The current study investigated the mechanisms through which a parenting intervention for military families fosters positive peer adjustment in children. A sample of 336 families with a history of parental deployment enrolled in a randomized controlled trial of the After Deployment Adaptive Parenting Tools (ADAPT) preventive intervention. ADAPT is a 14-week preventive intervention designed to strengthen parenting in military families. The intervention was associated with improvements in mother’s and father’s parental locus of control (i.e., a more internal locus of control) at a 6-month follow-up assessment while controlling for baseline levels. Mothers’ parental locus of control was positively associated with improvements in children’s peer adjustment 12 months following the intervention while controlling for baseline peer adjustment. A significant indirect effect revealed that participation in ADAPT resulted in improved 12-month peer adjustment by improving mothers’ parental locus of control. Implications for supporting youth resilience to stressors associated with deployment are discussed.

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The current study utilized a person-centered approach to explore how self-regulatory profiles relate to conduct problems in an ethnically diverse sample of 197 adolescents referred to juvenile diversion programming. Utilizing a multidomain, multimethod battery of self-regulation indicators, three common profiles emerged in a latent profile analysis. The profiles represented an Adaptive group, a Cognitively Inflexible group, and an Emotionally Dysregulated group. Group membership was associated with severity and type of conduct problems as well as callous and unemotional traits. The Adaptive group demonstrated lower severity conduct problems when compared to the other groups. The Emotionally Dysregulated group was more likely to commit violent offenses and demonstrated higher levels of some callous and unemotional traits than youth characterized by cognitive inflexibility.While a number of theoretical models of subdomains of self-regulation have been proposed, dualsystems models have been widely adopted for their intuitiveness and practicality, particularly in the area of adolescent development (Steinberg, 2010).

Highlights• Children's early relational histories may affect the impact of mentoring programs.• Fostering Healthy Futures (FHF) improves mental health of children with varied relational histories.• FHF's impact on trauma symptoms was stronger for children with fewer caregiver changes pre-program.• FHF's impact on quality of life was stronger for children with fewer caregiver changes pre-program.• FHF's impact on quality of life was stronger for children with poorer birth parent relationships.

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