesionales de la salud como de otras disciplinas en torno a la salud de las personas.

Oxytocin and vasopressin support distinct configurations of social synchrony

Social synchrony – the coordination of behavior between interacting partners during social contact – is learned within the parent-infant bond and appears in a unique form in mothers and fathers. In this study, we examined hormonal effects of OT and AVP on maternal and paternal behavioral patterns and detail the processes of parent-infant social synchrony as they combine with hormonal activity. Participants included 119 mothers and fathers (not couples) and their 4–6 month-old infants. Baseline OT and AVP were collected from parents and a 10-minute face-to-face interaction with the infant was filmed. Interactions were micro-coded for parent-child contact, social signals, and social- versus-object focused play. Proportions and lag-sequential patterns of social behaviors were computed. Mothers provided more affectionate contact, while fathers provided more stimulatory contact. Parents with high OT levels displayed significantly more affectionate contact compared to parents with low OT and constructed the interaction towards readiness for social engagement by increasing social salience in response to infant social gaze. In contrast, parents with high AVP engaged in stimulatory contact and tended to increase object-salience when infants showed bids for social engagement. OT levels were independently predicted by the amount of affectionate contact and the durations of gaze synchrony, whereas AVP levels were predicted by stimulatory contact, joint attention to objects, and the parent increasing object salience following infant social gaze. Results further specify how synchronous bio-behavioral processes with mother and father support the human infant's entry into the family unit and prepare the child for joining the larger social world.This article is part of a Special Issue entitled Oxytocin and Social Behav.

Family Structure and Parent–Child Contact: A Comparison of Native and Migrant Families

This article is an investigation of the frequency of contact between parents and adult children in Germany. It compares Turkish immigrants and native Germans and includes both biological and step‐relations. After the United States and Russia, Germany reports the third highest proportion of immigrants internationally, but the extent to which results regarding natives are applicable to immigrant families remains unknown. Data are from the first wave of the German Generations and Gender Surveys (2005) and the supplemental survey of Turkish citizens living in Germany (2006). A total of 7,035 parent–child relations are analyzed. The frequency of parent–adult child contact is significantly higher for biological parents living with the child's other biological parent than for parents without a partner, parents with a new partner, or stepparents. Contact is more frequent for all Turkish families, but the pattern of variation by family structure is similar for both Germans and Turks.

Parenting Online: An Exploration of Virtual Parenting Time in the Context of Separation and Divorce

With each successive generation, the growth of information and communication technologies (ICT) is exponential as a central fixture within our society. The increased use of technology has spawned a new area of research to explore children's reconfiguration of intimate relationships after separation. There is growing interest in the use and impact of ICT to facilitate parent–child relationships in child custody disputes. This review of both the legal cases and social science literature explores whether virtual parenting time can facilitate, maintain, enhance, or replace in-person parent–child contact. The review highlights the benefits and drawbacks of virtual parenting time and provides suggestions for considering the optimal use of ICT within parenting plans.

Family‐centred residential care: the new reality?

ABSTRACTThis paper considers therapeutic approaches to residential care with specific attention to the question of family involvement. It builds on a body of literature indicating the potential of residential care as a positive intervention for young people, and examines the contention that – even when family problems contribute to a young person's accommodation in residential care – family involvement could improve long‐term outcomes. The literature reviewed indicates that family involvement is indeed important. Mixed research findings reflect the diversity of approaches to family‐centred practice, but there is evidence of benefits in relation to a range of child outcomes. However, the literature also shows that family‐centred residential care is not easy to achieve. More than parent–child contact, it entails genuine involvement of parents, in decision‐making and in children's daily lives. Professionals – including social workers and residential care workers – must not only be concerned with the care and development of the child, but also with the role of the parent in their child's development, understood within an ecological perspective.

