This study examined how social support seeking and rumination interacted to predict depression and anxiety symptoms six months later in early adolescents (N = 118; 11 - 14 yrs at baseline). We expected social support seeking would be more helpful for adolescents engaging in low rather than high levels of rumination. Adolescents self-reported on all measures at baseline, and on depression and anxiety symptoms six months later.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFObjective: Evaluate an online coping skills program to prevent mental health problems in children and adolescents from divorced or separated families.
Method: Children ages 11-16 (N = 147) whose families had filed for divorce were recruited using public court records. Participants were blocked by risk-score and randomly assigned to either a control (Internet self-study condition, Best of the Net (BTN) or the experimental intervention, Children of Divorce-Coping With Divorce (CoD-CoD), a 5-module highly interactive online program to promote effective coping skills.
The current study tested the prospective relations (six month lag) between three aspects of the parent-child relationship at Time 1 (T1) and adolescents' explanatory styles at Time 2 (T2): caregiving behaviors, parents' explanatory style for their own negative events, and parents' explanatory style for their children's negative events. The sample included 129 adolescents aged 11 to 14 years at baseline and their parents. Adolescents reported on their own explanatory style and their parents' caregiving behaviors; parents self-reported on their caregiving behaviors and their explanatory style for their own and their children's events.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThis study examines whether intervention-induced changes in mother-child relationship quality and discipline led to short-term (6 months) and long-term (6 years) changes in children's coping processes in a sample of 240 youth aged 9-12 years when assessed initially. Data were from a randomized, experimental trial of a parenting-focused preventive intervention designed to improve children's postdivorce adjustment. Three-wave prospective mediational analyses revealed that intervention-induced improvements in relationship quality led to increases in coping efficacy at 6 months and to increases in coping efficacy and active coping at 6 years.
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