Academic literature on the topic 'Culturally Specific Parenting'
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Journal articles on the topic "Culturally Specific Parenting"
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Toombs, Elaine, Lauren Dalicandro, Fred Schmidt, and Christopher J. Mushquash. "A Scoping Review of Parenting Programs for Indigenous People in Canada: What Approaches Are Being Applied in Indigenous Communities?" Canadian Journal of Community Mental Health 40, no. 1 (May 1, 2021): 81–104. http://dx.doi.org/10.7870/cjcmh-2021-007.
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There has been a significant disruption in the transmission of parenting practices across generations of Canadian Indigenous communities (Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada [TRC], 2015). As a result, there is a pressing need for effective and culturally appropriate programs for Indigenous parents (TRC, 2015). Review of currently available parenting programs in Canada may help by synthesizing Indigenous and non-Indigenous parenting knowledge. To that end, a scoping review of sources that described parenting programs for Indigenous families was completed using 11 databases and available grey literature. All programs integrated cultural components into treatment, though specific activities, content, and structure varied. Recommendations for clinical practice and future research are provided.
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Garcia, Aileen S., and Maria Rosario T. de Guzman. "Filipino Parenting in the USA." Psychology and Developing Societies 29, no. 2 (September 2017): 264–87. http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0971333617716848.
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Migration entails complex transformations in family functioning and dynamics, especially when traditional parenting beliefs and practices are not consistent with mainstream norms in the host country. Whereas some culturally embedded parenting beliefs might persist even after migration, others may acculturate or shift to align with child-rearing norms in the host community. Using a qualitative research design with elements of indigenous Filipino psychology ( Sikolohiyang Pilipino), this study explored parenting experiences and beliefs of Filipino immigrant parents in the USA, with a specific lens towards examining continuity and change in traditional parenting practices. Results suggest that participants strongly maintain many aspects of traditional Filipino parenting, including teaching Filipino culture and values, employing Filipino parenting practices, observing Filipino traditions, establishing the child’s identity and maintaining a Filipino household. Findings were situated in the context of the research site, the complexities of the acculturation process and the potential challenges of negotiating cultural differences in parenting beliefs and practices.
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Mairs, Rebecca A., Marthinus J. Bekker, Tony Patolo, Sarah A. Hopkins, Esther T. Cowley-Malcolm, Lana M. Perese, Gerhard B. Sundborn, and Sally N. Merry. "Gamifying Parenting Education Using an App Developed for Pacific and Other New Zealand Families (Play Kindly): Qualitative Study." JMIR Serious Games 8, no. 2 (June 10, 2020): e15647. http://dx.doi.org/10.2196/15647.
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Background Play Kindly is a gamified animated app designed to address common behavioral problems in childhood. The interface is designed to appeal to Pacific people, a population group with a higher risk of developing clinically significant behavioral problems than most other ethnic groups in New Zealand. Objective The aim of this study is to explore the opinions of parents and professionals about the acceptability, usability, and content of Play Kindly. Methods We used qualitative and Pacific and Māori research methodologies. A total of five focus groups with 45 parents and 12 individual interviews with professionals were conducted. The five focus groups consisted of 2 pan-Pacific groups, 1 Māori group, 1 open group, and 1 group of young Pacific adults or prospective parents. The professionals were from a range of disciplines, and the majority had expertise in early childhood, parenting interventions, or research in this field. Results Play Kindly appealed to both parents and professionals. Participants related to the scenarios, which were created in collaboration with a playwright and animator. Although most participants liked the Pacific feel, there was some disagreement about how culturally specific the app should be. A range of issues with usability and gamification techniques were highlighted, likely attributed to the low budget and lack of initial co-design with parents as well as professionals with specific expertise in parenting. A number of parents and professionals felt that the parenting strategies were overly simplified and did not take into account the context in which the behavior occurred. Professionals suggested narrowing the focus of the app to deliver two important parenting messages: playing with your child and positively reinforcing desired behaviors. Conclusions Play Kindly is the first culturally adapted parenting app of its kind designed for Pacific parents and other New Zealanders with children 2-5 years of age. This app has potential in Pacific communities where there are limited culturally specific parenting resources. The results of this study will guide improvements of the app prior to testing it in an open trial.