Parent–child supervised visitation within child welfare and custody dispute contexts: An exploratory comparison of two distinct models of practice

Abstract This paper aims to untangle the assumptions and goals of supervised visitation services in the child welfare and custody dispute contexts, through presenting a legal analysis and review of social science literature. There is confusion in the literature on the specific roles, duties and expectations of supervised visitation services in facilitating parent–child contact within child welfare and custody disputes. A framework is outlined for understanding supervised visitation services in general. The overarching tenets of these services are discussed, and the assumptions of safety, protection and parent-child contact are explored. The legal context of supervised visitation in Canada is outlined, specifically examining the ‘best interest of the child’ principle and comparing the legal backdrop of visitation in child welfare and custody disputes. The social science literature is then reviewed with the goal of discerning supervised visitation across child welfare and custody disputes. The limited research on outcomes for children and families after utilizing supervised visitation services is discussed. This paper concludes with cautions and considerations for policy and practice for supervised visitation in child welfare and family law contexts, as well as recommendations for both fields.

The contribution of parent-child interactions to smoking experimentation in adolescence: implications for prevention.

Because few prospective studies have examined the independent influence of mothers and fathers on smoking experimentation, we tested the association between a set of parent-specific, familial and peer interactions with smoking experimentation in early adolescence. Data come from two cohorts in the British Youth Panel Survey (N = 1736; mean age at baseline, 11.26; SD = 0.65), a study of children resident with members of the British Household Panel Survey. Baseline data showed 8.2% of participants had smoked which increased to 40.3% after a 3-year follow-up. Multivariate logistic regression models showed risk factors for the onset of experimentation included frequent time spent with peers (P < 0.001), maternal smoking (P = 0.001), female gender and older participant age (P < 0.001). Parent-child quarrels, mother-child conversations, family meal frequency and household income were not significantly associated with experimentation. Frequent father-child conversations, about things which mattered to children, were the only type of parent-child contact associated with a reduced risk of experimentation (P < 0.001), and a significant interaction suggested that maternal smoking increased the likelihood of girls but not boys experimentation (P = 0.01). This study suggests that familial risk and protective factors operate independently and that more attention should be paid to the role of fathers in smoking prevention.

Children's contact with their incarcerated parents: Research findings and recommendations.

Approximately 1.7 million children have parents who are incarcerated in prison in the United States, and possibly millions of additional children have a parent incarcerated in jail. Many affected children experience increased risk for developing behavior problems, academic failure, and substance abuse. For a growing number of children, incarcerated parents, caregivers, and professionals, parent-child contact during the imprisonment period is a key issue. In this article, we present a conceptual model to provide a framework within which to interpret findings about parent-child contact when parents are incarcerated. We then summarize recent research examining parent-child contact in context. On the basis of the research reviewed, we present initial recommendations for children's contact with incarcerated parents and also suggest areas for future intervention and research with this vulnerable population.

CHILDREN RESISTING POSTSEPARATION CONTACT WITH A PARENT: CONCEPTS, CONTROVERSIES, AND CONUNDRUMS

This article provides an overview of the key concepts, themes, issues, and possible mental health and legal interventions related to children's postseparation resistance to having contact with one parent. We maintain that the too often strongly gendered polemic on alienation and abuse is polarizing and needs to be replaced with a more nuanced and balanced discussion that recognizes the complexity of the issues so that the needs of children and families can be better met. This article reviews the historical development of the concept of alienation; discusses the causes, dynamics, and differentiation of various types of parent child contact problems; and summarizes the literature on the impact of alienation on children. These are complex cases. A significant portion of the cases in which alienation is alleged are not in fact alienation cases; for those where alienation is present, interventions will vary depending on the degree of the alienation. More severe alienation cases are unlikely to be responsive to therapeutic or psycho‐educational interventions in the absence of either a temporary interruption of contact between the child and the alienating parent or a more permanent custody reversal. We conclude with a summary of recommendations for practice and policy, including the need for early identification and intervention to prevent the development of severe cases, interdisciplinary collaboration and further development and research of interventions.

