THE STATE,PARENTING, AND THE POPULIST ENERGIES OF ANXIETY

In this essay James Conroy raises the question of how far the state should engage in the rearing of children, looking in particular at homeschooling as a site for contestation. He considers this question by looking specifically at recent developments in the United Kingdom around the elision of child safeguarding issues with concern about the control of home education. In the first part of the essay, Conroy explores some general questions about the relation between politics and populism, and the consequences for the prerogatives of parents. In the second part of the essay, he interrogates constructivist accounts of the family and offers something of a historical corrective to the widely held view (emanating from Philippe Ariès) that the very conceit of the family is a “modern” invention. This analysis leads Conroy to conclude that, while states do have a proper locus in the upbringing of children, they must make certain presumptions in favor of the parent if governmental responses to home education are to be considered political rather than populist and “controlling.”     

CHILD REARING IN THE “RISK” SOCIETY: ON THE DISCOURSE OF RIGHTS AND THE “BEST INTERESTS OF A CHILD”

Due to a number of radical changes in society, the role of parents in the upbringing of their children has been redefined. In this essay, Paul Smeyers argues that “risk” thinking, and the technologization that goes with it in the context of child rearing, naturally leads to the rights discourse, but that thinking about the relation between parents and children in terms of rights confronts one with a number of insurmountable problems. The concept of the “best interests of a child” that is often invoked is, to say the least, not at all clear. Smeyers contends that while the discourse of rights is clearly important and relevant insofar as the relation between parents and the state are discussed, it impoverishes our understanding of relations of family members when used as an all‐inclusive framework in that context. Therefore, he concludes that we must surpass the totalizing tendency of the transformation of the social realm into a system, of defining the relation between parents and children in technical terms, and of holding parents liable for their children's upbringing.     

Child maltreatment: social representation of the general population and the professionals working with children in the Caribbean area of Colombia

OBJECTIVE: The main objective was to know social representations about child maltreatment (severity, etiology, and intervention strategies) of the general population and the professionals working with children in the Caribbean area of Colombia. METHOD: Sample was composed for 402 participants. From this pool of participants, 111 of them were working in child protection, 95 worked with children but not in the child protection system and 196 pertained to the general population. All participants answered to a questionnaire composed by 86 items. The questionnaire was developed to assess (1) the perceived severity of different typologies of child abuse, (2) opinions about risk factors for child maltreatment and sexual abuse, and (3) opinions about the most adequate ways of intervention with perpetrator of child abuse. RESULTS: Sexual abuse is considered as the most severe typology of child maltreatment and emotional abuse is considered as more severe than physical abuse. No differences between groups were found in perceived severity of typologies of child maltreatment. Differences in the social representation about the etiology of child maltreatment were found. Professionals working in the child protection system give more value to characteristics of parents and to the socio-economic and familiar environment in the etiology of child maltreatment than participants from the general population. Prevention and treatment programs for abusers were considered as the more relevant strategies against child maltreatment. DISCUSSION: Findings of present study suggest that social representations about child maltreatment of general population and professionals from the Caribbean area of Colombia are similar than social representation observed in other regions and countries. It is important to take into account that child labor and child poverty were considered as non-severe typologies of child maltreatment. Moreover, findings suggest that people from general population in the Caribbean area of Colombia have a relevant knowledge about agencies working for child protection.     

The Development of Children's Beliefs about Social and Biological Aspects of Gender Differences

2 studies examined children's beliefs about the origins of gender differences and addressed 2 main questions: (a) What age-related changes are there in children's beliefs about the contributions of nature and nurture to the development of gender roles? and (b) Do children differentiate between aspects of gender roles that adults believe to be more biologically determined and those they believe to be more socially influenced? 160 4- to 10-year-olds and 32 adults participated in Study 1. Participants were told about a child raised with only opposite-sex individuals and were asked whether the child would grow up to possess a series of gender-stereotyped, biological, and control properties. Until age 9 or 10, children believed that gender-stereotyped properties would develop in an infant regardless of the social context of upbringing. Study 2 provides evidence that children were not merely reporting stereotypical category associations. These studies suggest that young children may have an early bias to view gender categories as predictive of essential, underlying similarities between members, but later come to acknowledge the role of other causal mechanisms (e.g., the social environment) in shaping how category members develop.     

