Parenting Matters

Parenting Matters
Author: National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine
Publisher: National Academies Press
Total Pages: 525
Release: 2016-11-21
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 0309388570

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Decades of research have demonstrated that the parent-child dyad and the environment of the familyâ€"which includes all primary caregiversâ€"are at the foundation of children's well- being and healthy development. From birth, children are learning and rely on parents and the other caregivers in their lives to protect and care for them. The impact of parents may never be greater than during the earliest years of life, when a child's brain is rapidly developing and when nearly all of her or his experiences are created and shaped by parents and the family environment. Parents help children build and refine their knowledge and skills, charting a trajectory for their health and well-being during childhood and beyond. The experience of parenting also impacts parents themselves. For instance, parenting can enrich and give focus to parents' lives; generate stress or calm; and create any number of emotions, including feelings of happiness, sadness, fulfillment, and anger. Parenting of young children today takes place in the context of significant ongoing developments. These include: a rapidly growing body of science on early childhood, increases in funding for programs and services for families, changing demographics of the U.S. population, and greater diversity of family structure. Additionally, parenting is increasingly being shaped by technology and increased access to information about parenting. Parenting Matters identifies parenting knowledge, attitudes, and practices associated with positive developmental outcomes in children ages 0-8; universal/preventive and targeted strategies used in a variety of settings that have been effective with parents of young children and that support the identified knowledge, attitudes, and practices; and barriers to and facilitators for parents' use of practices that lead to healthy child outcomes as well as their participation in effective programs and services. This report makes recommendations directed at an array of stakeholders, for promoting the wide-scale adoption of effective programs and services for parents and on areas that warrant further research to inform policy and practice. It is meant to serve as a roadmap for the future of parenting policy, research, and practice in the United States.

From Neurons to Neighborhoods

From Neurons to Neighborhoods
Author: National Research Council
Publisher: National Academies Press
Total Pages: 610
Release: 2000-11-13
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 0309069882

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How we raise young children is one of today's most highly personalized and sharply politicized issues, in part because each of us can claim some level of "expertise." The debate has intensified as discoveries about our development-in the womb and in the first months and years-have reached the popular media. How can we use our burgeoning knowledge to assure the well-being of all young children, for their own sake as well as for the sake of our nation? Drawing from new findings, this book presents important conclusions about nature-versus-nurture, the impact of being born into a working family, the effect of politics on programs for children, the costs and benefits of intervention, and other issues. The committee issues a series of challenges to decision makers regarding the quality of child care, issues of racial and ethnic diversity, the integration of children's cognitive and emotional development, and more. Authoritative yet accessible, From Neurons to Neighborhoods presents the evidence about "brain wiring" and how kids learn to speak, think, and regulate their behavior. It examines the effect of the climate-family, child care, community-within which the child grows.

Transforming the Workforce for Children Birth Through Age 8

Transforming the Workforce for Children Birth Through Age 8
Author: National Research Council
Publisher: National Academies Press
Total Pages: 587
Release: 2015-07-23
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 0309324882

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Children are already learning at birth, and they develop and learn at a rapid pace in their early years. This provides a critical foundation for lifelong progress, and the adults who provide for the care and the education of young children bear a great responsibility for their health, development, and learning. Despite the fact that they share the same objective - to nurture young children and secure their future success - the various practitioners who contribute to the care and the education of children from birth through age 8 are not acknowledged as a workforce unified by the common knowledge and competencies needed to do their jobs well. Transforming the Workforce for Children Birth Through Age 8 explores the science of child development, particularly looking at implications for the professionals who work with children. This report examines the current capacities and practices of the workforce, the settings in which they work, the policies and infrastructure that set qualifications and provide professional learning, and the government agencies and other funders who support and oversee these systems. This book then makes recommendations to improve the quality of professional practice and the practice environment for care and education professionals. These detailed recommendations create a blueprint for action that builds on a unifying foundation of child development and early learning, shared knowledge and competencies for care and education professionals, and principles for effective professional learning. Young children thrive and learn best when they have secure, positive relationships with adults who are knowledgeable about how to support their development and learning and are responsive to their individual progress. Transforming the Workforce for Children Birth Through Age 8 offers guidance on system changes to improve the quality of professional practice, specific actions to improve professional learning systems and workforce development, and research to continue to build the knowledge base in ways that will directly advance and inform future actions. The recommendations of this book provide an opportunity to improve the quality of the care and the education that children receive, and ultimately improve outcomes for children.