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Mogro-Wilson, Cristina, Alysse Melville Loomis, Crystal Hayes, and Reinaldo Rojas. "Emerging Bicultural Views of Fatherhood." Advances in Social Work 19, no. 2 (April 4, 2020): 311–28. http://dx.doi.org/10.18060/22581.
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Puerto Rican fathers remain an understudied population despite the growing Latino community in the U.S. Understanding how Puerto Rican fathers perceive their roles as fathers can inform our conceptualization of their engagement with children as well as the development of culturally-specific parenting interventions. In this qualitative study, focus groups were conducted with Puerto Rican men to identify their perceptions of their role as a father and how individual, child, and cultural influences may relate to these roles. Parenting roles identified by fathers in the study were: being there, maintaining open communication, building confidence, preparing for adulthood, teaching culture/values, and providing a role model for their children. The study also explored father and child characteristics, history with their own father, and a hybrid cultural perspective as influences on Puerto Rican fathers’ perceptions of their parenting roles. Due to the increasing population of Puerto Rican and other Latino sub-groups, providers and social workers working with Puerto Rican families should understanding the perceived parenting roles within families to better engage and support fathers and families within this growing population.
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Welland, Christauria, and Neil Ribner. "Culturally Specific Treatment for Partner-Abusive Latino Men: A Qualitative Study to Identify and Implement Program Components." Violence and Victims 25, no. 6 (December 2010): 799–813. http://dx.doi.org/10.1891/0886-6708.25.6.799.
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Research based on a demographic survey and qualitative interviews of Latino intimate partner violence perpetrators in Southern California forms the basis of a Spanish-language treatment program designed to be culturally appropriate for Latino immigrant men, and piloted for 4 years with their input. Culturally-specific topics emphasized by participants and integrated into the program are: effective parenting skills for men; gender roles; discussion of discrimination towards immigrants and women; immigration and changing gender roles; marital sexual abuse; and spirituality as related to violence prevention. Attention is given to alcohol abuse and childhood trauma. Results suggest the desirability of an empathic and culturally-sensitive approach, without diminishing responsibility. This program was designed to help clinicians refine their skills and effectiveness in working with this rapidly expanding population.
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Williams, Nombasa. "A Critical Review of the Literature: Engendering the Discourse of Masculinities Matter for Parenting African Refugee Men." American Journal of Men's Health 5, no. 2 (December 29, 2009): 104–17. http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/1557988309346055.
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According to the literature on culturally and linguistically diverse parenting, refugee parenting practices and styles that are normative in countries of origin may not be sanctioned in Australia. In the case of refugee parenting, beliefs, practices, and values may be decentered in pre-resettlement contexts where survival becomes the primary concern. Engendering the discourse of masculinities to reflect a relationship between child protection and the experience of refugee parenting for African men in both pre- and post-resettlement contexts will inform culturally competent practice, intervention, and community development that is inclusive of their gender-specific needs. This article brings an expanded masculinities perspective to the ecology of refugee parenting for resettled African men resulting from larger research findings with focus group participants. Incorporating notions of masculinity into the child protection discourse is an attempt not only to reduce existing gender under- and misrepresentation among South Australian refugees but also to ensure greater visibility and increase the role of refugee men in the process of developing culturally relevant and appropriate policies, practices, and services to assist successful resettlement transitions while strengthening family well-being. The concept of masculinities, this article argues, must be treated as integral to any approach to working with refugees, particularly in areas that penetrate and may define the quality of their life experiences, expectations, and aspirations. Masculinities matter. Exploring refugee male perceptions, interpretations, and enactment of masculinity may unmask the differential experiences of refugee women from men and ensure the integration and operationalization of these differences into child protection services and practice.
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Newman, Kathy, Lynda Harrison, Carol Dashiff, and Susan Davies. "Relationships between parenting styles and risk behaviors in adolescent health: an integrative literature review." Revista Latino-Americana de Enfermagem 16, no. 1 (February 2008): 142–50. http://dx.doi.org/10.1590/s0104-11692008000100022.
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Research over the past 20 years suggests that the quality of the parent-adolescent relationship significantly affects the development of risk behaviors in adolescent health. The purpose of this paper is to present a review of studies published between 1996-2007 that address specific relationships between parenting styles and six priority adolescent risk behaviors. The review supports the substantial influence of parenting style on adolescent development. Adolescents raised in authoritative households consistently demonstrate higher protective and fewer risk behaviors than adolescents from non-authoritative families. There is also considerable evidence to show that parenting styles and behaviors related to warmth, communication and disciplinary practices predict important mediators, including academic achievement and psychosocial adjustment. Careful examination of parenting style patterns in diverse populations, particularly with respect to physical activity and unintentional injury, will be a critical next step in the development of efficacious, culturally tailored adolescent health promotion interventions.
