We examined the psychometric properties of two scales of the parenting stress index-short form (PSI-SF) in a low-income sample of fathers of toddlers. The factor structure, reliability, and validity of the parental distress and parent-child dysfunctional interaction subscales were assessed for 696 fathers in a multi-site study of Early Head Start. Confirmatory factor analyses (CFA) compared the fit of the developer recommended two-factor scales with five-factor scales theoretically derived and supported with mothers. Our results suggested that two subscales from the PSI-SF were reliable and valid for this sample of racially diverse, low-income fathers of toddlers. However, these subscales capture multiple dimensions of parenting stress and results also supported the use of more narrowly defined aspects of parenting stress that included general distress, distress specifically related to parenting demands, problematic interactions of the father-toddler dyad, perceptions of the child, and parental perceptions of self as a parent. These unidimensional scales may prove useful in research and clinical activities by allowing researchers to elucidate the mechanisms through which stress impacts parenting and permitting clinicians information to develop more targeted interventions for young children and their families.

No abstract

There are nearly 110 million cases of sexually transmitted infections (STI) in the United States. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates that annually there are more than 19.7 million new STI cases. Of those, more than half are accounted for by youth aged 15 to 24 years. Although some STIs are not considered to be life threatening, they can lead to severe health problems, risk of HIV infection or infertility if they are not properly treated. Some research has shown that parent-youth communication can reduce youth’s at-risk sexual behaviors. The following is a systematic review of the literature on parent-youth sexual communication and family-level interventions designed to reduce risky sexual behavior in youth.

This study examined direct and indirect influences of fathers' reported parenting beliefs and practices on children's development. Participants included 525 fathers and mothers of toddlers enrolled in the Early Head Start Research and Evaluation Project in 14 communities across the United States. Results show that fathers' modernity defined as endorsing more child-directed versus adult-directed parenting attitudes was a correlate of maternal beliefs and maternal supportiveness, and was directly associated with higher cognitive scores for the focus child. The importance of the parental transaction was also observed in the combined effects of paternal and maternal modernity on child development.

In 1995, President Clinton requested that federal agencies assume greater leadership in promoting father involvement. As a result, federal agencies were asked to review their programs and policies with an eye to strengthening the role of fathers in families and highlighting fathers' contributions to their children's well-being. In addition, federal agencies were instructed to improve their data collection on fathers. Concurrently, the federal Fatherhood Initiative began to take stock of the research conducted on fathers since the 1960s. It found that there were some limitations to the available fathering data. Most of the existing work had been done on middle-class samples; used mothers as proxy for fathers; and focused on one dimension of fathers' involvement at a single point in time. The Fatherhood Initiative led to recommendations for improving data collection on the nature and outcomes of father involvement. These recommendations, found in the Nurturing Fatherhood report, were based in part in the realization that the household survey-the basic data gathering tool for demographic and behavioral science research on the family, labor force, and fertility-was based on outdated assumptions about the stability of the household (Federal Interagency Forum on Child and Family Statistics, 1998b). This methodological problem resulted in a "male undercount" problem. Researchers and policy makers were urged to expand their perspective: to attend to both marital and nonmarital relationships from the vantage points of women and men; to conduct longitudinal studies that follow the process of fertility and family formation across the life span; and to improve data gathering on the motivations, attitudes, and intentions underlying childbearing of men and women in all types of relationships. The Nurturing Fatherhood report also highlighted the need to further investigate the meaning of fatherhood and the motivations underlying fatherhood. Tanfer & Mott (1997) had also reported that there was widespread reliance on