Thomas G. Power

Parenting Practices and Age-Group Swimming: A Correlational Study

To examine the parenting correlates of childrens experiences in age-group swimming, 44 families of 6- to 14-year-old competitive swimmers were studied. Mothers and fathers completed questionnaires on their childrearing practices; children, coaches, fathers, and mothers completed questionnaires on the childs enjoyment, effort, competitiveness, commitment, and ability. For both mothers and fathers, parental support was positively associated with child enthusiasm, whereas parental performance outcome goals and directiveness showed curvilinear effects. Specifically, parents reporting moderate levels of directiveness and performance outcome goals had children reporting the greatest enthusiasm for swimming. The major mother-father difference concerned modeling: Although mother modeling was positively associated with child enthusiasm for both boys and girls, father modeling showed a negative association with child enthusiasm, but only for boys.

Association Between Mother and Adolescent Reports for Assessing Relations Between Parent–Adolescent Communication and Adolescent Adjustment

An important research finding is that parent–adolescent communication is related to adolescent adjustment. However, when using self-report measures with multiple reporters, adolescent and parent reports do not correlate highly, and within-rater reports correlate higher than cross-rater reports. This limits the utility of traditional methods of aggregation across raters. The present study used canonical correlation to examine if and how mother and adolescent reports for communication and problem behaviors are related. With reports from 161 adolescents and their mothers, the results indicated that the relationship between mother and adolescent reports differed by problem behavior area. Within-rater reports dominated the dimensions for communication related to aggressive behaviors. For anxious/depressed behaviors, both mother and adolescent reports contributed to the dimensions, with 1 dimension reflecting opposite perceptions of communication and adjustment by mothers and adolescents.

Compliance and Self-Assertion: Young Children's Responses to Mothers versus Fathers.

To provide data on the development of compliace and self-assertion toward mothers and fathers, 2-, 4-, and 6-year-old children were observed in their homes. Compared with younger children, older children were more compliant, more likely to use logical argument, and less likely to ignore or to show defiance. Two-year-olds showed more ignoring of their fathers, whereas 4-years-olds were more ignoring of their mothers and showed greater compliance to their fathers. Regardless of age, boys showed higher levels of compliance to their fathers, whereas girls did not respnd differentially to mothers or fathers

Social network factors and the transition to parenthood

A social support model for predicting the ease of transition into the motherhood role is presented. Four kinds of social network supports (relational, ideological, physical, and informational) and six social network agents (husband, friends, relatives, work associates, neighbors, and institutions) are considered. Ways in which each kind of support facilitates maternal and marital adaptation are discussed, along with implications of such support for influencing the nature of mother—child interactions. In addition, a case example (career women in transition) is presented to illustrate the predictive utility of the model. Policy and research implications of the present analysis follow.

Child Rearing and Compliance Japanese and American Families in Houston

The relation between parental child-rearing practices and child compliance was examined in two groups of middle- to upper-middle-class parents in Houston, Texas: 20 Japanese families temporarily living in the city and 18 Caucasian American families. The children were 4- to 7-year-olds enrolled in summer sessions in a private preschool/elementary school. Mothers and fathers were interviewed separately about their child-rearing practices, and parents and teachers completed child behavior questionnaires. In both Japanese and American families, child compliance with adult authority was positively associated with providing opportunities for appropriate behavior and negatively associated with reliance on punishment and physical intervention. Japanese parents relied less than Americans on external punishments and more on verbal techniques alone. American parents were more likely to provide opportunities and to use praise. For Japanese families, the length of exposure to American culture was associated with predictable shifts in parental child-rearing practices and child behavior.

Play as a Context for Early Learning

Mother is busy with her daily housework routine of sweeping the kitchen floor. To keep Anna, her IO-month-old, occupied, she opens up the kitchen cabinet which is full of pots, pans, and baking dishes. Mother pulls out a stack of three nested pots and two wooden spoons and sets them all in front of Anna. Anna smiles and busily begins her own musical concert of spoons and pans. Mother continues her housekeeping.

Sex‐typing in infancy: The role of the father

Recent research on mother-infant interaction has provided little empirical support for the role of environmental factors in early sex-role development. In this paper, considerable support for the fathers role is presented. Specifically, the research on mother- and father-infant interaction patterns is reviewed in order to describe developmental changes in the nature of differential treatment of the sexes during the first two years of life. Together, the studies reviewed highlight the importance of the father in early sex-role socialization, delineate a developmental model of the early differential treatment of the sexes, and provide clues as to the origins of later childhood sex differences in verbal and visual-spatial abilities.

Relations among Single Mothers’ Awareness of their Adolescents’ Stressors, Maternal Monitoring, Mother-Adolescent Communication, and Adolescent Adjustment

The goal of this study was to examine the relations among mothers’ awareness of their adolescents’ stressors, mother-adolescent communication, maternal monitoring, and adolescent adjustment in single-parent families. Measures of adolescent stress, communication, monitoring, and adolescents’ anxious/depressed and aggressive behaviors were completed by 82 adolescents and their single mothers. The findings indicated that single mothers were aware of about half of their adolescents’ stressors and not as aware of the importance to their adolescents. Adolescents in the group characterized by high stress/low agreement reported more problem behaviors. Moreover, monitoring mediated the relationship between awareness group membership and adolescent adjustment as high agreement groups reported more monitoring and fewer problem behaviors than did low agreement groups. Thus, during early adolescence when adolescent stress increases and family communication and monitoring change, monitoring by single mothers may increase awareness of adolescent stress, which in turn may buffer the negative effects of stress on adolescent adjustment.

Maternal perceptions of infant difficultness: The influence of maternal attitudes and attributions

Abstract To explore some of the maternal factors that contribute to maternal perceptions of infant difficultness, 58 mothers of 6-week-old infants completed free-response questionnaires to identify common patterns of attribution for difficult behavior. In a second study, maternal attributions, flexibility, and difficultness perceptions were assessed in 51 mothers followed longitudinally from 6 weeks to 4 months postpartum. Multiple regressions showed that 4-month perceptions of fussy/difficultness were predicted by maternal inflexibility in child rearing at 6 weeks, over and above the contribution of 6-week ratings of infant difficultness. This was true for initially difficult infants only. As for attributions, mothers who saw their 6-week-olds difficult behavior as due to physical discomfort were more likely to describe their infant as fussy/difficult 3 months later, whereas mothers who saw infant difficultness as reflecting infant resistance/disinterest later saw their infant as unpredictable. Implications for understanding the development of maternal perceptions of infant difficultness are considered.