Being the Winner Is Being the Loser When Playing a Parental Tug-of-War – A New Framework on Stability of Biparental Care

Because there are basic sexual differences in reproductive potential, and the cost of parental care is assumed to be high, biparental care is viewed as a constant tug-of-war between the partners. This raises the question of the system’s evolutionary stability. Several models have been proposed to resolve this problem but none has received unequivocal support. Here, I propose a framework that not only integrates the earlier theoretical ideas (sealed bids, negotiation) but also considers the importance of the environment (frequently neglected in previous models) and views the cost of parental care from a different perspective (costly in terms of parent’s survival only when performed close to the boundary of parental capacity). The framework suggests that sexual conflict may not be such a significant factor mediating parental care as commonly assumed, and that a parent trying to shift the parental burden onto the partner – assumed to be the winner in the tug-of-war interplay – is actually more likely to be a loser, as doing so may put the success of the current breeding attempt in jeopardy, thereby reducing overall fitness of the parent. Once it is realized that the importance of sexual conflict is actually much less than it seems, it becomes clear that the stability of the biparental care system no longer seems to be such a puzzling issue.

Accurate Prediction of Children's ADHD Severity Using Family Burden Information: A Neural Lasso Approach

The deep lasso algorithm (dlasso) is introduced as a neural version of the statistical linear lasso algorithm that holds benefits from both methodologies: feature selection and automatic optimization of the parameters (including the regularization parameter). This last property makes dlasso particularly attractive for feature selection on small samples. In the two first conducted experiments, it was observed that dlasso is capable of obtaining better performance than its non-neuronal version (traditional lasso), in terms of predictive error and correct variable selection. Once that dlasso performance has been assessed, it is used to determine whether it is possible to predict the severity of symptoms in children with ADHD from four scales that measure family burden, family functioning, parental satisfaction, and parental mental health. Results show that dlasso is able to predict parents' assessment of the severity of their children's inattention from only seven items from the previous scales. These items are related to parents' satisfaction and degree of parental burden.

Infantile Colic—The Perspective of German and Polish Pediatricians in 2020

The objective of the study was to characterize how infantile colic is perceived and managed by German and Polish pediatricians. Data in both countries were collected by using a paper questionnaire with seven questions and predefined and free text fields for the answers. Answers from 160 German and 133 Polish pediatricians were collected. The average of the occurrence rates estimated by both responder groups were at the higher end of published rates. The majority of pediatricians from both countries rated the parental burden caused by infantile colic to be high or very high. Pediatricians’ awareness about the association between infantile colic and maternal depression and premature termination of breastfeeding is relatively well established in both countries. While more than 90% of German pediatricians stated knowledge of infantile colic being a major risk factor for shaken baby syndrome, this knowledge was only declared by half of the Polish responders. Pharmacological interventions, pro-/synbiotics or simethicone, are part of the treatment repertoire of nearly all responding pediatricians. In addition, non-pharmacological interventions (e.g., change of feeding, change of parental behavior) are also among the employed interventions. Results of this study will allow to better design and prioritize communication about infantile colic directed at pediatricians.

Parental health status and children’s eating behaviors: An epidemiological study in 1728 Greek 10-12 years old students

Although the parental influence on children’s dietary habits has been widely studied, little is known about the effect of parental health status on children’s dietary behavior. Thus, the association between the parental burden of cardiometabolic disease and its impact on children’s eating habits and behaviors was examined. Material and Methods: 1,728 children aged 10-12 years old along with one of their parents were enrolled in a cross-sectional study conducted during 2014-2016. Among others, children’s dietary habits and parental medical history were recorded. Children’s adherence to the Mediterranean diet (MD) was evaluated through the KIDMED score while the parental health status was assessed through a cardiometabolic risk score calculated for this study. The working sample was 1,133 children with a recorded parental health status. Results: Most parents (92.1%) reported at most 2 cardiometabolic risk factors including overweight/obesity, diabetes mellitus, hypertension, and dyslipidemia. Ordinal logistic regression analyses showed a significant association between children’s eating habits and adherence to the MD with the parental burden of cardiovascular disease. Children showed 6% higher odds of higher adherence to the MD (OR: 1.06, 95% CI: 1.01-1.12) and 54% lower odds of not having breakfast at all (OR: 0.46, 95% CI: 0.27-0.80) for a one-unit increase in the cardiometabolic risk score. The stratified analysis revealed a significant association between KIDMED score and CVD risk score only among boys (OR: 1.09, 95% CI: 1.01-1.18). Conclusions: Parental health status is positively associated with children’s dietary behavior and adherence to the MD indicating an additional source of influence.

Risk factors for distress during online health information seeking behavior in parents

Background Parents use the Internet commonly for themselves and to search for information about their children's health. However, health-related information from the web has the potential to trigger anxiety and stress. The understanding of contributing factors for distress during health-related information search processes and which factors could be targeted for prevention is still limited. Methods Parents living in Austria with a child between 0 and 6 years were randomly assigned to search the web for current somatic health issues related to self- or child-symptoms. The task was performed on a desktop computer with a timeframe of 15 minutes. The stress level was assessed immediately before and after the search task with the State-Trait Anxiety-Inventory (STAI). Recruitment was terminated early due to the coronavirus disease 2019 pandemic outbreak (sample size prior to COVID-19, N = 53). Results Multiple linear regression was used to predict parents' stress change during the search task based on health anxiety, attitude towards online health information, eHealth literacy, couple satisfaction and parental burden. Health anxiety, attitude towards online health information and eHealth literacy did not significantly contribute to predict parents' stress change (STAI state anxiety change), however couple satisfaction (β = -.393, t = -2.46, p = .018) and parental burden (β = -.388, t = -2.30, p = .026) did. Higher parents' baseline level of stress immediately before the search task was only associated with higher levels of parental burden (β = .882, t = 4.00, p < .001). Conclusions The results of this study indicate the importance of the relational level, rather than the individual level, in understanding stress during online health information seeking among parents. Future research should incorporate relational variables like parental burden and couple satisfaction into theoretical models and test their influence on online health distress in larger samples. Key messages Family and relational variables should be considered in future research investigating distress during online health information seeking for oneself or by proxy. Fostering parents' couple satisfaction and reducing parental burden may can contribute to lower stress levels after symptom-related online searches.

At School

This chapter focuses on transcendent parenting practices and young people’s lives in relation to academic matters. Shifting away from the traditional face-to-face teacher-parent meetings and phone calls, home-school conferencing via mobile apps has become increasingly prevalent. This includes the use of homework-reminder apps, school attendance tracking apps, online gradebooks, or homework-helper apps and other services that specifically cater to the needs of home-school conferencing. Beyond such custom home-school conferencing apps and services, generic social networking apps such as WhatsApp and Facebook are also increasingly used by schools, parents, and children in the service of children’s academic pursuits. This growing multitude of ways in which parents can be connected to their children’s teachers and to other parents, and the mediated platforms by which parents can be directly involved in their children’s learning, have created vast possibilities for transcendent parenting, thus exacerbating the parental burden both online and offline.

Parental Burden and its Correlates in Families of Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder: A Multicentre Study with Two Comparison Groups

Background:The effects of having a child with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) on parents are multifaceted and pervasive. While ample evidence has been provided that these families are under severe stress, there are still several knowledge gaps and unresolved questions.Objective:This study aimed at quantifying the subjective and objective burden of ASD in mothers and fathers, and at improving the understanding of the interplay between parental burden, child’s characteristics, and parents’ coping resources and strategies.Methods:The parents of 359 children/adolescents with ASD were compared to parents of age-matched patients with Down syndrome (N=145) and Type 1 diabetes mellitus (N=155). Child’s clinical characteristics and parents’ caregiving burden, psychological distress, coping resources and strategies were assessed.Results:The parents of children with ASD reported higher objective and subjective burden, more frequent psychological distress, lower social support. Mothers reported greater subjective burden than fathers. Structural equation modeling showed that the most consistent positive and negative predictors of objective and subjective burden were ASD symptom severity and social support, respectively. Other positive predictors were engagement, distraction and disengagement coping, intellectual disability, and adaptive functioning. Other negative predictors were spiritual wellbeing and hardiness. Some effects were indirect through social support and coping strategies.Conclusion:This study confirmed that parents of children with ASD carry a huge caregiving burden, and added to our understanding of the factors associated with burden. The findings may help inform the design of effective interventions aimed at reducing burden among the parents of children with ASD.