Journal of Family Psychology最新文献

Families with material hardship face multiple challenges in family relationships and adolescent mental health outcomes. The present study aims to examine the underlying family processes linking material hardship, family relationships, and adolescent mental health. This study analyzed six waves of longitudinal data from 4,898 parents and their adolescent children in the Future of Families and Child Wellbeing Study. The data were collected at childbirth, ages one, three, five, nine, and 15. Structural equation modeling was conducted to construct latent variables of material hardship, cooperative coparenting, and parent-child closeness and to examine their direct and indirect effects on adolescent depression and anxiety. The results showed that material hardship in childhood was positively associated with adolescent depression and anxiety through indirect effects. Childhood cooperative coparenting and parent-child closeness were significant factors mediating the effect of material hardship on adolescents' mental health. Material hardship directly predicted reduced cooperative coparenting and indirectly predicted reduced parent-child closeness through this pathway. Cooperative coparenting was indirectly linked with lower adolescent depression and anxiety through increasing parent-child closeness. Finally, greater parent-child closeness predicted a lower likelihood of adolescent depression and anxiety. Findings suggest providing material, interparental, and parenting support for both mothers and fathers to protect adolescents against mental health challenges. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2025 APA, all rights reserved).

The experience of childhood physical and sexual abuse has been consistently associated with a number of deleterious effects that extend across the lifespan, which has increased research interest in the risk for intergenerational continuity of abuse (i.e., a parent with a history of abuse who has a child who also experiences abuse). Although a number of potential risk factors have been posited or examined individually, prior literature often fails to account for associations among these risk factors, which limits intervention and prevention efforts. In the present study, secondary data were analyzed from 410 mother-child dyads. These data came from a deidentified clinical database of families with substantiated cases of child maltreatment. The present study used network analysis to explore the interconnection between risk factors associated with the continuity of sexual and physical abuse. Results showed that intergenerational continuity of sexual abuse was present for 8.5% of the sample, and intergenerational continuity of physical abuse was present for 7.8% of the sample. Mothers' substance use disorder and greater symptoms of hostility were directly associated with the intergenerational continuity of sexual abuse. No factors aside from the mother's and child's experience of physical abuse were directly associated with intergenerational continuity of physical abuse, in the network analysis. However, multiple patterns of risk emerged as indirectly connected to the intergenerational continuity of both sexual and physical abuse, which emphasized the importance of maternal mental health and adversity across the lifespan. Future research and clinical implications are discussed. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2025 APA, all rights reserved).

Research suggests that parents are effective transmitters of altruistic values to their children, and this transmission can flow through the route of religion. However, trends of weakening religious identification and strengthening prosocial values in contemporary emerging adults suggest a decoupling of religion from prosociality in the contemporary family context. This study examines the ways parents' religiosity influences their children's altruistic values, explicitly focusing on the religious pathways by which these values are transmitted in mother-child and father-child relationships. This study addressed the role of religion in the intergenerational transmission of altruistic values using data from 123 mothers, 76 fathers, and 233 adolescent/young adult children in 149 families who participated in the 2021-2022 wave of the Longitudinal Study of Generations. Results revealed a significant influence of mothers' and fathers' religiosity on the altruistic values of children but each through a different pathway. Mothers' religiosity influenced children's altruistic values by promoting their children's religiosity, while fathers' religiosity influenced their children's altruistic values by transmitting their own religiously formed altruistic values. Findings support that mothers inculcate altruistic values in their children through religious means, while fathers' religious influence on the altruistic values of children is potentially hidden from them. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2025 APA, all rights reserved).

