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Childhood and Parenting
Written and researched by Bob Murray, PhD
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The Hidden Problems of Divorce
July 8, 2003
Children of divorced parents who are separated from one parent due to the custodial or non-custodial parent moving beyond an hour's drive from the other parent are significantly less well off on many child mental and physical health measures compared to those children whose parents don't relocate after divorce, according to new research.
The findings, say the study authors, cast doubt on the current legal presumption that a move by a custodial parent to a destination that the moving parent believes will improve his or her life will also be in the best interest of the children that moves with them.
The study appears in the Journal of Family Psychology. It is the first study to provide direct evidence of the effect of relocation on children after divorce.
Psychologists, led by Dr Sanford L Braver, conducted their research by dividing 602 college students into groups on the basis of their divorced parents' move-away status. One group consisted of those in which neither parent moved more than an hour's drive from the original
family home and the other consisted of students with at least one parent who had moved more than an hour's drive from the original family home. Both groups were tested on various measures of psychological and emotional adjustment, general life satisfaction, current health status, their relationship to and among the parents and perceptions about having lived "a hard life."
The students were also assessed on the extent of financial help they were currently receiving from their parents.
Results show significant negative effects associated with the long distance (more than an hour's drive) parental moves by the mother or father, with or without the child, as compared with divorced families in which neither parent moved away beyond an hour's drive. "As compared with divorced families in which neither parent moved, students from families in which one parent moved received less financial support from their parents (even after correcting for differences in the current financial conditions of the groups), worried more about that support, felt more hostility in their interpersonal relations, suffered more distress related to their parents' divorce, perceived their parents less favorably as sources of emotional support and as role models, believed the quality of their parents' relations with each other to be worse, and rated themselves less favorably on their general physical health, their general life satisfaction, and their personal and emotional adjustment," according to the study.
Read more in the Journal of Family Psychology
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Blow for Nurture
May 25, 2003
Center for Behavioral Neuroscience (CBN) researchers have demonstrated
that genetically identical mice placed in different environments both
pre- and post-natally differ dramatically as adults in their stress responses
and learning abilities.
In the study led by Darlene Francis, PhD,of Emory University's Yerkes
National Primate Research Center, and Thomas Insel, MD, the scientists
selected two in-bred mouse strains known to differ in their stress reactivity
(high versus low) and cognitive performance. All the mice within each
in-bred strain were identical.
To gauge the influence of different pre-natal and early-life environments
on development, the scientists transferred embryos from recently mated
low-stress (B6) female mice to female surrogates from the strain that
displayed high-stress reactive profiles (BALBs). For comparison purposes,
they also transferred embryos to surrogate females within the same
strain.
At birth, all mice were cross-fostered again and reared by either a low-stress
B6 mother or a high-stress BALB mother. When all of the offspring reached
adulthood at three months of age, the researchers compared their stress
reactions and cognitive performance. The low-stress B6 mice that were
transferred as embryos to and also later reared by surrogate BALB females
demonstrated an increase in stress-reactive behaviors.
These mice were less likely to explore new environments than their genetically
identical counterparts that were carried and reared by low-stress mothers.
The low-stress B6 mice reared by surrogate BALB females also performed
more poorly on cognitive tests of their ability to navigate mazes.
"We completely reshaped the presumed genetic differences between
the in-bred mouse strains by changing the pre- and post-natal environmental
conditions," said Francis. "The maternal care received by the
mice, in addition to the uterine environment, produced a cascading effect
on the animals' stress profile and cognitive performance."
Despite the growing conviction that genetics determine development, Francis
said the findings of her study demonstrate the significant role of the
environment in regulating certain behaviors. Francis and her colleagues
are currently examining brain receptors in the in-bred mice that were
transferred to and later reared by surrogate females to determine changes
that may have occurred as a result of their pre- and post-natal environmental
conditions.
"There were clearly some behaviors such as prepulse inhibition,
a measure of the ability to integrate sensory information, that our early
environmental manipulations could not regulate," said Francis. "However,
our current observations support previous research that the prenatal environment
interacts with the postnatal environment to shape stress-associated behaviors
and cognitive performance in adulthood."
We have always said that behavior was a mixture of nature and nurture
and that both are equally important. This, again is a topic which we explore
in our book
Creating Optimism:
A Proven Seven-Step Program for Overcoming Depression BM
Read more in Nature Neuroscience
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More Support for the Two Parent Family
May 25, 2003
Numerous studies show that girls reach puberty younger, become sexually
active earlier and are more likely to get pregnant in their teens if their
father was absent from the home from when they were young. But the usual
explanation--that such families are under more stress--is now being challenged
by a long-term study of girls in New Zealand and the US, the Western countries
with the highest teen pregnancy rates.
Having no father usually means less household income and a greater chance
of other disadvantages, such as domestic violence or a depressed mother.
According to the stress hypothesis, this triggers some innate mechanism
that ensures that girls pass on their genes sooner when times are tough.
If this is the case, the problem of teenage pregnancies in such families
could be tackled by relieving the stress, for instance by providing more
support for single mothers. But the latest study shows that even when
stress is taken out of the equation, an absent father is still associated
with earlier sexual behaviour.
A team led by psychologist Bruce Ellis of the University of Canterbury
in Christchurch, followed more than 700 girls from preschool to age 17
or 18, monitoring 10 different aspects of their lives including family
income, behavioral problems, exposure to violence and parenting styles.
They confirmed that teenage girls raised without fathers are more likely
to suffer from depression, drop out of school and have other behavioral
problems.
But while these problems were clearly linked to psychosocial stress,
it was the presence or absence of a father that had the biggest impact
on the girls' early sexual behaviour.
"The study rules out that these teenage girls are at risk for early
pregnancy only because absence of the father introduces stressors into
the home such as poverty," says Ellis, whose results appear in Child
Development.
Why they are at risk is not clear. It is not simply the absence of a
father figure. Other work by Ellis's team suggests that girls raised with
stepfathers engage in sexual activity even earlier. One possibility is
that the girls learn "dating" behaviour earlier by mimicking
their mothers. But Ellis suspects that girls whose father is absent undergo
personality changes at an early age that make them more likely to interact
with males. Other studies show that girls raised in the absence of their
fathers tend to sit closer to and interact more readily with men.
Ellis's results may well be seized upon by advocates of traditional families.
But Ellis cautions that the study reveals only associations, not cause
and effect. Absent fathers may not be the problem: instead, it could be
that some girls inherit the tendency to indulge in risky sexual behavior.
Read
more in Child Development
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Children's Stereotypes of Aging Starts Early
April 23, 2003
Children as young as five years old have negative stereotypes of older people, according to new research from the University of Alberta. Dr Sheree Kwong See, a researcher from the Department of Psychology, recently conducted a study addressing when age stereotypes develop and found that they have an early start.
Kwong See used a simple behavioral task, using two experimenters: a younger woman in her 20s and an older woman in her 70s. The experimenters asked five-year-olds if two aligned rows of objects have the same number or if one has more. After the child agrees that the lines are the same the experimenter transforms one of the lines so that is longer and the child is asked the same question again.
When the younger experimenter asked the second question--when the line was lengthened but the numbers were the same--a high percentage of children changed the responses, suggesting the children reason that the young woman is in the know and is searching for a different answer.
When asked by the older experimenter, the children reason that she is duped by the transformation and is legitimately asking if the lines still have the same number.
"To enlighten the older experimenter, children themselves then focus their answers on number," said Kwong See, who heard further anecdotal evidence from the children who said an older person might be confused. "They think, 'this older person is incompetent and needs me to explain things.' But when the younger one asks the question, the child thinks 'she knows what she is talking about so I'll try to give her a different answer the second time around.'"
"This task is a behavior measure which tells us something the children are inferring. And we found that at age five, there already is a stereotype."
