Nazli Baydar

Help-Seeking Pathways for Children and Adolescents

The processes by which children with emotional and behavioral disorders seek and obtain help have received little study; yet, they are critical for determining mental health policy and practice. In this article, help-seeking pathways for children are defined and a pathway model is presented. Influences on help-seeking pathways are then reviewed, including illness profile variables, predisposing factors, and barriers to and facilitators of care. Research targets such as the role of informal supports, collateral services, and cultural influences on help-seeking are recommended. Methodological considerations are presented that include assessment of clinically defined mental health need as well as subjective assessment of need, use of complementary qualitative and quantitative methods, and use of cross-system data. The implications for practice and policy of research on help-seeking pathways are described.

Profiles of Grandmothers Who Help Care for Their Grandchildren in the United States

Profiles of Grandmothers Who Help Care for Their Grandchildren in the United States* Nazli Baydar,** and Jeanne Brooks-Gunn This study examines the characteristics of grandmothers who help provide care for their grandchildren, using data from a nationally representative sample (N = 2,095). Overall, 43% of grandmothers helped provide care for their grandchildren on a regular basis. Grandmothers age, living arrangements, number of children, number of grandchildren, education and health were associated with the likelihood of caregiving. Cluster analyses were conducted to identify a typology of grandmothers. This typology was based on caregiving, social roles, demographic characteristics, and well-being of the grandmothers. Four types of grandmothers were identified. Homemaker grandmothers (19%) and young-and-connected grandmothers (23%) helped provide care for their grandchildren. Remote grandmothers (32%) and frail grandmothers (26%) did not provide care. Caregiving did not prevent the grandmothers from assuming other roles within and outside the family. Key Words: child care. grandmothers. Social and demographic changes during the last thirty years underscore the importance of research focusing on intergenerational family relationships. Demographic changes in family structure, increases in longevity, decreases in limitations of daily living for individuals in end-life, rises in maternal employment (and the corresponding demand for child care), and increases in multigenerational households due to single parenthood and poverty are some of the trends that focused attention on intergenerational family relationships (Bumpass & Raley, 1995; Furukawa, 1994; Hernandez, 1993). Most of these changes occurred between 1970 and 1990. The rate of change was most rapid between 1970 and 1980. For example, the life expectation at birth increased by 2.7 years between 1970 and 1980, and 1.4 years between 1980 and 1990. The labor force participation rate of married women with children under six years of age increased by 49% between 1970 and 1980, and by 31% between 1980 and 1990. The divorce rate increased from 3.5 per thousand to 5.2 per thousand from 1970 to 1980, and dropped to 4.7% by 1990 (U.S. Bureau of the Census, 1997). The trends in social and demographic factors that shape the family raises the question of how these trends may affect the organization of child care in the family. More specifically, the question arises whether the increasing availability of the older generation is likely to bring about grandparent involvement in child care. A substantial body of research has focused on the content and meaning of the grandparenthood role, especially the grandmotherhood role in todays American families (Cherlin & Furstenberg, 1986; Nahemow, 1985; Neugarten & Weinstein, 1964). Previous studies on the characterization of the grandparenthood role established that the style of grandparenthood differs across individuals, across the life span of grandparents, and across the life span of grandchildren. Based on these differences, styles of grandparenting have been described. Previous studies on typologies of grandparenting have been reviewed elsewhere (Roberto, 1990). The current study furthers previous work on types of grandparenting in three areas. First, it uses data from a large national sample of grandmothers rather than a small homogenous sample. Second, it focuses on the role performance-helping take care of a grandchild-rather than role ideology of grandmothers. Third, in drawing a typology, it considers concurrent social roles of grandmothers in addition to grandparenting. In doing so, it draws a richer typology than that based solely on the grandparenting role. Many studies that present in-depth analyses of the styles and meaning of grandmotherhood focus on homogenous subgroups of grandmothers. Examples of such subgroups are grandmothers of college students, inner-city African American grandmothers, or grandmothers who take care of the children of their institutionalized adult daughters (e. …

A Longitudinal Study of the Effects of the Birth of a Sibling during the First 6 Years of Life.

We investigate links among the birth of a new infant, changes in the family environment, changes in the relationship between the mother and an older child, and changes in an older childs cognitive and socioemotional development. We hypothesize that the effects of sibling birth are mediated by the associated changes in the family environment and changes in the interaction patterns of the family members. Data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth are used on a cohort of nonminority children between 6 and 23 months old. The birth of a sibling results in significant changes in the family environment. At the same time, positive interactions with the older child diminish, especially if the birth interval is short, and the mother increasingly adopts controlling parenting styles. These changes result in lower levels of verbal development. About 2.5 years after the sibling birth, negative effects are detected on achievement and on socioemotional adjustment. Some positive effects of sibling birth also are noted on verbal ability and peer relations. Key Words: achievement, preschool children, sibling, socioemotional problems. JEANNE BROOKS-GUNN Columbia University* This study investigates the changes in the level of cognitive and socioemotional development after the birth of a sibling in a national cohort of infants and toddlers over a 4-year period. Previous studies relied on detailed data obtained from interviews and observations of small samples. These studies examined the prenatal and postnatal patterns of interaction among family members (Dunn & Kendrick, 1980; Dunn, Kendrick, & MacNamee, 1981; Dunn & Munn, 1985; Kendrick & Dunn, 1982; Stewart, 1990; Stewart, Mobley, Van Tuyl, & Salvador, 1987). They contribute to our understanding of the birth of a sibling as a process of adjustment in the family system that leads to some positive and some negative, outcomes for the older sibling. Generally, the quality and intensity of maternal interactions with the firstborn decrease after the birth of a sibling, and some specific behavioral and emotional problems-such as regression, anxiety, and aggression-in the older child are observed (Dunn & Kendrick, 1980; Stewart, 1990; Stewart et al., 1987). Sibling rivalry and the resulting behavior problems also have been studied (DelGiudice, 1986; Dunn & Munn, 1986; Jalongo & Renck, 1985; Pietropinto, 1985; Stewart et al., 1987). Most of these studies point to the importance of positive parenting styles in attenuating the sibling rivalry (Dunn & Munn, 1986; Gottlieb & Mendelson, 1990). They also show that the effects of sibling birth depend on age (Gibbs, Teti, & Bond, 1987; Stewart et al., 1987) and the sex of both siblings (Austin, Summers, & Leffler, 1987; Kendrick & Dunn, 1982). These studies of family processes after the birth of the second child are difficult to generalize for two reasons. First, the small samples of fewer than 100 families, often of middle-class origin and with two biological parents, may not be representative of the general population. Second, some of these study samples do not include families who did not experience the birth of a new baby. Hence, maturational changes cannot be distinguished from the changes attributed to the sibling birth (Stewart et al., 1987). Sociological studies that use large and diverse samples generally focus on the correlates of sibling group size, birth order, and birth spacing, rather than family changes after the birth of a sibling. These studies have three major shortcomings. First, sibling group size effects, holding constant the birth order, are equivalent to a study of aggregate outcomes of experiencing a number of births of siblings. This is a problem because the effects of the birth of a sibling cannot be distinguished from the effects of family size. Second, due to the limitations of cross-sectional data, neither the processes that account for sibling group size differentials, nor the factors that account for the differences in sibling group size effects (such as the age of the child at the time of sibling birth) can be fully studied. …

A Longitudinal Study of the Effects of the Birth of a Sibling During Preschool and Early Grade School Years

This study investigates the changes in socioemotional development, achievement, and self-concept after the birth of a sibling in a cohort of preschool-aged children over a 2-year period and a 4-year period. We test whether the birth of a sibling is associated with changes in the family environment and in childrens developmental trajectories. We use data from nonminority children of the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth. The birth of a sibling is associated with a significant increase in the behavior problems of the children, but these increases are temporary. The birth of a sibling also is associated with lower reading recognition scores among economically disadvantaged children. The impact of the birth of a sibling on self-perception is large and negative, and this effect is stronger among the children of economically disadvantaged families.

Young mothers' time spent at work and time spent caring for children

The association between the time a mother spends at work and in different child care activities is investigated, using data from the 1981 National Longitudinal Survey of Youth (NLSY). The mothers who worked on the index day spent almost one hour less time in physical care, one-half hour less time in interactive care, and over two hours less time in passive supervision of their children. The effects of a set of predictors on time use at work, time use in physical care, interactive care, and passive supervision of children were estimated using a covariance structure model. When the effects of these predictors are controlled, the number of hours at work predicts: (a) a small reduction in time spent in interactive care, and (b) larger reductions in time spent in physical care and passive supervision.

Reliability and validity of temperament scales of the NLSY child assessments

Abstract The child assessments of the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth (NLSY) provide a unique source of information for studying cognitive and socioemotional development longitudinally in a large national sample of children. This article presents an investigation of the psychometric properties of the temperament scales that measure the personality and social adjustment of children zero to 6 years old. These scales consist of a set of maternally and interviewer reported items available from the 1986, 1988, and 1990 NLSY administrations. Four temperament scales are presented: two scales for infants 6 to 23 months old and two scales for children 2 to 6 years old. We investigate the extent to which the temperament scales meet the following criteria: (a) internal reliability, (b) continuity of factor structures across time, (c) continuity of factor structures across age groups, (d) continuity of factor structures longitudinally, (e) longitudinal stability of scale scores, (f) stability of factor structures across different sociodemographic subpopulations, and (g) convergent and divergent construct validity. The findings indicate that the internal reliability, the cross-sectional and longitudinal continuity of factor structures, are satisfactory. The stability of the factor structures across sociodemographic subgroups, however, could not be supported. Some uses of the temperament scales are suggested that are expected to be robust to systematic measurement errors. A set of item coefficients is presented that may be used to construct temperament scale scores.

It Takes a Village to Support the Vocabulary Development of Children with Multiple Risk Factors.

Data from a nationally representative sample from Turkey (N = 1,017) were used to investigate the environmental factors that support the receptive vocabulary of 3-year-old children who differ in their developmental risk due to family low economic status and elevated maternal depressive symptoms. Childrens vocabulary knowledge was strongly associated with language stimulation and learning materials in all families regardless of risk status. Maternal warmth and responsiveness supported vocabulary competence in families of low economic status only when maternal depressive symptoms were low. In families with the highest levels of risk, that is, with depression and economic distress jointly present, support by the extended family and neighbors for caring for the child protected childrens vocabulary development against these adverse conditions. The empirical evidence on the positive contribution of extrafamilial support to young childrens receptive vocabulary under adverse conditions allows an expansion of our current theorizing about influences on language development.