The Child and Parent Emotion Study: protocol for a longitudinal study of parent emotion socialisation and child socioemotional development

IntroductionParents shape child emotional competence and mental health via their beliefs about children’s emotions, emotion-related parenting, the emotional climate of the family and by modelling emotion regulation skills. However, much of the research evidence to date has been based on small samples with mothers of primary school-aged children. Further research is needed to elucidate the direction and timing of associations for mothers and fathers/partners across different stages of child development. The Child and Parent Emotion Study (CAPES) aims to examine longitudinal associations between parent emotion socialisation, child emotion regulation and socioemotional adjustment at four time points from pregnancy to age 12 years. CAPES will investigate the moderating role of parent gender, child temperament and gender, and family background.Methods and analysisCAPES recruited 2063 current parents from six English-speaking countries of a child 0–9 years and 273 prospective parents (ie, women/their partners pregnant with their first child) in 2018–2019. Participants will complete a 20–30 min online survey at four time points 12 months apart, to be completed in December 2022. Measures include validated parent-report tools assessing parent emotion socialisation (ie, parent beliefs, the family emotional climate, supportive parenting and parent emotion regulation) and age-sensitive measures of child outcomes (ie, emotion regulation and socioemotional adjustment). Analyses will use mixed-effects regression to simultaneously assess associations over three time-point transitions (ie, T1 to T2; T2 to T3; T3 to T4), with exposure variables lagged to estimate how past factors predict outcomes 12 months later.Ethics and disseminationEthics approval was granted by the Deakin University Human Research Ethics Committee and the Deakin University Faculty of Health Human Research Ethics Committee. We will disseminate results through conferences and open access publications. We will invite parent end users to co-develop our dissemination strategy, and discuss the interpretation of key findings prior to publication.Trial registerationProtocol pre-registration: DOI 10.17605/OSF.IO/NGWUY.

Racial discrimination and socioemotional and sleep problems in a cross-sectional survey of Australian school students

ObjectiveTo determine the prevalence of direct and vicarious racial discrimination experiences from peer, school and societal sources, and examine associations between these experiences and socioemotional and sleep outcomes.MethodsData were analysed from a population representative cross-sectional study of n=4664 school students in years 5–9 (10–15 years of age) in Australia. Students reported direct experiences of racial discrimination from peers, school and societal sources; vicarious discrimination was measured according to the frequency of witnessing other students experiences of racial discrimination. Students self-reported on the Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire, with the total difficulties, conduct, emotional and prosocial behaviour subscales examined. Sleep problems included duration, latency, and disruption.Results41.56% (95% CI 36.18 to 47.15) of students reported experiences of direct racial discrimination; Indigenous and ethnic minority students reported the highest levels. 70.15% (95% CI 63.83 to 75.78) of students reported vicarious racial discrimination. Direct and vicarious experiences of racial discrimination were associated with socioemotional adjustment (eg, for total difficulties, total direct racism: beta=3.77, 95% CI 3.11 to 4.44; vicarious racism: beta=2.51, 95% CI 2.00 to 3.03). Strong evidence was also found for an effect of direct and vicarious discrimination on sleep (eg, for sleep duration, total direct: beta=−21.04, 95% CI −37.67 to −4.40; vicarious: beta=−9.82, 95% CI −13.78 to −5.86).ConclusionsExperiences of direct and vicarious racial discrimination are common for students from Indigenous and ethnic minority backgrounds, and are associated with socioemotional and sleep problems in adolescence. Racism and racial discrimination are critically important to tackle as social determinants of health for children and adolescents.

Don't be a Deadbeat Dad: Non-Custodial Fathers, Stereotypes, and Family

The objective of this paper is to explore how gender stereotypes influence social structures which creates barriers for non-custodial fathers (NCF) and to identify possible solutions to challenge societal prejudice. The findings suggested that gender stereotypes shape NCF’s perception of fatherhood, the mother’s opinion of NCFs, the proceedings during a custody battle, and the type of social services provided to NCFs. These act as barriers that negatively affect NCF-child relationships, which are further diminished by non-cooperative mother-father relationships. Surprisingly, stepfamilies were found to improve NCF-child relationships. Remote fathering was found to be detrimental to children’s development that can result in poor socioemotional adjustment, increased externalized problems, diminished abilities to form strong bonds with friends, and feeling lonely. It was also found that absent fathers increased the risk of their children developing behavioural problems, engaging in criminal behaviour, and experience poverty. Based on qualitative data, possible solutions outreach programs created through community collaboration, that promote education, empathy and respect. For more problematic NCF visitation, perhaps a version of the Israeli visitation center could be used. In sum, these conceptual solutions can challenge gender stereotypes and social prejudice which benefits NCFs and family as a social institution.