Children's Psychosocial Adjustment Research Articles

Parental playfulness as a mediator of the association between parents’ emotional difficulties and children’s psychosocial adjustment

ABSTRACT This study examined parental playfulness as a mediator of the association between mothers' emotional difficulties (anxiety, depression) and their children's psychosocial adjustment (externalizing, internalizing, and prosocial behaviours). We also examined the associations between parental playfulness and mothers' supportive / unsupportive reactions to their child's negative emotions. Participants were 197 mothers of children aged 3–8 years, who completed online questionnaires. Mothers' higher levels of emotional difficulties were associated with lower levels of parental playfulness, and these were associated with children's higher levels of externalizing and internalizing symptoms, and lower levels of prosocial behaviours. Parental playfulness mediated the relationship between mothers' emotional difficulties and children's externalizing symptoms. It was also positively related with mothers' supportive reactions to children's negative emotions and negatively related with unsupportive reactions. These findings underscore the importance of parental playfulness to children's emotional adjustment, particularly to externalizing symptoms, and may provide a basis for new parenting interventions.

Intergenerational Transmission of Parental Knowledge on Child Psychosocial Adjustment among Rural African American Families: A Pilot Study

Intergenerational Transmission of Parental Knowledge on Child Psychosocial Adjustment among Rural African American Families: A Pilot Study

The effects of inclusion on academic achievement, socioemotional development and wellbeing of children with special educational needs.

The effects of inclusion on academic achievement, socioemotional development and wellbeing of children with special educational needs.

The Science of Children’s Religious and Spiritual Development

The Science of Children’s Religious and Spiritual Development

Emotion regulation among Chinese and German children and adolescents: a binational comparative study

Emotion regulation has been a central research topic in developmental psychology and psychopathology for several decades. Habitual use of adaptive (e.g., cognitive reappraisal) or maladaptive strategies (e.g., expressive suppression) may influence psychosocial adjustment in children and adolescents. Despite consensus on the influence of culture on emotion regulation, little is known about cultural differences in emotion regulation in children and adolescents. In this study, the Emotion Regulation Questionnaire for Children and Adolescents (ERQ-CA) was used and tested for its measurement invariance between Chinese and German children and adolescents. Cultural similarities and differences in the use of cognitive reappraisal and expressive suppression were examined, as well as the associations of these strategies with behavior problems and prosocial behavior. The sample consisted of 765 Chinese and 431 German students (Mage = 12.46 years, SD = 1.12). Multi-group confirmatory factor analysis revealed partial scalar measurement invariance of the ERQ-CA. A latent mean comparison showed more frequent use of both strategies in Chinese compared to German students. The results of the multi-group structural equation model showed similar patterns of relationships between emotion regulation strategies and youth behavior across groups. Cognitive reappraisal was associated with fewer behavior problems and more prosocial behavior, whereas expressive suppression was related to more behavior problems. In summary, the current findings indicate that the ERQ-CA allows comparisons of emotion regulation between Chinese and German children and adolescents. Furthermore, the relevance of the cultural context for emotion regulation and the promotion of adaptive regulation strategies is highlighted.

From one year to the next: Video gaming life-style predicts subsequent psychosocial risk in adolescent boys and girls.

The ubiquitous societal presence of screens and gaming software is ever growing in popularity. However, can this recreational life-style pose risks for children's psychosocial adjustment? We thus examine associations between gaming life-style and later psychosocial development. The study sample originates from the 2120 boys and girls from the Quebec Longitudinal Study of Child Development birth cohort. At age 12, 625 boys and 702 girls from the original sample self-reported the number of hours engaged in video gaming per week and 1 year later, they self-reported psychosocial outcomes. Among boys, higher weekly video gaming frequency at age 12 forecasted increases in subsequent reactive aggression, emotional distress and ADHD symptoms at age 13. For girls, higher weekly video gaming frequency at age 12 predicted increases in subsequent reactive aggression and ADHD symptoms at age 13. No association between video game use and emotional distress was found for girls. In both boys and girls, a more intense video gaming life-style predicted subsequent risks for reactive aggression and ADHD symptoms, compared with their same sex counterparts reporting less intensity. For boys only, video gaming was associated with subsequent reactive emotional distress, likely due to the gender differences in violent content. Our data were collected at a time when there were less versatile screen-based technologies; therefore, our findings can be interpreted as very conservative compared to current estimates. Paediatric professionals and allied disciplines must take preventive measures to ensure that parents are aware of the risks associated with excessive use by their sons and daughters.