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Liu, Mowei, Xinyin Chen, Kenneth H. Rubin, Shujie Zheng, Liying Cui, Dan Li, Huichang Chen, and Li Wang. "Autonomy- vs. connectedness-oriented parenting behaviours in Chinese and Canadian mothers." International Journal of Behavioral Development 29, no. 6 (November 2005): 489–95. http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/01650250500147063.
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The purpose of the study was to investigate maternal socialization goal-oriented behaviours in Chinese and Canadian mothers. Participants were samples of children at 2 years of age and their mothers in P.R. China and Canada. Data on child autonomy and connectedness and maternal encouragement of autonomy and connectedness were collected from observations of mother–child interactions in a laboratory situation. Cross-cultural similarities as well as differences were found in the study. Chinese mothers had higher scores on overall involvement than Canadian mothers during mother–child interaction. When overall involvement was controlled, Chinese mothers had higher scores than Canadian mothers on encouragement of connectedness. In contrast, Canadian mothers had higher scores than Chinese mothers on encouragement of autonomy. The results suggest that culturally general and specific socialization goals and values are reflected in maternal parenting behaviours.
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Leyendecker, Birgit, Natasha Cabrera, Hanna Lembcke, Jessica Willard, Katharina Kohl, and Olivia Spiegler. "Parenting in a New Land." European Psychologist 23, no. 1 (January 2018): 57–71. http://dx.doi.org/10.1027/1016-9040/a000316.
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Abstract. Immigrant parents face a double challenge in rearing their children in a foreign country. In addition to the tasks that all parents face, they must also try to find a balance between the norms and expectations of their heritage culture and those of the culture they live in. How do immigrant parents support their children and contribute to their positive adaptation? The goal of this review is to highlight selected aspects of parenting and family relationships that are strongly linked to children’s development and resilience. With regards to family processes, we underscore the contribution of fathers, the role of a potential acculturation gap between parents, and the benefit of speaking the heritage language in the family. For the connection to the world outside of the family, we highlight the advantage of having proficiency in the majority language and of parental involvement in schools. Finally, we outline the specific challenges and stressors as well as the importance of family relationships for families with refugee status. We conclude by making the case that immigrant parents should be encouraged and supported in rearing their children in a way that fosters family cohesion and reflects their heritage culture as well as the culture of the host country. This requires support and intervention programs that are not only culturally sensitive but are also two-generational and focus on mothers, fathers, and children.
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Coles, Roberta L. "Just Doing What They Gotta Do." Journal of Family Issues 30, no. 10 (June 30, 2009): 1311–38. http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0192513x09339290.
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For single African American custodial fathers, parenting stress is exacerbated by the cultural expectation that Black fathers are “normally” absent and by the clustering of stresses that Black men are more likely to encounter. This sample of African American fathers have used a repertoire of problem-focused and cognitive coping strategies, including some that are frequently considered “culturally specific.” Twenty Black single custodial fathers are interviewed and their narratives are analyzed for concepts and thematic categories related to stress and coping. Their narratives indicate that certain strategies are avoided because (a) these strategies are not available to them and (b) they desire to present themselves as independent and competent, thus resisting stereotypes and building a sense of efficacy.
Dissertations / Theses on the topic "Culturally Specific Parenting"
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Cameron, Michelle Ann. "Ts'ekoo beni Hinzoo : urban aboriginal parents' experience of a culturally specific parenting program." Thesis, University of British Columbia, 2007. http://hdl.handle.net/2429/31915.
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Urban Aboriginal parents are an under-researched group, as are culturally specific
parenting programs. The Ministry of Children and Family Development (MCFD) in
the Province of British Columbia is in the process of devolving child welfare services
to regional Aboriginal Authorities. Part of devolution involves reconsidering how to
best approach Aboriginal child welfare. Considering that referral to parenting
programs is currently the norm in cases where there are child protection concerns,
this study analysing how Aboriginal parents experience a culturally specific parenting
program is vitally important to determine whether programs such as these are
working, from the parents' point of view. This study analyzes the experience of urban
Aboriginal parents from a symbolic interactionist/feminist standpoint theoretical
perspective.Arts, Faculty of
Social Work, School of
Graduate
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Williams, Marquita C. "Evaluation of a Culturally Specific Parent Empowerment Intervention for Parents of African American Children." Diss., Temple University Libraries, 2011. http://cdm16002.contentdm.oclc.org/cdm/ref/collection/p245801coll10/id/150714.