四-六年级儿童在数学测验自阅卷情境中的说谎行为研究

为探讨四-六年级儿童说谎行为及其与家庭教养方式之间的关系,选取小学四-六年级共6个班儿童为被试,采用自编数学测验和家庭教养方式问卷为实验材料,在自阅卷情境中了解四-六年级儿童说谎行为的差异,并探讨其与家庭教养方式之间的关系。结果显示:四-六年级的儿童对考试说谎行为的认知和判断已经基本形成;在影响儿童考试说谎行为的三个因素上,自阅卷情境对四、五年级儿童的说谎行为并不存在显著影响,对六年级的儿童有显著影响。五年级或许是影响儿童说谎因素发展的一个关键期或转折点;家庭教养方式的不同因子对儿童说谎行为的影响有所不同。父亲教养方式中的惩罚严厉或是拒绝否认,以及母亲的家庭教养方式中的过分干涉和过分保护,或是不偏爱儿童,都更容易导致儿童说谎行为的发生。     

Preschool child development: implications for investigation of child abuse allegations

Allegations of mistreatment by adults made by children of preschool age are often dismissed as fictitious with the suggestion that children of this age are prone to fantasy and unable to discriminate fact from fiction. This paper is intended to familiarize those with a general concern about child abuse with the research and theories in child development. Specifically, it reviews those aspects of normal child development which have direct relevance to the question of the veracity of reports made by children ages 2 to 5 years. Examination of the research on children's thought and language, memory and learning, fears, fantasy, and play, as well as the research on the influence of television on children of this age, led to the conclusion that preschoolers base their play on the reality of their experience.     

Forms of custody of children placed in Switzerland: ambiguous policies, resistance, and conflicting objectives (1850-1950).

In the past, many European countries were faced with the problem of providing care for boarded-out children. And very often the policies implemented up to the middle of the twentieth century were essentially similar and thus similarly inadequate. The problem with boarding out is that it was a measure in response to widely varying situations, not only in respect of the illegitimate as well as the legitimate children concerned, but also with regard to the reasons which led to boarding out. Orphans after the First World War with no relatives who could take them in formed a minority, and in several Swiss cantons the legitimate children outnumbered the illegitimate ones by far. Up to the First World War, the age group concerned was mostly that of children from birth to 14 years. There was considerable ambivalence in the motives leading to the boarding out of children, because they were the result of two conflicting concepts. On the one hand, the parents or the mother of an illegitimate child had to out-place her child/children because the mother had to go out to work, as was often the case with the spread of industrialisation and the frequently inadequate income of the working class. On the other hand, the local Assistance Board was often ready to split up poorer families and to take away their children with the argument that the family environment was considered morally harmful for their upbringing according to the contemporary view. Both parents and the local Assistance Board often chose the cheapest solution for different reasons. In numerous cases the children were placed with farming families quite unable to offer a proper upbringing and children were taken in only because they represented a supplementary source of income and an addition to the workforce. For the local authorities, be they rural or urban, in some cantons even during the interwar period, the auctioning of the children to families living in other parts of Switzerland was a frequent stratagem in order to pay the lowest possible boarding fees, and the level of these fees decreased enormously the older the child was since his/her work capacity increased over time. In most cantons, one of the main problems with boarding out was the totally inadequate supervision of the families to which the children were entrusted, either because of the geographical distance between the local authority and the children, or because of the inadequacy of the supervisory staff, often benevolent females with no clear rules existing for judging the adequacy of the entrusted families, or due to the general lack of interest for the destiny of the children.     

儿童焦虑与父母教养方式关系的调节变量研究

研究综合了来自中国大陆18570名3-12岁儿童的焦虑与父母教养方式相关的30项研究的数据,通过元分析的方法考查了二者相关的强度,并分析影响相关强度的因素。从总体上来说,儿童焦虑与父母教养方式存在弱相关;父母教养方式类型、儿童年龄、父母性别会对二者关系产生调节作用。建议在教养儿童过程中要采用正向的教养方式,要给予年幼儿童充分的独立自主的权利和自由,鼓励父亲参与教养,这有利于降低儿童的焦虑水平。     

家庭教养、社会公众支持与特殊儿童生活满意度——基于新疆伊宁市172份特殊儿童问卷调查

特殊儿童的生活满意度普遍低于正常儿童。家庭教养和社会公众支持作为儿童社会系统的两个重要组成部分,对特殊儿童生活的满意度具有显著的影响。特殊机构福利组织教养可以弥补家庭教养的弊端,并且提高社会公众支持水平。要提高特殊儿童的生活满意度,特殊儿童的教养方式应由家庭教养向社会福利机构教养转变。     

保育、教学与养育的融合

在北欧国家,特别是丹麦,大多数儿童都能接受托幼机构的教育,因而他们能与其他儿童和教师一起共享社会生活。本文对丹麦有关保育是儿童健康和发展的手段,而教学是儿童学习的媒介这一常见的观念进行解构。这一观念把保育(在日托中心进行)和学习(在学校进行)看作是一对矛盾,使得丹麦早期教育处于一种浪漫的儿童中心地位。保育、教学和养育应该彼此融合。教师的作用主要体现在支持儿童自身的实验、调查以及儿童的社会性互动和游戏。     

Religious Upbringing Reconsidered

There is, on the face of it, a logical difficulty as well as a practical one about ascribing to parents both a right to give their children a religious upbringing and a duty to avoid indoctrinating them. Curiously, this logical difficulty was largely overlooked in the debate on religious upbringing and parental rights between Terence McLaughlin, Eamonn Callan and Peter Gardner in the 1980s. In this paper I set out the terms of the logical problem and propose a solution to it.     