Kwong See has already shown that older people buy into stereotypes and end up believing they cannot do something as well as a younger person just because they've heard it so often. Fostering a more realistic and balanced view of aging is evidently more crucial at a young age, says Kwong See, to break down the negative and often incorrect beliefs about the elderly.
This research has been presented at the Gerontological Society of America conference.
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World Has Become Bleaker for Children
February 10, 2003
Children need rich interactions with nature for their physical and psychological wellbeing. However, nature is suffering, and so are our children, who are growing up in increasingly bleak environments far from the natural world in which humans evolved.
"Even more startling is that we, as adults, hardly know this is happening," contends a University of Washington psychology professor, Peter Kahn. Kahn is co-editor of the recently published book Children and Nature, published by MIT Press.
Kahn asserts in a chapter that he wrote for the book that our impoverished natural environment is partly caused by a condition he calls environmental generational amnesia. By this he means that people take the natural environment they encounter during childhood as the norm against which they measure environmental degradation later in their life. With each ensuring generation, he said, the amount of environmental degradation increases, but each generation takes that degraded condition as the normal experience.
"The upside is that children start fresh, unencumbered mentally by the environmental misdeeds of previous generations," said Kahn. "But the downside is enormous in that children think what they encounter is the norm in the environment. At some point you understand the baseline is wrong, but you don't understand it at a visceral level."
The concept of environmental generational amnesia stems from Kahn's research, starting with a study that looked at the environmental concepts and values of black children living in Houston. At the time, Kahn was living in Houston, which he calls one of the most environmentally polluted cities in the United States.
He remembers waking up many mornings and being "overpowered by the smell of oil refineries." But the children he talked with in the study often said there was no pollution in Houston, yet they were waking up to the same smell. Kahn conducted other studies with Brazilian children living in an urban and rural part of the Amazon jungle and with children and young adults in Lisbon, Portugal. In these locations, he found similar beliefs about nature.
People's experiences with diverse natural ecosystems are rapidly diminishing, Kahn said, despite an ingrained need for it.
"We love nature, need nature and are drawn to the natural world," he said. "Our
connection to the natural world is so deep that some people drive for hours just to walk on the beach." The message of this book is that children need a diverse ecosystem for their human well being. Of course, we can adapt to impoverished natural conditions. We do adapt. But it comes at a tremendous psychological cost. As individuals and as a society we can--we must--make different choices.
Reported in Children and Nature MIT Press
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Study Says Broken Homes Harm Kids More
February 10, 2003
Researchers have for years debated whether children from broken homes bounce back or whether they are more likely than kids whose parents stay together to develop serious emotional problems. Experts say the latest study, published in The Lancet medical journal, is important mainly because of its unprecedented scale and follow-up--it tracked about 1 million children for a decade, into their mid-20s.
The question of why and how those children end up with such problems remains unanswered. The study suggests that financial hardship may play a role, but other experts say the research also supports the view that quality of parenting could be a factor.
The study used the Swedish national registries, which cover almost the entire population and contain extensive socio-economic and health information. Children were considered to be living in a single-parent household if they were living with the same single adult in both the 1985 and 1990 housing census. That could have been the result of divorce, separation, death of a parent, out of wedlock birth, guardianship or other reasons.
About 60,000 were living with their mother and about 5,500 with their father. There were 921,257 living with both parents. The children were aged between 6 and 18 at the start of the study, with half already in their teens. The scientists found that children with single parents were twice as likely as the others to develop a psychiatric illness such as severe depression or schizophrenia, to kill themselves or attempt suicide, and to develop an alcohol-related disease.
Girls were three times more likely to become drug addicts if they lived with a sole parent, and boys were four times more likely. The researchers concluded that financial hardship, made a big difference.