Parenting interventions to support parent/child attachment and psychosocial adjustment in foster and adoptive parents and children: A systematic review.

Parenting interventions to support parent/child attachment and psychosocial adjustment in foster and adoptive parents and children: A systematic review.

Abstract PO-060: The Conexiones Program: A pilot feasibility study of a cancer parenting program for Latina mothers living with cancer in the U.S.-Mexico border region

Abstract Background: Mothers diagnosed with cancer and their children experience significant distress. Enhancing Connections (EC) is a cancer parenting program that improves outcomes in mother and child by adding to the mother's self-care and parenting skills. Validated with non-Hispanic White mothers of upper socioeconomic status (SES), EC was culturally adapted to serve low SES Latina mothers diagnosed with cancer and their children and renamed Conexiones. Purpose: This study tested the short-term impact of the Conexiones program on depressed mood, anxiety, and parenting competencies among diagnosed Latina mothers, and their children's behavioral-emotional adjustment to her cancer. It also examined the feasibility of delivering the telephone-based Conexiones program. Methods: Eligibility criteria included being a Latina woman diagnosed with early-stage cancer of any type (stages 0-III; excluded some skin cancers) in the last two years with a dependent child 5-17-years-old. Mothers received 5 Conexiones sessions at two-week intervals in her preferred language. Outcome measures assessed the mother's anxiety/depression and parenting skills, self-efficacy, and quality. Anxiety/depression and behavioral problems for her child were also measured. Participants completed all self-reported assessments at baseline and three months post-baseline. The paired within-group comparison of change from baseline to three-month-post-baseline used the Wilcoxon non-parametric p-value. Results: Fifteen mothers completed all five education sessions and the 3-month follow-up survey. Mothers were diagnosed with breast, thyroid, and gynecologic cancers. Analysis revealed statistically significant increases in parenting self-efficacy and parenting quality (all p values < 0.05). Marginally significant improvements in maternal mood were also found (p = 0.09). Changes in maternal anxiety and the child's behavioral and psychosocial adjustment also appeared to improve, although they did not approximate statistical significance, possibly due to an underpowered analysis. Regarding feasibility, a review of audio-recorded intervention sessions revealed high dosage and fidelity. Participants were able to complete the telephone sessions and homework in between sessions and reported liking and benefiting from the program in an exit interview. A participant reported multifaceted burdens (e.g., homelessness; domestic abuse; loss of health coverage) in addition to her cancer requiring the development of new study protocols. Conclusions: In addition to demonstrating positive preliminary psychosocial outcomes for diagnosed Latina mothers, the pilot study was instrumental in directing further refinement of the Conexiones program, expanding the program's cancer resource booklet with social services needed by low SES Latina survivors, and helping NMSU establish the research infrastructure needed to complete a more rigorous clinical trial. Citation Format: Rebecca Palacios, Clara Reyes, Kristin Griffith. The Conexiones Program: A pilot feasibility study of a cancer parenting program for Latina mothers living with cancer in the U.S.-Mexico border region [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the AACR Virtual Conference: 14th AACR Conference on the Science of Cancer Health Disparities in Racial/Ethnic Minorities and the Medically Underserved; 2021 Oct 6-8. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Cancer Epidemiol Biomarkers Prev 2022;31(1 Suppl):Abstract nr PO-060.

Psychosocial adjustment in adults with Duchenne muscular dystrophy: A pilot study on a shortened parent-report questionnaire

The primary aim of this study was to describe the psychometric properties of an adult revision of the 28 item Personal Adjustment and Role Skills Scale (PARS-III). This scale was originally developed to assess psychosocial adjustment in children 4–18 years of age and has been applied in boys with Duchenne muscular dystrophy (DMD) and was found to be reliable and valid. Within the context of a longer lifespan in dystrophinopathies there is a growing need to assess psychosocial adjustment in an adult population. The original 28 items questionnaire was administered to parents of 90 adult men with DMD. The items of the PARS-III were rated by three experts, one parent, and one adult with DMD to indicate appropriateness of the items. For 22 items, there was consensus among the raters. Results of the Confirmatory Factor Analysis show an acceptable fit and closely resembles the original factor structure of the PARS-III, thereby justifying the use of the previously identified six subscales of psychosocial adjustment. In conclusion, the current 22 item PARS-Adult is a valuable, reliable, and valid screening of psychosocial adjustment in adult DMD patients. With this tool, continuity of assessment and follow up can be guaranteed in this clinical population.

