Mothers’ Attitudes as Organizers of Discipline Practices and Related Anticipatory Processes

We hypothesized that mothers’ negative attitudes toward their toddlers would set in motion an anticipatory social cognitive-affective cascade that influenced their parenting during immediately subsequent discipline encounters. Ninety-seven mothers of 2- to 3-year-old children completed a laboratory assessment consisting of (a) an interview/observational measure of their attitudes toward their toddlers, questionnaires tapping (b) expectancies of their children’s difficult behavior in upcoming discipline encounters and (c) anticipatory changes in their own experience of negative emotion, (d) measures of anticipatory changes in their heart rate and electrodermal activity, and (e) observations of their overreactive and lax discipline. Negative maternal attitudes were associated with lax discipline, negative expectancies, and anticipatory electrodermal reactivity. Negative expectancies were associated with anticipatory increases in mothers’ experience of negative emotion. Other than negative maternal attitudes, however, no factor in the hypothesized social cognitive-affective cascade predicted discipline. Thus, the hypothesized model was not fully supported by the data.

Sickening Nurses: Fever Nursing, Nurses' Illness, and the Anatomy of Blame, New Zealand 1903 – 1923

In the early twentieth century, patients with infectious fevers represented a danger to the health of others including their nurses. This research describes the training New Zealand nurses received in fever nursing during the period 1903 – 1923, and considers how they applied hospital cross-infection principles in emergency tent fever camps in remote rural areas. It examines the reaction of nurses, hospital boards, and physicians to nurses who succumbed with their patients' fevers. It therefore reveals attitudes to nurses, prevailing ideas about responsibility for nurses' health, and elements in the emerging professional culture of nursing. Although some measures protected them against epidemic fevers, nurses were held responsible for their own health. A complex anatomy of blame is evident against those who sickened; the nature of the blame shifted, depending on the observer, disease, and practice setting. Physicians blamed nurses, especially when they sickened with typhoid fever. The country's chief nurse and other nurses blamed those who jeopardized their health through ill-spent leisure time. Sick nurses could be absolved from blame for the lax discipline evident through their failure to observe cross-infection principles if their practice setting was the fever camp. Willingness to work in difficult circumstances showed they embodied the ideal of sacrifice that, like discipline, was part of the emerging nursing culture.

Maternal Disciplinary Style with Preschool Children: Associations with Children's and Mothers' Trait Anxiety

This study explored associations between maternal discipline, maternal trait anxiety and anxiety in preschool-aged children. The sample comprised 47 mothers and their children, aged 2–3 years. Maternal discipline was assessed by maternal self-report; and child anxiety by maternal and play leader report. Positive associations were found between self-reported, ineffective, maternal discipline and symptoms of anxiety in preschool-aged children. Associations were not found between self-reported “verbose” discipline (long reprimands or reliance on talking) and preschoolers' anxiety. There were also no associations between play leaders' reports of preschoolers' anxiety and any of the mothers' self-reported discipline measures. Positive associations were found between maternal trait anxiety and the use of self-reported ineffective disciplinary behaviours. Over-reactive discipline was shown to be a stronger predictor of preschoolers' anxiety symptoms than maternal anxiety or lax discipline. It was concluded that children's internalizing symptoms (according to mother report) may be associated with use of ineffective disciplinary strategies. Increased use of these strategies was also associated with anxiety in mothers, and it is suggested that use of ineffective discipline strategies might partially account for the association between maternal and child anxiety.

Criticizing the Schools, Then and Now

Schools in many countries are facing intense and elevated levels of criticism, with much debate over whether the criticism is merited. Much of the criticism embodies a view that things used to be better years ago, when schools were not prey to the many defects they are alleged to show today. Recollections of the past may hide a mixed reality. In this article, criticisms of education from 1957 are compared with contemporary criticisms. Some issues have remained important across forty years, while a few new issues have emerged. Criticisms of forty years ago centered on the dominance of "professional educationists," progressivism, the life adjustment movement, the waning "spirit of competition," lax discipline, the lack of emphasis on classical and modern foreign languages, avoidance of science and math, the neglect of gifted children, the lack of training of children in moral and spiritual values, and low academic standards. Today's debates introduce the alleged test score declines, poor performance on international achievement comparisons, the supposed enormous increase in funding without positive results, the problem of high dropout rates, and the need to connect schooling and work. In addition, modern critics point to economic concerns, whether in terms of funding for education or in regard to the contribution of schooling to economic development.

Mismanagement and Ecclesiastical Visitation of English Monasteries in the Early-Fourteenth Century

A most pernicious problem contributing to the economic woes of English monasteries in the early-fourteenth century was mismanagement. This condition was usually, if not almost universally, present and derived in part from the fact that the administrators of religious houses, especially the small ones, were not well trained for the complexities of their tasks. The official records of the royal chancery abound with notices that monasteries suffered from this malady, and the entries in these records follow a pattern, repeating time and time again a variety of standard charges. Having perhaps endured internal dissension that had contributed to the economic difficulty, monasteries became impoverished by indiscreet rule, their goods were wasted, and they experienced mismanagement. In addition, the documents assert that these troubled monasteries suffered from indebtedness, that lax discipline prevailed, and that lands of religious corporations were alienated illegally. Finally, the entries maintain that the ill-advised sale of corodies, and the unwarranted grants of pensions contributed to a depressed monastic economy. To illustrate these observations upon defective monastic administration, reference to specific examples is needed.