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Counseling PsychologyPh.D.
The current project examines the parenting practices of African-American parents through a culturally relevant intervention framework and proposes a model of empowerment that can serve as a point of reference for counselors, educators and social workers, when engaging these parents about their parenting practices, school involvement and patterns of self-care. The present research is a pilot evaluation of a culturally specific parent empowerment intervention for parents of African-American children - The Black Lemonade Project (BL). This sample is comprised of parents and primary caregivers of school aged children in the Cleveland and Canton, Ohio Public School District who consented to participate in a two part Black Lemonade Empowerment Intervention. A total of 69 parents attended an 8 week (Phase I and Phase II) Black Lemonade Empowerment Intervention. Parents completed an Informed Consent to Participate, The Participant Questionnaire and the Parent Empowerment Inventory (PEI) and the Family Activities of Daily Living Questionnaire (FADL) at pre and post assessment points. During the Phase I conference, parents also completed the Parent Stress Index (PSI). The research questions asked about the perceived concerns, attitudes, beliefs and behaviors that parents who volunteer to attend a culturally specific parenting program hold. Results indicated a discrepancy across parents concerns, beliefs and behaviors. Implications for future research are discussed.
Temple University--Theses
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"Culturally-Specific Parenting and African American Adolescent Prosocial Behavior: Rethinking Classical Strategies in Context." Tulane University, 2018.
Find full textAbstract:
acase@tulane.eduAfrican American parenting strategies play an important role in the development of prosocial behavior by facilitating the growth of empathy, self-efficacy, and racial identity. The purpose of the current study was to examine how adolescent-perceived parenting strategies (i.e., parental warmth, parental “hostility”, cultural socialization) clustered into specific parenting styles and how these styles related to positive outcomes. Participants were 358 low-income, urban African American high school students in a southern U.S. city. Cluster analyses revealed four distinct parenting styles (Culturally-Specific Conflict Performance Parenting, Culturally-Specific Parenting, Conflict Interaction Parenting, Culturally Nonspecific Parenting). The features of, and differential outcomes between, styles made both empirical and theoretical sense. Importantly, the findings provide further evidence that Eurocentric norms are inadequate for understanding socialization and behavior development processes in diverse families. Specifically, results indicate that a rethinking of what constitutes “parental hostility” is necessary. Additionally, results from multicategorical mediation analyses indicated that empathy and racial identity are pathways by which parenting style contributes to prosocial behavior in African American youth. Implications of these results and directions for future research and clinical application are discussed.
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Jennifer Bryant Rious
Book chapters on the topic "Culturally Specific Parenting"
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Monk, Hilary. "Australian Intergenerational Families Valuing the Great Outdoors: A Tapestry of Children’s Cultural Learning Through Specific Parenting Practices." In Parents and Caregivers Across Cultures, 283–97. Cham: Springer International Publishing, 2020. http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-35590-6_20.
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Haslam, Divna M., and Anilena Mejia. "Accommodating Race and Ethnicity in Parenting Interventions." In The Power of Positive Parenting, edited by Matthew R. Sanders and Trevor G. Mazzucchelli, 332–43. Oxford University Press, 2017. http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/med-psych/9780190629069.003.0030.
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The parenting experience can be both similar and vastly different across different cultural contexts. This chapter outlines what culture is and the impact it has on family structure and functioning and beliefs about parenting. Discussed are the similarities and differences across common cultural dimensions and how knowledge of local cultural beliefs and values is critical in ensuring the successful implementation of parenting interventions is detailed. The importance of adapting evidence-based programs in a culturally appropriate way and of flexibly delivering interventions to fit a range of contexts without compromising program efficacy are addressed. Practical examples of low-risk adaptations are provided. Finally, the existing evidence of a range of Triple P program variants and a range of cultural contexts with a specific focus on low-resource settings are reviewed and practical are provided. The chapter concludes with a discussion about the implications and future directions research could take.