Single mothers by choice in Spain: Parenting and psychosocial adjustment in adopted and ART children.

This study explores the effects of family structure (single mother by choice/partnered mother), pathway to motherhood (adoption/assisted reproduction techniques or ART), and parenting style on children's psychological adjustment and social competence. Ninety-eight families participated: 45 single mothers by choice (29 adoptive, 16 by ART); and 53 partnered mothers (27 adoptive, 26 by ART). Ninety-eight children were evaluated (Age = 5.36) by their teachers. As regards family structure, children of single mothers by choice (both adopted and conceived by ART) showed good psychological adjustment and good social competence. No significant differences were observed between them and those living with two parents when all were conceived by ART. However, children adopted by single mothers had higher hyperactivity and lower self-control than those living with two adoptive parents. No differences were observed in terms of nurturing parenting style, either between single and partnered mothers, or between adoptive and ART mothers. The nurturing parenting style significantly predicted better psychological adjustment and social competence among children. The results are discussed in connection with the debate regarding the effect of structure versus family processes on children's psychosocial adjustment. The implications for interventions with single mothers by choice are also explored. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2021 APA, all rights reserved).

PediatricGlobal Health in Children with Very Early-Onset Inflammatory Bowel Disease.

Children with very early-onset inflammatory bowel disease (VEO-IBD) represent a distinct group of patients with IBD with unique phenotypic and genetic characteristics; however, they are frequently omitted from psychosocial research. This study used a novel, brief measure of pediatric global health to assess (1) overall health-related quality of life (HRQOL) in children with VEO-IBD, (2) HRQOL compared to healthy children, and (3) whether gastrointestinal symptoms account for the differences in HRQOL between these groups. Caregivers of 51 children with VEO-IBD (Mage = 4.26 years, 75% male) and 54 healthy children (Mage = 3.50 years, 54% male) completed the PROMIS Pediatric Global Health Scale (PGH-7) parent-proxy form to assess HRQOL and a questionnaire assessing gastrointestinal symptoms. Descriptive statistics, analysis of variance with covariates (ANCOVA), and meditation analyses with bootstrapping were conducted. Caregivers of children with VEO-IBD rated their HRQOL as relatively positive, although children with greater disease yielded lower ratings on some PGH-7 items (e.g., fun with friends, physical health, sadness). Compared to healthy youth, children with VEO-IBD scored lower on the PGH-7, with significantly lower item-level scores on overall health, physical health, mental health, and quality of life. Gastrointestinal symptoms mediated the association between health status (i.e., VEO-IBD vs. healthy) and HRQOL, αβ = -2.84, 95% CI = -5.70, -0.34. While some children with VEO-IBD are at risk for deficits in HRQOL, many are quite resilient. Psychosocial screening is necessary for providing appropriate referrals to behavioral health services and learning more about psychosocial adjustment in children with VEO-IBD.

Family Resilience, Parenting Styles and Psychosocial Adjustment of Children With Chronic Illness: A Cross-Sectional Study.

Objectives: To evaluate the level of parent-reported family resilience, parenting styles and psychosocial adjustment of children with chronic illness and to identify the relationships between family resilience, parenting styles and psychosocial adjustment in families with children with chronic illness.Methods: A cross-sectional study was conducted between June 2019 and August 2019. A total of 236 parents of children with chronic illness and 98 parents with healthy children were recruited from general hospitals by convenience sampling. A parent completed the Chinese Family Resilience Assessment Scale, the Parenting Rearing Patterns Questionnaire and the Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire. Family resilience, parenting styles, and psychosocial adjustment of children with chronic illness were compared with those of healthy children. Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) was performed to explore the mediation effect of parenting styles between family resilience and psychosocial adjustment among children with chronic illness.Results: Parents of children with chronic illness reported lower level of family resilience and authoritative parenting, but more peer relationship problems compared to parents of healthy children. SEM showed that authoritative parenting fully mediated the relationship between family resilience and psychosocial adjustment of children with chronic illness.Conclusion: Childhood chronic illness reduces family resilience, authoritative parenting and children's psychosocial adjustment, but authoritative parenting mediated these effects, so authoritative parenting may be important for family resilience in families of children with chronic illness. Pediatric clinicians and nurses should provide family-centered interventions, as well as parenting training, to improve children's psychosocial outcomes.

Family Resilience and Its Association with Psychosocial Adjustment of Children with Chronic Illness: A Latent Profile Analysis

PurposeThe purpose of this study was to investigate the characteristics of family resilience in a sample of Chinese families with children diagnosed with chronic illness using Latent Profile Analysis (LPA). In particular, we examined the association of family resilience profiles with the psychosocial adjustment of children, and identified the socio-demographic correlates of these latent profiles. Design and methodsA cross-sectional study was conducted at comprehensive hospitals and children hospitals in three cities (Hangzhou, Ningbo and Wenzhou) of Zhejiang province, China. Parents (n = 277) of children diagnosed with a chronic illness completed a socio-demographic questionnaire, the Chinese version of the family resilience assessment scale, and the Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire. ResultsA three-class solution was found to demonstrate the best fit [low family resilience (74.7%), moderate family resilience (14.1%), and high family resilience (11.2%)]. One-way ANOVA revealed significant differences between the three groups with respect to peer relationship problems and pro-social behaviors of children. On multinomial logistic regression analysis, the type of childhood chronic disease, time since diagnosis, family monthly income, medical insurance, and parents employment status significantly predicted the profile membership. ConclusionInadequate family resilience was found to be a common phenomenon in families with children affected by chronic illness. Family resilience profiles were associated with psychological adjustment of children. Practice implicationOur findings may help inform tailored family-strength based interventions to promote better psychosocial adjustment of children with chronic illness.

Parental Beliefs about Childhood and Adolescence from a Longitudinal Perspective.

Research into family context as a socializing agent points to the need to take parental beliefs into account due to the role they play in both parenting strategies and, ultimately, in the psychosocial adjustment of children and adolescents. The present study aims to explore possible relationships between parental beliefs about childhood and adolescence from a longitudinal and qualitative perspective. The beliefs held by parents of teenagers about adolescence are compared with those they hold about childhood at that same moment, and the evolution of these ideas is charted over the course of 16 years as their children grow. A total of 102 parents participated in the longitudinal study. They completed two types of semi-structured interviews: one of them throughout the entire study period and the other once their children became teenagers. The results reveal an association between the type of beliefs parents hold about childhood and their perception of adolescence, and they indicate that these ideas change over time as more adjusted and modern beliefs about child development correlate with a more positive perception of adolescence. These results are interpreted from the perspective of their influence on beliefs about parenting styles, reflecting what is reported in the recent literature regarding the most successful styles for fostering children’s and adolescents’ psychosocial adjustment.

Parent-Child Discrepancies in Reports of Exposure to Violence/Pornography on Mobile Devices and the Impact on Children's Psychosocial Adjustment.

This study assessed the discrepancies between reports from parents and children concerning children's exposure to violence/pornography on mobile devices and the impact on the psychosocial adjustment of children. Data were obtained from a sample of 2,230 parent-child dyads recruited from 16 elementary schools (1,140 dyads) in Taiwan and 9 schools (1,090 dyads) in China. A self-administered questionnaire was used. The results showed that about 30 percent of children reported being exposed to violence on mobile devices. Approximately 70 percent of their parents were unaware of their child's exposure to violence on mobile devices. About 16 percent of children reported exposure to pornography on mobile devices, and 80 percent of their parents were unaware of this exposure. Multinomial logistic regression results showed that after controlling for parent and child sociodemographic variables, factors related to parental unawareness of child exposure to violence on mobile devices included a child's ownership of mobile devices, smartphone/tablet use time, a lower level of parental understanding, and a residence in China or in a rural area, whereas the parent-child relationship and a child's smartphone/tablet use time were associated with parents who were unaware of their child's exposure to pornography. Multiple regression results showed that children who were living with household poverty, had a poor parent-child relationship, spent much time using a smartphone/tablet, and with parents who were unaware of their exposure to violence/pornography on mobile devices were more likely to have emotional and behavioral problems.

Ethnic‐racial Socialization, Perceived Neighborhood Quality, and Psychosocial Adjustment among African American and Caribbean Black Adolescents

Ethnic-racial socialization is employed by ethnic minority parents to support their children's psychosocial adjustment. These socialization messages may be associated differently with psychosocial adjustment for Black youth according to ethnicity and qualities of the neighborhood context. This research examined whether associations between ethnic-racial socialization messages and psychosocial adjustment vary by ethnicity and perceived neighborhood quality in a nationally representative sample of Black adolescents who participated in the National Survey of American Life Adolescent supplement study. The effects of promotion of mistrust messages varied by ethnicity, and the effects of egalitarianism messages varied depending on perceived neighborhood quality. These findings help clarify prior research which has yielded equivocal results for the effects of these messages for Black youth's psychosocial adjustment.

