The right parents
Parents Reap What They Sow: Child-Centrism and Parental Well-Being
Claire Ashton-James, Kostadin Kushlev & Elizabeth Dunn
Social Psychological and Personality Science, forthcoming
Abstract:
A controversial feature of modern parenting is "child-centrism," the tendency for parents to prioritize their children's well-being above their own. It has been suggested that child-centric parenting in its various forms may undermine parental well-being. Contrary to popular belief, more child-centric parents reported deriving more happiness and meaning from parenthood (Study 1). Study 2 employed the day reconstruction method (Kahneman, Krueger, Schkade, Schwarz, & Stone, 2004) to capture parents' actual experiences while taking care of their children. Consistent with Study 1, greater child-centrism was associated with the experience of greater positive affect, less negative affect, and greater meaning in life when engaged in child care activities. This link between child-centrism and well-being stands in contrast to recent arguments about the pitfalls of overinvestment in children, while dovetailing with a growing body of evidence that personal well-being is associated with investing in others rather than oneself.
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Race and Girls' Self-Evaluations: How Mothering Matters
Heather Ridolfo, Valerie Chepp & Melissa Milkie
Sex Roles, April 2013, Pages 496-509
Abstract:
Research conducted in the United States shows that Black adolescent girls have higher self-esteem and, to a lesser extent, a higher sense of control than White girls. However, few studies conducted with representative samples of Black and White girls systematically examine why Black girls may have higher self-esteem and sense of control. Drawing on Black feminist thought, we posit that Black mothers' socialization of their daughters may explain Black girls' higher self-esteem and sense of control. Using survey data collected in 1994 from a nationally representative sample of U.S. Black (N = 1,330) and White (N = 3,797) girls and their mothers, we examine racial differences across two key components of the self-concept: self-esteem and sense of control. We ask: 1) Do Black girls have higher self-esteem and sense of control than White girls? 2) Do Black girls have more positive relationships with their mothers and receive more encouragement of academic achievement and independence from their mothers than White girls? and 3) Do more positive mother-daughter relationships and mothers' encouragement help to explain Black girls' higher self-esteem and sense of control in comparison to White girls? Findings indicate that Black girls have higher self-esteem and sense of control than White girls, and Black mothers' relationship with their daughters and stronger encouragement of daughters' independence in part explain race differences in self-evaluations.
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The Importance of Family, Race, and Gender for Multiracial Adolescent Well-being
Sarah Schlabach
Family Relations, February 2013, Pages 154-174
Abstract:
Using data from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health (Add Health), this study investigates patterns of well-being among multiracial adolescents. Specifically, this article addresses three questions. First, using various categorizations for multiracial background, are there measurable differences in emotional and social well-being among White, minority, and multiracial adolescents? Second, do multiracial adolescents with a White mother tend to fare differently than those with a minority mother? Third, does variation in family-based social capital - including parental involvement, parent-child relationship quality, and family structure - contribute to observed well-being differences among multiracial and monoracial adolescents? Results suggest that multiracial adolescents experience more negative social and emotional well-being outcomes when their mother is a minority. This finding persists even when controlling for sources of family-based social capital.
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Fatima Varner & Jelani Mandara
Child Development, forthcoming
Abstract:
Discrimination concerns and parental expectations were examined as mediators of the relations between gender and parenting practices among 796 African American mothers of 11- to 14-year-olds from the Maryland Adolescent Development in Context Study. Mothers of sons had more concerns about racial discrimination impacting their adolescents' future, whereas mothers of daughters had more gender discrimination concerns. Racial discrimination concerns, but not gender discrimination concerns, were related to lower maternal academic and behavioral expectations. Maternal expectations were related to mothers' responsiveness, rule enforcement, monitoring, and parent-adolescent conflict. The relations between gender and parenting practices were partially explained through mothers' racial discrimination concerns and expectations. These findings demonstrate the importance of contextual factors on African American family processes.
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Why do men feel more attractive after childbirth?
Alicia Cast, Susan Stewart & Megan Erickson
Journal of Gender Studies, forthcoming
Abstract:
A great deal of research has examined women's bodily experiences with respect to pregnancy, childbirth, and the postnatal period. Men's experience of this significant life event is less scrutinized. Using longitudinal data from 182 newly married couples in the United States, we examine the effects of childbearing on wives' and husbands' feelings about their bodies. Our results suggest that whereas wives' perceived physical attractiveness declines after the birth of a child, husbands' perceived physical attractiveness increases.