However other experts questioned the financial influence, saying Swedish single mothers are not poor when compared with those in other countries, and suggested that quality of parenting could also be a factor. "It makes you think that what you're seeing is just the most dysfunctional families having these problems, rather than the low income. The money is really an indicator of something else," said Sara McLanahan, a professor of sociology and public affairs at Princeton University, who was not involved in the study. "If you really thought that it was the income that makes the difference, you would think that Swedish lone mothers would do a lot better than the British or those in the US, but they look very similar," she said.
Read more in The Lancet
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Tots Can Pick Up Emotions at Early Age
February 10, 2003
"Babies are keen observers of other people and are able from a young age to gather information and make decisions," said Donna Mumme, assistant professor of psychology at Tufts University.
Her study, published in the journal Child Development, found that 12-month-olds are able to make their own decisions by observing televised emotional reactions of another person. The same was not true of ten-month-olds, however, who were oblivious. Infants often watch the actions and reactions of other people--in person and on television. Mumme is studying how infants make sense out of what they observe.
"Children as young as 12 months are making decisions based on the emotional reactions of adults around them," she said.
The study, which involved watching infants as they viewed televised images of people reacting to objects, also found that infants are able to obtain emotional information based on what they see on TV. The researchers had 10-month-old and 12-month-old infants observe televised clips in which a woman reacted to objects the infants had never seen before--positively, negatively and in a neutral fashion. Later, when given the objects to play with, the 12-month-old infants avoided the ones that the women on TV had reacted to in a negative fashion. They preferred to play with the ones to which the woman reacted positively. The 10-month-olds showed no particular reactions either way.
Mumme said the study shows infants can detect adults' emotions based on their facial expressions or words or other cues. The fact that they were able to do so off of a televised image was another interesting finding, she said.
The infants' ability to get cues from people they saw on television raises questions about the impact of TV on kids of such young ages. For that reason, Mumme said adults may want to think twice about having infants in the room when adult-content programs are on TV. "It wouldn't surprise me if infants could pick up negative emotions from television," she said. "It might make them wary or scared. Why make them distressed if you don't need to?"
Read more in Child Development
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Traditional Families Good for Adolescents
December 2, 2002
Despite the widely accepted belief that puberty breeds rebellion and emotional turmoil, findings from a Northwestern University study show that adolescents raised in traditional families are more likely to be well-adjusted teenagers and, as adults, have traditional families and continue their good adjustment.
The research also found that teenagers from less traditional families are more likely to have a tumultuous or periodically troubled adolescence and, as adults, to be in less traditional families and to be more poorly adjusted. Daniel Offer, MD, professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at the Feinberg School of Medicine, and colleagues conducted a longitudinal study that evaluated 67 normal, mentally healthy, suburban male participants initially in 1962, when the boys were 14, and again in 1997, at age 48.
Participants were questioned about family relationships, home environment, dating, sexuality, religion, parental discipline and general activities. Ten percent of the families were African-American or Hispanic.
The study, reported in Adolescent and Family Health, showed that the men who had been raised in intact two-parent, middle-class families were more likely to be married, be involved in traditional family relationships, attend religious services and participate in sports or exercise.
Unlike the boys in the "continuous" group, those from the "tumultuous" group were more likely to come from disrupted backgrounds. As adults, they were significantly less likely to be married or involved in traditional family relationships and unlikely to attend church and to exercise.
Results of the study indicate that continuity is an important aspect of development, Offer said.
The teenagers who came from a positive family background had no adolescent turmoil, sailed through adolescence and young adulthood and continued to live a life in harmony with their background. Those in the "tumultuous" adolescent group also continued to reflect the adjustment of their teenage years, Offer said. The boys in this group had questioned cultural norms and, as adults, were more likely to live outside cultural norms.
"Both groups still hold on to the position they had as adolescents and young adults," Offer said.
Offer also said that results of this study test the psychoanalytic theory that adolescents who appear to be well adjusted as teenagers are "ticking time bombs" who will show significant maladjustment later in life. Offer and colleagues found no hidden pathology among the "continuous" group. They were normal in adolescence and, 27 years later, were functioning in the same mode. "We can now question even more deeply the 'sturm und drang' [storm and stress] theory of adolescence."