Change and Stability in Parent–Child Contact in Five Western Countries

Although much is known about changes in the conjugal family, little is known about trends in contact between parents and adult (independently living) children. Using unique survey data, we study changes in contact with the mother and the father in five western countries over a 15-year period (Austria, West Germany, Great Britain, the United States, and Italy). We describe changes and we examine the role of compositional changes in the trend. We find no evidence for a decline in intergenerational contact, in contrast to notions of individualism. In two countries, there has been an increase in contact with the mother and in three countries no net trend is observed. Contact with the father has not changed. Other forms of contact (e.g., telephone contact) have increased. Some compositional changes have had a downward pressure on the trend, leading to a decline in contact (i.e., rising education, declining church attendance), but these pressures have been compensated by counteracting compositional changes (declining sibsize) and by behavioral changes.

When Parents With Severe Mental Illness Lose Contact With Their Children: Are Psychiatric Symptoms or Substance Use to Blame?

This study compared parental psychiatric symptom severity, and the absence or presence of severe substance abuse, as predictors of contact with minor children for a representative sample of adults with diagnoses of serious mental illness (N = 45). Child contact and psychiatric symptom severity were measured during regularly scheduled 6-month research interviews over a total 30-month period following each participant's entry into the project. Severe substance abuse was documented as present or absent for the 6-month interval preceding each interview. Results revealed that incidence of severe substance abuse was repeatedly associated with less frequent parent-child contact, even after controlling for psychiatric symptoms, diagnosis, gender, age, ethnicity, and socioeconomic status. Neither psychiatric diagnosis nor symptom severity predicted frequency of child contact when substance abuse was taken into account. Mental health agencies offering parenting classes for adults with serious mental illness should incorporate substance use interventions to reduce loss of child custody and strengthen parent-child relationships.

Intergenerational contact beyond the dyad: the role of the sibling network.

In this paper we aim to reach beyond the dyadic perspective on intergenerational contact and examine the influence of the sibling network on parent-child contact. We include aggregate sibling network characteristics as well as the adult child's position in the network vis-à-vis siblings, and use data from the Netherlands Kinship Panel Study (2002-2004 NKPS; N=4,601 dyads). Regarding aggregate network characteristics results show that having sisters, having stepsiblings, increasing geographical distance between siblings, and decreasing levels of network cohesion are associated with less contact per parent-child dyad. Regarding the position of the adult child vis-à-vis his or her siblings, results show that having geographically or emotionally closer siblings has a negative effect on parent-child contact. The impact of differences in emotional distance among siblings is stronger when the analyses are limited to parents in poor health. Suggestions for future research are made.

Boundaries of touch: parenting and adult-child intimacy

Discussing issues of parent-child contact ranging from breastfeeding to sexual abuse, Jean O'Malley Halley traces the evolution of mainstream ideas about touching between adults and children over the course of the twentieth century. Debates over when a child should be weaned and whether to allow a child to sleep in the parent's bed reveal deep differences in conceptions of appropriate adult-child contact. Boundaries of Touch shows how arguments about adult-child touch have been politicized, simplified, and bifurcated into 'naturalist' and 'behaviourist' viewpoints, thereby sharpening certain binary constructions such as mind/body and male/female.Halley discusses the gendering of ideas about touch that were advanced by influential social scientists and parenting experts including Benjamin Spock, Alfred C. Kinsey, and Luther Emmett Holt. She also explores how touch ideology fared within and against the post-World War II feminist movements, especially with respect to issues of breastfeeding and sleeping with child versus using a crib. In addition to contemporary periodicals and self-help books on child rearing, Halley uses information gathered from interviews she conducted with mothers ranging in age from twenty-eight to seventy-three. Throughout, she reveals how the parent-child relationship, far from being a private or benign subject, continues as a highly contested, politicized affair of keen public interest.