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Daniel Romer, Zhanna Bagdasarov & Eian More
Journal of Adolescent Health, forthcoming
Purpose: To determine the effects of both older and newer media use on academic, social, and mental health outcomes in adolescents and young adults.
Methods: We interviewed a nationally representative panel of youth ages 14-24 years (N = 719) twice 1 year apart to determine time spent with television, the Internet, videogames, and book reading, as well as the purpose of those uses. A cluster analysis identified major combinations of media use. Regression models tested hypotheses regarding changes in self-reported school grades, participation in clubs and sports, and symptoms of depression, as predicted by recent media use and differences in cluster membership.
Results: Use of older media was related to grades, with television inversely and book reading positively related to performance. Moderate use of the Internet was positively related to participation in both sports and clubs. Although heavy use of the Internet and videogames was associated with an increase in depression, increased depression also predicted greater use of these media as well as withdrawal from sports and clubs. Clusters that used media in moderation with an emphasis on information gathering were most associated with healthy outcomes.
Conclusions: Despite concerns that excessive use of new media is harmful to adolescent development, the findings reinforce previous conclusions that television detracts from academic performance and book reading supports it. Heavy use of the Internet and video gaming may be more a symptom of mental health problems than a cause. Moderate use of the Internet, especially for acquiring information, is most supportive of healthy development.
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Sean Sall
Economic Inquiry, forthcoming
Abstract:
In the 1980s and 1990s, many states and districts began to provide funding for prekindergarten (PK) programs for the first time. This paper takes advantage of the staggered timing in program funding to investigate the effect that increased availability of PK programs has on the labor supply of mothers with 4-year-olds. I find that mothers with a 4-year-old and no younger children were significantly more likely to be in the labor force and employed once PK became available. Mothers with a 4-year-old and other younger children were also significantly more likely to be in the labor force and employed.
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Steven Kogan et al.
Family Relations, April 2013, Pages 341-353
Abstract:
Sexually transmitted infections disproportionately affect African Americans, particularly young women. The influence of a set of interrelated protective parenting processes - instrumental and emotional support, sexual risk communication, and encouragement of goals for employment or education - on emerging adult women was examined. Parenting was hypothesized to affect consistent condom use through its association with women's reports of power equity in their intimate relationships. Hypotheses were tested with 135 sexually active women 18 to 21 years of age living in rural southern communities. Structural equation modeling indicated that (a) parenting processes predicted women's self-reported relationship power equity and consistent condom use and (b) relationship power equity predicted consistent condom use. Limited support emerged for a mediational role of relationship power equity in explaining the influence of parenting on consistent condom use. Parental involvement and young women's establishment of personal control in their intimate relationships are important goals for sexual risk reduction programs.
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Selective Impact of Early Parental Responsivity on Adolescent Stress Reactivity
Daniel Hackman et al.
PLoS ONE, March 2013
Abstract:
Research in animals has shown that early life experience, particularly parenting behaviors, influences later-life stress reactivity. Despite the tremendous relevance of this finding to human development and brain function, it has not been tested prospectively in humans. In this study two aspects of parenting were measured at age 4 in a sample of healthy, low socioeconomic status, African American children, and stress reactivity was measured in the same children 11-14 years later using a modified version of the Trier Social Stress Test (n = 55). Salivary cortisol was measured before, during and after the stressor and data were analyzed using piecewise hierarchical linear modeling. Parental responsivity, independent of the use of physical discipline, was positively related to cortisol reactivity. Effects were independent of subjective appraisals of the stressor and were also independent of other environmental risk factors and current psychosocial functioning. Therefore this study demonstrates in a novel and precise fashion that early childhood parental responsivity prospectively and independently predicts stress reactivity in adolescence.
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Claire Baker & Iheoma Iruka
Early Childhood Research Quarterly, Summer 2013, Pages 509-519
Abstract:
Decades of educational research has documented an achievement gap in kindergarten reading and math achievement between African American children and their European American counterparts. Research has also shown that specific parenting practices (e.g., home literacy involvement) have the potential to narrow school readiness gaps by at least half. The current study examined whether and how maternal depression and parenting stress may influence specific parenting practices, as well as whether maternal warmth, home learning stimulation and cultural socialization mediated the relation between maternal depression, parenting stress, and children's kindergarten reading and math achievement. Path analyses revealed a direct negative effect of maternal depression and parenting stress on maternal warmth, home learning stimulation, and cultural socialization. Home learning stimulation emerged as an important mediator between maternal parenting stress and math achievement. Further, maternal warmth mediated the relation between maternal depression and reading achievement. Implications for early childhood research, practice and policy are discussed.