Read more in Adolescent and Family Health
Girls Can Be Hyperactive Too
October 22, 2002
Although boys with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) greatly outnumber girls, girls have been underdiagnosed and their condition is greatly underappreciated, according to a pair of studies in the October issue of the Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology. The lead author is Stephen Hinshaw, professor of psychology at University of California, Berkeley.
These new studies contradict earlier findings about girls with ADHD. But Hinshaw's explanation is simple: Unlike the six-to-12-year-old girls in his studies, girls in several previous studies were taking ADHD medication. Hinshaw's work also included a much larger sample than nearly all earlier studies and was conducted over a longer period of time.
"These girls, compared to a matched comparison group, are very impaired, academically and socially," said Hinshaw, an expert in child clinical psychology and developmental psychopathology, who continues to study them. Hinshaw said the girls are rejected by their peers and have a harder time making and keeping friends. "Social problems with peers are quite predictive of long-term adjustment problems," he explained, "so it will be essential to observe outcomes as the sample matures."
The girls also were more likely to have had early experiences such as being adopted and histories of language problems and learning difficulties. Hinshaw's study involved one of the largest samples in the world of preadolescent girls with ADHD. A total of 228 girls -- 140 diagnosed with ADHD and 88 not diagnosed with ADHD - were studied intensively at six-week summer camps held three years in a row. There were approximately 80 girls at each year's camp, which ran in 1997, 1998 and 1999.
The girls were recruited to participate in the camps in a number of ways. For the ADHD sample, Hinshaw sent mailings to health maintenance organizations, clinics, hospitals, mental health centers, pediatric practices and local school districts. In addition, presentations were made to self-help groups, and advertisements were placed in newspapers.
For the comparison girls, similar mailings were sent to school districts and community centers in the San Francisco Bay Area, and advertisements were placed in papers. The ads were almost identical to the ads for girls with ADHD, except the wording emphasized "summer enrichment programs" rather than "summer enrichment programs for girls with attentional problems."
The girls who appeared to be good candidates for the program participated in several levels of family screenings and evaluations to make sure they met appropriate criteria for the study. In addition, the families of the girls with ADHD had to agree to take the children off of ADHD medication during the six weeks so that their natural behavior patterns could be observed.
The sample was ethnically diverse -- 53 percent Caucasian, 27 percent African American, 11 percent Latino and 9 percent Asian American. Incomes of these families ranged from upper class to those receiving public assistance. Girls with IQs lower than 70, overt neurological damage, psychosis and medical conditions that precluded participation in camp activities were excluded from the study.
The girls spent six weeks enjoying the same activities that children who go to other summer camps enjoy, but they were very closely monitored by people who had training in micro-observation.
Their "counselors" took copious notes relating to each girl's activities; the staff was not aware of which girls had ADHD diagnoses. The summer programs were located on the campus of a local school and featured a structured series of classroom, art, drama and outdoor activities. In addition, all the girls received individual neuropsychological assessments.
Hinshaw said that, during outdoor sports and play at camp, "the girls with ADHD were less likely to follow the directions of the teacher than the comparison girls. They were also more likely to tease their peers and show aggressive behavior, though not at the same rate as boys with ADHD in previous summer camps. They were also more likely to display social isolation-wandering and failing to become engaged in activities.
"As a group, these girls show as much executive function deficit on neuropsychological tests as boys who have been diagnosed with ADHD." Hinshaw said that selected girls from the study sample are participating in brain imaging studies at UC Berkeley to better pinpoint both working memory and "executive function," through examination of brain-behavior and relationships.
"Executive function" refers to actions such as goal setting, planning, organization, monitoring one's behavior during an activity and changing strategies in response to alterations in a situation.
"These functions are crucial for long-term academic, social and occupational success," Hinshaw said. "Deficits in executive functions are seen in other disorders, such as autism, but they may well be the core underlying problems for youth and adults with ADHD." The girls and their families currently are participating in a follow-up study, so some of them have been followed for five years into adolescence.
