Partner Emotional Support and Child Problem Behaviors: The Indirect Role of Harsh Parenting for Young Mothers and Their Children.

Emotionally supportive partners promote the well-being of teenage mothers and their children as they navigate sensitive developmental periods. Yet, having focused on young parents' relationship dissolution, we know very little about benefits of partner supportiveness for the development of children's psychological adjustment or processes that may explain this association. Using five waves of Fragile Families and Child Well-being Study data (N = 771) and parallel process latent growth curve modeling, this study tested whether trajectories of partner supportiveness (measured by maternal reports of fathers' emotional support) directly mitigated trajectories of children's externalizing and internalizing problem behaviors (measured by maternal reports of problem behaviors) and/or whether such effects were indirectly linked through lower levels of maternal harsh parenting (measured by observational ratings of mother-child interactions). Results suggest that higher levels of partner supportiveness at birth were associated with child externalizing and internalizing trajectories that started at lower levels and demonstrated slower improvements across time. Lower starting levels of maternal harsh parenting when children were three years old partially explained associations between partner supportiveness at birth and lower levels of child externalizing symptoms at age three. Lessons gleaned from this study are discussed in context of young families' strengths and applied to practice-based settings.

Las personas que apoyan emocionalmente a su pareja promueven el bienestar de las madres adolescentes y sus hijos mientras transitan periodos sensibles del desarrollo. Sin embargo, al habernos centrado en la disolución de las relaciones de padres jóvenes, sabemos muy poco acerca de los beneficios que aporta el apoyo de las parejas al desarrollo de la adaptación o de los procesos psicológicos de los niños, y que podrían explicar esta asociación. Utilizando cinco tandas de datos (N = 771) del estudio Familias Frágiles y el Bienestar Infantil (Fragile Families and Child Well-Being Study) y el modelo de la curva de crecimiento latente de proceso paralelo, este estudio evaluó si las trayectorias de apoyo de las parejas (medidas por informes maternos del apoyo emocional de los padres) mitigaron directamente las trayectorias de las conductas problemáticas de exteriorización y de interiorización de los niños (medidas por informes maternos de conductas problemáticas) o si estos efectos estuvieron asociados indirectamente mediante niveles más bajos de crianza materna rigurosa (medida por las calificaciones observacionales de las interacciones entre madre e hijo). Los resultados sugieren que los niveles más altos de apoyo de la pareja en el nacimiento estuvieron asociados con trayectorias de exteriorización y de interiorización del niño que comenzaron a niveles más bajos y demostraron mejoras más lentas con el tiempo. Los niveles iniciales más bajos de crianza materna rigurosa en la tercera tanda explicaron parcialmente las asociaciones entre el apoyo de la pareja en el nacimiento y los niveles más bajos de síntomas de exteriorización de los niños cuando los niños tenían tres años. Se comentan las enseñanzas obtenidas de este estudio en el contexto de los puntos fuertes de las familias jóvenes, y se aplican a entornos de práctica.

Measurement of parental executive function in early childhood settings: Instrument reliability and validity in community-led research projects.

A growing number of early childhood (EC) parenting programs target adult executive function (EF) to build responsive parenting behaviors and to promote positive child development. Although measurement of EF is well understood in academic research, little work has examined EF measurement in community settings. The present study examined psychometric properties of the Behavior Rating Inventory of Executive Function-Adult Version among 203 parents whose children were enrolled in EC programs serving under-resourced communities. We calculated Cronbach's α and mean-item correlations to test internal consistency reliability. To test factor structure, we conducted exploratory factor analysis and confirmatory factor analyses. Results suggest adequate internal consistency and that factor structures, beyond the original proposed, are appropriate for our community sample. Together, findings indicate that self-report measures of adult EF may perform differently for families experiencing adversity, raising questions about the acceptability of clinical EF tools in in underserved communities.

Practical considerations for transitioning early childhood interventions to scale: lessons from the Saving Brains portfolio.

Small pilot studies of young children have frequently shown promise, but very few have been successfully scaled to the regional or national levels. How can we ensure that these promising approaches move from a suite of pilots to full-scale implementation that can deliver sustainable impact for hundreds of millions of children? To elucidate concrete lessons learned and suggestions on accelerating the transition to impact at scale, we reviewed the Saving Brains portfolio to better understand three points: (1) the extent to which useful signals of impact could be extracted from data at the seed phase, (2) the ways in which innovators (project leaders) were approaching human resource challenges critical for scaling, and (3) the multisector diversity of the portfolio and the way innovators entered partnerships. The findings suggest key considerations for transitioning early childhood development interventions to scale and sustainability: strong entrepreneurial leadership, rigorous measurement and active use of data in support of adaptive learning, and champions acting at subnational levels. Together, these can enable flexible, iterative learning that can make the scaling process an opportunity to increase the level of benefit each child receives from an intervention.