Story time: not just for children anymore

Sharing breastfeeding stories has enormous value for both teller and listener. In a culture that often misunderstands and devalues breastfeeding and the nursing relationship, stories reduce women's anxiety and insecurity, validate their experiences, reveal the social and cultural roots of these experiences, and illuminate why breastfeeding matters so much to women.     

Transition of maternal competency of married and single mothers in early parenthood

Women who perceive maternal competency in early parenthood feel comfortable with infant care. A convenience sample of 58 married, first-time mothers and 22 single, first-time mothers was surveyed at six to eight weeks after childbirth to determine the differences in maternal competence perception between married and single mothers. Findings in this pilot study reveal that single mothers significantly reported less comfort in the maternal role as compared to married mothers. Implications for practice, research, and education are discussed.     

Characteristics of fruit ripening in tomato mutant epi

INTRODUCTION As a gaseous phytohormone, ethylene plays an important role in plant growth and development. Eth-ylene can alter plant physiology and morphology due to its effect of regulating gene expression (Moc-tezuma et al., 2003). Such regulation apparently de-pends on the effect of the normal ability of the plant tissues on ethylene perception and signal transduction.Impairment of the perception and signal transduction pathway(s) would thus ultimately lead to alterations in the plant…     

Predicting abuse-prone parental attitudes and discipline practices in a nationally representative sample

OBJECTIVE: According to sociological and ecological models of abuse, typically nonabusive parents could behave abusively towards their children under certain circumstances. The purpose of this study was to examine factors that place parents at risk of abusing their children by predicting parents' use of discipline practices and attitudes that may bias parents towards abusive behaviors, which we refer to as abuse-proneness. METHOD: A telephone interview was administered by the Gallup Organization to a nationally representative sample of 1,000 parents. Using a set of theoretically relevant risk factors, multiple regression was used to predict variations in parental attitudes (i.e., attitudes towards physical discipline and attitudes that devalue children) and parental discipline practices (i.e., physical discipline, nonphysical discipline, and verbal abuse). RESULTS: The findings confirmed the importance of examining elements of parental attitudes, history, personality characteristics, as well as religion and ideology in predicting abuse proneness. Child age also was an important predictor in all analyses except predicting parental attitudes that devalue children. The findings suggest also, however, that it may be unduly simplified to regard parents as somewhere on a continuum of nonpunitive to punitive disciplinarians. Social isolation was not a significant predictor in any of the analyses. CONCLUSIONS: Although many important theoretical predictors of abuse proneness were confirmed, many questions arise regarding the diversity of discipline practices that parents use, and the relevance of child's age and social isolation in predicting abuse proneness. Implications for practitioners and future research are discussed.     

Mother- and father-reported reactions to children's negative emotions: relations to young children's emotional understanding and friendship quality

Mother- and father-reported reactions to children's negative emotions were examined as correlates of emotional understanding (Study 1, N = 55, 5- to 6-year-olds) and friendship quality (Study 2, N = 49, 3- to 5-year-olds). Mothers' and fathers' supportive reactions together contributed to greater child-friend coordinated play during a sharing task. Further, when one parent reported low support, greater support by the other parent was related to better understanding of emotions and less intense conflict with friends (for boys only). When one parent reported high support, however, greater support by the other parent was associated with less optimal functioning on these outcomes. Results partially support the notion that children benefit when parents differ in their reactions to children's emotions.