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Turner, Karen M. T., Lauren M. Hodge, Michell Forster, and Cari D. McIlduff. "Working Effectively with Indigenous Families." In The Power of Positive Parenting, edited by Matthew R. Sanders and Trevor G. Mazzucchelli, 321–31. Oxford University Press, 2017. http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/med-psych/9780190629069.003.0029.
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An awareness of the complex social and political context for parenting in Indigenous cultures is important to the success of parenting interventions. This chapter shares experiences of successful program adoption, implementation, and sustainment that stem from working in partnership with an Indigenous organization, peak body, or ideally an entire community. A model of engaging communities collaboratively is discussed that encompasses the many aspects of engagement and sustainment in an implementation initiative. It takes a holistic partnership approach that involves recognition of community dynamics and capacity, establishing trust and relationship building, empowerment, and mutual respect, as well as addressing specific enablers and barriers to program implementation. This approach involves engaging with local community advisers to develop culturally accommodated training and posttraining support for practitioners, and culturally accommodated program delivery to families.
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Holmes, Robyn M. "Cultural Learning." In Cultural Psychology, 453–99. Oxford University Press, 2020. http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780199343805.003.0012.
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Chapter 12 explores the ways we learn about our culture, how culture shapes learning, and different learning contexts. It discusses attachment, Bowlby’s attachment theory, the Strange Situation, attachment styles, challenges to Western attachment theories, and attachment and culture. It addresses parenting, Baumrind’s parenting styles, parental ethnotheories, and parenting in different cultural contexts. It explores learning in formal settings like school, the connection between culture and schooling, parent beliefs and academic outcomes, apprenticeships, and learning in informal settings. Finally, it investigates play as a context for cultural learning and includes culture-specific and cross-cultural studies. This chapter includes a case study, Culture Across Disciplines box, chapter summary, key terms, a What Do Other Disciplines Do? section, thought-provoking questions, and class and experiential activities.
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Smith, Christian, Bridget Ritz, and Michael Rotolo. "Religion’s Value and Truth." In Religious Parenting, 50–105. Princeton University Press, 2019. http://dx.doi.org/10.23943/princeton/9780691194967.003.0003.
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This chapter examines the cultural models specifically about religion, its value, and possible truth. Grasping parents' views of these two features of religion is essential to understanding their approaches to the transmission of religion to their children. For few American parents does religion singularly determine their understanding of the ultimate purpose and expected experience of life. Instead, the expected experiences of life involve clusters of largely autonomous beliefs forming their own distinct cultural models, perhaps partly shaped by religious traditions generally but not principally determined by the specific views and priorities of those traditions. Those basic cultural models being firmly in place, religion then comes in as its own distinct issue. And when parents think about religion, the primary focus is its practical value, how it helps people, and what makes it important in this life.
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Holmes, Robyn M. "Social Influence, Aggression, Violence, and War." In Cultural Psychology, 365–407. Oxford University Press, 2020. http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780199343805.003.0010.
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Chapter 10 explores the ways culture shapes how we behave in the presence of others, aggression, violence, and war. It discusses obedience, Milgram’s experiment, obedience and culture, and cross-cultural comparisons on obedience. It addresses conformity, culture and conformity, conformity and disease, peer pressure, and culture-specific and cross-cultural studies on peer pressure. It also discusses aggression, explanations of aggression, cultural factors that shape aggression, and the connection between parenting practices and aggression. Finally, it discusses violence against individuals, child maltreatment, cross-cultural studies on child abuse, bullying, cyberbullying, violence against women, war, ethnic genocide, and child soldiers. This chapter includes a case study, Culture Across Disciplines box, chapter summary, key terms, a What Do Other Disciplines Do? section, thought-provoking questions, and class and experiential activities.
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Song, Miri. "The Parenting Practices of Multiracial People." In Multiracial Parents. NYU Press, 2017. http://dx.doi.org/10.18574/nyu/9781479840540.003.0004.
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How multiracial parents racially identify their children on official forms does not tell us how they raise their children in the context of family life. Do multiracial parents have particular ways of steering their children toward racial awareness? How do they address cultural transmission? In this chapter, I examine four ways in which multiracial people bring up their children and why particular parents are drawn to specific modes of socialization. In the process I also consider the importance of generational change and how participants’ experiences of their own upbringings and childhoods can influence their thinking and parenting practices in relation to their children.
