Article: Continuity of parental behavioral ratings of children adopted from China and parenting competence, confidence, and enjoyment

2012

The authors used a path analysis procedure called structural equation modelling (SEM) to evaluate the effects of adoption and post-adoption child behaviour measures on parents? self-judgements of their parenting competence, confidence and enjoyment. Surveys were completed by 314 adoptive parents in the US, mostly mothers, who had adopted children from China. The average age of respondents was 41.95 years, they were generally middle class and well educated, 95% reported their ethnicity as white or Caucasian. The mean age of the children at adoption was 13.62 months and at the time of the survey was 39.91 months. Findings from the SEM showed that parents? judgements of their children?s behaviour at and following adoption were both directly and indirectly associated with self-judgements of parenting competence, confidence and enjoyment. Results showed that the older a child was at the time of adoption, the less positive and more negative the parents? recall of child behaviour, and the m

children, adopted, China

Peer-reviewed publications in scholarly journals Published/In Press

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