Families Count Effects on Child and Adolescent Development

Edited by: ALISON CLARKE-STEWART

University of California, Irvine

JUDY DUNN Institute of Psychiatry, Kings College, London

1.

How Families Matter in Child Development Reflections from Research on Risk and Resilience
Ann S. Masten and Anne Shaffer

- Throughout the history, the family has played a ubiquitous role in Aimed at understanding and improve child theories and researches welfare and development.
- Family based adversity has been the focus of extensive studies with The goal of learn how to prevent or ameliorate the impact of such adversity on children.

- In developmental psychopathology, the role of family in development has been obviousin the study of risk and resilience.

- Based on the studies of risk and resilience, we aim at this chapter to frame how one might think about the diverse ways families could matter in human development.

Basic models of the ways families matter:- There are several ways that families may matter; including passing genes.

- In the following figures; we illustrate some of the basic models of family effects on child behavior and development..

Direct family effect:

F R

- Families can function as direct influence on child behavior :In Positive way

In negative way

Promotive (asset) (resource)

Risk factor

Counterbalancing the effects of independent risk factor

( Compensatory Factor)

-These are relatively simple although the process could be very complex in nature.

- Child problems increase as function of the number of Risk Factors forming ( Risk gradients).

- The influences of the families on Child outcomes can also be indirect :Simple mediated indirect family effects:M F C
- The effect of the family on child are entirely mediated by some intervening factors. The mediator could be a feature of the child, the child diet, the school, neighborhood, or health care system that influences a child`s behavior.

Example;

Parent`s income.

- The same Family could produce all kinds of risks, assets and opportunities to the same child over the course development.

- The following model illustrates a more complex variation on the indirect model; Complex mediated family effect:
MG F ME C

Family effects are mediated by both genes and environment and the interaction of those mediators.

- Family can also function as the mediator of more distal conditions on children; Family as mediator: F R C
A risk factor alters family functioning (e.g; parenting) in some way; which in turn affects the child. Many models of distal Risk Factors such as social class or economic hardship are thought to be mediated by their effects on parents.

- There are also models of family in a moderating role; Family as moderator: R C F Something of the family alters the impact of a risk factor on a child.
In this case of a family as a moderator, family alters the effect of another factor on child in either:

Positive way (protective factor)

Negative way

- There are also models of more dynamic, complex interaction over Time. A relatively simple example of a transactional model F1 F2 F3 as the following; Transactional C3 Family-Child effects:C 1 C2
In this mode; ongoing interactions of child and family influence the family, the child, and there future interactions. Transactional models are based on systems theory; in which changes in one system ( such as family ) can lead to changes in all other systems connected directly and indirectly to a family.

- Interventions can also be conceptualized and modeled in relation to these basic models of family influence on children.
- The family is the target of the intervention. - Intervention as an effort to alter the mediator. - Intervention is targeted to system parts. In the following sections, highlight examples of models of how families matter based on findings from the literature on risk and resilience. We focus particularly on models of families as adaptive systems for human development, as mediators and moderators of change, and as targets of interventions.

1- Families as major adaptive system for human development:

* Attachment and family function. * Family as regulator. * Parent as teacher, socializer, protector and cultural conduit. * Family as provider, broker, or purveyor of resource and opportunities.

* Attachment and family function:

- Attachment relationships are fundamental to the role of the family as an adaptive system and to the development of emotion regulation. - Attachment Theory.

* Family as regulator:
- Family context and regulation. - Process of internalization. - Brain Development researches. - example.

*Parent as teacher, socializer, protector and cultural conduit:

Parents and social development. Parents and cultural traditions. Family`s own internal culture.

* Family as provider, broker, or purveyor of resource and opportunities:

- Direct way. - Indirect way.

2- Families as source of risk and threats:

Some are passive in nature: some are active source of threat:

- At the biological level. - As risky social environment. - Impaired parents. - SES.

- Child maltreatment. - Inconsistent parenting. - Relations of family conflict.

3- Family as proximal mediator of distal events or conditions:

- Systems Theory. - Examples: 1- Problems at work. 2- Economic status. - Intervention strategies. implementation with African American families.

4- Parents as mediators of Genetic Risk or Vulnerability:

- Study of genetic and environmental effects in the development.

5- Family as moderator of risk and moderated by other influences:

- In one kind of interaction, family functions to buffer a child from worst exposure to adversity. - In another instances, family factors may serve to exacerbate the effect of already negative context. - The quality of monitoring by parents in risky environments has been strongly implicated as moderator. - Age and individual diffirences in children can also moderate family effects. - Examples.

6- Ever more complex models of family influence:

- There may be parents and families that are more resilient in the face of adversity in terms of how well they function to protect and care for children. - Child`s adaptation actually reflects the resilience of the parenting or the family system.

7- Interventions to protect or improve family functioning:

- In prevention science, there are many examples of interactions designed to help children through changing family interaction or parenting. - Interventions to create a protective effects. - Studying the influences on the nature and quality of parenting. - More complex models. - Recent advances in growth curve and structural equation modeling help.