Family Environment and Intellectual Functioning

Family Environment and Intellectual Functioning
Author: Elena L. Grigorenko
Publisher: Psychology Press
Total Pages: 497
Release: 2001-04-01
Genre: Psychology
ISBN: 1135671109

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What is the impact of the family environment on us, particularly with regard to our intellectual functioning? Does the role of early family environment wear off, as some researchers have suggested, or does it maintain or possibly even become more important as we grow older? This book examines the interrelationship between family environment and intellectual functioning in a lifespan perspective. Covering a wide range of topics, it provides the most comprehensive and up-to-date examination of life-span family influences on various aspects of intellectual function. For cognitive, development/lifespan, and educational psychologists, and scholars studying the family and its influences, this volume will help: *students learn about family effects; *researchers update themselves in this active area of investigation; *therapists understand problems in intellectual functioning in their clients and in treating these clients successfully; and *educators gain a better grasp on how the students they teach are products not only of their genes and environments, in general, but of their family environments, in particular.

Thinking About the Family

Thinking About the Family
Author: R. D. Ashmore
Publisher: Psychology Press
Total Pages: 376
Release: 2014-02-24
Genre: Psychology
ISBN: 1317767500

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First published in 1986. Over the past decade and a half the rising divorce rate, coupled with other changes in family life, has led some observers to conclude that the traditional nuclear family today is analogous to a species of dinosaur facing an inevitable Ice Age and, with it, extinction. During this recent period of social upheaval, in which the American family has undergone considerable change, there has been an exciting upswing in research on the family and the introduction of novel perspectives for seeking to understand this most important societal institution. This volume brings together the writings of a set of researchers who represent one of these emerging approaches.

The Family-School Connection

The Family-School Connection
Author: Bruce A. Ryan
Publisher: SAGE
Total Pages: 388
Release: 1995-05-15
Genre: Education
ISBN: 9780803973077

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Currently, only about 50% of American youths live in traditional two-parent, first-marriage families. This fact, combined with often bleak economic and social realities, creates the backdrop of interactions between families, children, and schools are examined in this probing volume. Answering a need for evaluative research in this area of increasing public interest, the contributors build a model for evaluation, focusing on the dynamics of family-school connections. How is school achievement influenced by parent-child interactions and the family environment? How do school, family, community, and peer-group connections affect early adolescents? What is the family's role in the success of learning-disabled youth or in school truancy? What effect does parental discord and divorce have on a child's learning? These questions, as well as proposals for intervention and prevention, create the crux of this book designed to inform and motivate readers to respond to one of our country's most fundamental social concerns. Vital reading for everyone who wants to better understand child-school-community interaction, this book especially warrants reading by students, researchers, and other professionals in developmental psychology, family studies, psychology, and social work. "The book should be read by professionals who have contact with schools as part of their brief; by those educators who train the new generation of social workers, psychologists, and teachers; and by researchers who seek to understand the tapestry of social influences on children's development. The book is worth buying alone for the fruits of great scholarship evident in the extensive lists of up-to-date references at the end of each chapter, and in a superb appendix that offers a tour de force of a 19-page bibliography on the topic." --Child and Family Social Work

Families as Learning Environments for Children

Families as Learning Environments for Children
Author: Luis Laosa
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
Total Pages: 404
Release: 2013-11-11
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 1468441728

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The chapters in this volume reflect the work and thoughts of a group of researchers interested in studying families as learning environments for children. As we proceed in our quest to identify and understand with some specificity the familial factors associated with the intellectual and social development of children, the time is ripe for the reintroduction of families as units of study in psychological and educational research. With the increasing focus on the changing organization of the modern family, it is of more than academic interest to identify those variables that play a significant role in the child's development. Such knowledge certainly should help in the planning and design of appropriate and credible applications. These chapters, representing a broad spectrum of research, derive from papers presented and discussed at a working conference on families as learning environments sponsored by Educational Testing Service in Prince ton, New Jersey. Following the conference, the papers were revised and edited for inclusion in this volume. We are indebted to a number of people whose contributions helped make the conference a success: Samuel J. Messick and Winton H. Manning for their support; Jan Flaugher, Jessie Cryer, Linda Kozelski, and Betty Clausen for assistance with local arrangements; and William Nemceff, Kathleen Lingle, and Kalina Gonska for help with the audio-recording of the proceedings. LUIS M. LAOSA IRVING E. SIGEL vii Contents Introduction ..................................... Xl Luis M. Laosa Chapter 1. Families as Facilitators of Children's Intellectual Development at 3 Years of Age: A Causal Analysis ........................................ .

How the Family Influences Children's Academic Achievement

How the Family Influences Children's Academic Achievement
Author: Shui Fong Lam
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
Total Pages: 138
Release: 1996-12-31
Genre: Education
ISBN: 9780815326205

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Studies the interactive effects of family status and family process on children's academic achievement, drawing on research with a group of students in two inner-city schools to illustrate how parenting style mediates the influences of family structure and socio-economic status on academic performance. Concludes that an integrated model is superior to the traditional view of family status and process as independent factors. Annotation copyrighted by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR