Full Description
Recognize the hidden costs and rewards of childrearing!The Effect of Children on Parents, Second Edition, thoughtfully explores the interactions by which parents and children change, develop, and sometimes affect each other negatively. Everyone knows that parents influence their children, but few people consider the ways in which children affect their parents. The love, satisfaction, and fulfillment children offer can change parents'lives. So can the stress, worry, and financial drain. The Effect of Children on Parents, Second Edition, honestly confronts these long-neglected issues of family dynamics. Taking a unique interdisciplinary approach, this book describes in great detail, with jargon-free language the various aspects of children's effects on their parents. This second edition contains an abundance of fresh information, including nine entirely new chapters that deal with such complex topics as the effects on parents of children with emotional, behavioral, and delinquency problems. The Effect of Children on Parents, Second Edition, asks and answers essential questions on the parent-child dynamic, including:
what role does genetic inheritance play in children's responses to their parents?
how do peers influence children and through them, their parents?
what happens to parents when children are difficult or have emotional problems?
what special considerations apply to minority or adoptive parents?
how do adult childrem affect their aging parents?
how does society support or undermine parents?
what roadblocks prevent parents from being as effective as they would like to be?
The Effect of Children on Parents, Second Edition, takes a brave look at this often ignored area of family dynamics, giving a richer, more complex, and ultimately more healing view of how humans interact in families. Professors, students, and experts in the fields of child development, family studies, and sociology of childhood and family will find this book a sophisticated tool in their desire to better understand and help families and children.
Contents
Contents
Chapter 1. Child Effect: What Is This? An Introduction
The Social Construction of Parents
Organization of the Book
Chapter 2. The Neglected Perspective: Children's Effect on Parents
Failures of Traditional Perspectives
Childhood Is Only One of the Stages in the Life Course
Parenting: One Important Influence Among Others
The Emergence of Interactional Theories
Children and Parents in Historical Perspective
The Culmination of Historical Changes
Conclusions
Chapter 3. Determinants of Child Effect on Parents
Child Characteristics
Parental Characteristics
Characteristics of the Societal Response
Conclusions
Chapter 4. Areas of Parents' Lives
Maternal Health
Place/Space/Activities
Parental Employment
Financial/Economic Aspects
Marital and Familial Relations
Human Interaction
Community
Parental Personality
Attitudes, Values, and Beliefs
Life Plans
Feelings of Control Over One's Life
Conclusions
Chapter 5. Children with Behavioral and Emotional Problems
What Are Behavioral Problems?
What Causes Behavioral Problems?
The Effect on Mothers
Children with Emotional Problems
Effects on the Parent-Child Relationship
Conclusions
Chapter 6. Adolescents, Parents, and Delinquency
Overview
Effects of Delinquency on Parents
Conclusions
Chapter 7. The Effects of Children's Peers on Parents
Peer Pressure and Support
Peer Abuse
The Effect of Peers on Parents
Conclusions
Chapter 8. Professionals and Parents
Professional Authority Over Parents
The "Schizophrenogenic" Mother
Parent Blaming
The Merit of Therapeutic Interventions
Parent Effectiveness Training
Researching Parents and Children
Conclusions
Chapter 9. The Effect of Adult Children on Parents
What Adult Children Do for Their Parents
Gender of Children and Parents
What Parents Do For Their Adult Children
Grandmothers As Child Caretakers
Grandmothers As Mother Substitutes
Abuse of Elderly Parents
Conclusions
Chapter 10. Immigrant and Minority Parents
What Happens to Children?
Intergenerational Conflict
Intergenerational Continuity
Specific Examples of Continuity and Discontinuity
African-American Parents: The Effect of a Negative Environment
Conclusions
Chapter 11. Adoptive Parents
How Is Adoption Socially Defined?
The Professional Representation of Adoptive Children
Transracial Adoption
Stepchild Adoption
Open Adoption
Consequences of Reunions
Conclusions
Chapter 12. Let's Not Forget About Genes!
How Genetic Inheritance Works
How Do Genes Interact with Environment?
Do Genes Mean That Parenting is Useless?
Limitations to Parental Influence
Conclusions
Chapter 13. Conclusions: What is Wrong with Parenting Today?
Cultural and Social Roadblocks to Effective Parenting
Strengthening Parental Influence
Parental Gratification: Why Not?
To Conclude
Bibliography
Author Index
Subject Index
Reference Notes Included