Reasoning as a Pedagogical Tool: Tolstoy’s Real Happening Stories for Children

Viewing Tolstoy’s works from psychological and intellectual perspectives demonstrates his approach to children’s literacy and especially the development of reasoning, which he presents in his writing for children and the stories he includes in his New ABC book (1875a) and four Readers (1875b). This article examines Tolstoy’s reasoning approach in education and its application in his real happening stories for children. Some of Tolstoy’s ideas about upbringing that are expressed in his stories are similar to ideas of Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712–1778) and a Swiss developmental physiologist contemporary to Tolstoy, Jean Piaget (1896–1980). Tolstoy’s real happening stories treat situations that a child might actually experience; they propose and teach scenarios that might influence a child’s or an adult’s thinking about ways to obtain an education. Thus, in Tolstoy’s approach to children’s education, reasoning becomes a pedagogical tool, used to develop knowledge, experience and critical thinking ability.     

Addressing Disparities in Parent Education: Examining the Effects of Learn the Signs/Act Early Parent Education Materials on Parent Outcomes

Early intervention is critical for improved prognosis and quality of life for young children with developmental delays and disabilities. Yet, disparities persist among underserved families with young children. These disparities include knowledge of child development, use of medical providers as referral sources, and later diagnosis. The current study employed a mixed method, randomized controlled trial to examine participant outcomes among low-income, underserved families who received child development information. The information included the 42-page Milestone Moments booklet that was developed by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Learn the Signs/Act Early initiative. Participants (n = 108) included parents or legal guardians of children ages birth through 5 years. The participants were predominantly Black/African American (86 %) and female (90 %), and all had incomes below the federal poverty level. Study variables related to the location (home vs. child care center) and context (single session vs. extended visits) for delivering the information did not yield significant differences. Yet, there were clear findings that parents who received the booklet reported increased knowledge about child development, a decrease in concern about their own children’s developmental progress, and a positive perception of the booklet. On interview, parents reported learning new information about child development or being reminded of developmental information they had forgotten and the importance of following up with professionals when concerns arose. While not statistically significant, there was a consistent trend toward greater participant outcomes for parents who received materials in the child care setting relative to the home.     

Intimate partner violence in the family: Considerations for children's safety

Children's exposure to intimate partner violence (IPV) is increasingly recognized as a type of child maltreatment that has a level of impairment similar to other types of abuse and neglect. Despite advances in the area of IPV, the safety planning strategies recommended as part of the overall response to IPV need to be examined in terms of their implications for children. This article discusses these strategies within the context of child safety, comparing IPV safety planning with approaches aimed at reducing exposure to other types of violence such as child sexual abuse, as well as general child safety strategies. Despite the emphasis on safety planning in information available on responding to IPV, the actual effectiveness of such planning in improving safety and reducing violence is unknown. Safety planning provided to children by a parent experiencing IPV, especially when IPV is ongoing and not recognized by anyone outside the home, may lead to confusing messages for children, particularly if there is an emphasis on secrecy. While awaiting evidence about the effectiveness of specific safety planning strategies for children, we suggest basic principles and general strategies that emphasize universality in terms of education about any type of violence or abuse in the home being unacceptable, as well as the need to focus on safety in general.     

Suicide prevention: Guidelines for schools

Adolescent suicide is escalating, especially among White male teenagers who use drugs and/or alcohol, are depressed or cognitively rigid, have maladaptive families, have experienced recent loss, misunderstand death, and know a suicide victim. Teachers can foster suicide resistance by developing teens' cognitive deterrents and encouraging adaptive coping strategies. Recommended assessment tools for potentially suicidal children and teens include the Reasons for Living Inventory and the Suicidal Behaviors Questionnaire. For teachers, intervention strategies include listening empathically, asking directly about potential suicide, and breaking confidentiality in cases of an actively suicidal child or teenager. Administratively, helpful strategies are hot lines, suicide prevention training modules, and publicity of popular students' adaptive responses to stress such as drug rehabilitation or therapy. After suicide, administrators should work to diminish survivor guilt, minimize scapegoating, and prevent contagion.     