The left-behind children are children aged below 16, who remain in their hometowns without one or both parents' presence. Both individual resilience and family resilience play a crucial role in how left-behind children cope positively with adversity. Few studies have attempted to explore the dynamic processes of individual resilience and family resilience of left-behind children from a dimensional perspective. To address this gap, this study employed a cross-lagged panel network model to examine the complex interactions among various resilience components. A total of 2,259 left-behind children completed the survey in December 2018 (T1), and 1,991 of them completed the assessments 4 months later (T2). A final sample of 1,708 Chinese left-behind children (M_age = 12.94, SD = 1.56; 47.50% girls) completed a survey at both waves. The results indicated that "maintaining a positive outlook" is the most critical dimension of beliefs connecting children's individual resilience and family resilience. Perceived beliefs about maintaining a positive outlook across the whole family at T1 were found to be associated with the three dimensions of individual resilience at T2, rather than the reverse. This suggests that family belief systems may represent a pivotal point of intervention for left-behind children. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2025 APA, all rights reserved).

During times of stress, families are tasked with maintaining or reestablishing a state of equilibrium in order to cope with stress on the family system. The pandemic context represents an opportunity to study the interdependencies between family members and relationships under duress. The present study examined the transactional effects linking the marital and sibling subsystems throughout the early months of the pandemic. It was hypothesized that more marital conflict would predict more sibling relationship challenges, and vice versa, across the pandemic and that COVID-19 stress would moderate this relationship. Participants included 505 caregivers who reported on two children (sibling dyads) in the home at four time points (T1: May 2020; T2: July 2020; T3: September 2020; T4: November 2020). Caregivers reported on pandemic-related stress at T1, and marital conflict and sibling relationship challenges (conflict and lack of support) at T1-T4. Using a four-wave random-intercept cross-lagged panel model, results showed that, on average, more marital conflict was related to more sibling relationship challenges (p < .001). However, negative cross-lagged effects linked marital and sibling relationship challenges throughout the pandemic, such that greater sibling challenges at T1 predicted less marital conflict at T2 (p = .04), which in turn predicted greater sibling relationship challenges at T3 (p = .03). Degree of pandemic-related stress did not moderate the cross-lagged effects between marital conflict and sibling relationship challenges (p = .22). Differential mechanisms linking sibling and marital functioning may account for stable between-family differences (i.e., spillover) as compared with within-family fluctuations over time (i.e., compensation). (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2025 APA, all rights reserved).

Autonomy-supportive parenting is essential for positive developmental outcomes for youth, whereas psychological control can have detrimental effects. When parents' psychological needs are met, they are more likely to show autonomy-supportive parenting, and when parents report greater psychological need frustration, they are more likely to parent with psychological control. We tested how parental psychological needs can predict adolescent internalizing mood through parenting practices in daily life. Parent-adolescent dyads (N = 171) completed daily diaries for 14 days to rate parental psychological needs, parenting practices, and adolescent internalizing mood. We conducted multilevel mediation analyses (i.e., 1-1-1 and 2-2-2 design) to examine the effect of parental psychological needs on adolescent internalizing mood through parent parenting practices. When parents' daily psychological needs were met, they practiced more supportive parenting practices in daily life, which in turn was associated with better adolescent mood. Most of these mediation effects were not found when examining long-term characteristics. Our findings point toward the importance of disentangling day-to-day fluctuations in behaviors and experiences than to long-term associations between them in families' daily lives to better understand family dynamics and adolescent well-being. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2025 APA, all rights reserved).

Prevention of behavioral and emotional problems in early childhood is essential to promote healthy development and reduce risky behaviors, academic failure, delinquency, and social difficulties. Evidence-based parenting interventions, such as the Incredible Years Toddler Basic program, are known to effectively address these challenges. However, access to such programs remains limited for many caregivers, especially those in ethnically diverse and at-risk families, due to structural, attitudinal, and interpersonal barriers. This study describes the implementation of the Incredible Years Toddler Basic parenting intervention, highlighting strategies to recruit, retain, and engage a predominantly Hispanic (68.3%), at-risk population while addressing participation barriers. Data from 301 families were collected using validated measures, including the Parental Stress Scale and the Adult and Adolescent Parenting Inventory, second edition. Of the participants, 262 (87%) met attendance requirements, significantly exceeding retention rates for comparable programs. Caregivers reported significant reductions in parental stress and improvements in parenting attitudes. Findings highlight the success of addressing structural, attitudinal, and interpersonal barriers to improve participation and outcomes in community-based parenting programs. This study serves as a model for leveraging community partnerships and tailoring programming to advance public health and support in ethnically diverse and at-risk families. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2025 APA, all rights reserved).