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Like Mother Like Son? Experimental Evidence on the Transmission of Values from Parents to Children
Marco Cipriani, Paola Giuliano & Olivier Jeanne
Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, forthcoming
Abstract:
This paper studies whether prosocial values are transmitted from parents to their children. We do so through an economic experiment in which children and their parents play a standard public goods game. The experimental data presents us with a surprising result. While we find significant heterogeneity in cooperative preferences in both parents and children, we cannot reject the null that the correlation between the degree of cooperation of a child and that of his or her parent is zero. That is, there is lack of evidence in our data that prosocial values are transmitted from parents to children. This finding is robust to the inclusion of demographic and socio-economic controls. Finally, parents show a significant degree of conditional cooperation, thus confirming the results of the existing experimental literature; such conditional cooperation is however absent in children.
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Do Time in Child Care and Peer Group Exposure Predict Poor Socioemotional Adjustment in Norway?
Elisabet Solheim et al.
Child Development, forthcoming
Abstract:
Extensive exposure to nonparental child care during the first 4.5 years of life has been demonstrated in some American studies to negatively affect children's socioemotional functioning. Data from 935 preschool children who averaged 54.9 (SD = 3.0) months of age, from Trondheim, Norway were used to examine whether such negative effects, would emerge in Norway, a country with a different child-care system. The children's externalizing problems and social competence were unrelated to their child-care experience. More time spent in child care during the first 4.5 years of life and experiencing peer groups of < 16 or > 18 children predicted greater caregiver-child conflict. The effect sizes were small. The results are discussed in terms of cross-national child-care differences.
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From Child to Parent? The Significance of Children's Education for Their Parents' Longevity
Jenny Torssander
Demography, April 2013, Pages 637-659
Abstract:
In addition to own education and other socioeconomic resources, the education of one's children may be important for individual health and longevity. Mothers and fathers born between 1932 and 1941 were analyzed by linking them to their children in the Swedish Multi-generation Register, which covers the total population. Controlling for parents' education, social class, and income attenuates but does not remove the association between children's education and parents' mortality risk. Shared but unmeasured familial background characteristics were addressed by comparing siblings in the parental generation. In these fixed-effects analyses, comparing parents whose children had tertiary education with parents whose children completed only compulsory schooling (the reference group) yields a hazard ratio of 0.79 (95 % CI: 0.70-0.89) when the socioeconomic position of both parents is controlled for. The relationship is certainly not purely causal, but part of it could be if, for example, well-educated adult children use their resources to find the best available health care for their aging parents. I therefore introduce the concept of "social foreground" and suggest that children's socioeconomic resources may be an important factor in trying to further understand social inequalities in health.
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Alice Graham, Philip Fisher & Jennifer Pfeifer
Psychological Science, forthcoming
Abstract:
Experiences of adversity in the early years of life alter the developing brain. However, evidence documenting this relationship often focuses on severe stressors and relies on peripheral measures of neurobiological functioning during infancy. In the present study, we employed functional MRI during natural sleep to examine associations between a more moderate environmental stressor (nonphysical interparental conflict) and 6- to 12-month-old infants' neural processing of emotional tone of voice. The primary question was whether interparental conflict experienced by infants is associated with neural responses to emotional tone of voice, particularly very angry speech. Results indicated that maternal report of higher interparental conflict was associated with infants' greater neural responses to very angry relative to neutral speech across several brain regions implicated in emotion and stress reactivity and regulation (including rostral anterior cingulate cortex, caudate, thalamus, and hypothalamus). These findings suggest that even moderate environmental stress may be associated with brain functioning during infancy.
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Analyzing the Origins of Childhood Externalizing Behavioral Problems
J.C. Barnes et al.