Although boys diagnosed with ADHD outnumber girls approximately three to one, said Hinshaw, it may be that some girls have been underdiagnosed, particularly those with the "inattentive type" of the disorder, which seems more prevalent in girls.
"The inattentive type of ADHD is marked less by disruptive, impulsive behavior and more by disorganized, unfocused performance," Hinshaw said. "The latter isn't as likely to be recognized or cause as much concern to teachers." Hinshaw hopes his project will bring attention to a population of young girls whose problems may have been ignored.
Read more in the Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology
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Child Abuse Found to be Global Problem, WHO Review Reveals
October 22, 2002
Some social scientists used to believe that child abuse was limited mainly to North America. However the World Health Organization report ("World Health Organization Report on Violence and Health" released in Brussels Oct 3), prepared by Dr Desmond Runyan of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, concluded that an estimated 57,000 children die each year from physical abuse. Sexual and psychological abuse also are widespread, are difficult to measure and need to be addressed.
"Whether child abuse is uniquely American or Western is a question that's been raised by a number of people around the world," said Runyan, professor and chief of social medicine at the UNC School of Medicine and professor of pediatrics. "Not long ago, a Chilean physician said to me that clearly it happens more in North America than any other place. 'Just look at Medline (an online search engine for medical information),' he said. 'It is American journals that write about child abuse.'"
But just because doctors and others in other countries haven't paid much attention or written about it, doesn't mean abuse is not universal, the UNC scholar found. "Despite all the differences in cultures and the rules about how we raise children, rates of abuse around the world are remarkably similar in some ways," Runyan said. "Close to 40 percent of the children being beaten by their parents are in places as far away as Romania, Hong Kong and Korea. And the risk factors for abuse look remarkably similar in different countries."
His review showed major differences between countries in how abuse was defined, not what parents did to their children, he said. In much of the United States, for example, slapping or punching a child in the head would be considered abuse, while in India such actions are as common as spanking on the buttocks and aren't normally considered abusive.
Parents yelling at children appears to be nearly universal, he found. Seriously injuring children physically is uncommon. "People all around the world basically do value kids, and while they may do things that are stupid or harmful, really serious things like burning or threatening them with a knife or gun or cutting them happens at a relatively low rate," Runyan said. "It's not a zero rate -- we're talking a few percent."
In reviewing the literature and related information, he found more abuse among poor families, and higher levels in families with more children, he said. The youngest children -- those age 4 and younger -- were at greatest risk of serious injuries and death. Boys suffered more physical abuse, while girls were more likely to be sexually abused. For both sexes, the chief victimizers were men.
Another major observation was that despite reports from a variety of countries around the world, on every continent, no data existed for many nations, he said. The chief questions should no longer center on "Is abuse going on?" but rather how to define, measure and minimize it.
"We haven't found a country yet that, when they seriously looked at the problem, didn't find that they had a problem, but there are many countries that haven't even looked," the physician said. "And so one of our recommendations is that these countries need to start. Another recommendation is that local data should be collected to guide local interventions in every country. National health services, medical schools and social scientists across the globe need to think about measuring abuse to determine what's going on."
Only a minority of countries have provisions for protecting children in terms of mandatory reporting, child protective services and legal systems that are designed to help kids, he said. That needs to change too. "We think the report will surprise a lot of people because so many have held firmly to the idea that this is a disease of Western society, that it doesn't happen in developing countries," Runyan said. "The data found and reported here make it sound like developing countries have an even greater problem than richer countries, perhaps because of a lack of training and opportunities for parents."
Read more on the University of North Carolina website
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About the Author
Dr Bob Murray is a widely published psychologist and expert on emotional health and optimal relationships. Together with his wife and long-term collaborator Alicia Fortinberry, he is founder of the highly successful Uplift Program, and author of Raising an Optimistic Child (McGraw-Hill, 2006) and Creating Optimism (McGraw-Hill, 2004).
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