It is well-established that parenting plays a crucial role in shaping the mental health of adolescents. This study aimed to investigate the longitudinal association between adolescents' perceived parental warmth, COVID-19 peritraumatic distress, and emotional problems. Participants were recruited from schools in Zhuhai, Xinyang, and Ningxiang. A total of 579 adolescents (55.4% girls, M_age = 12.83; SD_age = 0.76) took part in this three-wave study conducted in January 2023 (Time 1), March 2023 (Time 2), and May 2023 (Time 3), with each wave being 2 months apart. The results from the cross-lagged panel model supported significant bidirectional relations between emotional problems and COVID-19 peritraumatic distress. In addition, the influence of maternal or paternal warmth on subsequent emotional problems was not statistically significant. The COVID-19 peritraumatic distress at Time 2 mediated the longitudinal effect of emotional problems at Time 1 on paternal warmth at Time 3. Nevertheless, COVID-19 peritraumatic distress did not significantly influence subsequent maternal warmth. These findings contribute to our understanding of the varying responses to adolescents' stress across parental gender. Furthermore, they imply potential strategies to protect the healthy development of adolescents. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2025 APA, all rights reserved).

Seminal work on parenting indicates that children's perceptions of positive and negative maternal parenting are related to a myriad of outcomes, including academic success, behavioral functioning, and psychological health. Minimal research has examined factors contributing to how children of color perceive maternal parenting practices. Guided by Ungar's social ecological model and developmental assets theory, this study assessed how child behavior problems and social ecological assets at individual, relational, and contextual levels were related to positive and negative maternal parenting perceptions. Participants included 263 child-mother dyads recruited from community organizations in the Midsouth, United States. Children ranged in age from 8 to 17 years old (M_age = 12.13, SD = 2.77; 88.2% Black) and female caregivers ranged in age from 23 to 64 years old (M_age = 36.43, SD = 7.89; 82.9% Black). The sample was recruited based on maternal caregivers' experiences with substance abuse, violence, and acquired immunodeficiency syndrome/human immunodeficiency virus (SAVA). Research is lacking on factors related to parenting perceptions among families exposed to SAVA in the United States, despite past studies showing links between SAVA and parenting. Findings from a multivariate linear regression revealed that younger child age, more internal assets, and more community assets were related to greater positive maternal parenting perceptions, while more behavior problems and fewer community assets were associated with more negative parenting perceptions. Results highlight the differential contributions of assets and behavioral difficulties to how children perceive maternal parenting. Such knowledge could inform the development of family-focused, multisystemic interventions that may enhance parenting practices while strengthening the mother-child relationship. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2025 APA, all rights reserved).

Father involvement in parenting can promote children's positive development. Despite the growing literature on father involvement, little is known about the heterogeneity in father involvement among Latino fathers. The present study sought to examine father involvement patterns and their predictors among Latino fathers who were predominantly unmarried and had a low income. A latent profile analysis was conducted on a sample of 830 Latino fathers of toddlers in the Building Strong Families program. Three father involvement profiles were identified: high involvement (61.81%); high accessibility and financial support, but less engagement (26.63%); and nonresident, but engaged (11.57%). Fathers' older age, lower parental aggravation, and higher coparenting relationship quality predicted membership in the high involvement profile. Overall, study results indicate that many Latino fathers are highly involved in parenting, highlighting the resilience and fathering commitment among Latino fathers with low income. Our findings suggest the need for additional support for younger fathers and fathers experiencing parental aggravation and point to coparenting relationships as an important source of support for father involvement among Latino fathers with low income. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2025 APA, all rights reserved).