Developmental Psychology, forthcoming
Abstract:
Drawing on a sample of twin children from the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study, Birth Cohort (ECLS-B; Snow et al., 2009), the current study analyzed 2 of the most prominent predictors of externalizing behavioral problems (EBP) in children: (a) parental use of spankings and (b) childhood self-regulation. A variety of statistical techniques were employed, and, overall, the findings can be summarized into 2 points. First, the results show that the relationships among spanking, self-regulation, and EBP are highly nuanced in that multiple explanations for their intercorrelations appear to fit the data (e.g., bidirectional relationships and shared methods variance). Second, genetic influences accounted for variance in each variable (EBP, spankings received, self-regulation) and even explained a portion of the covariance among the different variables. Thus, research that does not consider genetic influences when analyzing these associations runs a risk of model misspecification.
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Nina Santavirta & Torsten Santavirta
Health Economics, forthcoming
Abstract:
This paper combined data collected from war time government records with survey data including background characteristics, such as factors that affected eligibility, to examine the adult depression outcomes of individuals who were evacuated from Finland to temporary foster care in Sweden during World War II. Using war time government records and survey data for a random sample of 723 exposed individuals and 1321 matched unexposed individuals, the authors conducted least squares adjusted means comparison to examine the association between evacuation and adult depression (Beck Depression Inventory). The random sample was representative for the whole population of evacuees who returned to their biological families after World War II. The authors found no statistically significant difference in depressive symptoms during late adulthood between the two groups; for example, the exposed group had a 0.41 percentage points lower average Beck Depression Inventory score than the unexposed group (p = 0.907). This study provides no support for family disruption during early childhood because of the onset of sudden shocks elevating depressive symptoms during late adulthood.
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Cognitive ability and decline after early life stress exposure
Anu-Katriina Pesonen et al.
Neurobiology of Aging, June 2013, Pages 1674-1679
Abstract:
We examined the effects of early life stress on cognitive ability and decline among men of the Helsinki Birth Cohort Study, 10% of whom were separated temporarily (mean age at separation = 4.1 years) from their parent(s) during World War II. The men underwent the Finnish Defense Forces Basic Intellectual Ability Test twice, at 20 years and retest at 70 years. Compared with the men without childhood separation and matched for year of birth (n = 186), men separated from their parents (n = 93) scored lower by 5.5 (95% confidence interval [CI], -9.2 to -1.7), 4.2 (95% CI, -8.1 to -0.3), 3.1 (95% CI, -7.0 to 0.8), and 4.5 (95% CI, -10.5 to -1.4) standardized points (SD = 15) on verbal, visuospatial, arithmetic, and general cognitive ability, respectively, at 70 years. Longer duration of separation was associated with lower test scores. Though early life stress was also associated significantly with weaker cognitive performance at the ages 20 and 70 years, it was not associated with cognitive decline over the 50-year period within this sample.
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The role of parenting and dopamine D4 receptor gene polymorphisms in children's inhibitory control
Heather Smith et al.
Developmental Science, forthcoming
Abstract:
Temperamental effortful control has important implications for children's development. Although genetic factors and parenting may influence effortful control, few studies have examined interplay between the two in predicting its development. The current study investigated associations between parenting and a facet of children's effortful control, inhibitory control (IC), and whether these associations were moderated by whether children had a 7-repeat variant of the DRD4 exon III VNTR. A community sample of 409 3-year-olds completed behavioural tasks to assess IC, and observational measures of parenting were also collected. Negative parenting was associated with lower child IC. The association between children's IC and positive parenting was moderated by children's DRD4 7-repeat status, such that children with at least one 7-repeat allele displayed lower IC than children without this allele when positive parenting was lower. These effects appeared to be primarily influenced by parent support and engagement. Results extend recent findings suggesting that some genetic polymorphisms may increase vulnerability to contextual influences.
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Daniel Berry et al.
Developmental Psychobiology, forthcoming
Abstract:
Intervention studies indicate that children's early child-care experiences can be leveraged to foster their development of effective self-regulation skills. It is less clear whether typical child-care experiences play a similar role. In addition, evidence suggests that children with a common variant of the DRD4 gene (48-bp VNTR, 7-repeat) may be more sensitive to their experiences than those without this variant. Using data from the NICHD Study of Early Child Care and Youth Development, we considered the degree to which children's early child-care experiences - quantity, quality, and type - were associated with their attention and self-regulation abilities in prekindergarten, and, in particular, whether these relations were conditional on DRD4 genotype. G × E interactions were evident across multiple neuropsychological and observational measures of children's attention and self-regulation abilities. Across most outcome measures, DRD4 7+ children spending fewer hours in child care showed more effective attention/self-regulation abilities. For those without a copy of the DRD4 7-repeat allele, such associations were typically null. The results for child-care quality and type indicated no interactions with genotype; the main-effect associations were somewhat inconsistent.