Maternal Depression Trajectories Relate to Youths’ Psychosocial and Cognitive Functioning at Adolescence and Young Adulthood

This study evaluated how patterns of mothers' depressive symptoms across their child's childhood relate to children's psychosocial adjustment at adolescence and young adulthood and to cognitive functioning at adolescence. Depressive symptoms were measured in 1,273 mothers when their children were 1, 5, 10, and 14.6 years of age. Children (53.5% male; n = 1,024) completed the Youth Self-Report at adolescence (M = 14.6y), and the Adult Self-Report in young adulthood (M = 20.5y; n = 817) to assess internalizing and externalizing symptoms. Adolescents also completed standardized cognitive tests to assess verbal and mathematical skills. Growth mixture modeling analyses identified four patterns of maternal depressive symptom trajectories: infrequent (55%), increasing at adolescence (20%), decreasing at adolescence (14%), and chronic severe (11%). Results indicated that exposure to maternal depression of any duration, severity or time period during childhood portended higher levels of externalizing and attention problems at both adolescence and adulthood and higher levels of internalizing problems at adulthood. Adolescents whose mothers had chronic severe depressive symptoms had lower language, vocabulary, reading comprehension and mathematical test scores than youth whose mothers had stable infrequent depressive symptoms. Findings illustrate the significance and long-term ramifications of mothers' depressed mood for their children's mental and psychosocial health into adulthood. Findings also demonstrate that the lower cognitive abilities among children of severely depressed mothers persist beyond childhood and pertain to a broad range of cognitive abilities.

Children's emotion regulation repertoire and problem behavior: A latent cross-lagged panel study

The ability to regulate negative emotions plays a central role in children's psychosocial (mal-)adjustment. As different contextual demands require the utilization of different strategies, the development of a large and diverse repertoire of emotion regulation (ER) strategies is an important developmental task. This two-wave longitudinal study with 101 preschoolers (wave 1: 3–6 years, M = 5.19, SD = 0.84, 46.5% girls; wave 2: 5–8 years, M = 6.69, SD = 0.85, 46.4% girls) investigated the bidirectional association of children's ER repertoire and problem behavior, operationalized by hyperactivity/attention problems (HAP) and emotional problems (EP). Latent cross-lagged panel analyses indicated that children's size of ER repertoire did not predict HAP, but that HAP negatively predicted the later size of ER repertoire. In contrast, the diversity of available ER strategies negatively predicted later HAP. For EP, no cross-lagged effects could be detected.

Influence of Verbal Behavior Training on Performance for Sustainable Development in Childhood and Early Adolescence

The effective teaching of language is an aspect of special relevance regarding the good adjustment of children in contexts such as school, family, or community. This article performs an experimental procedure to check which language teaching methodology is most effective in a sample of children. The objective was to analyze the influence of training, Condition 1 (pure tacts more intraverbal) or Condition 2 (pure tacts more impure tacts), on emergence of two tests involving impure tacts (AB-C, AB-D) and four new complex intraverbals (BC-D, BD-C) for each of two sets of stimuli (Set 1 and Set 2). The sample comprised 54 children aged between 6 and 12 years, divided into two groups of different experimental conditions. The results revealed statistically significant differences in performance on the tests of impure tacts and complex intraverbal, obtaining highly effective results in Condition 2. This teaching method using compound stimuli (impure tacts) clearly favors the expansion of language. The practical implications of this work can be more effective language teaching methodologies implemented that favor the good psychosocial adjustment of children in contexts such as family, school, or the community in general.

Trajectories of Observed Shyness and Psychosocial Adjustment in Children.

Shyness can manifest as inhibition, fear, and avoidance in the context of social novelty and situations of perceived social evaluation. In the present study, 130 children (Mage = 7.6years, SD = 1.8) participated in a videotaped self-presentation task across three separate visits spanning approximately 3 years in early and middle childhood. Children's observed shyness was best characterized by two trajectories, including a high-stable class (19%) and a low-stable class (81%). Girls were more likely than boys to follow a pattern of high-stable observed shyness. Further, children in the high-stable observed shyness class were rated by parents and teachers as more socially anxious relative to children in the low-stable class, and boys in the high-stable observed shyness class were rated by their teachers as displaying more depressive symptoms relative to girls. These findings suggest that a subset of children display stable behavioral shyness, and this is correlated with psychosocial functioning.