The following presents examples of recently published reports from Programs I and II of Child and Family Research. Program I: Child and Family Development Across the First Three Decades Parenting is widely believed to contribute in central ways to the course and outcome of child development and adjustment by regulating the majority of child environment interactions and helping to shape children's adaptation. Parenting is expressed in cognitions and practices. Parenting cognitions shape parents' sense of self, help to organize parenting, and contribute to determining how much time, effort, and energy to expend. Parents practices instantiate the opportunities parents provide children and constitute a large measure of children's worldly experience. In a large-scale prospective 8-year study, we tested a conservative 3-term model linking parenting cognitions in toddlerhood to parenting practices in preschool to classroom externalizing behavior in middle childhood. Mothers who were more knowledgeable, satisfied, and attributed successes in their parenting to themselves when their toddlers were 20 months of age engaged in increased supportive parenting during joint activity tasks 2 years later when their children were 4 years of age, and 6 years after that their 10-year-olds were rated by teachers as having fewer classroom externalizing behavior problems. This developmental cascade of a standard model of parenting applied equally to girls and boys. Conceptualizing socialization in terms of cascades helps to identify points of effective intervention. Beliefs about child competence in math and reading have important implications for academic performance in adolescence. However, it is unclear whether childrens own beliefs are the most important predictor of their academic performance or whether parents and teachers beliefs about child competence influence child academic performance. We assessed mothers, fathers, teachers, and childrens beliefs about European American childrens (N = 189) competence in math and reading at age 10 and childrens math and language performance at ages 10, 13, and 18 years. Confirmatory factor models demonstrated that childrens and teachers beliefs had lower loadings on a latent variable of child competence in math and reading than mothers beliefs. Childrens self-competence beliefs in math and reading were not significantly correlated, suggesting children may use dimensional comparisons when assessing their own competence. Mothers, fathers and teachers assessments of child competence in math were strongly correlated with their assessments of child competence in reading. Controlling for stability in academic performance, family SES, and other reporters, mothers and fathers who rated their childrens math competence higher had adolescents who performed better in math, and fathers who rated their childrens reading competence higher had adolescents who performed better in language tasks. However, children who rated their own competence higher in math and reading had lower math and language (for girls only) performance in adolescence. European American children may use dimensional comparisons that render them poorer judges of their math and reading competence than parents. Optimism and neuroticism have strong public health significance; however, their developmental precursors have rarely been identified. This study examined adolescents self-competence and their parents parenting practices as developmental origins of optimism and neuroticism in a moderated mediation model. Data were collected when European American adolescents (N = 290, 47% girls) were 14, 18, and 23 years old. Multiple-group path analyses with the nested data revealed that 14-year psychological control and lax behavioral control of both parents predicted lower levels of 18-year adolescence self-competence, which in turn predicted decreased 23-year optimism and increased neuroticism. However, the positive effects of warmth on 18-year optimism were stronger in the context of high maternal and paternal authoritativeness, and the positive effects of warmth on adolescent self-competence was attenuated by maternal authoritarianism. This study identified nuanced effects of parenting on adolescents competence and personality, which point to important intervention targets to promote positive youth development. Program II: Child Development and Parenting in Multicultural Perspective The general state of knowledge that parents command about their childrens development may influence their everyday decisions about their childrens upbringing, informing their socialization goals, shaping their developmental expectations, channeling their activities with children, and determining their childrens health and well-being. In a cross-society comparison, we assessed the state of mothers knowledge of child rearing and child development. The study included 1,077 mothers from five countries on four continents: Argentina, Belgium, Italy, South Korea, and the United States. A criteria-referenced instrument, the Knowledge of Infant Development Inventory, was used to assess parenting knowledge after being adapted for cross-society comparison using item response theory and the alignment optimization approach for testing between-sample measurement invariance. Levels of mothers parenting knowledge varied across the five societies and were associated with different sociodemographic factors and personal and non-personal supports. Promoting children's prosocial behavior is a goal for parents, healthcare professionals, and nations. Does positive parenting promote later child prosocial behavior, or do children who are more prosocial elicit more positive parenting later, or both? This cross-national study uses 1178 families from 9 countries to explore developmental transactions between parental acceptance-rejection and girls and boys prosocial behavior across three waves (child ages 9 to 12). Controlling for stability across waves, within-wave relations, and parental age and education, higher parental acceptance predicted increased child prosocial behavior from age 9 to 10 and from age 10 to 12. Higher age 9 child prosocial behavior also predicted increased parental acceptance from age 9 to 10. These transactional paths were invariant across 9 countries, mothers and fathers, and girls and boys. Parental acceptance increases child prosocial behaviors later, but child prosocial behaviors are not effective at increasing parental acceptance in the transition to adolescence. This study identifies widely applicable socialization processes across countries, mothers and fathers, and girls and boys.
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