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Rosabal-Coto, Mariano, Naomi Quinn, Heidi Keller, Marga Vicedo, Nandita Chaudhary, Alma Gottlieb, Gabriel Scheidecker, Marjorie Murray, Akira Takada, and Gilda A. Morelli. "Real-World Applications of Attachment Theory." In The Cultural Nature of Attachment. The MIT Press, 2017. http://dx.doi.org/10.7551/mitpress/9780262036900.003.0014.
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Attachment theory has its roots in an ethnocentric complex of ideas, longstanding in the United States, under the rubric of “intensive mothering.” Among these various approaches and programs, attachment theory has had an inordinate and wide-ranging influence on a wide range of professions concerned with children (family therapy, education, the legal system, and public policy, the medical profession, etc.) inside and outside the United States. This chapter looks critically at how attachment theory has been applied in a variety of contexts and discusses its influence on parenting. It examines the tension distortion that often results when research findings are translated into actual applications or programs, ignoring any particularities of cultural context. It describes how attachment theory has been used as the basis for child-rearing manuals and has influenced programs and policies more directly, to form legal decisions that affect families, as well as to develop public policy and programs. Specific attachment applications are reviewed and their validity questioned. Because child-rearing practices vary among cultures, the value systems that motivate these different practices must be recognized and accounted for when applications are developed and implemented. It concludes with a call for researchers to become proactive in rectifying misuses of attachment theory.
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Saroglou, Vassilis. "Religion and Related Morality Across Cultures." In The Handbook of Culture and Psychology, 724–85. Oxford University Press, 2019. http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780190679743.003.0022.
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Is religious morality the same across the major world religions and various cultural contexts? This chapter makes, for the first time, a review, synthesis, and interpretation of the relevant findings from recent international, focused cross-cultural, and experimental studies. Both striking quasi-universal features and amazing cultural differences emerge in the ways religion (individual religiosity, religious ideas, and/or religious heritage at the collective level) endorses, shapes, or privileges specific moral preferences regarding a vast spectrum of domains of human activity. The latter include sexuality; fertility, marriage, and parenting; work- and economy-related attitudes and behavior; various prosocial attitudes and behaviors; and civic attitudes toward democracy, social engagement, the environment, and honesty in society. The final discussion focuses on the religious conflict, across cultures, between interpersonal–consequentialist and righteous–deontological morality, and the evolutionary explanations of the transculturally strong religion-morality association and of the cultural diversity of religion and its morality.
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Berk, Laura E. "The Child in Contemporary Culture." In Awakening Children's Minds. Oxford University Press, 2001. http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780195124859.003.0011.
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In this chapter, I take up dilemmas that today’s parents face in rearing young children. Throughout this book, we have touched on myriad forces that make contemporary parenting highly challenging. These include one-sided, contradictory messages in the parenting-advice literature; career pressures that impinge on parent involvement in children’s lives; abysmally weak American child-care services to assist employed parents in their child-rearing roles; cultural violence and excessive materialism permeating children’s worlds; schools with less than optimal conditions for children’s learning; and impediments to granting children with deficits and disabilities social experiences that maximize their development. Contemporary parents do not just find child rearing more difficult; they feel more uncertainty than their predecessors about whether and how to intervene in their children’s activities and behavior. In the pages that follow, I draw on major themes of this book—the power of adult warmth, appropriate expectations, narrative conversation, make-believe play, and teaching in the “zone”—to show how Vygotsky’s sociocultural approach can serve as a guide for resolving a great many child-rearing concerns. This chapter answers twenty questions drawn from a survey of over four hundred parents of 2- to 8-year-olds living in a Midwestern city with a population of one hundred thousand. In that survey, I asked parents to list any questions about young children’s development and learning that interested or worried them. The questions I answer here address issues that appeared most often in parents’ responses. Each represents a concern that surfaced in three or more parental replies. I intend these answers to parents’ questions to reflect a way of thinking about child rearing, not a set of recipes for dealing with specific events. When parents are familiar with principles that are grounded in contemporary theory and research on children’s development, they can better deal with the quandaries generated by the changing home, school, and community contexts in which today’s children grow up. Although adverse cultural trends have complicated and threatened good child rearing, parents—as agents of change, buffers against stressful life circumstances, and gatekeepers of learning opportunities—can do much to protect, restore, and reshape children’s experiences.