隔代教养对幼儿音乐表现力培养的利弊浅析

隔代教养在当今社会已经屡见不鲜,是中国的一大特色。通过查阅相关文献,笔者发现关于隔代教养对孙辈发展的利弊研究主要是从对其的身心发展、社会适应力、学业成绩、人际交往方面加以展开的,而本文将从隔代教养对幼儿音乐表现力培养的利弊加以探讨,并提出相关启示和建议,以期提高隔代教养的质量,促进幼儿音乐表现力的提高。     

Which juvenile crime victims get mental health treatment?

OBJECTIVE: To explore factors that facilitate the receipt of mental health treatment among juvenile crime victims. METHOD: Telephone interviews were conducted with a national sample of 157 caretakers whose children had suffered a serious sexual or physical assault in the previous year. RESULTS: Twenty-two percent of caretakers had thought about getting professional counseling for their child victims, and 20% of the child victims actually received it. But half of the families who thought about it did not follow through on their consideration. Moreover, nearly half of those victimized children who actually received counseling did so without their families reporting that they had considered it in advance. The level of symptoms and parent-child relationship factors were related to considering counseling which was in turn strongly related to actually getting counseling. Other factors were independently related to receiving counseling, such as the victimization occurring at school and the victim being perceived as at fault to some degree. Advice to get counseling and medical insurance also played roles. CONCLUSIONS: These findings suggested two pathways to counseling. One occurred via direct parental concern, and was associated with such variables as parental perceptions that the child was depressed or withdrawn or that the parent-child relationship had been negatively affected. The other pathway occurred independent of parental concern, most likely via school interventions, because this counseling was in conjunction with school victimizations.     

The Role of Gender and Reading Competence in the Development of Motivational Orientations from Kindergarten to Grade 1

In Canada, child care for kindergartners typically combines part-day school and child care. Exploratory research examined parents', teachers', and child care staff views on coordination between these programs. Community-based research surveyed these three groups. There was general agreement, and some key differences, among the groups in priorities for programs for kindergarten-age children. Social and language skills were generally considered most important; reading and writing least. Parents were particularly enthusiastic about a coordinated, school-based program. Teachers and child care staff were somewhat less enthusiastic about the model, with teachers' reactions the least positive. Teachers' views on the advisability of an integrated program were varied—some thought it would be of benefit to children, others disagreed. All three groups felt that a coordinated program would benefit by being school-based. Direct experience with integrated programs seemed to produce strong opinions about the value of program integration, with those teachers who had on-site child care programs giving the integrated programs the highest and the lowest ratings. Arguments are made for small-scale demonstration programs to expand provision of child care services using kindergarten as a foundation—and for rigorous evaluation of program impacts and outcomes.     

The Upbringing of Girls in Turkey

Although the topic "the upbringing of girls" is one that crosses cultural boundaries, socialization into specific sex roles, nonetheless, varies quite widely from culture to culture. The decision to deal with the topic of girls' upbringing in the context of the Turkish folksong results from the fact that there is almost no literature on girls' upbringing in Turkey, while on the other hand there are folksongs which are sung and played frequently. The contents of these songs show a definite concern with sex roles, as well as the types of relations desired between the sexes. It is a generally known fact that, in the tradition-bound society of Turkey, girls are prepared not merely for their later roles as women, but also specifically for their roles in marriage and the family. The question is to what extent the topic of girls' and women's roles are touched upon in folksongs, and with what potential for any development. The notions, feelings, and wishes communicated in the texts of folksongs portray women and girls as as they are seen by the broad population throughout the country and reveal how this picture is conveyed from adults to children.     

Erroneous concerns about child sexual abuse

AIM: To assess the incidence and nature of concerns about sexual abuse, with particular reference to erroneous concerns of sexual abuse made by children. METHODS: A review of case notes of all child sexual abuse reports to the Denver Department of Social Services over 12 months. Cases were put into four groups: substantiated, not sexual abuse, inconclusive and erroneous accounts by children. RESULTS: 551 cases were reviewed. Forty-three percent were substantiated, 21% were inconclusive and 34% were not considered to be abuse cases. There were 14 (2.5%) erroneous concerns emanating from children. They comprised three cases of allegations made in collusion with a parent, three cases where an innocent event was misinterpreted as sexual abuse and eight cases (1.5%) of false allegations of sexual abuse.CONCLUSION: Erroneous concern of sexual abuse from children are uncommon. The four categories of concern in this study, in contrast to the simple classification of substantiated and unsubstantiated, provide a means of encouraging open minded assessments of the typical concerns which a child protection agency receives.