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Teen Birth Rates in Sexually Abused and Neglected Females
Jennie Noll & Chad Shenk
Pediatrics, forthcoming
Objective: Prospectively track teen childbirths in maltreated and nonmaltreated females and test the hypothesis that child maltreatment is an independent predictor of subsequent teen childbirth over and above demographic characteristics and other risk factors.
Methods: Nulliparous adolescent females (N = 435) aged 14 to 17 years were assessed annually through age 19 years. Maltreated females were referred by Child Protective Services agencies for having experienced substantiated sexual abuse, physical abuse, or neglect within the preceding 12 months. Comparison females were matched on race, family income, age and family constellation. Teen childbirth was assessed via self-report during annual interviews. Births were confirmed using hospital delivery records.
Results: Seventy participants gave birth during the study, 54 in the maltreated group and 16 in the comparison group. Maltreated females were twice as likely to experience teen childbirth after controlling for demographic confounds and known risk factors (odds ratio = 2.17, P = 0.01). Birth rates were highest for sexually abused and neglected females. Sexual abuse and neglect were both independent predictors of teen childbirth after controlling for demographic confounds, other risk factors and alternative forms of maltreatment occurring earlier in development.
Conclusions: Results provide evidence that sexual abuse and neglect are unique predictors of subsequent teen childbirth. Partnerships between protective service providers and teen childbirth prevention strategists hold the best promise for further reducing the US teen birth rate. Additional research illuminating the pathways to teen childbirth for differing forms of maltreatment is needed so that tailored interventions can be realized.
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Maternal Age at Child Birth, Birth Order, and Suicide at a Young Age: A Sibling Comparison
Johan Håkon Bjørngaard et al.
American Journal of Epidemiology, forthcoming
Abstract:
Previous studies have reported strong associations between birth order, maternal age, and suicide, but these results might have been confounded by socioeconomic and other factors. To control for such factors, we compared suicide risk between siblings and studied how maternal age at child birth and birth order influenced risk in a cohort study of 1,690,306 Norwegians born in 1967-1996 who were followed up until 2008. Using stratified Cox regression, we compared suicide risk within families with 2 or more children in which one died from suicide. Altogether, 3,005 suicides occurred over a mean follow-up period of 15 years; 2,458 of these suicides occurred among 6,741 siblings within families of 2 or more siblings. Among siblings, a higher position in the birth order was positively associated with risk; each increase in birth order was associated with a 46% (adjusted hazard ratio = 1.46, 95% confidence interval: 1.29, 1.66) higher risk of suicide. For each 10-year increase in maternal age at child birth, the offspring's suicide risk was reduced by 57% (adjusted hazard ratio = 0.43, 95% confidence interval: 0.30, 0.62). Our study suggests that confounding due to familial factors is not likely to explain the associations of birth order and maternal age at child birth with suicide risk.
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Perceived Economic Strain Exacerbates the Effect of Paternal Depressed Mood on Hostility
Ben Reeb, Katherine Conger & Monica Martin
Journal of Family Psychology, April 2013, Pages 263-270
Abstract:
Depression in fathers has been associated with impaired parenting, which, in turn, may function as a central environmental mechanism underlying the adverse effects of paternal depression on children's development. Despite this, evidence suggests that many depressed fathers are able to maintain positive relationships with their children, and little is known about factors associated with better or worse parenting outcomes when fathers experience depression. Using two waves of prospective, longitudinal data from a community sample of fathers and their high school-aged adolescent offspring (N = 324), perceived economic strain was examined as a moderator of the effect of fathers' depressive symptoms on subsequent observer ratings of hostile parenting behaviors. Among fathers experiencing high levels of economic strain, depressive symptoms at offspring age 15 were a significant predictor of hostility toward their adolescent sons at age 18, controlling for family demographics and previous hostile parenting behaviors. Findings and directions for future research are discussed in relation to contemporary models of intergenerational psychopathology transmission.
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Gregory Fosco et al.
