Depression as a mediator in the relationship between perceived familial criticism and college adaptation.

OBJECTIVE: This study examined relationships among emerging adults' perceived familial criticism, their depressive symptoms, and their college adaptation. PARTICIPANTS: The current study examined the responses of 412 emerging adults (300 females and 112 males) who were college students at a large southeastern university. The majority of these emerging adults were Caucasian, but the remainder were from a broad range of racial backgrounds. METHODS: Participants completed the Family Emotional Involvement and Criticism Scale as a measure of their familial criticism, the Student Adaptation to College Questionnaire as a measure of their college adaptation, and the Beck Depression Inventory-Second Edition as a measure of their depression. RESULTS: Results were examined using correlational and regression analyses in the context of Baron and Kenny's (J Pers Soc Psychol. 1986;51:1173-1182) method for determining mediation. Results suggested that for female emerging adults, the relationship between perceived familial criticism and college adaptation was mediated significantly by depressive symptoms. In contrast, this pattern of results did not hold for male emerging adults. CONCLUSIONS: Given these findings, emerging adults' depressive symptoms may serve as a useful proximal target for psychotherapeutic interventions meant to improve adaptation to college (particularly for female emerging adults), even in the context of high levels of perceived familial criticism from emerging adults' family of origin.

The state of evidence-based parenting interventions for parents who are substance-involved.

Approximately 70 million children and adolescents live with at least one parent who abuses or is dependent on alcohol or an illicit substance. Given the negative parenting practices that substance-involved mothers and fathers tend to exhibit as well as the poor outcomes that their children, particularly their young children, experience, evidence-based parenting interventions are an important complement to substance abuse treatments. At this time, there are few studies that compare the efficacy of parenting interventions for these parents, however. Nonetheless, research has begun to examine skill-based and attachment-based parenting interventions for substance-involved families with young children. These parenting interventions should be considered within the context of the neurobiology of substance abuse, which emphasizes the role of dopamine in the reward systems that promote substance use. In the context of these neurobiological connections, parenting interventions that engender repeated intense emotional experiences may stimulate this same reward system and, therefore, may be more efficacious. Attachment-based interventions are particularly promising when such connections are considered. More attention needs to be paid to bringing impactful parenting interventions to substance-involved parents with young children.

Mothers' Temperament and Personality: Their Relationship to Parenting Behaviors, Locus of Control, and Young Children's Functioning.

There appears to be a lack of construct clarity and a dearth of studies that have examined both mothers' temperament and personality in conjunction with parenting behaviors when predicting young children's functioning. As a result, this study examined these constructs jointly so that a further understanding of how mothers' temperament and personality may work together to predict young children's functioning could be gained. As part of this study, 214 diverse mothers with young children who ranged in age from 2- to 6-years rated their own temperament and personality, their parenting characteristics, and their young children's functioning (i.e., temperament and emotional and behavioral functioning). Based on the findings of hierarchical regression analyses completed in this study, both mothers' temperament and personality may be important individual predictors of young children's temperament but may be important joint predictors, along with parenting behaviors, of young children's behavior problems. Consequently, future research should examine the role that mothers' temperament and personality characteristics may play in conjunction with their parenting behaviors when trying to understand young children's functioning. These findings will be particularly helpful for professionals providing parenting interventions to families with young children who have difficult temperament styles and/or emotional and behavioral problems.

Bipolar disorder in children.

Although bipolar disorder historically was thought to only occur rarely in children and adolescents, there has been a significant increase in children and adolescents who are receiving this diagnosis more recently (Carlson, 2005). Nonetheless, the applicability of the current bipolar disorder diagnostic criteria for children, particularly preschool children, remains unclear, even though much work has been focused on this area. As a result, more work needs to be done to further the understanding of bipolar symptoms in children. It is hoped that this paper can assist psychologists and other health service providers in gleaning a snapshot of the literature in this area so that they can gain an understanding of the diagnostic criteria and other behaviors that may be relevant and be informed about potential approaches for assessment and treatment with children who meet bipolar disorder criteria. First, the history of bipolar symptoms and current diagnostic criteria will be discussed. Next, assessment strategies that may prove helpful for identifying bipolar disorder will be discussed. Then, treatments that may have relevance to children and their families will be discussed. Finally, conclusions regarding work with children who may have a bipolar disorder diagnosis will be offered.

Relationships among parents' economic stress, parenting, and young children's behavior problems.

In a time of economic recession, identifying how economic stress may be related to parenting stress, to the parenting behaviors used by mothers and fathers, and to young children's behavior problems may provide insight into interventions that may best assist families through their own economic crises. As part of this study, 124 culturally diverse parents with young children who ranged in age from 2- to 6-years rated their own economic, life, and parenting stress; their parenting behaviors; and their young children's behavior problems. Hierarchical regression analyses suggested that negative economic events and parenting stress provide unique incremental variance in predicting young children's internalizing problems, whereas life stress and parenting stress provide unique incremental variance in predicting young children's externalizing problems. With closer examination, parenting stress fully mediated the relationship between parents' financial cutbacks and young children's internalizing problems and the relationship between parents' negative economic events and young children's externalizing problems. These findings suggested that these variables are important to examine collectively.