This manual describes the Teen Parent Program in Cleveland, which specializes in helping teenage parents with nurturing and coping skill problems. Many teenage parents are themselves abused or neglected as children, and they perpetuate the same upbringing on their own children. Through a self-help and volunteer support concept of service, this program helps teen parents to cope with the demands of parenthood; provides support mechanisms through a peer support group, volunteer advocates, and a crisis hotline; teaches parenting and coping skills with the hope of preventing child abuse and…
The Parenting Education for Teen Family Life Skills Project was developed to provide a support and parenting education project for pregnant and parenting teenagers in the Oklahoma City-County area. Objectives were: to increase parental self-esteem; to increase social support; to increase knowledge of normal infant behavior; to increase participation in educational programs; to decrease the incidence of reported and confirmed child abuse and neglect; to decrease the incidence of unplanned pregnancy; and to decrease dependence on public financial assistance. Several components made up the…
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Journal Article Infant protest following separation from the mother has been used as a partial index of the strength of the mother-infant bond, in which case it is assumed that the strength of the bond covaries with the amount of social interaction. In this study, 36 1-year-old middle-class children with fathers who spent differing amounts of time with them at home were observed in two experimental contexts separated by 2 weeks. In the first, each infant was shown six to eight repetitions of three different nonsocial stimuli followed by a change in the stimulus. In the second, each infant experienced the…
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This paper describes a study examining the nature and importance of fathers' relationships to their infants. Most previous research in this area had concentrated on the negative impact on childhood development of a father's absence, or on the differences between children's relationships with strangers and with their mothers. This study examined the child's behavior in an unfamiliar playroom as a function of the presence or absence of his mother, father, or an unfamiliar female at the ages of 6, 9, 12, 15, 18, and 21 months. The sample consisted of 144 infants (all first-born children), with…
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Journal Article This paper reviews research on adolescent parenthood. Related factors such as social, economic and educational background are examined as well as psychological factors. The study makes extensive comparisons on a variety of issues. However, for a fundamental change to be made in early intercourse and childbearing, such social factors as poverty, unemployment, and racism must be taken into consideration.
This chapter reports the findings of a study of father-son relationships among 18 adolescent sex offenders. The objective of the research was to examine the role of paternal deprivation in psycho-sexual development and sexually abusive behavior. None of the boys in the study reported having a warm and nurturing relationship with their birth fathers. Slightly more than half of the boys indicated that their father had abandoned their family when they were young. Eighteen percent of the boys had been sexually abused by their father and 50 percent were physically abused. Psychoanalytic theory…
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Journal Article Administrative data was used to compare pre-reform and post- reform cohorts of teenage parents regarding the impact of reform on welfare enrollments, case closures, child maltreatment, and subsequent births. The relationship between mandated living arrangements to outcomes was also examined. Cohort differences were observed in enrollments and reasons for closure, but not in maltreatment or birth rates. Living arrangements were found to be associated with case closure. 12 references and 2 tables. (Author abstract)
Despite increasing recognition of the role of fathers in the lives of their children, home visitors and child protection workers usually perceive men to be the source of problems and do not include them in their interventions with vulnerable children. Social work tends to marginalize fathers and avoid assessing their risks or benefits to the family. This book outlines theoretical justifications for the engagement of fathers in child protection work and suggests relevant practice strategies. Important concepts from attachment theory, feminist theory, and nursing theory are highlighted. The…
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Journal Article Preliminary data from the National Evaluation of Early Head Start (NEEHS) program suggests that minority and lower income fathers are just as emotionally invested in their infants and toddlers as White middle-class fathers, this article reports. The data refutes generalizations that lower-income minority fathers are less involved than others in the early childhood development. Most published studies on the subject have relied disproportionately upon data from White middle-class fathers, according to the report. NEEHS provides a more racially and socioeconomically diverse examination of…
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Journal Article This study examined the effect of father-child interactions on the behavior and health of young children in a sample of 182 families reported to child protective services. Data were collected from interviews with the child and his or her caregiver and from reviews of child protective service records and teacher reports. Variables included child and family characteristics; parental and family functioning; extrafamilial relationships; community environment; religious affiliation; child outcomes; and service utilization. Whereas the presence or absence of a father or father figure seemed to make…
