Decades of research have demonstrated that the parent-child dyad and the environment of the familyâ€"which includes all primary caregiversâ€"are at the foundation of children's well- being and healthy development. From birth, children are learning and rely on parents and the other caregivers in their lives to protect and care for them. The impact of parents may never be greater than during the earliest years of life, when a child's brain is rapidly developing and when nearly all of her or his experiences are created and shaped by parents and the family environment. Parents help children build and refine their knowledge and skills, charting a trajectory for their health and well-being during childhood and beyond. The experience of parenting also impacts parents themselves. For instance, parenting can enrich and give focus to parents' lives; generate stress or calm; and create any number of emotions, including feelings of happiness, sadness, fulfillment, and anger. Parenting of young children today takes place in the context of significant ongoing developments. These include: a rapidly growing body of science on early childhood, increases in funding for programs and services for families, changing demographics of the U.S. population, and greater diversity of family structure. Additionally, parenting is increasingly being shaped by technology and increased access to information about parenting. Parenting Matters identifies parenting knowledge, attitudes, and practices associated with positive developmental outcomes in children ages 0-8; universal/preventive and targeted strategies used in a variety of settings that have been effective with parents of young children and that support the identified knowledge, attitudes, and practices; and barriers to and facilitators for parents' use of practices that lead to healthy child outcomes as well as their participation in effective programs and services. This report makes recommendations directed at an array of stakeholders, for promoting the wide-scale adoption of effective programs and services for parents and on areas that warrant further research to inform policy and practice. It is meant to serve as a roadmap for the future of parenting policy, research, and practice in the United States.

We live in a society in which messages associating physical attractiveness with success and happiness are pervasive.This book gives a detailed, authoritative account of research, policy, and practice in psychological aspects of appearance, including the role of the media in shaping people's attitudes and behaviors towards appearance.

In the past few decades, researchers and practitioners have moved away from the idea of fatherhood as a single, monolithic concept. Examining the challenges of vulnerable fathers such as those in poverty or in prison, they have developed valuable new strategies for cultivating the positive involvement of fathers in the lives of their children. Drawing on the innovative work of Prospère, a Quebec organization that brought together fathers, university researchers, and health and social service practitioners, Fathering details innovative approaches that support positive father involvement. It provides numerous examples of strategies and interventions with fathers, lessons learned from these practices on how to better support vulnerable fathers and families, and in-depth information on ways of designing, implementing, evaluating, and disseminating the results of participatory action research (PAR) – a methodology which put fathers at the heart of the project’s decision-making.

This book addresses the inter-linked lives and fortunes of children and women in the first two decades of the twentieth century in England. This was a time of shifts in thinking and practice about children’s and women’s status, lived lives and experiences. The book provides a detailed explanation of how children experienced home, neighbourhood and elementary school; as well as discussing the impact of the women’s movement, namely its suffrage and socialist work. These two concerns are linked by the work women did about and for children. Essentially, the book explores childhood and womanhood; generation and gender; and socialism and feminism. Using existing studies on women’s work, and autobiographies and interviews about childhood, Mayall argues that women played a large part in re-thinking childhood as a special period in life, and children as participants in learning and in politics. This book will appeal to students and researchers in the fields of history, education and sociology, particularly those interested in the women’s movement, and the history of childhood.

This aim of this open access book is to launch an international, cross-disciplinary conversation on fatherhood engagement. By integrating perspective from three sectors -- Health, Social Policy, and Work in Organizations -- the book offers a novel perspective on the benefits of engaged fatherhood for men, for families, and for gender equality. The chapters are crafted to engaged broad audiences, including policy makers and organizational leaders, healthcare practitioners and fellow scholars, as well as families and their loved ones.

The Wiley Blackwell Encyclopedia of Family Studies presents a comprehensive, interdisciplinary collection of the key concepts, trends, and processes relating to the study of families and family patterns throughout the world. Offers more than 550 entries arranged A-Z Includes contributions from hundreds of family scholars in various academic disciplines from around the world Covers issues ranging from changing birth rates, fertility, and an aging world population to human trafficking, homelessness, famine, and genocide Features entries that approach families, households, and kin networks from a macro-level and micro-level perspective Covers basic demographic concepts and long-term trends across various nations, the impact of globalization on families, global family problems, and many more Features in-depth examinations of families in numerous nations in several world regions 4 Volumes www.familystudiesencyclopedia.com