Parenting confidence can be undermined by the presence of frequent or persistent health problems, particularly for people living in rural communities that have limited access to adequate health care. However, little is known about how minor health problems in the family impact parenting. The current study examined single and coresident mothers' parent confidence in relation to family health problems and parental support in a sample of 303 low-income, rural mothers with young children from 14 states. Results show that the presence of family health problems was negatively associated with parent confidence. For coresident mothers, there was an indirect relationship through perceived parental support.

The transition from preschool to early school years is critical for the growth of social skills. Using data from the NICHD Study of Early Child Care and Youth Development (for this study N = 942), the purpose of this study was to evaluate the longitudinal influence of attachment security and social information processing skills (social problem-solving and hostile attribution biases) on normative changes in peer conflict over the transition from preschool to first grade. Using latent growth curve modeling (LGM), this study found that children exhibited progressive declines in peer conflict over this period. Security of attachment (assessed via the Attachment Q-Set at 24 months) was related to lower rates of peer conflict in first grade, and steeper declines in peer conflict from 54 to 84 months. Differences in children's social information processing (assessed at 54 months) were marginally related to steeper declines in peer conflict. These findings suggest that the social skills and social expectations associated with early attachment security, together with subsequent advances in social information processing, are related to changes in peer conflict during the transition to school.

A latent trait-state-occasion model (TSO; Cole, Martin, & Steiger, 2005) was used to isolate the trait and state components of negative interpersonal behaviors toward a friend or romantic partner during emerging adulthood. Results indicated that variance in negative interpersonal behaviors was due to nearly equal portions of trait and occasion factors. Variability in the trait aspects of negative interpersonal behaviors was then predicted by theoretically relevant constructs. In particular, mothers' negative behaviors during adolescence and adolescent core self-evaluations, negative emotionality and feelings of security in close relationships had independent effects in predicting the enduring aspects of negative interpersonal behaviors. All told, these results indicate that trait-stateoccasion models can be helpful tools for understanding the developmental antecedents of the traitlike aspects of interpersonal processes.Keywords core self-evaluation; personality; parenting; negative behaviors; latent-state-occasion model Interpersonal behaviors in close relationships have both trait-like and occasion-specific qualities. For example, interpersonal behaviors may be trait-like to the extent that they are similar in quality across different relationship partners over time, whereas interpersonal behaviors may also be occasion-specific to the extent that there are fluctuations in behavioral Correspondence regarding this manuscript should be addressed to Holly Hatton, Department of Human and Community Development, University of California, One Shields Ave., Davis, CA 95616. Email: E-mail: hnpong@ucdavis.edu. Publisher's Disclaimer: The following manuscript is the final accepted manuscript. It has not been subjected to the final copyediting, fact-checking, and proofreading required for formal publication. It is not the definitive, publisher-authenticated version. The American Psychological Association and its Council of Editors disclaim any responsibility or liabilities for errors or omissions of this manuscript version, any version derived from this manuscript by NIH, or other third parties. The published version is available at www.apa.org/journals/fam. NIH Public Access NIH-PA Author ManuscriptNIH-PA Author Manuscript NIH-PA Author Manuscript characteristics across time and partners. Despite the intuitive appeal and conceptual simplicity of this idea, models for studying both the occasion-specific and enduring aspects of behavior have only recently been refined and described for behavioral scientists (e.g., Cole, Martin, & Steiger, 2005;Kenny & Zautra, 1995 Steyer, Schmitt, & Eid, 1999). Accordingly, the major goal of this paper is to illustrate how researchers can use one such model, the Latent Trait-State-Occasion model (TSO;Cole et al., 2005) to address substantively important questions about the nature of interpersonal interactions during emerging adulthood, a time in the life span when issues related to the development of intimacy are particularly salient (e.g., Arnett, 2000). Trait and State Aspects of ...

The arrival of a child can be a stressful time for both mothers and fathers because of the resulting major life changes of transitioning from a family dyad to a triad (Fish, Stifler, & Belsky, 1993). Both theoretical reasoning and empirical research support the notion that couples experience the transition to parenthood as a stressful event (Belsky & Isabella, 1985;Cowan & Cowan, 1988). Early theorists expected the transition to parenthood to have a considerable and negative impact on the quality of relationships between parents (LeMasters, 1957); however, subsequent research has demonstrated that the influence of this transition varies greatly for individual couples (Cowan & Cowan, 1995;Schulz, Cowan, & Cowan, 2006).Indeed, although most couples experience small but significant declines in relationship quality over the transition to parenthood (Belsky & Pensky, 1988;Miller & Sollie, 1980), in some studies relationship quality has been found to remain stable or even improve (Cowan & Cowan, 1995;Shapiro, Gottman, & Carrere, 2000). These findings suggest that the developmental implications of the transition vary greatly for different partners. Drawing on the work of Philip and Carolyn Pape Cowan and others in this field of inquiry, a central aim of this chapter is to more closely align the study of the transition to parenthood with developmental theory. Specifically, we propose and partially evaluate a developmental model that might help account for variations in the ways that the birth of a first child affects romantic relationship quality.