This title was first published in 2000: This book is based on selected papers from a major international congress of the same name that was held at the University of Calgary in July 1997. The contributors come from Canada, England, Italy, United States, Hong Kong and New Zealand where they are researchers at major universities. The papers are organized into four sections: 1) Context of Families, 2) Family Adjustment and Transitions, 3) Child and Adolescent Development, and Attachment. The book sets out to bring together advanced research by psychologists, social workers, physicians, sociologists and other social scientists on the interface between society, the family, children, adolescents and other family members.

Children live in rapidly changing times that require them to constantly adapt to new economic, social, and cultural conditions. In this book, a distinguished, interdisciplinary group of scholars explores the issues faced by children in contemporary societies, such as discrimination in school and neighborhoods, the emergence of new family forms, the availability of new communication technologies, and economic hardship, as well as the stresses associated with immigration, war, and famine. The book applies a historical, cultural, and life-course developmental framework for understanding the factors that affect how children adjust to these challenges, and offers a new perspective on how changing historical circumstances alter children's developmental outcomes. It is ideal for researchers and graduate students in developmental and educational psychology or the sociology and anthropology of childhood.

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.

"Divorce" is a big word...especially for little kids. It's hard for young children to understand what the word means, let alone how it will impact their lives--and it's hard for us, as grown-ups, to explain it to them in terms they can fully comprehend. Nonetheless, when a child is involved in a family divorce or separation, it is crucial that he or she understands and embraces the changes... and this book will help you explain the transitions to your child. Family Changes is a delightfully informative children's book that tackles a complicated topic in compassionate, child-friendly terms. Ideal for young minds aged four through eight, it features a colorful cast of fuzzy characters led by a young bunny named Zoey, who is struggling with her parents' divorce and is riddled by important questions and feelings your child is likely to encounter. In addition to the heartfelt story at its core, Family Changes also offers parents, therapists, teachers, and caregivers valuable information on how to ease children through this significant life change. A comprehensive note to parents and a list of essential child-focused questions are provided to guide the adult and child, and are certain to be an asset to both children and adults involved in the divorce/separation process.

This book - a provocative examination of family development and the variables that affects its course - emphasizes the changes in that life cycle as we move toward the 21st century. It offers essential guidance in understanding what happens in families in terms of the flow of live over the generations. The current edition provides a more in-depth perspective on the impact of gender on family life at each stage of the life cycle and on cultural variations in life cycle patterns. In addition to updated statistics and an integration of findings from research since 1980 on families through the life cycle, several important new chapters are included. Among the topics considered: chronic illness, alcoholism, single-parent families, rituals, genograms, and the contrasting of the life cycle of the poor with that of the upper middle classes. The contributors bring to this work a variety of expertise, experience, and vision that together constitute an invaluable resource for both the student and the working therapist.

In a previous volume, Families as Learning Environments for Children, we presented a series of chapters that dealt with research programs on the role of families as learning environments for children. Those studies were based on empirical data and sought answers to basic research questions, with no explicit concern for the application of the results to practical problems. Rather, their purpose was to contribute primarily to conceptualization, research methodology, and psychological theory. Now, in this volume, we turn our attention to intervention-efforts to modify the way a family develops. As in our previous conference, the participants of the working conference on which the present volume is based are research scientists and scholars interested in application. This group is distinct from practitioners, however, whose primary focus is service; participants in this conference have as their primary interest research into the problems of processes of application. Applied professional issues concerning the lives of families come from many varied sources, from some that are distant and impersonal (e. g. , the law) to direct face-to-face efforts (educators, therapists). The variety of sources and types of applications are eloquent testimony to the degree to which families are subject to a host of societal forces whose implicit or explicit aim is to modify family functioning. For example, some educators may wish to alter family child-rearing patterns to enhance child development; the clinician seeks to help families come to terms and to cope with a schizophrenic child. The list can be extended.