Background: To examine whether different dimensions of parenting at different ages help small-for-gestational-age (SGA) children "catch-up" the normal children in cognition and psychomotor. Methods: We analyzed data of 800 children born SGA and 3,000 children born appropriate-for-gestational-age (AGA) from the Early Childhood…

Background: Offspring of depressed parents are at greatly increased risk for mood disorders. Among potential mechanisms of risk, recent studies have focused on information processing anomalies, such as attention and memory biases, in the offspring of depressed parents. In this study we examined another information processing domain, perceptual…

Background: Recently, first evidence has been reported for a gene-parenting interaction (G x E) with regard to adolescent alcohol use. The present investigation set out to extend this research using the catechol-O-methyltransferase ("COMT") "Val[superscript 158]Met" polymorphism as a genetic susceptibility factor. Moreover, the current study…

Although parent behaviors and cognitions are important for stress/health outcomes throughout development, little research examines whether cognitions mediate the relationship between parent behaviors and stress/health outcomes. As a result, the current study examined the reports of 160 emerging adults regarding their mothers' and fathers'…

This study examines trends in prevalence and factors associated with bullying perpetration among children 10-17 years old, using the 2003 and 2007 National Survey of Children's Health. A parent-reported bullying measure and NSCH-designed questions were used to measure factors associated with bullying. The 2003 (n = 48,639) and 2007 (n = 44,152)…

Background: Attachment theory was conceptualized by Bowlby as relevant across the life span, from "cradle to grave". The research literature on attachment in infants and preschool-aged children is extensive, but it is limited in adolescence. In particular, it is unclear whether or not attachment security is distinguishable from other qualities of…

The authors compared parent-related perceptions by hospitalized adolescents (i.e., who were admitted to a specialized psychiatric unit; n = 50) and delinquent adolescents (i.e., who were placed at a juvenile treatment institution; n = 51) with adolescents from the general population (n = 51). All adolescents completed a broad set of measures of…

Background: Parenting factors have been implicated in the aetiology and maintenance of child anxiety. Most research has been correlational with little experimental or longitudinal work. Cross-cultural comparison could be illuminating. A comparison of Italian and British children and their mothers was conducted. Methods: A sample of 8- to 10-year…

Background: Anxiety disorders are often present at preschool age. Research on older children and studies contrasting preschoolers with high versus low behavioral inhibition (BI) highlight several risk factors, but these have not been investigated in community samples of young children. Child, parent, and peer factors at age 4 were therefore…

Background: Building on reports that parental maltreatment and neglect adversely affect young children's executive function (EF), this longitudinal study examined whether exposure to a more common risk factor, mothers' depressive symptoms, predicted individual differences in EF at school-age. Methods: We followed up at age 6 a socially diverse…

Background: Research has shown that interactions between young children's temperament and the quality of care they receive predict the emergence of positive and negative socioemotional developmental outcomes. This multimethod study addresses such interactions, using observed and mother-rated measures of difficult temperament, children's…

This study examined the factorial structure of the Parental Bonding Instrument (PBI) in the Greek population. Using confirmatory factor analysis different proposed models of the basic dimensions of PBI were evaluated. The results indicated that Kendler's three-factor (i.e. care, protectiveness and authoritarianism) solution was found to be more…

Given that parenting practices have been linked to suicidal behavior in adolescence, examining the moderating effect of parenting styles on suicidal behavior early in development could offer potential insight into possible buffers as well as directions for suicide prevention and intervention later in adolescence. Hence, the moderating effects of…

Objective: Maternal antenatal anxiety is associated with an increased risk of behavioral disturbances in offspring. Recent work has suggested that the effect of maternal antenatal anxiety on infant temperament at 6 months is moderated by the serotonin transporter polymorphism 5-HTTLPR, with carriers of the short allele more susceptible to the…

Background: Hyperactive/inattentive (HI) behaviors are common in preschoolers, but they result in functional impairment and attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) diagnoses in only some children. We examined whether the quality of mother-child interaction accounts for variance in level of functioning among preschool children with elevated…