Transmission and transaction: predicting adolescents' internalization of parental religious values.

Data in this study supported a model of internalization that included both transmission and transactional variables. Two sets of hierarchical linear regression models were conducted on data collected from the fathers, mothers, and adolescents (10 to 12 years old) in 171 intact Caucasian families. One set predicted adolescent religious behavior; the other predicted the importance of religion to child. Transmission variables (parental religious behavior and parental desire for child to be religious) predicted the most variance in all models. Dyadic discussions of faith (transactional) predicted significant variance in all models. Child gender had a direct effect only on adolescent religious behavior. A significant 3-way interaction occurred between child gender, parental desire for child to be religious, and dyadic discussions when predicting importance of religion to child, with child and parent gender dyads interacting in a complex manner.

Linking maternal efficacy beliefs, developmental goals, parenting practices, and child competence in rural single-parent African American families.

With a sample of 139 rural, single-parent African American families with a 6- to 9-year-old child, we traced the links among family financial resource adequacy, maternal childrearing efficacy beliefs, developmental goals, parenting practices, and children's academic and psychosocial competence. A multimethod, multiinformant design was used to assess the constructs of interest. Consistent with the hypothesized paths, financial resource adequacy was linked with mothers' sense of childrearing efficacy. Efficacy beliefs were linked with parenting practices indirectly through developmental goals. Competence-promoting parenting practices were indirectly linked with children's academic and psychosocial competence through their association with children's self-regulation.

Parent-child relationships, child temperament profiles and children's alcohol use norms.

OBJECTIVE: The purpose of this study was to examine the contributions of child temperament, parents' alcohol use norms for their children and parent-child relationship quality to children's alcohol use norms. METHOD: Observational and self-report data on these variables were gathered from mothers, fathers and target children during home visits to a purposive random sample of 171 intact white families with a 10- to 12-year-old child, 85 with girls and 86 with boys. RESULTS: Liberality in children's norms was associated with active, sensation-seeking temperament, liberality in parents' norms and poor parent-child relationship quality. Positive parent-child, particularly father-child, relationships were associated with less liberal child norms even when parents' norms were liberal and children's temperaments were active and sensation oriented. CONCLUSIONS: Positive parent-child relationships have a conventionalizing effect on children's alcohol use norms that moderates the effects of temperament and parental norms. The development of alcohol use norms is best described by transactional models.

Maternal resources, parenting practices, and child competence in rural, single-parent African American families.

A family process model was tested that linked maternal education, maternal religiosity, and the adequacy of family financial resources to cognitive and psychosocial competence in the mothers' children. The sample included 156 6- to 9-year-old African American children living in single-mother-headed households in rural areas, 82% of whom lived in poverty. The distal variables of maternal education, maternal religiosity, and adequacy of financial resources were linked with the proximal variables of "no nonsense" parenting, mother-child relationship quality, and maternal involvement in the child's school activities. The proximal variables were, in turn, indirectly linked with children's cognitive competence, social competence, and internalizing problems through their association with the children's development of self-regulation.

Maternal psychological functioning, family processes, and child adjustment in rural, single-parent, African American families.

A family process model was tested, linking adequacy of family financial resources to academic and psychosocial adjustment among 156 African American 6- to 9-year-old children with single mothers who lived in the rural South. Seventy five percent of the sample lived in poverty. Lack of adequate financial resources was associated with more depressive symptoms and lower self-esteem among mothers. Self-esteem was linked with family routines and mother-child relationship quality. The paths from mother-child relationship quality and family routines to child academic and psychosocial adjustment were mediated by the development of child self-regulation. An alternative partially mediated model improved the fit of the data for families with boys.