Questions:

Parenting adolescence

- What is the most effective means for parents of adolescents to obtain knowledge of
activities and whereabouts
- Open conversational relationship with child
- Stattin and Kerr - self disclosure, parental control, and parental solicitation
- Adolescent self-disclosure is the best way
- Parental control - not letting them do bad things
- Parents asking kids what's going on doesn't give as much information

Maltreatment

- Name 5 developmental tasks that a maltreated child may have difficulty mastering
- Emotion regulation within the first year of life (trust and secure attachment
doesn't develop properly)
- Maltreated children have difficulty interpreting emotional queues, express
negative emotions excessively, and become hyper-vigilant for queues of hostility
- Attachment - Insecure attachment, disorganized
- 3 - Achieving autonomy of self - 18 - 36 months (terrible 2's - parents may
maltreat and child won't be able to self-express)
- 4 - Peer relations - Lower quality friendships, which can be related to aggressive
or socially withdrawn behaviours
- 5- Prior difficulties in emo regulations and attachment might accumulate into
problems with friends
- Adaptation to school - Lack motivation to explore school env, lack readiness to
learn, frequent placements in special ed, lower academic scores, discipline problems

Bidirectional Effects (Parent-child)

- Name and define 2 temeramental characterists:

- Reactivity
- Negative emotionality: Fearful distress and inhibition, irritable distress (More
easily distress in responding to novel things) - Lower frustration tolerance
- Approach/Extroversion - Higher willingness to explore new environments -
Sensation seeking (could lead to promiscuity, drug use, but also just thrill seeking) -
Higher activity level

- Self-regulation
- Behavioural inhibition and impulsivity - Inability to control own actions.
When punishment or non-reward is expected, child can stop itself.

What is Grey's model of temperamental reactivity?

- 3 systems
- Fight/flight/freeze system
 - Behaviour activation system (BAS)
- Behaviour inhibition system (BIS)\
- These 3 balance each other.

Define an evocative genotype environment correlation and give an example

- Children with difficult temperaments may evoke negative parenting from parents. (or
Positive temperaments evoke positive parenting)

Passive gene-environment correlation (Transfer of genes from parent to child)

Parents may transmit genes associated with adverse temperament characteristics like
impulsivity
parents may also possess this characteristic (impulsivity) and thus provide non-optimal
parenting

- Temperament and attachment (Van den Boom)

Temperament and Attachment

Van den Boom (1989, 1994)
One study examined the effects of temperament on attachment
Assessed infants born to low-SES mothers at 10 - 15 days of age and identified two
groups: Infants high in irritable distress, and infants low in irritable distress
Irritable infants were more likely to be rated as insecurely attached in Strange Situation
assessment at 12 months in age

Temperament and Maternal Sensitivity

Mothers of irritable infants appeared to be less responsive and sensitive
Genotype-Environment Interaction
- Do child temperament traits moderate the effects of parenting practices on child
outcomes
(For example, are children with certain temperament traits more vulnerable to or
completely protected from the adverse effects of negative parenting?)

Next section

Behaviour-Genetic Research
- According to behaviour genetic research, what are non-shared environment effects?
- Adopted twins that are reared together, but aren't the same.
- Non-shared env effects:
- Twins have same genes, same parents, but may turn out different on some
traits, it must happen because of non-shared environment effects. (Different peers,
different treatment by parents)

- Which of the foloowing influences accounts for the least amount of variance in the
development of personality, intelligence, and psychosocial adujustment?
- Genetic
- Shared environment
- Non-shared environment
 - See notes online

What are some of the criticisms of behaviour-genetic research?

- Oversimplification of nature of genetic influences (assuming that genes effect
behaviour directly)
- Genes and environment are correlated and inseparable, but people test them as if
they are separable
- Passive evocative and active genotype correlations and how they show that both
genes and environment interact over time
- Genetic effects are overestimated (exaggerated) because evocative genotype
correlations (difficult children evoke difficult parenting)are not considered
- Looking at MZ twins, they evoke more similar patterns, but genes may not be
causing similar behaviours, the environment may be.
- Shared environments are under-considered (opposite of above)
- Environmental effects are based on what's left over after the genetic effects are
estimated. They measure for genes, account for personality traits for genes, and
whatever is left over is environment... not always true
- Selective placement - Adoptive families may be different from non-adoptive families

Give an example of a study that demonstrates that parents make a difference in how
their children develop.
- Get a study from lecture
- Bates, Pettit and Dodge - Controls for temperament and harsh discipline
- Parenting moderates effect of temperament - Gene-environment interactions - Check
course package
- Intervention research indicating that parenting interventions helped parenthood (parent
classes, etc)

Parental Characteristics and Parenting

- Distinguish between internal and external attributions and indicate which is associated
with negative parenting practises
- Internal attributions: Assuming that the child is intentionally upsetting the parent.
The child can control it, but they don't want to
- External attributions: He's only 2 years old, having a hard time with friends,
divorce in family, etc. Assuming that the child isn't doing it on purpose.
- Obv negative parenting is associated with internal attributions

How is parental depression related to parent-child attachment?

- Children with depressed parents are likely to have insecure attachments
- Parents who are depressed are less responsive and sensitive

Define preoccupied attachment (adult attachment)

- Similar to infant insecure ambivalent attachment
- Parents clingy to children and need them to make them happy
- Sensitive about child's feelings toward parents
How are parents with preoccupied attachment likely to parent?
- More avoidant, not good with coping. Child crying, likely to leave the room
- Approach/avoidance coping strategies

How do parents with low perceived power parent?

- LPP (Parent believes that child has more power in the relationship)
- Harsh discipline/psychological control (with fearful child)
- Neglecting (with fearless child)