We proposed a family process model that links family financial resources to academic competence and socioemotional adjustment during early adolescence. The sample included 90 9–12‐year‐old African‐American youths and their married parents who lived in the rural South. The theoretical constructs in the model were measured via a multimethod, multi‐informant design. Rural African‐American community members participated in the development of the self‐report instruments and observational research methods. The results largely supported the hypotheses. Lack of family financial resources led to greater depression and less optimism in mothers and fathers, which in turn were linked with co‐care giving support and conflict. The associations among the co‐caregiving processes and youth academic and socioemotional competence were mediated by the development of youth self‐regulation. Disruptions in parental co‐caregiving interfered with the development of self‐regulation. This interference negatively influenced youths' academic competence and socioemotional adjustment.

A model that linked parental formal religiosity to children's academic competence and socioemotional adjustment during early adolescence was tested. The sample included 90 9-to 12-year-old African American youths and their married parents living in the rural South. The theoretical constructs in the model were measured through a multimethod, multi-informant design. Rural African American community members participated in the development of the self-report instruments and observational research methods. Greater parental religiosity led to more cohesive family relationships, lower levels of interparental conflict, and fewer externalizing and internalizing problems in the adolescents. Formal religiosity also indirectly influenced youth self-regulation through its positive relationship with family cohesion and negative relationship with interparental conflict.

The primary purpose of this study was to examine the influence of two nonshared family environmental components-maternal differential behavior and sibling temperaments-on the sibling relationships of school-age children. Forty mothers and their same-sex children (20 pairs of boys and 20 pairs of girls) participated. In order to examine the associations of temperament and maternal differential behavior with the quality of sibling interactions, mothers were observed in triadic interactions with their two children. On a separate occasion the sibling dyad was observed interacting in the same contexts. The mothers also provided temperament ratings of each of their children's levels of activity, emotional intensity, and persistence. Hie results indicated that high activity, high emotional intensity, and low persistence levels in both older and younger children were associated with increased agonism between sisters, whereas high activity and low persistence levels for younger brothers were associated with more agonistic behavior among brothers. An imbalance of maternal behavior that favored the younger child was generally associated with lower rates of verbalizations and prosocial and agonistic behavior directed by siblings to one another. The observations of the mothersibling triadic and sibling dyadic interactions also revealed consistency in the wi thi n-family environments. The results are discussed in terms of the importance of considering the within-family environments that mediate the quality of sibling relationships.

Family income was more important than child etiology in predicting the parent measures used in the study.

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