Journal of School Psychology, forthcoming
Abstract:
Family-school interventions are a well-established method for preventing and remediating behavior problems in at-risk youth, yet the mechanisms of change underlying their effectiveness are often overlooked or poorly understood. The Family Check-Up (FCU), a school-based, family-centered intervention, has been consistently associated with reductions in youth antisocial behavior, deviant peer group affiliation, and substance use. The purpose of this study was to explore proximal changes in student-level behavior that accounts for links between implementation of the FCU and changes in youth problem behavior. Data were drawn from a randomized controlled trial study of the efficacy of the FCU among 593 ethnically diverse middle school students followed longitudinally from 6th through 8th grades. Latent growth curve analyses revealed that random assignment to the FCU intervention condition was related to increased mean levels of students' self-regulation from 6th to 7th grades, which in turn reduced the risk for growth in antisocial behavior, involvement with deviant peers, and alcohol, tobacco, and marijuana use through the 8th grade. Overall, these findings highlight the robust implications of self-regulation as a proximal target for family-centered interventions.
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Lauretta Brennan et al.
Journal of Educational Psychology, forthcoming
Abstract:
This project examined the hypothesis that the impact of the Family Check-Up on parent use of positive behavior support would indirectly improve academic achievement scores at school age. The study included a sample of 731 high-risk families recruited from Women, Infant, and Children Supplemental Nutrition Program settings in 3 geographically distinct areas. The results demonstrated that changes in positive parenting between the child ages of 2 and 3 were associated with higher scores on children's school-age academic achievement, as measured by the Woodcock-Johnson III (W-J) Academic Skills composite. Moreover, structural equation modeling revealed that random assignment to the intervention was associated with higher levels of children's academic achievement at age 5 and age 7.5 indirectly, through greater increases in parents' use of positive behavior support in intervention families than in control families. Results are discussed with respect to the potential of a brief parenting intervention for improving parenting practices that promote academic achievement up to 5 years later. The results have promising implications for efforts to promote child adaptation in the school environment.
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The Paradox of Children and Life Satisfaction
Leonardo Becchetti, Elena Giachin Ricca & Alessandra Pelloni
Social Indicators Research, May 2013, Pages 725-751
Abstract:
Empirical analyses of the determinants of life satisfaction routinely include the number of children as one of the socio demographic controls, without explicitly considering that, for a given household income, more children imply a lower level of income per family member. The variable "number of children" then often attracts a negative or insignificant coefficient. Using data from the German Socio Economic Panel 1984-2007 we confirm that the sign of the coefficient for the variable "number of children in the household" is negative when introducing household income without correction for the number of members in a life satisfaction regression. On the contrary, when we equivalise income with the most commonly adopted equivalence scales, so eliminating the monetary cost of raising children, the impact of the variable is positive and significant when a high level of economies of scale is assumed. Our results however lead us to reject slope homogeneity as we find strong differences by gender and region. In particular, the positive effect of children on life satisfaction is stronger for males and East Germans. We interpret these subsample split results as driven by heterogeneous opportunity costs and cultural traits.
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The causal effects of Vietnam-era military service on post-war family dynamics
Jennifer Heerwig & Dalton Conley
Social Science Research, March 2013, Pages 299-310
Abstract:
Past work has suggested a lasting impact of military service on the lives of veterans. By intervening at a critical stage in the lives of young men, service may open up opportunities for disadvantaged youth. In contrast, the negative consequences of exposure to combat may offset these presumed advantages. Induction into the military is also a nonrandom process that makes identifying the effects of service exceedingly difficult. In this study we use an instrumental variable (IV) approach to model the causal impact of Vietnam-era military service on two outcomes, marital stability and co-residence with adult offspring. We find limited evidence to suggest that military service may have a lasting effect on family life. In particular, we find that service reduces the probability of marital dissolution for white men. Service also significantly increases the probability of filial co-residence for men of other races.
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Brian Houston et al.
Journal of Loss and Trauma, Spring 2013, Pages 103-119
Abstract:
Frequency and quality of family deployment communication was assessed and examined in conjunction with emotions and behaviors reported by military children and spouses (N = 26) before, during, and after deployment. Child deployment communication with siblings was associated with positive child outcomes. Conversely, before and during deployment child communication with a deployed parent was related to more child emotional reactions and behavioral problems. For spouses, more and better communication with children and the deployed partner was related to the spouse's having less negative temper or stress reactions. Use of newer communication technology during deployment was related to negative child outcomes.